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Siren Blood Curse Is £20 From Playstation 3 Store

I know, I know. Siren Blood Curse came out ages ago and I hyped and hyped about it and then only did an “initial thoughts and opinion” post. It’s because I had personal stuff going on and wasn’t in the mood for a horror game to put it cryptically. But I finished the game last week and I quite enjoyed it you know.

Siren Blood Curse is essentially the first Playstation 3 “proper download game”. And what I mean by that is with Warhawk and Tekken 5 aside this is the first package that has been released on the PSN that is not a mini game or short 2 hour blaster - this is a proper game with big environments, lots of mechanics and a full storyline.

It’s hard to know exactly what is happening in Siren Blood Curse virtually throughout the whole game because you’ll watch events happen and then get mighty confused over the fact that said characters are “alive” again or in different places. I’ll try not to give anything away but it does get vaguely wrapped up at the end of the game so you’ll have some idea. You might need a lot of patience to understand the game fully though.

Siren Blood Curse puts you in control of a set of different characters, some Japanese, some American as you are set out to explore the village of “Hanuda” — a vanished village where human sacrifices have occured before. Cue the setting for a survival-stealth-action-horror game.

The game is split into 12 chapters which can be downloaded in one go for £20 from the PSN store or can be purchased in blocks of three for £6. Be aware that downloading the whole game will fill 9GB’s of your Playstation HDD but it is available on Blu-Ray Disc in Japan and soon Europe.

Each chapter puts you in different areas of the village with seperate objectives. Usually this involves finding an escape route from the part you are in but the game throws up enough challenges and unique surprises along the way to make things interesting.

The enemy, named Shibito, are a particularly horrifying form of zombie with tears of blood flowing from their eyes. Kudos goes to the sound engineers on Siren Blood Curse because there are a helluva lot of twittering and moaning sounds that really add to the atmosphere. These aren’t your typical moaning zombies — the Shibito almost sound vocoded. It’s an other worldly sound that will see you quaking in your boots.

Playing Siren blood Curse is hindered by the lack of robust controls. The camera is tight to the action and movement at times can be extremely clumsy. It’s an interesting point for discussion though because the often shit controls really define the game. I don’t know how much of an unfair let-off I’m giving this game but the fact that the camera is tight and your movement is flawed really, honestly does add to the tension of the game. That’s not to say it’s not frustrating — just that it offers that “oh shit, got to get away, where the FUCK do I run to, ARGH!”-kind of tension. If the controls and camera are done like this on purpose then it’s a brave move from the developer and one I think they kinda just about get away with.

Graphically Siren is unbelievably dark with even a brightness option not aiding the games gloomy look. Obviously the darkness is another intentional area of the game which has you sometimes wondering out totally blind into a field full of the undead. You’ll have to use your ears a lot in Siren which is totally awesome if you have surround sound. You’ll be immersed.

The whole game is covered with a grain filter which makes everything harder to see but also adds a layer of grime to proceedings. Horror games are all about building atmosphere and Siren does that in abundance.

The main gameplay mechanic to aid your plight in Blood Curse is “Sight Jacking” which allows you to see through the eyes of the Shibito. Sight Jacking is essentially if you need to sneak past an enemy or just find out where they are. Trust me when I say there is nothing more horrifying than watching through the eyes of the enemy your main protagonist be caught and subsequently murdered.

While Blood Curse won’t be the longest game you’ll ever play (took me about 9 and a half hours) there is plenty of replay value in the form of finding all the “Archive” data.

There are 50 pieces of archive data to be found throughout the game and they become almost essential in understanding the plot of the game and characters background. There are also some easter eggs that are hinted in the game and are unlocked in the real world which really help to provide a background to the game.

Siren Blood Curse is a pretty straightforward game but it’s a tense and most importantly scary one at that. What it lacks in longevity it makes up for in thrills so if you’re looking for a game to fill a dull weekend look no further than Blood Curse.

8/10.

"What Lurks Beneath The Bed?" - Siren Blood Curse on Playstation 3.

Oh noes - Sammy is talking about Siren: Blood Curse again. Yes, mainly because I’ve waited for this game for ages and it really is decent fun from what I experienced so far. I was a bit gutted with the first two episodes being so agonisingly short but the third episode was excellent. Given that I downloaded the full game in one block I’m not sure how things would pan out if I bought them seperately but I think I would have just blasted my way through the first £6.99 portion of the game.

Is it worth it? Yes and no. While I fully expect that the first two “episodes” are training episodes they were disappointingly short. The third however was a brilliant mix of stealth and action. It genuinely made me jump in a few places. I’m not particularly hard to scare but I still like to give myself the respect that I’m not a complete wimp but there were elements in the first couple of hours of the game that freaked me a little bit.

The graphics aren’t perfect but suffice and the grain filter put over the action gives a really uncomfortable feel. This isn’t an easy game to play by design. The controls are slightly clunky and the camera very quick and jiggly. It’s nauseating but adds to the effect.

The first 3 episodes took about 2 hours to complete (given the short nature of the first two chapters) so I’m hoping the rest of the game pans out at a good 12 hours or so in total. I think that would make it more than worth it’s £20 asking price.

Expect a review soon.

Siren: Blood Curse Coming To Playstation 3 Store Thursday 24th July.

This is probably a game that hovers way off the radar on most peoples release retina but I’m actually pretty damn excited about it. After hearing about the game in such a positive view over on Eurogamer my excitement could only grow and grow.

Allow me to first of all state that I am simply craving Resident Evil 5 at this point. I want that game so much it aches. But given that it’s not out until March ‘09, I’m making do with every little tidbit of information released about horror games coming before it. Alone In The Dark was disappointing and Silent Hill: Homecoming is still a good few months away so Siren is going to have to tide me over.

Set to be released as episodic content this coming Thursday (24th) Siren is an (unfortunately) Americanised survival horror game that pits you in the shoes of 7 film students in the middle of some village filled with zombies. Having played the demo I can tell you that this game is ridiculously dark - and given that zombies are attracted to the only form of light in the game, your flashlight, you will actually spend big portions of the game in the complete darkness. I can announce right here, right now, that moving through a big area, with no light and zombies around every corner is particularly fucking scary.

The game is very objective based and particularly story driven - putting you into the eyes of a different character for each episode. Given it’s story driven nature the presentation is decent but I’m a little worried about the objective based gameplay. In what I’ve played the game doesn’t appear to let the player explore for ones self - instead setting you objectives and keeping you moving.

I’m yet to hear of a price but I am told that each of the four downloads can be expected to last anywhere between 1.5-2 hours and so a price point of £4.99 would seem extremely reasonable to me.

Expect a review of the game closer to it’s release.