Review: Siren: Blood Curse (PS3)

Blood Curse is a remake of the very first Siren game, instead they’ve now Americanised it a bit. Set in the Japanese village of Hanuda you take control of a variety of characters as they uncover the mystery of the cursed village where everything isn‘t quite right. From a blood red river to the shibuto (zombie-like creatures) it’s a sharp descent into a rather grim game world. The characters you control have differing backgrounds. The Americanisation of the game means along with the Japanese characters that you control there is now an American film crew along with a Japanese girl and high school student. They don’t really add much other than some rather poor acting.

The thing that becomes most apparent from the start is that this is very much a survival horror from the past with no effort made to update it for the current gen. You can’t strafe or peek around corners because the camera is permanently locked behind the character, something which becomes incredibly frustrating as the stealth aspect of the game appears later on, and then there’s the graphics. It’s been given a blur filter to make it seem creepier but everything is covered in a brownish mess making everything look like a high definition PS2 game.

It’s not all doom and gloom though because one thing the game heaps on you in spades is the feeling of utter loneliness and fear. The first episode sets the tone with your high school student being chased around a rickety wooden house by a shibuto policeman. Hiding in closets with your heart pounding is a nerve racking experience. A little bit later you see the introduction of sight jacking. This is just way of seeing through the eyes of the various shibuto, it helps when you’re trying to sneak around but it really is no consolation for having decent control over your character.

The first half of the game is fantastically put together with some scares and a plot you can - for the most part - understand. It all falls apart though as you get closer to the conclusion. For the most part you’re essentially ferried around from one area to the next following your map which handily pinpoints where exactly you’re supposed to be going. It makes Siren very linear and initially we didn’t like it, however when that is taken away from you during the latter chapters you realise why it was added in the first place. The game is terribly dark in some areas, and pathways which you can go down are normally indistinguishable from the backdrops, something which is hindered more by the PS2-like graphics.

One problem is the inclusion of the little girl character which is a terrible idea. She cannot use a weapon and if she gets caught by the shibuto it’s game over. So this means her sections (thankfully there aren’t many of them) are of the stealth variety. When a game adds unnecessary stealth levels Gamestyle screams in anger, especially when they are grafted into a game with controls like the ones in Siren. Not being able to peek around corners without going all the way around is almost game killing. But like we said, these sections are few and far between.

The next inclusion is the slight over powerfulness of the weaponry. Most chapters have you commence with nothing but your hands and going up against a shibuto like this is pretty much suicide. So the first part of each chapter often has you hunting for a weapon, which could be anything from a scythe to a broom. The fact that your character (apart from the little girl) can take an unbelievable amount of punishment, rather than sneaking around it’s usually best to just keep running until you come across something you can use. Then when you have the weapon you feel like an unstoppable force, it starts to deplete the sense of fear you get, particularly in the open environments. It’s not until you face off against more deadlier, almost Silent Hill style foes where the fear starts to return.

Maybe Gamestyle is being harsh. The faults with the game are stalwarts of the classic survival horror games of the past and being a straight forward remake we knew these problems wouldn’t be addressed. The first half of the game is certainly an edge of your seat horror fest, it’s only in the latter stages where the game starts to come undone with a plot that soon falls into Evil Dead 2 levels of hilarity. For £20 though hardcore horror fans may get their moneys worth, but only just.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Adam Gulliver