Forbidden Siren Review | Sightjacking, Link Navigator, Ambiguity

In 1999, Keiichiro Toyama and Team Silent created one of the most-celebrated horror video games of all time: Silent Hill. Almost every superlative you can think of was thrown at Harry Mason's jaunt around the foggy American town. A few years later, Toyama and others that worked on the Konami classic took their talents elsewhere and tried to do it all again. We're going back to 2003 to look at a PlayStation 2-exclusive horror game. We're talking about Forbidden Siren (or just Siren for some of you).

On this episode of Stealth Boom Boom, we look at how developer Project Siren was keen to work on a horror game with more of a Japanese flavour, citing the J-horror boom as reason enough to give it a go. We also discuss how one TV ad for the game had to be cancelled after seven (7!) complaints, as well as how they pushed that Forbidden Siren was much more hardcore than other games of this ilk.

In our review, you'll hear some chat on how Sightjacking is a very cool idea (and also how two of us think it doesn't work, and one of us thinks it does), darkness and fog, Commandos' mult-cam setup, orienteering, cautiously crouch-walking at the speed Solid Snake and Jack Carver move about on their bellies, the annoyance of ambiguity / the thrill of ambiguity, being aware of sound and light, awkwardly swinging a metal pipe, Shibito character models, mission objective 2, the Link Navigator, Butterfly Effect puzzles, the baffling Interaction List Menu system, a photo album that caught Josh's attention, ten characters that couldn't grab the attention of Adam, L.A. Noire, and classic lines of dialogue such as "I told you to wait in the car."

After all that, the lads take you through what some of the critics were saying about the game around the time it came out, and then they give their final verdicts on whether Forbidden Siren is a Pass, a Play, or an Espionage Explosion.

For those who would like to play along at home, we'll be discussing, reviewing and dissecting Manhunt on the next episode of Stealth Boom Boom.

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