SiN Episodes: Emergence

With all the build-up, I was expecting something at least as good as F.E.A.R or even Quake 4, but sadly this was not the case. I paid over $40.00 being in Australia and with not much in the way of FPS games coming out this was the one big hope. However I wont make the mistake I did with my F.E.A.R review and give it a dismal rating without playing the full game. From what I have seen so far it,s not bad but not great either. The opening Cut-scene with the Amply endowed Alexis had me hoping for more!! There were the usual physics (Havoc) engine, toys to play with but at times Glitchy and Laggy, and may I add a total crash to the bargain! As mentioned before I only use top end Hardware, so it,s not as if my PC cant handle the pace. I,m expecting more updates form Ritual any minute now. I was however surprised to see a flying man in a Jetpack (CIRCA 1975). That is something no-one has thought of before. The pistol is getting a little boring and why the AI just stand there waiting to be plugged is beyond me. But I still (as I said) haven't played to the end, so stand by for the final comment. It may (I hope) get better. OK I've now played the entire episode. As I've said before, way too short especially for the price I paid for it! However it was quite enjoyable. I liked the amount of ammo you find along the way but I restarted it because it was to easy. Even in a harder mode I got thru it rather quickly. You get a sliding scale of how hard you want it to be so my advice is to set it on "Hardest". It ran quite well on my upper end PC with moments of lag at some full-on moments. I,m ready to play more but with the price, I,m not quite sure. Definitely worth looking at and nice but easy to work out puzzles. I give it 8/10 for enjoyment but nothing really original (except for flying jet-pack guys).With the amount of revenue Ritual will make from SIN Emergence, let's hope they put some back into the next episode to make it a truly re-playable experience.Good try guys, lets see some..well anything challenging and original.

The Half-Life 2 Source engine - rock solid and eye-candy galore! It's old school shooter - the best genre in gaming. Nothing new, just a compilation and upgrade of some of the best things done to date. Play enough shooters and you'll know exactly where everything came from - but that doesn't really matter, they're all that way now. Lots of fun shooting the guys with the jet packs - hit them a few times and their jet packs catch on fire and watch them spin around screaming to their deaths.

It's also nice to have a pretty girl fighting alongside you from time to time and to keep you company - the role is almost identical to Alex of Half-Life 2. Overall a very enjoyable experience.

Only glitches are some occasional clipping and many times the AI is NOT very intelligent. But that's OK - you are busy enough fighting everything that is thrown at you throughout the game.

I really LOVE the highly clever and sarcastic advertising and announcements made while in the Sintek offices. You'll know what I mean the first time you encounter the soft-drink machines.

Voice acting and soundtrack are VERY good and the theme song is exceptional! I also love the extremely detailed stats screen that you can pull up anytime. Nice to know how you're doing.

-Glenn

Over all any fan of half-life will enjoy this game. Ignoring the the irony that ritual and valve were rivals for the original releases of their games the steam release is a great idea. Only $20 and you don't have to pay for a box or shipping. The game it self is stunning as I've come to expect from source. Graphics, physics, character models, all are top end. I use a fairly high end machine but even my friends old laptop can run it at low quality, the flexibility is amazing and the stability is rock solid, I played right through without a crash (better than counter-strike source). The game starts some indeterminate amount of time after the first one (though Cannon's still a rookie so it can't be too long) And you, as Blade, are right back in the thick of things with Sinclair and, a new baddie, Radek. the plot is fairly straight forward, (though this is only the first episode) but there are hints of a deeper story, especially with Cannon's apparent familiarity with Radek. The game play is a nice cross between half-life's puzzles and SiN original's massive firefights (depending on what settings your on). My biggest complaint with game play is that Blade's a big huge guy who can pick up and throw 10 gallon drums of fuel but can't hold onto an assault rifle on full auto? The limit of 3 weapons keeps things nice and simple and would make for a good multiplayer, something similar to UT's assault maps perhaps.

The original action-packed FPS "SiN" was a truly groundbreaking game of it's time; featuring real-world locations, tight controls, a damage system that targets specific parts of enemies,a sexy villain and much more. However, it was sadly overshadowed by the critically acclaimed Half-Life. Then came the expansion pack, Wages of SiN, that continues the adventures of John R. Blade, as he fights Gianni Manero, a mob boss that is trying to take over Freeport City with his army of mercenaries and mutants in Elexis Sinclaire's absence. Though, it's only 3 hours long, it at least satisfied the appetites of fans of the series.

Now comes SiN: Episodes. The game was released on the promise of more stories to come in the future. Many plot points are strongly hinted at throughout the game, such as Jessica Cannon's mysterious connection with secondary antagonist Victor Radek, the whereabouts of Elexis Sinclaire, and her plans for Blade, but sadly they are to remain unresolved since Ritual Entertainment, the creators of the series, went bust several years ago. A reboot of the series was planned at some point, but it remains to be seen whether or not to be in progress. With so much potential for a franchise utterly gutted, I was left(among with many fans) cold.

Despite being the only episode released thus far, Emergence has a lot of good things going for it. The controls are tight, gameplay is challenging, the graphics are nice, crisp, and decent, and the sound and voice acting is top-notch; the major gripes being that the SP campaign is too short, not a lot of enemy variety, and only 3 weapons to carry. In one of the later levels, you get to see Freeport City with VERY strong hints that exploration of the city(for the first time in the series) would be possible. But due to Ritual now being a casual games company, sadly such possibilities are dead in the water. As for the story, it's very comic-bookie in nature, with a dash of Robocop and Demolition Man, with some funny social satire jabs at corporatism and big business. Had the series continued, we might've gotten a deeper perspective of Freeport City and the main characters as well. If Lara Croft can get a well-deserved and more refined revival, then so can John R. Blade; a relatively obscured hero of the FPS genre whose presence is strengthened by the charismatic, yet ruthless dark-haired Elexis Sinclaire, a combination of brains and beauty that is without a doubt, a PERFECT match for Blade.

Having played this on PC, I gotta say, for what it is, it's a fun shooter. It's a real shame that it should've been a true sequel to one of my favorite FPS. With a full sequel, the world of John R. Blade, would've been fully fleshed out and more coherent(how Blade was captured by Sinclaire remains unclear)with more variety; especially with the enemies and locations to fight in. I haven't played Half-Life yet, but from what I heard, it's a fantastic game that SiN equally should've gotten the praise and admiration that it deserves. Still, it's cool to play as a bad-ass action hero blasting mutants like nobody's business and SiN fits that role perfectly.

"This game is just another Half-Life 2 clone." Which is a pretty sad comment, considering that HL2 sucks noodles. I'm not complaining about the Havoc engine, the graphics are fine and I had only a few glitches I can think of and no crashes. But the point is that the game has lost its style, along with the superb atmosphere of its predecessor. At least for me, it's the most important thing - and it went down the drain. No more snappy dialogs between Blade and J.C., no more funny notes, inventive secrets or remarkable locations. What you get in return is the possibility to move things around - wow.... For Christ's sake, this is supposed to be a shooter where you should BLOW things up, not mess around with them! So the only positive thing left is the sound. Zak Belica did a great job with the music, especially with the song "What's the World Come To", performed by Sarah Ravenscroft. Somewhat disappointed were the dialogs of Blade(Eric Mills) and J.C.(Billy O'Sullivan). Blade sounds as good as ever, but has only a few lines, which I also consider a major drawback of the game. J.C.'s voice sounds a little "uninspired" to me. And now the best part: the voice acting of Jen Taylor. Now this is what I call a beautiful voice! Never heard it before, though she did voice acting for quite a few games. Again, great compliment to her. And, of course, Hannah Logan. We all know her from the original game, so I expected nothing less than flawless performance. Bottom line is: without Zac Belica's music, Hannah Logan's and Jen Taylor's sexy voices, I wouldn't bother to play it again.