But first things first. In the audio/visual realm, Siren certainly succeeds in every aspect. From beginning to end, a style is presented that fits the genre perfectly. While the graphics aren’t actually all that stunning, in their own way they provide a wonderful sense of creepyness and suspense. Limited light is constantly used to constrain your view. Whether you have your flashlight turned on or off, you can’t see much, and that adds a huge amount of uncertainty, fear, and general paranoia. And the best thing is, the game doesn’t allow you to cheat by turning up the brightness on your TV. That way you’re never tempted to turn night into day, which would take the frightful experience down several notches.

Equally adding to the mood is the sound. Ambience, creepy sound effects, and unnerving music all contribute to make things even more tense. The horrifying sounds that emanate from your foes can make them seem ten times more threatening. And it’s all done using a new technology that Sony calls S-FORCE. It basically allows two speaker sound systems to create the illusion of 3D sound. All in all, Siren presents the perfect atmosphere for survival horror.

So the graphics and sound are great, but when you get down to what really matters, things don’t go quite as well. The gameplay in Siren is a mix of old mistakes and failed attempts at innovation. One of the game’s two unique features is a way of creating psychic links between friends and foes called “sightjacking”. By hitting L2 and moving the left stick in the direction of nearby enemies and allies, you can view the world through their eyes. Even though this sounds intriguing, it just doesn’t work. Without a detailed knowledge of the area you’re in, it’s extremely difficult make any use of the information gained from sightjacking. There’s no way to know where any particular perspective is coming from. The ability also takes up way too much time and is rarely necessary to get through a level.

Siren’s other potentially innovative feature affects the flow of the story. Instead of a typical plot that follows one or two characters through an adventure from begging to end, you’re presented with small segments involving ten characters over three days. As if following ten characters’ differing paths weren’t confusing enough, all of the sections aren’t in chronological order. This means that you might play through something that happens sometime on day 2 before something else from day 1. And yes, this is as confusing as it sounds. A “scenario link navigator” has been added to help keep track of things. It’s basically a flow chart that displays all the stages in their proper order under their corresponding character paths. But even with the link navigator, it’s hard to come to any understanding of what the hell is going on. As a result of the confusion, you end up with no real story to place behind your actions through most of the game. You just end up with even less reason to care.

The rest of Siren’s gameplay fails in more familiar ways. The controls are reminiscent of those in Resident Evil and Silent Hill: clunky, unprecise, and limiting. Some may argue that the controls were purposely made to limit your control to add tension. But any way you look at it, it still just adds frustration. If I can’t get my character to do what I want him to do then things just aren’t fun. There’s no reason survival horror games can’t enjoy ultra-responsive controls just like any other genre.

Another problem with Siren’s gameplay is that it lacks necessary stealth mechanics. I love the fact that stealth is encouraged over fighting, but a proper method of achieving stealth has to also be provided as well. The characters in Siren could learn a lot from Solid Snake. The only stealthy moves that can be pulled off are crouching, distracting enemies by shouting (which seems to have very little effect), and keeping your flashlight turned off. Also, there isn’t any way to really tell if the creatures will be able to see you or not. Simply put, Siren tells you remain unseen, but then dose everything it can to make sure that you are.

I like Siren’s creepy presentation and honorable attempts at innovation, but the gameplay just isn’t up to par. Things are far too frustrating, slow, and boring to make you even want to finish. So when I look at the back of my Siren case and it asks, “Will you resist the call of the Siren?” I simply answer “yes” and you should too.