Reviewed: August 8, 2008
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer
SCEJ

Released: July 24, 2008
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1

9
8
9
8
8.8

Supported Features:

Fear isn’t always about the unknown. Sometimes knowing what is lurking around the corner and hoping it doesn’t see or hear you can be a lot scarier and how scary would it be if you could actually see through the monster’s eyes? Well, Siren: Blood Curse is about to let you find out firsthand in this horrifying game released exclusively on the PS Store in the first major episodic content release for the next-gen system.

Blood Curse isn’t as much a sequel as it is remastered telling of the original Siren game that released for the PS2 four years ago. Totally retooled for the PS3 with all new graphics and sound and a new list of characters, Blood Curse is going to change the way you look at, play, and even purchase games. Spread across 12 chapters that are grouped into smaller bundle purchases, you can download as much or as little of the game as you can afford or your nerves can handle. If you go all in prepare to set aside 9GB of your hard drive space, but you can always delete chapters and reinstall later if your storage gets tight.

The story behind the game is rather cryptic and unfolds in a series of character-specific cutscenes. You will play as any of seven possible characters, each with their own unique and intertwining character arcs. Set in the Japanese village of Hanuda, an American TV crew has arrived to research and film an exposé on the legend of a “vanished village” rumored to have disappeared in a mudslide in 1976. What they find is a scene of horrific violence, human sacrifice, and disturbing occult rituals.

What follows is two days of pure terror as all of the characters under your control must flee, hide, and battle a seemingly endless supply of walking dead in a fast-paced and breathless survival horror adventure that will have you quaking in fear and fumbling for the light switch.

While it is possible to fight the Shibito (undead) you are much better off sneaking and avoiding them, and if you must attack, to do so with a stealth attack from the rear and perform a finishing move. If you go head-to-head with these creatures you will almost certainly die after two or three encounters, and it is very easy to get outnumbered since one Shibito shriek can summon others.

Weapons come in all shapes and sizes and even the most mundane object may have to protect you. Shovels, crowbars, axes, wrenches, and even bottles will help you to at least escape. There are more than 50 weapons including objects and firearms. Regardless of your weapon, you won’t actually kill the Shibito; only knock them out for a certain amount of time as dictated by the weapon and type of attack. The name of the game is AVOIDANCE and RETREAT.

Your most useful tool in the game is the ability to Sight Jack. By holding down L2 and panning the camera you can lock onto the crosshairs that indicate an enemy position. You can cycle through targets using L1 and R2 and as long as you are on that creature you will see through their eyes. You can assign these views to the various face buttons then instantly switch your PIP view to any previously targeted enemy. This allows you to see what they see, which is hopefully not you.

Knowing where the enemy is and being able to see what they see is small compensation for the sheer swiftness and violence of their attacks when they do spot you. Plan to do a lot of sneaking and crouching and hiding in shadows, at least until you figure out the environments and the distraction puzzles necessary to advance past key obstacles. There is a lot of environmental action, not only in creating noise to distract the Shibito, but also in setting and springing traps as well as taking refuge inside larger objects.

A word of warning to those of you who are going into this game one chapter bundle at a time - the first few chapters are nowhere near indicative of the rest of the game. Chapter 1 was over so fast I thought it was a joke. You can literally win this chapter in less than 2-3 minutes excluding cutscenes. Things get much longer and far more detailed starting in Chapter 2 and it only gets longer, harder, and scarier from there. Nothing can prepare you for the terrifying experiences in Chapter 3 when you are playing this innocent little girl trapped in a Shibito-infested hospital. Unable to fight, this chapter is all about stealth and diversionary tactics.

Each new chapter introduces new locations and new types of Shibito, so you always have to change your gameplay style based on the character you are playing and the situation. Each episode ramps up the tension and the fear factor and if you try to play too much of Blood Curse all at once you can really start to lose it. But the evil designers have created the game structure in such a way that if you actually have all the chapters installed it is really hard to stop playing. Each chapter ends in such a way that you must know what happens next and once you start the next chapter it’s hard to stop in the middle.

These walking undead still retain a look and wardrobe that indicates why they might have done previously, and in some creepy cases, they still go about their daily routines – a horrible fact you can witness in the hospital with the doctors and nurses.

There are numerous types of Shibito; some that fly, some that crabwalk inverted like in that special edition scene from the Exorcist. You have ones with slimy slugs protruding from every orifice on their face and others that ooze blood from their eyes and ears. And if you want to ramp up the fear factor exponentially, just tap R3 and try playing this game from the first-person view.

When played from the normal view, the game has an eerie reality show quality about it with a lot of handheld style camera work, especially for the cutscenes. Camera angles don’t always work, especially when you get inside building or near structures where the floating camera can get hung up. The entire sight jacking system looks and works incredibly, although I wish there was an auto-disengage when you are getting attacked.

The menus and interface screen are nicely designed and the 3D pan and zoom map is a work of art. This is the type of map usually reserved for a strategy guide and it gives away perhaps a bit too much information at times. It’s like having your own personal satellite and a kick ass GPS.

There is considerable voice work and it’s all very good, both in script and performance – something rare for a Japanese game. They usually lose something in the translation. Every element of the audio portion of this game will send shivers down your spine.

There is no pattern to the lengthy or difficulty of the chapters. In the beginning, they go by quickly and avoid the Shibito is fairly easy, but things slowly ramp up and the game starts to require a mix of stealth and combat as well as some adventuring aspects, so the entire experience can easily last 15-20 hours. There is little incentive to replay other than besting your completion time, finding all the weapons, and three mini-games.

And even though the game is designed as chapters best consumed in small doses, you will quickly find yourself addicted to the story, and much like a great novel, unable to put it down until you have reached the final page. Sony’s experiment for episodic content is a grand success, although I really don’t see the point of installment gaming if it’s all available up front. They could have really generated a buzz if they had released one chapter bundle a month, especially with those cliffhanger endings. As it is, I see no reason this couldn’t have been released at a retail level.

If you have been waiting for the next big horror game and are looking for some next-gen terror then look no further than the PS Store. Siren: Blood Curse is calling you…