The "original SiN"...

When you look back at FPS PC gaming in 1998, most people will mention "Half Life" and that's it.
But there was another game, that was quite fun, and fairly successful: SiN.

Mind you, the publisher did everything they could to make SiN ~less~ popular. Like rushing it out, to beat Half Life to market. And yes, there were bugs in the game. Lots of bugs. More bugs than the London Museum of Etomology.

Levels took FOREVER to load. Sounds wouldn't play. Playing the un-patched version of SiN was hi-tech torture. But for those of us who played the patched version - it was excellent.

Levels were interesting... the "bank" actually felt like a "bank"! The weapons were great.. There was tonnes of interactivity... hack into computers using a "dos-like" program.. drive a forklift around... There were easter eggs galore, and the characters actually had... "character"! Being Blade was fun, JC was an amusing/useful smartass, and you REALLY wanted to stop that evil Elexis Sinclaire.

The return of "SiN"...

In 2006, Ritual released "Emergence"... the first of a number of planned "SiN Episodes". The story is set some time after the events portrayed in the original game, and the main characters are back, for more.

Comparing the game to it's predecessor... Graphics, sounds & level complexity have all leapt forward, thanks to Valve's Source engine. And surely that would mean that Sin: Emergence would get a bit of that HL2 magic, wouldn't it?

Well, kind-of.

Sin:Emergence begins with a HL2-style "interactive intro". And immediately, we experience the feeling of "2 steps forward, 1 step back". The first thing we see, is Elexis Sinclaire's huge, jiggling breasts. And that's not a player choice. John Blade has been strapped to a table, and Elexis' ample assets are dangled over your eyeballs for most of the initial scene.

Immediately, I got the feeling of "hmm, that wasn't really necessary"... and it's a feeling that crops up throughout this game. Later in the intro, in a "drug induced moment" we have a vision of Elexis in a bikini. It's something that appeared as an easter egg in the original game IF YOU WENT AND LOOKED FOR IT. But Sin:Emergence gives you a full-screen soft-porn scene, that's VERY hard to explain to your "other half". It's nothing worse than the 2005 film "Into the Blue" - but it simply doesn't belong.

Soon, the introduction is over, and we're into the game itself. A new character, Jessica spends some of the game with us, in the manner of Alyx from Half Life 2. Jessica's character doesn't have the depth of her more famous "cousin" though, even if she is a bit more useful. (At one stage, she drives a car while we take out baddies, through the sunroof.)

If you love having lots of weapons in your FPS "pantry", then Sin:Emergence will be very disappointing. There are 3 guns.. yes 3.. although each one has dual-modes, thankfully. The pistol has a very interesting secondary fire mode that looks like the bullets in some scenes of "The Matrix", and you also have timed grenades that produce a very satisfying fire effect.

Levels are interesting, with believable locations. Factories, a huge supertanker, and a modern skyscraper are just a few of the places you'll visit. There are some incredible vistas later in the game, as you climb "Supremacy Tower", and the scenes around the harbour are also beautiful. But - that brings me to another disappointment. Each level has a number of "secrets" to be found (usually a box of health & ammunition). But most of the ~underwater~ secrets are EXACTLY the same.. a strange fish creature. It looks like a placeholder.. something they'd put there while they were building the map, and it does absolutely nothing. This might be acceptable once, but I found at least 3 or 4 of these stupid "placeholder fish". And it started me feeling ripped off.

The enemies populating the levels have average intelligence. They look good, and they have lots to say in battle, which makes them quite believable. But I don't understand why the deaths have to be so graphic. Headshots leave a very realistic mess on the ground, and the heavy chaingunners explode in a very gruesome manner. Then there's the 2 "boss" enemies - they really give you a good challenge. Speaking of challenge, SiN:Emergence features a new "dynamic difficulty" system that is designed to give players of all skill levels a good experience. It's hard to analyse it, as an individual player... but it seems like a great idea.

As I mentioned earlier, the experience of playing Sin:Emergence is very much "2 steps forward, 1 step back". The levels are full of humour.. there's posters with messages like "pipes.. they're the new crate!", and vending machines that say "Grape Juice.. Ninjas love it, and so should you!" Yet there are also pseudo-phone booths everywhere, which play "radio ads" when you input a 4 digit code. The codes appear throughout the levels, but who can be bothered to keep writing them down? To me, it just seemed like a clumsy cross between the "wacky ads" heard in GTA3 & the diary entries you had to endure in Doom 3. And then - there were bugs. Like Jessica calling me on the "long distance intercom", even though she's standing near me. That's embarrasing.

I enjoyed playing Sin:Emergence: there's some fun and creative elements in it. But sadly, quite a few disappointments.

I'd love to send my feedback to Ritual Entertainment, to improve SiN:Episode 2. But Ritual has now been bought out by MumboJumbo - a casual games company. And casual games have as much to do with FPS games, as "elephants" have to do with "pineapples".

On the Staypuft scale, Sin:Emergence gets a 3 out of 5.

Learning Curve: Takes a second

Was this review helpful?