Siren: New Translation - Teaser Trailer

April 18, 2008 | 6 Comments

If you have been having problem commenting or searching the site, I'm sorry for the problem. I have been changing the comment and search settings so that it'll weed out spam better. However, I forgot to turn on a few things so it became a bit of a mess for a while. Anyway, on to the actual article, I was pleasantly surprised when Sony suddenly announced that Siren: New Translation is almost complete and ready for release in Japan this July. No one even knew that they were working on a new Siren title and out of the blue, they announced that it's ready for release soon. If you've never heard about Siren, this is basically a survival horror entry from Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. What makes the series special is that it's created and directed by the original director of Silent Hill, Toyama Keiichirou. You can actually see some of the hallmark of his creation including air siren, static noise, and bloody nursers. Siren games, however, are pretty different from other survival-horror games in that it relies heavily on surveillance and sneaking around the enemies instead of direct confrontation. If you try to do the later, rest assured that you'll be dead before reaching your destination. This really does increase the dread factor but it was also the reason I never finished the game.

In order to sneak around undetected, you must use this method called sight-jacking. This is basically an ability to see through someone else's field of vision including the Shibitos that roam the area. After switching through several visions, you usually get a rough idea of which Shibito is located in which as well as their patrol pattern. From this information, hopefully you can find a way to sneak around without being detected by them. Unfortunately, this means that the majority of the game relied heavily on trial and error. I really enjoyed the atmosphere that the game created and the storyline sure is interesting but the first game was extremely unforgiving in its difficulty. Siren 2, which was released a few years later improved on some of the deficiencies from the first game. I still think sight-jacking is not an accurate measure of the Shibitos location and often times can be deceiving but at least the second game allows you to fight a bit if you get caught by them. Despite this, I still couldn't finished the 2nd game either because when I reached a story about an almost blind man and his loyal dog, it all became a bit too much for me. I feel weird feeling sorry for them but I couldn't play the game knowing that the character would probably die despite his attempt to get away.

Speaking of characters, Siren employs a non-linear narrative that was seen in Juon (the Japanese version of The Grudge) movie. This means that you'll follow the fate of several characters and watch their stories unfold little by little. Sometimes you get to play one character and in the next one, you'll find out that the first character that you played has either been dead, turned into a Shibito, or has been missing. The interesting part of the game is figuring out how all of these characters fit together in the entire plot. Some of the characters may not make it out of the game alive and you often don't know about it until a few chapters later when playing as another character. It's kind of exciting trying to piece together the whole storyline out of this character's vignettes. Unfortunately, this story structure was deemed too complex by gamers with short attention span. Admittedly, the story does involve some Japanese folklores and this means that one needs to keep up with the terminologies and mythologies used in the game. This is not an easy thing to do especially after all of the stress that one endures from those sight-jacking and Shibito-evading attempts. In the end, the 2nd game was still difficult although thankfully it was pretty playable in comparison to the first one.

There is potential with this remake because despite its problem, the first game was really terrifying and suspenseful game. I hope that they fix some of the issues in the first one (ie. the unforgiving difficulty) and turn it into a better game. For the remake, the producers have also changed the majority of the characters. In the original, all of the characters are the Japanese resident of the village where the incident happens. In this remake, the characters are American TV crews who are stranded in the area when they try to cover a story in a nearby mountain. In a way, this is like how The Grudge (US version of Ju-on, change the majority of the characters to foreigners who work in Japan. Of course now that the game is in PS3, I'm hoping to see a well-rendered 3D characters. In the PS2 version, the majority of the characters look like real person because they used short videos that is placed on top of the polygons. Now, however, I hope that the technology is powerful enough to render life-like characters easily. Anyway, just see the trailer and let me know what you think about it. I think it looks impressive and quite scary, which gives me hope that the game will be similar.

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