^Let's play's are ok but they don't work so well for horror i think. For a game like siren you need to actually play it. It's scary as hell(possibly the scariest game i've played maybe) and i think a lot of tension and fear comes from you, the player playing it. Most let's plays usually show people who have beaten the game a lot and are pretty good at it so they make it look easy.

Horror LPs are great for entertainment purposes. I love listening to people freak the fuck out and scream their heads off.

The LPs of Siren on the archive actually do a great job of maintaining the feel of the horror; there's no obnoxious player voice in the videos and not a second of detail is lost because of quality issues.

It's as scary as it could be without picking up a controller myself; but yea, it's best to actually play it.

I couldn't get into the first Fatal Frame. I'm sure it's a great series and I am sure the sequels are better (I really want to play the Wii one personally), but the first game just never grabbed me. Never did have a chance to play Siren, though. I live in America, so we never even got the second Siren game. As far as playing Siren goes, I'm sure this has been discussed a thousand times but is the remake (Siren Blood Curse) worth playing? I'd like to give Siren a try but I'm not sure if I should buy Blood Curse (which would be easier to do) or hold out for the original.

Even despite Fatal Frame and Siren being popular horror titles, I don't think it's right to say they came anywhere close to making as much of an impact on the genre as Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Although, depending on your tastes, you could easily just say those two made more of an "impact" only because they were more popular/mainstream. Or something.

I actually just got the original Siren off Amazon, and I've already played through the first three missions. It's tense, and I like the idea of a stealth based horror game, but the enemies are kind of generic, at least so far. I guess that dudes in rice hats yelling a-dur-dur-dur at me just isn't overly scary to me. The map is fucking useless. Thanks for that piece of shit, Toyama. Just based on some of the tasks that I'm expected to perform, I'm getting the impression that devs want me to give up in frustration. In spite of all that, I still like the game so far. I just hope I can get through this thing with my sanity intact.

I'll just say that the enemies will get more diverse in time. There's no point diversifying them this early in the game when you're still trying to understand the basic enemy type.

It's been five years, and I'm still sore about that. I'll always be sore about that.

I'm even more sore about how I have a copy of it in English, but because of the way PAL works, I still can't play it.

As for Siren vs. Blood Curse... in my opinion, the original will always be better, but its difficulty curve ramps up like a wall and you have to go through about a third of the game (and it's much longer than the average survival-horror) before anything resembling a story begins taking shape. The story is excellent, and largely under-analyzed, but you will have to put a lot of work in to get just the main thread, never mind all hundred Archive Items that the game basically tells you to piece together, yourself.

Blood Curse, meanwhile, has a much gentler learning curve and the story gets interesting (if it's the kind of story you find interesting) much earlier. The story, as I understand it, is much less complex. Aside from using Sixaxis to shake out of holds (Sixaxis is and will always be worthless), combat is much easier... however, that also makes the enemies far less threatening (much of the threat in the original was just how tough the encounters could be: Hence, the need to avoid them).

The original's controls are sluggish, but it's generally okay until you try to run. Blood Curse's controls are slippery, making it much harder to not run. While it fits into what I want, I should note that I pretty much can't play the latter except in first-person view. Running, naturally, attracts more attention, so I think (and I'll admit I'm biased from having clocked 28 hours on the original) the original's controls are more suited for the game type. Blood Curse offers more combat options than the original... but part of the original's appeal was the lack of options.

If you do run into the original, it'll be $15 or less. However, Blood Curse is just easier to find... well... it will be when the PSN comes back up. I'd recommend the original, but if you have a low threshold for pain, then the remake's probably your best bet.

Oh, right, the original's British dub is atrocious, sans a few characters (I have a hard time imagining Miyata with anything but his dub voice). Blood Curse is on par with the rest of this generation's video games, in terms of voice acting.

I loved siren blood curse and i would definitely say it's worth playing, but then again it's the only siren i've played. I'm eventually gonna try to play through the old siren when i get some more time. I've heard it's scarier or more disturbing than blood curse. I could of swore somebody said something about the shibito sounding even more creepy in the older siren games.

And what is up with Tamon's hair? He looks like he belongs in an 80s rock band. The accents don't really bother me, except for Yoriko, but she's just annoying in general. I'm just about at he point where you have to escort the bind chick. Great. They've taken one of the more annoying trends in games and amped it up over 9000.

Thanks for the input, Kenji. Based on what you said, I kinda want to try both, so I'll hold out for the original. I'm sure I've played much more painful with far less rewarding results.

Don't worry, as far as escort missions go, Miyako isn't really that bad (wait until Harumi).

In Siren, you can tell your load characters to keep their asses put in safe spots while you clear a path, so you should be fine.

Yup, Miyako wasn't bad at all. No where near the Eileen level of annoying. I've played a few more levels, and so far Akira is my favorite character. Also, the end of the escort mission with Kei and Tomoko is hilarious. That sniper has terrible aim. Oh, and Kei fell on his ass like three times in a row.

Actually, the escorts aren't that bad, at all. They go when you say "go," and stay when you say "stay." They tend not to try and do things on their own and, while that means everything's on you to accomplish, you're generally more reliable than any dodgy AI (and any non-dodgy AI would just be playing the game for you).

I'm rather fond of the way Miyako sometimes asks you to look at her, because she sightjacks you for directions. It's kind of a clever excuse for not having to lead her around by the hand.

Now, as for Tamon's hair...



Who dares to insult the Chairman's hair?

@ Nanaya: No prob. Lemme know what you think, when you get around to 'em. People call the original one of the hardest games ever, but that's just not true. All you have to do is pay a lot of attention and be willing to learn from your mistakes: This game marks boundaries by putting snipers on them.

I've just learned that Shibito can fly later on in the game. Fuuuuuccckkkk me, Freddy.

Oh, the flying ones will the least of your problems.

Umi gaeri is where the fun starts.

Umi Gaeri. Great, it even sounds more badass than most of characters.

Have fun playing the Harumi levels, bitch.

Maybe I will have fun playing those levels, whore.

I couldn't stand the original Siren. . . .Granted that I haven't played it since I was like twelve (which meant I had like zero tolerance for high difficulty), so with that in mind, I've been thinking of trying my hand at it again (I like to think that I'm a better gamer now) seeing as how I have much more patience these days. . . .Since we're on the subject. . . . .Does anyone else enjoy saying "shibito"? I find it to be alot of fun to say.
Shibito, shibito, shibito, shibitoshibitoshibitoshibitoshibito. . . . . Oh great, now it's lost all meaning. . . . . .(What the hell am I talking about?)

For me it's Kind of like saying Ganado when talking about RE 4. Of course, even Japanese dudes in in gardener hats are scarier than those guys.

Edit: Well, I'm working on the first Harumi escort mission, and she's not really annoying me so far. The problem for me is finding her after caving in that bald pedophile guy's head in the gym.