Run, run while you can. They are coming after you – perhaps not especially fast, but doggedly and with evil intent.

Siren is an in-house PlayStation2 title from Sony Computer Entertainment America that is a single-player ride into a Japanese village that has suddenly become the home of evil. Not only has the population of this village been turned into inhuman monsters, but those who have somehow avoided being changed are being hunted.

In that way, Siren sounds like a survival horror title, and that is not far from the truth of the matter. The time frame for the game is three days, but events do not happen sequentially. Nor are you stuck playing one character throughout the tale. There are 10 characters involved in this tale, and they have a somewhat remarkable psychic ability at their calling known as sightjack.

Sightjack basically allows your character to see through the enemy’s eyes – as though stealing, or jacking, their vision. You can see them watching you, and can predict their actions. You can also attune the sightjack settings to hotkeys, in order to enter the mode and switch quickly from NPC to NPC to see where they are and how they perceive you. This is an amazing little bit of trickery, and even the set-up is cool. Activating sightjack is like tuning a television receiver – there is snow one moment, then the image slowly comes into focus as you use the thumbstick to fine-tune the skill.

There are 10 playable characters in this game, which mostly evolves around the idea of survival horror. As mentioned, the missions (78 in all) do not play out sequentially, but when you begin stringing them all together, you will see the overall story of the game.

The game itself begins simply enough. You are put into a scenario where your first character sees something “suspicious,” a ceremony of sorts, then runs from it, only to begin having psychic episodes while having a zombie policeman chase him. The policeman is, of course, firing a gun. The young Japanese man is seemingly trapped in an area bordered by locked walls, a port-a-potty, an office and a locked truck. Hmm, maybe unlocking that truck may aid in the escape.

Ok, you find the truck keys, then use the truck to run over the policeman zombie and end the pursuit, or do you? In the next mission, that zombie gets up and shoots you in the chest, and you fall into water below the area where you were first challenged. There were walls there before prohibiting you from going down there, but now you have and you should have bled to death with that hole in your chest. But that leads to more supernatural phenomenon, which is what this game builds on.

The animation in this game is really solid, and the atmosphere would be quite creepy except for one little thing. There is no real sense of urgency because the interface interrupts the flow. Take, for example, that opening scenario. You are in an office, with the zombie policeman shooting at you, clawing through the door when an action becomes available. The popup freezes the game and gives you some limited options. Do you want to unlock that door? Do you want to pick up that item?

The game does a wonderful job of setting a tone, then manages to release some of the tension with the interface. If not for that, this game could well have been downright creepy.

Siren still manages to pull of some nice innovations in the horror genre. The sightjack element, the way the 10 characters missions seem out of sequence and then weave together for a dark tale are all well-designed elements. The only thing that holds this game back from being a horror classic in the making are the game flow interruptions.

This game will be rated M for mature.
 

Gameplay: 7.2

The game is supposed to have a horror element to it, one that builds and has an eeriness that will have players on the edge of their seat. Unfortunately the player interface sort of interferes with that. The game’s mechanics slow down and causes constant breaks in the fluidity of the game, and detracts from the game’s atmosphere.

Graphics: 8.5

The environments are seemingly finite mapboards, but do carry the atmosphere of the game well. The animations are smooth as well.

Sound: 8

The ambient effects and musical score do a good job of setting up the story itself. Some things are overly explained or a bit convoluted in the explanation, but the sound is a strong element here..

Difficulty: Medium

The game has no challenge or difficulty levels and does get progressively tougher as you move through it.

Concept: 7

The game has a solid idea but would have been much better in rendering the terror or tension without the breaks in the action. The interface is somewhat intrusive,  more than anything else.

Multiplayer: N/A

Overall: 7.8

This is a game that is somewhat eerie and evolving, but the mood is broken by the interface and even the sightjack feature, while an intriguing concept, detracts from the mood. Siren has a lot of good things going for it, but the pacing hampers if from being a terrific title. Still, if you are looking for a game in which your survival instincts are threatened, in which the mysteries at the heart of the game are colored in evil rituals and terror, Siren may well be the right call.