SYREN

Man I really wanted to like this game. I really wanted to recommend it to my friends, let people try it out, but I just cant. Im not going to write a book here, but Ill say a few things briefly. The graphics everyone are complaining about? Meh. They arent terrible. Thats the least of the games problems tbh. The problem lies in a few things, one of which is pretty much a core mechanic and will probably never be fixed. The AI is basically scripted and cheats. So if you are expecting an Alien Isolation experience, this isnt it. The AI will always be in the same place, every time, take the same path, and its basically up to you to figure out the "Trick" to get past it on that particular area or stage. This pretty much killed it for me. The second biggest problem is the controls on the HTC Vive. They are just awful. Im not talking about locamotion, Im talking how the game has you interact with things is just illogical give the controls you are using. Trigger to grab things? UP on the Touchpad to shoot? What? Did no one with a Vive playtest this and tell the Devs how awful that is? FInally, the game is short. Like an hour-ish. And given it has very little replay value, its just not worth $20 for that length. I didnt beat it personally because I couldnt stand the awful glitchy AI and bad controls, but there are plenty of youtube videos that will show you the game length.

**Updated review as of 25/02/2017 (I've left my original reviews below so you can see how well this has evolved in just a week or so worth of updates. EVERY issue i personally raised with the Dev at the bottom of this review has been fixed) - Pretty much every issue with the game from launch has now been resolved. The buttons are consistently in the lift between levels - the locomotion system works great, the new grabbing system with the grip buttons to snap objects to your hands works fantastically (though maybe needs a little tightening up to succesfully throw items any distance), the snap turn buttons can now be disabled entirely so you can very accurately move and use the roomscale. Honestly I hope everyone gets a chance to re-review the game either from now or after further bugfix updates (the sound still needs work - enemy footsteps can sound like theyre next to you when they are actually in a different room down a long corridor away) - but compared to some of the hobbled-together tripe i've seen released over the last year for the Vive, this is a genuinely terrifying, beatufully graphiced, and now well-controlled first person survival horror title and it needs FAR more praise than i've seen on the steam reviews here. I still hold my breath when a Syren walks by and I still put up my hands and squeal when they nomm on my face! If you're expecting the AAA level of polish of Alien Isolation then sure you might be disappointed still, but that doesnt stop this being a killer title as far as the Vives current releases go.** **Update as of 17/02/2017 - the graphics issue has been resolved - no more smudge on the lens - can really appreciate the finer details in the environment now. Huge improvement good work Dev!** Hohoho! Ok my opinion switched fast on this one :D Initial reaction was disappointment - as others have said on max graphics settings the games really blurry - classic UE4 issue that i've seen in a few other titles. Manually supersampling will help but obvs if your graphics card is going to struggle with it like mine (980TI) then you just have to make do. But the graphics are actually supersharp for the most part - its just not evident until you get your face right up next to an item. Bizarre but hopefully fixable in an update patch. Controls are really a mess at the moment with too many controls on the thumpads. I found it a lot more playable in teleport movement than in Locomotion movement as it meant i didnt need to worry about trying to use a fire extinguisher in my left hand on the same button as would walk me forward ^_^ Again - update patch required. DESPITE ALL THE ABOVE - this game got me good :D The first "level" (handful of rooms and corridors) took a lot of getting used to due to scripted events requiring specific actions/movements. Also the bug when an enemy scuttles into a vent is hilarious due to her going over the top of the vent and vanishing - Slightly killing the atmosphere :) But as soon as you get to the next level/area (only takes a couple of minutes once you've retried it a few times) you realise theres a lot more mechanics to play around with and the game opens up more. Playing Hide & Seek with creepy chick and using items to distract her was actually the most intensely scared i've been since Alien Isolation! My only advice to fellow purchasers at this point is push on through the first area and see what the game is ACTUALLY like before hastily negatively reviewing it. I haven't got much further into it but what i've seen so far really gave me goosebumps ^^ **Notes below are for the Developer - please fix the graphics blur and controls! Make the trigger button Shoot or Activate the held item. Use the grip button on the side of the controller to pick up items - and make it just a one push to lock the item to your hand and push again to drop the item - nobody likes to hold a button constantly on a required item. You only need to use One of the Top Menu buttons to pick up distant items - the other Menu button could be used to pause the game and bring up ingame options such as graphics settings...and a quit button for if i'm cr*pping my pants :P If Teleport movement has been selected - use the entire thumpad on the controller as a teleport button. Dont put other controls on the thumpad, keep it simple. Especially with the Vive I dont imagine many people will require the left/right buttons to snap the screen left/right - the majority of users will just turn in the physical room. By all means have the option to enable the snap screen movement for less abled gamers - but allow us to disable it in the options.

I am really disappointed to say I cannot recommend this game. Everything about it looked great in the videos! Graphics looked good, environment was underwater which reminded me of Bioshock, it looked like a horror game which I love. So everything looked like it was good to go so what happened? Well first thing is the graphics. While the graphics itself is not the deal breaker, on the highest graphic settings everything was just a blur making it hard to read text and, overall, the blur just made it difficult to feel immersed. Graphics aside there is a fair amount of bugs. From things glitching, being able to see through certain textures and walls, locomotion controls not working like it should, and some others. For the price I was expecting something polished and so far that wasn't what I was getting. So what was the final deal breaker for me, and keep in mind it might just be that I'm an idiot, but I could not figure out what to friggin do. The tutorial gave you a rundown of the controls, but nothing on how to encounter enemies, weapons, what you're objective is, etc. *Possible Spoilers Ahead* So I'm in the first area you start in, alarms are going off, "Evacuate", so "okay let's get the hell out of here". Open a door, put out a fire, end up in a hallway. One end is blocked, no way to get through, the other end has a door I can open, "okay lets open the door". Open the door, mermaid is standing right there, freaks me out, kills me. Start all over thinking maybe I run away from it and try to hide and eventually sneak by? Lets try it. Open the door, there's the mermaid, but it turns out the game prevents you from running away and I die. Okay, so I find something that kinda looks like a weapon thinking maybe I can kill it, I open the door, mermaid kills me again, doesn't work. So I walk around in circles trying to find SOMETHING to help me out and after awhile I find a locked axe. PERFECT! If I find the code I can kill the mermaid with this axe. Find the code, grab the axe, go to the door, open annnnnddd mermaid kills me again... axe did nothing. F*CK!! So what the hell is this axe for?! So I spend another 5 minutes walking around the small area trying to axe things and nothing works. At this point I'm almost 30 minutes in and I'm done. I spent $20 on this game I had high hopes for and I'm not having the slighest bit of fun, and it was so disappointing. So here's the tl;dr: The game is not finished. Graphics need improvement. Bugs need to be fixed. And most importantly I need some kind of idea as to what in the hell I am suppose to do. I can appreciate not holding the players hand, but sometimes there's comes a point where pointing me in the right direction can go a long way.

EDIT: The Dev has seemed to make the graphics at least bearable but still not perfect, the anti aliasing is still dreadful. The game mechanics are a complete joke, there is none. It's complete trial and error to get through a room, no skill or quick thinking involved. The animations are hilariously bad and makes you lose all sense of immersion. The game mechanics need serious work before I would recommend this.

[h1]Syren[/h1] [h1]Gameplay [/h1] Syren is a survival horror game which tasks you with escaping a research facility where everything has gone horribly wrong and there are mermaid cyborgs everywhere hunting you down. That is the basic gist of the game and it doesn’t differentiate much from the formula throughout this horrific journey. Syren is set in an underwater facility with a Bioshock-esque environment and it relies more on building up the environment to tense you up than the actual sirens. When you do confront a syren though, it is always a game of hide and seek. It clearly draws some inspiration from Alien: Isolation and while the Syren AI is not that good, it is servicable. The thing that works for it though is the fact that instead of being chased by one entity, you are being chased by multiple. There are lots of Syrens in the facility and they can kill you at a moment’s notice if they notice you even from a distance. Syren really benefits from the VR system and every encounter feels up close and personal. Using your own skills to peek around and brace yourselves while a Syren is passing is absolutely nerve-wracking and I have to give credit for that. The game does not present you with immersion breaking stuff like inventory or crafting. You are simply present there in the facility and even if you drop something, the Syrens will get alerted of your presence. The few levels which are present in the game itself are pretty nice and they are designed quite well. The game does have a certain lack of levels and you can essentially run through the game once you have figured out the pattern of Syren’s movements. What really lets Syren down are the number of bugs that plague the game. Enemies glitching through rooms, constant pop ins and a number of set sequences all contribute to a frustrating experience. The game might also cause paranoia and dizziness to some and while that might be true for most of the VR game, Syren does make a special case being the genre it is present in. [h1]Visuals[/h1] Syren is visually very impressive. The environments are richly detailed and provide a perfect backdrop for a game like this. The Syren models are also terrifying and while there are some issues, it does its job really well. A number of visual pop ins and some low resolution textures here and there might ruin your experience though but it is nearly impossible to not be impressed by the sheer level of detail present in the levels here. [h1]Sound[/h1] Syren’s gameplay depends a lot on its sound design as you have to guess when and where a Syren might be around. The soundtrack is creepy and lends to the atmosphere of the game really well. The game does an amazing of letting you know your mistakes through the sound design and it is absolutely terrifying when you drop something or hear something loud near you which can attract the Syrens. Overall while the sound design is not phenomal, it is creepy and does the job it sets out to do. [h1]Overall[/h1] Syren might be a tough buy for some people as it is marred by a number of bugs and glitches but for anyone who is looking to properly utilize his or her VR for a scary experience, Syren might be right up your alley. The price is right but it is very buggy in its current state and is quite lacking in content. So, if you are looking for a survival horror game for VR and you are all right with the state of the game then give Syren a try, you won’t be disappointed. [h1]Rating: 60/100 [/h1] This review was brought to you by [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ReviewExperts/]Review Experts[/url] through the generous contribution of [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/danielbink/]Daniël - REX ♥ Gaming[/url]

[u]Positive Merkmale:[/u] [list] [*] Unglaublich packende Atmosphäre [*] Sehr gruselige Grafik und Soundeffekte [*] Gegner besser designt als in den Trailern angenommen [*] Grafik im Nahbereich sehr gut [/list] [u]Negative Merkmale:[/u] [list] [*] Steuerung weder in Locomotion noch Teleport perfekt [*] Einige Bugs (Open-Schilder hängen in Luft, Glitches, man steckt fest) [*] Speicher-Funktion nicht vorhanden, was arg frustriert [*] Waffen liegen falsch in der Hand und fallen oft runter [/list] Syren hat enormes Potential. Die Atmosphäre der Unterwasser-Station ist genial gruselig und es strotzt nur so vor liebevollen Details. Man will sich direkt alles ansehen. Auch ertönen überall gruselige Sounds, was die Stimmung und Spannung steigert. Die Grafik ist im Nahbereich wirklich auch sehr gut gelungen. Leider macht die sehr verschwommene Darstellung ab ca. 4m Entfernung die Immersion etwas kaputt. Ich hatte bereits die Qualität auf hoch gestellt, scheint aber nichts gebracht zu haben. Zudem funktioniert die Locomotion Methode nicht perfekt. Man hängt oft ungewollt fest oder drückt ausversehen aufs Trackpad anstatt es zu berühren und guckt ungewollt in eine andere Richtung. Die Teleport-Funktion hat bei mir erst gar nicht geklappt, was aber daran liegen kann, dass ich es während des Spiel versucht habe umzustellen. Was ich art frustrierend finde, sind die nicht vorhandenen Speicherstände. Man muss immer sehr viel Abschnitte komplett von vorne spielen. Zudem gibt es noch einige Bugs, zB. hängen "open" Schilder in der Luft, die eigentlich mit der Tür zur Seite gehen müsste, oder Sachen glitchen durch die Gegend oder man hängt fest. Wenn man eine Waffe aufsammelt, fühlt es sich an, als wäre sie falsch in der Hand, man meint, sie müsste viel weiter nach oben zeigen. Wenn man den Griff loslässt fallen Gegenstände runter, was auch nervt. Alles in allem aber endlich mal ein atmosphärisches VR-Spiel abseits der lästigen billigen Wave-Shooter, daher gibts von mir eine Daumen nach oben, gefixt werden muss es aber trotzdem noch ein bischen! Ich habe auch ein Let's Play in meinem [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ok91FKp_SAtxhz63Ti3KQ]YouTube-Kanal[/url] aufgenommen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVRSITOsKFc

Okay so Syren is really a mess of a game. It has some positives, it is a functional VR game and has the odd neat idea. But the execution is awful. In fact, it's a mess of good bits and HORRIBLE DESIGN CHOICES that really just leaves me confused about how it exists. It's weird to see how the same dev team could produce the highs, and the lows at the same time. I'm going to release a series of videos playing through (in short form, hopping from greivance to greivance). The first part is available here which gives some context to the state of the game on release (note: not Early Access, full release!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HvYmDKokWI&feature=youtu.be However, for anyone who is looking for proper criticism right now, here you go: The mermaids are not scary, their AI is bad, the way they interact with you is awful (if you are being chased and they get within a certain range the game freezes you, regardless of whether or not you die, or if they are running into a wall for eternity). I literally fed my face to mermaids a few times because the game had decided they had me, even when they didn't. I had to restart at least once because the mermaid who caught me was led on the ground dead, unable to get me. On top of this, the level design is atrocious. There are a few things you can do to feel like McGuyver but they aren't the simplest answer and most of the time bee-lining through a level is the best thing to do. The game is short, about 2 hours maybe? It will vary wildly depending on how much luck you have with bugs and how much credit you give the AI (read: don't, figure it out and the game will become boring and trivial), and doing things the way the developers wanted you to. On a re-run yes it could be beaten in maybe 30-40 minutes but you'd still need a pinch of luck. All in all this is a horrible game. It's overpriced. It has some redeeming qualities and I'd forgive it if it came out a year ago and cost half as much. That would have been a positive experience. Instead it was only enjoyable to uncover the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ design choices and laziness and talk about it for entertainment purposes. I don't know if they just got lazy part way in or what, but I don't see how they could in good conscience call this game done and ask as much £££ as they have for the privilege of playing their buggy, unpolished game.

bien he jugado no mucho tiempo, pero no hay ganas de ver mucho mas, muy mala calidad grafica aun que la pongas en High, el movimiento por teletransporte no anda muy bien, el sistema de disparo bastante malo, ya que a mas tienes que aguantar el boton inferior todo el rato agarrado para que no se caiga el arma, (no se si abra otro sistema de agarre). Al poco de jugar se colgo el juego y tube que reiniciar tola la aplicacion, no os gasteis los 19,90€ ni locos, con un tonto que pique ya hay bastante :)

I really wanted to like Syren. This could have been the modern Alien Isolation VR. Its great that the Dev included touch pad locomotion and has included an Ultra graphics setting after feeback from the community. The control system is a mess (using HTC Vive). Gripping and holding with the trigger and pressing the top of the thumb pad just isn't natural. Holding and using a gun in the gun range is like holding a torch in reality and is uncomfortable and immersion breaking. Anything held collides with the scenery although there are some nice touches such as text can be scrolled on monitors or you can hide in the lockers. Graphics even at Ultra settings still look 'smudged' and are no where near the quality of the trailers. The Syren's themsleves are poorly detailed and animated as its like being attacked by a shop dummy. I really really wanted this game to be the 'hide em up' I was craving. Please Devs, make it as good as the trailers and throw in some decent controls.

If I could choose 'maybe later' as a recommendation I would. I bought the game but haven't played much of it, because the controls completely ruin it for me, I just can't stand them and it actually turns me off to the whole game. Trigger to pick up an object like a gun, and up on the touchpad to shoot, and when I played the gun was in an incredibly awkward position. Bad: Controls are so bad I can't get over them long enough to play 30 minutes of this game Good: The developers appear to be fixing bugs incredibly fast, these issues will likely not hold them back for long.