It’s been really hard to find something on the PSN worth more than a few random hours at a time to play. That is until now. Finally an adult-like horror game that will scare the shit out of you (yet sometimes annoy the fuck out of you with outdated controls!). Either way, it's worth the price and download.

Siren: Blood Curse is one of the first download-able horror games on the PSN. Broken down into 12 episodes, you can buy it in packs of a few episodes at a time or all for one at $40. This is a great value and better than buying a used copy of Conan...c’mon that game sucked ass. The fact that it is split into a couple of episodes at a time makes it great to sample and test. If you aren’t into the first pack, don’t buy the rest…if you like it…buy the hell out of the rest. This is what online gaming should be about..buy as you go. And each episode has a nice 30-40 minute playtime that makes it a great distraction between other games you might have.

Being Japanese horror -based, the story line is very involved and convoluted at times, as well as really creepy. These aren’t your average horror game zombies; they make some of the creepiest sounds and aren’t so easy to kill...but I’ll get to more on that later. They also just have this really sketchy Asian working-class look. Police officers, nurses, etc...it just really shakes you up. It brings back some of those same moments you had in early Resident Evil games where you were afraid to open doors for what maybe lurking behind them.

This game reminds me of an old horror game in one really bad way: the controls suck. Remember the “tank” controls in Resident Evil 1 and 2?…yeah, it's almost that bad. It makes it near impossible to actually kill enemies, so it's better to sneak around. But even then you feel like a drunk fat kid with two mismatched shoes walking in the mud. I tried to sneak out of site, with the aid of the “site jack” system, and I still got pounced on like a little mouse. After a few tries, you get the hang of it. One other thing the controls kinda fucked up here is their “shake to get up” principle. Look, the last thing I want to do when I get hit by a zombie is to shake the shit out of a controller for, like, 30 seconds just to get up and get hit again because of bad controls. This is another example of bad six axis integration.

If you are looking for the next great horror franchise, I don’t think this is it. But if you want a really worthwhile and cost effective PSN download, then I really suggest this. I mean, there are so many times you can download Joust and Q-Bert for fun. At least this game can scare the fuck out of you...and who doesn’t like creepy Japanese nurse zombies?