Siren
- March 24, 2004 00:00 AM PST
Sony takes a stab at survival horror. Will Siren be the next Silent Hill?
The best horror games disturb you, leave a lingering taste of dread in your head, and even make you a little nervous to see the sun go down. Siren is a survival/horror game in the vein of Resident Evil, Fatal Frame, and Silent Hill that seeks to draw you down that dark path. In fact, it was conceived by Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill, and has been in the making for two and a half years by Sony in Japan.The third-person-view adventure places you inside a Japanese village stricken by some mysterious malady that began with a shower of red rain. Now all the villagers are the living dead�but don�t call them zombies! Sony is adamant that the poor townsfolk will be called �shibito,� their name in the Japanese version. Of course, that roughly translates into �dead person,� but these creepy creatures will seem lively enough: They can run, hunt you down, and even use weapons. They can be temporarily knocked out but not killed; after a while, they look just bloody awful. You, on the other hand, are armed with your wits and a flashlight.
You�ll be able to see through the eyes of the shibito and other characters by using a special ability called sightjacking. With this proximity skill, you use the left analog stick to tune in a first-person view through the eyes of any nearby characters. Just be on guard if the person you see staring back from the TV is you!
