Siren: New Translation -- Initial Impression.

We're jumping back over to the PlayStation 3 for Siren: New Translation. The game is Keiichiro Toyama's revision of the 2004 PlaysStation 2 title of Siren. Siren was a critically acclaimed but small selling title that offered up visceral horror and palpable tension. It also offered up interesting but ultimately confusing storytelling mechanics and a less than friendly objective system. This reworking is aimed at correcting those issues. It'll be interesting to see if they succeed. It'll also be interesting to see just how reworked New Translation is. Are we witnessing the same story and events? Are we experiencing something entirely different? Or are we being treated to a nice balance of the two? It should be noted that I'm playing Siren: New Translation, and not Siren: Blood Curse. They're the same games, but New Translation is the name of the Asian version of the game. Blood Curse is the Western version of the game that as of this writing is only available via digital distribution through the PlayStation Network online shops in North America and Europe. The game is sold online as a whole or in four installments with a total file size of just over nine gigabytes. In Asia regions the game is available via download or on Blu-Ray disc. And seeing as the PlayStation 3 is region free with regard to software I decided to import the disc based version as the Asian version comes with full English support in both text and voice work. The deciding factor really being the total file size and the considerable download time and the prospect of ever wanting to potentially play the game again sometime down the line. Sure I could always download it again or keep it eternally on my PlayStation 3's drive, but I find that potential prospect to be annoying. At least with the disc version I'll always have it without having to download it again and I could take it on and off the drive with relative ease. The disc based version still requires an install over five gigabytes. I have the original PlayStation 3 with the sixty gigabyte drive and I find the install issue annoying. I can't imagine what it would be like for those with the twenty gigabyte models where one digitally distributed title would take up the majority of their free space after taking into account the operating system in place on the drive. The install of the disc based version took about eight minutes. None of that will really matter of course if Siren: New Translation delivers some fierce survival horror action. We'll soon see...