SYREN

I like this game. Graphics look great. Hide n seek while you explore the space station works well in VR.
Slightly scary but more tense with scare weapons/ammo.
Feels like a real game.

This game is good (for the time it was made) and was enjoyable in the end. But the controls are done very awkwardly. They do have grip toggle now which makes holding the axe and guns better but you can't throw objects when in that mode. Therefore, what I did was use toggle grip when I had to do the levels with guns and turned it off when I did the levels that needed stealth. Now if you have a gun in non toggle grip mode when you hold the gun you have to hold trigger and shoot with track pad which is dopey. Now you understand why I did what I did. If you have a large play space it is super immersive as you can literally walk/crawl behind the syrens quietly with your own body which is exillerating. It was like really being there and with the tension. Basically you can throw things to distract the Syrens, kill or hurt them if you have weapons which are hard to come by or die if they see you. :-) . I am not sure if chapter 2 was included with what I played which I doubt as there was no shooter mode as far as I noticed. Regardless of that fact if you get this on sale I think you can get some enjoyment out of it and also have a decent horror/thriller game to play at parties or showing off VR to friends if you show them how to do the controls like I explained. It does seem like this is the final release but none the less I recommend it on sale only. My rating 6/10. Mainly because of the controls and lack of further develoment. There is an ending to the game so this part is finished.

One further suggestion: When you first start the game and if you want to do the tutorial choose smooth walking first because I think the tutorial is broken for the teleport mode. And for the tutorial choose toggle grip so you can shoot the guns "normally". Haha. Then switch back to the other modes if you want to use them. Remember you can't effectively throw stuff in toggle grip mode. It just drops stuff out of your hand if you try to throw. Still with all these quirks on sale I think you should not pass up this experience if you like tension thrillers/horror stealth games.

First play video here if you want to see the full playthrough. There is a lot of trial and error in it. Not edited. The spoiler is at the end so if you don't want to know what happens then don't watch the last 10 minutes. Thanks and enjoy. :-)
https://youtu.be/Qd5aOFOIP18?t=323

I thought and hoped that the criticism of the control system was nit-picking and overdone.

Not so. It is ludicrously unmanageable and because of this, the game becomes a chore rather than fun. And that is wrong.

Add to that the fact that it runs as slow as a Facebook user's brain on a top end system and you have a recipe for disappointment.

This isn't a bad game. I just cannot wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone when there are other similarly priced and more engrossing "horror" vr experiences. The game's length comes from a lot of trial and error time figuring out to get passed the siren(s) in a scene, reloading scenes and repeating the same actions to get to the encounters that are in each scene if you fail anywhere along the way.

I feel like this game could've been better if there was a more 1:1 relationship with physical roomscale interactivity. Perhaps it's just a limitation of current vr technology that leaves me feeling like I'm just clicking around a scene rather than being in it. I frequently found myself teleporting into spots that would cause my headset to go black because I'd end up in a wall.

I think there are other vr games that are more immersive. There may be potential here, but i wouldn't fault anyone for not wanting to spend a lot of time finding it here.

There are so many "horror" games out on Steam atm. Some are good and some are bad. Syren actually is one of the better as it does one thing most other horror games don't: You get chased. Not only are there jumpscares, but the these creatures actually chase you, which is extremly stressful in VR.

Graphics are good and the puzzles are pretty easy (but honestly, that's a good thing). You advance quick in the game and don't get stuck and frustrated.

The ambience is scary as soon as you exit the starting area. As most games in VR uses either trigger or grip buttons to pick up objects, this game uses the trigger. Which feels pretty normal.

In general, this is a very scary experience. We play a lot of horror and this is maybe top 3 of the scariest we have played so far: Just because of the fact that you need to sneak, and if you get spotted, you will be chased. And running forward in VR hearing something behind you chasing you is a new experience in VR, at least for us. That is why this game feels fun and in a sense: "innovative".

We liked it!

Watch us play: https://youtu.be/Pnok0Nhw3OM

Bought this today 2/22/17 - So based on the early reviews, I was worried about wasting my money. However, I decided to take a leap because they just patched the game this week. So here is my review...

Game Settings - I picked ultra graphics (looks amazing if you can run it!) Then I chose the left touchpad locomotion because im sick of teleporting around in other games. This set speed is calibrated just right so i didnt get any motion sickness. Great job there!

Tutorial - Very helpful! Got through that in just a couple minutes and everytihng is easy to understand. The only complaint I have was with how the character holds the guns as I have to tilt my wrist forward to aim. A more natural pistol grip angle would be prefered.

Level 1 - (No Spoilers Here) Looks amazing, once again remind you that I selected left touchpad locomotion. It works great as you only need to gently touch it (it is sensitive so takes some getting used to) Getting through level 1 takes a bit of problem solving, so dont give up. I would compare this to Alien Isolation style of gameplay.

Level 2 - Evasion tactics work. After I died twice and got the crap scared outa me, I had to write a review because this is a high quality VR game.

Problems - My game did crash twice after I broke some items with my axe. Other than that, I look forward to playing the rest of it.

Enjoy!

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.

This game is dead now, but I saw that I had left a positive review and... well, I felt I needed to change it.

I was wowed by the detailed and well modelled enviroments and the gameplay which is remenicent of Alien: Isolation which is one of my most favorite survival horror games of all time. However, the game has too many issues to overlook. The first is its length, it is VERY short. It took me only 2 hours to complete the main game, and that was with taking it slow, exploring around ect. I could easily imagine someone speed runnning this in 10 minutes. The second is its AI, it is very basic and rough, which shows and leaves a lot to be desired. Following pre-programmed paths that are easily avoided once figured out. The third is its pacing and mechanics, due to its very short length, this is a given. It literally springs a boss battle on you out of nowhere, which ends as quickly as it begins. Not only that but the first syren you meet, you need to hit it in the face with the hatchet. This is highly unintuative, with many players never figuring out you need to do this, and you never do it again for the whole game. The ending of the main game and the update are poor, either just killing you off in a cutscene or leaving you on an cliffhanger. In both cases, you will be pissed at how unsatisfactory these colnclusions are.

The 'update' is a bad joke, and just made us all wander through the same, four small cramped levels again but with guns this time, completely ditching the survival horror (because I know I buy survival horror games for the rambo style action!).

What makes this all the more painful is that the concept for this game is original gold dust, the setting is fairly unique (besides bioshock and soma, who else has done underwater facilties well?) and the enemies interesting. I would like to see the devs return to this and make an actual game, but after all this time I seriously doubt they will.

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 bullshit 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.

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.

Love this game, i just have one major issue with the contols.

Holding down the triggers to hold an items, really need to utilize grip buttons

The issue with this is you cant aim properly and really have to bend your wrist in a silly position to aim and after a minute you start to loose your grip.

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.

please..for the love of god holding down the trigger to hold an item kills me..
-utilize grip buttons. -get rid of turning on trackpad - make trackpad teleport only

Im ok with graphics
- wish there were more things i could interact with in the environment. at times I felt like i should have been able to grab or interact with something and my hand goes through it. sad panda face

- something about the sound seems just a bit off..cant name it but its off

no direction starting off..which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your tastes.
Found myself dying to first 2 encounters, then hitting dead ends.. kinda got bored of
the creepy chick eating my face. She seemed to spot me pretty easily. Would have liked
5 minutes of exploring the world and maybe a checkpoint before getting my ass handed to me
over and over again.

TL:DR
Trailer looks really good in hindsight.. was expecting a little more
Probably wont put much time into this.
Might be good grab if its on sale...

The display won't mirror to the monitor. Just a black screen with audio. Tried fudging it with the display mirror but the audio cuts when the main app is running in the background. Headset seems to operate fine. Play on the vive with friends and family all of the time though. Kind of a major bummer for me.

EDIT

It's fixed. Thanks devs!

Honest review from Vrsteppers
My system:
No problems with Vive hardware. Good setup and roomscale and good pc hardware.
I ran Syren on High Graphic setting.

General:
This is truly a great game. Truly! I guess the patches the devs deployed "extremely quickly by the way!" fixed all previous complaints that people had. Because, apart from a few minor glitches, hardly even worth mentioning, this game scared the living Gargamel out of me.
As for now I have played almost an hour and a half and came across NO PROBLEMS! You hear me? NO PROBLEMS!
This came should be bought, played and treasured. At least if you like puzzle and to wear a diaper! ;)

The game is a puzzle and sneaky-sneaky game. If you like boom boom fast action "HAHA! I m coming for you!" games only this might not be for you. On the other hand, in VR, this might be! Always try a new genre!

The graphic is awesome. Really! And the monsters so far are freaky as hell. But I just found a gun i think, so it´s my turn to laugh! HAHAHA! eh..

The controllers are great! Nothing wierd there at all. I like that you drop things when you relax IRL. Also, the double grip press; Good one devs! Thank you for thinking about us! ;)

So, just ignore the bad comments. Buy this game. Get it. play it and remember to not make a sound.

"I have never talked to these devs. I have not gotten this game for free. I am not an affiliate of any kind and /or family.
I might be a bit biased though, naked monster chicks? Okeydokey!"

Tried it and couldn't get past the problems. Game is not finished is what I can say. Its another vr with alot of potential but is rushed out the door. More time spent could have made this great. It definitely has the vibe of alien isolation which is awesome but again its just not finished. A.I spawn random in front of you for immediate death thats unavoidable and have to start over. Clipping through walls when locomotion because I hate teleporting. Bad textures unless you use ultra settings. Dont even try anything below like many have said its super blurry without it making it almost unplayable or enjoyable.

Again more time spent and these coulda have been a great vr title.

Were all craving vr content but we all don't need a bad game too.

**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've only put about 15 minutes into this game so far. After reading a fairly glowing review on upload I was like,. well this is a shoe in for my library! I'm pretty dissapointed thus far. at the highest graphics setting it's still blurry AF. the locomotion gets caught in weird places,. if you try the shooting range thing in the tutorial that has to be the most awkward way to hold a gun ever since you have to keep the trigger held down or you will drop the gun,. then point the vive controller like a wand and fire with the thumb pad... wtf,.. it's really buggy right now as well. like the open sign on the door just hanging in space after the door opens. it just feels very unpolished. for 20 bucks I was expecting polish. hopefully they will release some patches, optimize the graphics,. this could be a great game but in the state it's in now I wouldn't reccomend people spendingt 20 bucks on it.

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.

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.