Siren
I have a special treat
for my readers. (All both of you!) A review from someone else for a change, a college buddy
of mine to be precise. Why would I let someone else write a review on my site
after making such a big deal
out of
presenting a uniform point of view? Well, because when it comes to examining the
utter hack-a-licious world of 'Siren', my friend has a beautiful way with words
(although, I will be adding a comment of my own from time to
time).
Game:
After a horrible cataclysm, a
small town in Japan becomes a living Hell.
Almost all the town's inhabitants are transformed into half-human, half-demonic walking cadavers. These monsters
cannot be killed by convention weapons, and make
a point of hunting down any survivors them come across. In order to survive
the few remaining humans must depend on their shared gift, a form of
second-sight which allows them to hijack the viewpoint of their stalkers. The story of
this game is highly segmented and fractured, unfortunately, since the game is all but
unplayable after the first two levels, I have no idea how it
ends, or how good it is. Therefore, I am forced to judge the plot by the small
amount of it I was able to decipher. Unfair? Yes, but so is this cruddy
game.
Comments:
Siren! All the fun of looking and walking!,
I'm sure I'll be jeered by some for not appreciating how
'original' this title is. I like games that are original, but I also like
games that are scary, well-crafted, and fun. Nothing akin to this game
has ever been attempted before, and one can see why, as Siren is completely
unplayable. It's as if someone said 'You know how those horrible, clunky,
Resident Evil style controls severely hamper player enjoyment? Well those
controls are too intuitive, let
's make the player use a pull-down menu whenever
he wants to pick up or use an item!' The visuals are so full of artful (read
pretentious) 'fog' and film scratches, they turn out to be no better than PS-1
graphics. ( I disagree just a bit here, the graphics aren't quite
that bad, but by trying an odd form of character model [
some sort of pasted on face] for the game, the developers wound up
making their humanoid figures look really, really,
odd)
The sound might be passable, except for the fact that all
the Japanese characters have been inexplicably dubbed with cheesy British
accents. The sight-jacking feature allows you to see through the eyes of your
enemy, as strategy it's all but completely useless, as unless you've run through
a level (and died) many, many, many times, you have no clue what the zombies are
looking at (Ooh! He sees a twig, and his own hand! That will save my life!) This
is one of the most frustrating and pointless games I have ever played in my
life, and to make matters worse, ever game-mag I've read is giving this one high
marks! ( A bit of a dated comment. While many have since come
around , almost all the reviewers at the time of this game's release were
giving it glowing praise, even the normally credible reviewers on G4TV . Et
tu, Tommy Tallarico ?)
As a huge Silent
Hill fan and working on such info, I was ready to plunk down cold hard cash to
buy this title sight unseen, until I read some reviews from actual gamers. Thank
God I rented it first! This is why I write this review, as a service to you. Do
not buy into the hype! This game is as scary as athlete's foot, and twice as
irritating. Unless of course your idea of the ultimate in terror involves
crouching behind shrubbery to avoid un-killable shmucks (it's a moot point
anyway, as you almost never have a weapon, and the fighting mechanics are awful)
who giggle like drunken yokels while looking for you with a flashlight. Or
perhaps running through poorly rendered woods while trying to lead a spastically
controlled, simpering woman-child, who constantly shrieks 'It's about time!
Hurry up!…Wait! Don't run so fast!' I rented this game for 99 cents, I'd like to
be pithy and say I overpaid But after that imbecile had run away from me into
the waiting maw of a giggling pseudo-zombie for the tenth time whilst mewling
orders at me, I found out that you can 'accidentally' use weapons on your
companions. Bludgeoning that twit to death was worth every
penny!
Yeah, what he
said.
|
Production Values: 4.0 |
Gameplay: 0.5 |
|
Plot and Dialogue : 5.5 |
Atmosphere: 4.5 |
|
Home |
Reviews |
Faqs |
BogBlog |
Links |
Misc. |