FORBIDDEN Siren 2 (PS2)

Developer:

SCE Japan Studio - project SIREN

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Release Date:

2006

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Systems:

PlayStation 2

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This week on Super Adventures I'm having a look at FORBIDDEN Siren 2, or maybe Forbidden Siren 2 depending on whether you're going to trust the box spine or the manual. In North America it's known as... well, nothing actually as it was never released there. The first game was though, under the name of Siren.

I was going to start the article by dropping the bombshell that in five years of the site I have never once played a horror game for Halloween, not even accidentally. But I just checked and it turns out that I have, twice: DecapAttack and Blood. My memory betrays me again.

But the point I was leading to was that I'm not really all that interested in Halloween and never have been. Horror isn't really my thing and I find that horror games often involve way too much creeping around in the filthy darkness with awkward controls, looking for the door/cupboard/bookcase/piano you haven't examined yet. I'll still give the game a fair chance to win me over (I wouldn't have much to write about otherwise) but I can't help being predisposed to despise it.

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The game begins with this guy tucking his kid in for the night, though I'm more interested in what that thing by his head is. Looks like a cat smoking a mouthful of cigarettes.

There's a flickering horror filter over the screen, but the effect is more 'Nosferatu' than 'Blair Witch'. It's like a creepy silent movie from the 20s, except dubbed.

After the father leaves and the lights go out there's the sound of bad things happening outside the room. It's not letting me see anything though, and no amount of button pressing is convincing the game to get to the point.

Whoa, I'm playing as the kid in first person? It's pulling a Fallout 3.

I can stumble around in the dark and examine the wardrobe, but other than the Little Mermaid book on the floor there's nothing in here to delay me from opening the door and confronting the horrors outside.

"Mermaid Princess Story" has been added to archives though!

I spent a moment listening to the rain outside, then slid the door open to find a staircase outside. Turns out the kid's bedroom takes up the entire upper floor and there's nowhere to go but down.

Oh damn, that's not good. And now I get to listen to the poor kid crying over his dead father.

Just then the kid notices someone at the door staring down at him, a man with a dog. He panics and runs away into the house...

...mission accomplished!

Okay that just made me burst out laughing. The developers put so much work into making everything all grainy and serious and then they go and throw the atmosphere away. The only thing that's missing is a victory fanfare.

Oh and it should have this playing as well: Desert Strike - Level Complete Music (YouTube Link).

But enough of the kid and his problems, these guys are caught in a storm! One of those supernatural types that comes out of nowhere and turns the sea blood red. Everyone gets shaken around, someone falls off the back, it's all very dramatic (and kind of dodgy looking).

I get a chance to save here as well, which is nice. Not on the boat, I mean it saves between every level. No typewriter save points required.

This time around I'm playing as Mamoru Itsuki, who's woken up on some cold concrete steps to find he's washed ashore on Yamijima Island. It's not all bad news though, as he's found his glasses and his flashlight still works.

That timer under his name earlier seems to have been counting down, so this must have happened five minutes before I was playing as the kid. That's cool, I like seeing things play out from multiple perspectives.

Oh it's using a third person camera now? I guess the first person was just for the prologue.

Speaking of the camera, I can glance around with the right analogue stick but the view snaps back afterwards, just to annoy me. The left analogue stick is for movement and it's using Resident Evil-style tank controls.

The game's pretty adamant that I head towards the Bridge and I don't see any reason not to obey. Right after I've looked through all his pockets.

Well he doesn't exactly have an inventory but I can look at information about stuff he's found, plus that mermaid book too. Turns out that Mamoru is 20 year old magazine editor... and he has a wallet.

I wonder what other treasures I'll find in the menu.

Hey I've got a map button! Steps of Pain huh? Sounds like the name of a Doom level.

My goal's to go to Uryuga Forest with Travelling Companion, and the game's running through the process step by step like a GPS. I'm surrounded by long abandoned apartment blocks, but the game whines at me if I stray from its directions so I'll head up the stairs like it says.

Oh we're doing zombies then?

Entering an enemy's detection area like this sets off an alert, which means I hear a subtle alarm sound playing over the atmospheric ambience and the controller starts rumbling.

The game seems to think I'll be stealthier if I duck down and quit shining a flashlight at everything, so I turned it off and started crouched-walking past him. 5 steps later and the alert was over, thankfully.

Man this tutorial is very specific with its directions:

Climb the ladder.
Move to the right of the ladder.
Turn towards the building behind.
Face left and jump off the building, etc.

It doesn't trust me to do a damn thing myself! I'm actually glad though as this gives me a chance to settle into the game and learn what the rules are before it locks me in a dark building full of monsters.

Now it wants me to search the area for a weapon. Apparently it'll be brighter than the scenery and easy to find.

Oh that's cool, I can use the stick I just picked up to smash open door windows and unlock them from the other side. Having to hold down R1 and then press X to attack is less fun though.

Also the game doesn't tell you what you're picking up before you've picked it up, which isn't great when you can only carry two weapons. I foresee many 'Is this silver shape on the table a useful object? Nope I just picked up a feather duster and dropped my chainsaw,' moments ahead.

Hey, I found Travelling Companion behind the locked door inside the Materials Warehouse!

They have a bit of a conversation here, but I was too distracted by their accents to catch what was said. Then they get distracted by a noise outside, which means I have to go and check it out, after opening the List Menu and use the "Wait" Action Command to put her on standby first.

Wow, if there's one thing that sounds more awkward than sneaking around monsters in the dark it's escorting someone else around monsters in the dark.

Oh it's just the zombie again. This is a scripted tutorial moment to teach me how to shake the analogue stick to get free. I dunno, I think I care more about my analogue stick than Mamoru's life. Didn't developers learn from the lessons of Mario Party?

After shoving him back with some lazy stick shaking, I started smacking the zombie around the same way I smacked the window. Six hits with was enough to knock him down and I don't think he's the kind that gets back up. Not that I'll be hanging around to check.

I called Travelling Companion over and we headed out through the gate the zombie burst in through..

Weird how they've put weapon switching, shouting, and actions in a menu together. It's not like the DualShock 2 is short of buttons.

I pulled Travelling Companion up, then after a little bit of effort I managed to squeeze past her and continue down the path to the exit.


Mission accomplished!

Now it's two hours later and I'm playing as a soldier called Yorito Nagai. I'm not the stoic badass bald guy, I'm the one who's literally crying over the death of his sergeant (lying in the foreground). Sorry, this isn't a great shot of him as he's literally camouflaged against the other two. Here's a shot of his face:

Man, he must have really liked that guy. I'm used to seeing video game soldiers get shouty and aggressive after losing someone, but he's just falling to pieces here. Though to be fair, his sergeant has come back as a zombie and shot his helmet off right off his head.

The game's so grainy and weird looking that it took me a while to figure out exactly how the faces are done. I mean it's a late PlayStation 2 game so obviously all the details like the eyes and mouth must be modelled, so how do they look look so lifelike?

A shot from the side reveals the truth: eyes and lips aren't actually modelled at all. They've used the Max Payne technique of sticking photographs on top of a low detail mesh. So the characters all blink, look around and move their mouths when they talk, but most of the work is done using digitized textures.

This leaves the game looking eerily realistic when characters are facing the camera, but dated when they turn their heads.

Yorito's got a gun, so now I can shoot zombies from a distance. Well, a few meters away at least. The game doesn't really do distance.

I definitely appreciate being able to look and aim at monsters in a survival horror for once, but the combat doesn't have a great feel to it really. Plus why a big white circle instead of a crosshair? Isn't it hard enough to see what I'm shooting at already?

Turns out I can switch between first and third person view at any time, not just when I'm aiming, though it seems I'm far more likely to hit anything when I can tell where I'm pointing. Plus the game gets bonus points for rendering the character model in first person mode so I can look down and see my feet. Shame it's still using those damn tank controls.

There's not actually many zombies around out here (or much of an 'out here' for them to roam in) but I wish my bald sidekick would stay behind me. Sure he's technically in command but I'm technically the one who loses if he runs ahead and gets his dumb ass killed.

Aww crap, you see what I mean? Now I have to replay that entire tiny stage again!

Uh it might look like I was the one who accidentally emptied a submachine gun into his back, but it were the zombies that did it! I watched the murder play out through the killer's own eyes. This is genuine zombie-cam you're seeing here.


LATER.

Okay I've finished Yorita's mission and now I'm playing as a cop walking around a mine three hours ago. I'm just jumping all over the place in space and time, getting strangers from point A to point B without any idea why point B's so great.

This time though the tutorial's mostly left me alone to fend for myself so it's up to me to figure out where to get the "Guardhouse Key."

Right, so here's the level in pretty much its entirety. I started off at the 'eject' symbol at the bottom and now I'm looking for the key. I guess I'll have to go check every room in turn. There's no monsters around so the tricky part will be spotting the doors.


BUT THEN.

The shadows got me! How am I supposed to fight shadows? I could barely even see the shadows!

Oh right there was a hint at the start saying "Light hurts certain enemies", so I'll need to Alan Wake them with a flashlight. First though I need the key to get the flashlight.


SOON.

Aha I've found... a bit of wire. No idea what this is for, but it did bring up this cryptic message on screen. Do I even know who Ichiko Yagura is? This cop's called Shigeru Fujita, the guy with glasses was Mamoru Itsuki, the despondent soldier was Yorito Nagai and the kid was Shu Mikami... nope, never heard of them.

I'm sorry this screenshot's not more interesting by the way, but this is basically the game for me right now.

Hang on, there's another door at the back of the room! It's hard to tell because half the doors look like walls, but I got a message to press X when I got close. Maybe the key's through here.

And I walked right into shadow monster death again. Are they stalking me now? Waiting outside of rooms to get me as I come out?

Oh, I see what I did. I entered the room through the blue door at the bottom, then walked out the white door into the same corridor I got shadow monster'd in last time. This is what I get for not checking the map first!
 

Hang on, I didn't think to flip through the floors. Turns out there's an area I haven't been to yet and the guardhouse is down there. In my defence I did notice the rails leading down there, I just couldn't see a way around the device blocking the path at the bottom.

With the aid of the map I was able to find the room with the key in and grab the flashlight from the guardhouse, then I headed back to the monsters.

Die you horrible shadow creatures, die! Man this shot turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. But hey I've made it out and that means I'm back to playing as my old friends Mamoru and Travelling Companion.

She's a bit weird this one. I figured that she was another clueless survivor at first but she seems involved in whatever's going on here. Either way she's definitely here for a reason, as she claims her mum is being confined on the island and she's trying to rescue her and she's very eager for Mamoru to believe her.

The two soldiers turn up as well and discover she doesn't much appreciate it when they shine their flashlights in her face (interesting that...) But before the two teams can compare notes, a red-tinted tidal wave washes over them and they're separated again.

So Mamoru takes an involuntary bath for the second time today, but it seems the incident has given him the ability to telepathically see through the eyes of others any time he feels like, whether they're monsters or his creepy companion here. I think he would've preferred being given a towel.

Yeah, this doesn't seem all that useful so far. Turns out that when monsters aren't shambling towards their prey they mostly just pick a wall to stare at. The green and purple crosshairs are us by the way, somewhere else in the level.

To Sightjack a character like this I have to tune into their brainwaves by holding L1 and tilting the analogue stick in their direction, tweaking the angle until the picture clears up. Thankfully I can lock them into memory afterwards by assigning them to one of the face buttons so I don't have to go through the manual tuning routine every time.

Zombie #2's much more helpful though as he's compulsively opening and closing this door, giving me a chance to get a good look at the combination lock. I think I should be writing this down actually.

Now he's gone for a moment I can sneak around, unlock the door and... man this camera's annoying me. Every time I try to creep forward it resets, shoving his ass bag in my face again.

Anyway, I can creep through the door and use the room as a shortcut to bypass his patrol route and slip by him. It's got two exits you see because... it's the same room I showed you a couple of screenshots ago. This is the level I just played through as the cop, only this time I'm going back the other way! Those rail wagons over there are where I killed the shadow monsters with the flashlight a minute ago.

Hey it's us! Oh... that's not good is it. I should probably stop Sightjacking now so I can run away.

Actually I've got a better idea. I'll let the creature get close and then beat it to death with my stick. I can survive a zombie bite or two... probably.

I'm not actually sure how the health system works in this; there's no sign it regenerates but I haven't found any first aid kits around either (or ammo for that matter). This doesn't seem like a 'collect resources and use them carefully' kind of game.

Anyway I hit the monster a few times and got them to wherever they wanted to be, meaning I get another chance to save and an excuse to show off the timeline screen.

This Link Navigator comes up after every level to show where I'm at chronologically. Usually there's times down the left side and names along the top but they vanished when I zoomed out. I kind of had to so you could see any of it though.

Each column is for a different character's path through the plot, with the green blocks being cutscenes and the blue blocks being levels. The first column is Mamoru's adventure, the fourth one along is for the soldiers etc. But box with the yellow brackets around it has two tones because collecting that bit of wire for no reason has unlocked a second mission!

What's cool is that I can replay any stage or cutscene I've reached, so this is basically a stylish level select. I'm going to see what the next chapter in Shu Mikami's life is though.

Okay... I'm back in the the house again, not a big surprise there, but this time I'm playing as the dog owner the kid ran away from. The kid's the one called Shu Mikami though... unless they're both Shu Mikami. We've already got zombies and telepathy, might as well throw time travel in there as well.

The thing about adult Shu is that he's got bad eyesight, so I'm controlling him from dog-cam. He's seeing himself through the eyes of his dog, who's following him around as his cameraman... uh, cameradog! That's almost as amazing as it is awkward.

I feel like this is the right moment to turn it off and walk away. I'm stopping too early to have a proper opinion on the game, after all it's still basically the tutorial, but I've got too many screens and I've said enough already. Also I'm bored.


CONCLUSION

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FORBIDDEN Siren 2 sounds pretty clever on paper, with its Sightjacking and its parallel storylines, but I don't know if it works so great in practice. Seriously, I can't tell, I'm not a fan of horror games and I only played it for an hour or two, so its quality is still a mystery to me. Though I am pretty sure I spent every minute of it wishing I was playing something else.

I love the weird digitized faces, I love the ideas, I love the level-select spreadsheet, but I don't much like having to steer my guy around with one analogue stick because the developers thought it'd be scarier if I moved like a Roomba. I also failed to develop a fondness for figuring out an enemy's patrol route by looking from their own point of view. I struggled enough doing that playing GoldenEye 007 and I'd half memorised those maps. Uh, not that I ever deliberately screen cheated; I found it hard enough to tear my eyes away long enough to check the radar every now and again.

So there you go, I found this game so interesting that I'm talking about GoldenEye instead now.
It'd be nice if I could say the story redeems it, but I don't know what to say about the story. It's like a dog got hold of the script and left it as damp confetti; there's fragments of it all over the place but it's hard to put them together as a narrative. The characters all seem to have places to be, occasionally in the opposite direction to each other, but where they're going or why I have no idea and it's hard to really get involved when there's nothing to latch onto.

Anyway, I played a horror game for you. Happy Halloween!

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Thanks for reading my spooky words, come by next week for another spine-chilling quick look at some old video game I've dug out of my backlog. And you're welcome to leave some thoughts and feedback in the box below.