SiN Episodes: Emergence

"Would have been a 9 but...."

Ah, Sin. The land of mutants, drugs, and well-endowed villainesses. In other words, much like any summer music festival except that you have a gun.

For those who are unfamiliar with the game, Sin was originally released October 1998. It was a great shooter with a few innovations to the genre and plenty of atmosphere and character with the story revolving around John Blade's struggle to bring down Elexis Sinclaire, the top-heavy CEO of Sintek and self-proclaimed "Mother Nature".

It was also a shooter with a problem as the developers, Ritual, were faced with the fact that a game known as Half-Life was also on the way and, even before it's release, Half-Life was expected to be huge. Faced with the impending Half-Life juggernaut, the decision was made to rush this game to market in order to avoid being trampled underfoot. Unfortunately, in the rush to get it to market, some glaring bugs were left in the game. Even with a patch released one month later, the damage was done and Sin faded into obscurity with only one expansion pack and a story-related anime to mark it's passing.

However, the game developed enough of a cult following for Ritual to release a sequel or, more appropriately, 1/9th of a sequel. In an ironic twist, Ritual has turned to the same people who trampled their first game in order to utilize the Steam network to deliver the first episode in what is a planned nine episode sequel called Sin Episodes.

So how did the first episode, Emergence, fare?

Story As the game starts, Sintek has grown even more powerful than it was in the previous games with the company even able to institute it's own zones in Freeport City which are wholly under Sintek control. At the beginning, John Blade has been captured by Elexis Sinclaire and her flunky (?) Raddick. He is rescued by series newcomer Jessica Cannon but not before he is injected with something mysterious. So Blade and Jessica set off to take down Raddick and recover the antidote for whatever is in Blade's veins.

This is difficult to grade as this is the first of nine scheduled episodes, making this episode essentially a big introduction with many elements of the story intentionally left in the dark or subject to interpretation. As of this writing, there isn't a manual available through Steam for background information so those who haven't played the original may be missing out on some minor points. However, these points are minor and not integral to enjoying this game. What we have of the story is fleshed out well enough and gives the player the rationale for why he is slaughtering a small army but those who are buying this should be aware that, being the first episode in a nine episode game, very little will be tied up at the end of the episode. While this does not bother me, this may bother others. Therefore, I will not give the story any form of grade at this time.

Graphics As this game is being released at a time when the next wave of new consoles are making their appearance, indeed to the point that Emergence was released during the week of the 2006 E3, many have said that the graphics seem disappointing. I disagree with this assessment. The graphics for this game are actually quite good. While they do not measure up to the next-generation wonders that are being displayed at E3, they more than hold their own against the games that are currently on the market. With the exception of one object near the end of the game which looks like it was just hastily doodled onto a storyboard and slapped into the game, plenty of detail and color illustrate the world of Sin.

Graphics = High 8.

Sound and music With the exception of the intro, the music is ..... there. It is effective in signaling the beginning of a high intensity situation but there is nothing particularly memorable. Further, in some of the later areas where you have to proceed more cautiously, the music will fade before you have eliminated all your opponents.

Sound is serviceable in the early part of the game as NPCs deliver their lines, enemies die with either satisfying thumps or juicy explosions, and phone services deliver their easter egg lines. In the second half of the game, sound becomes an integral part of dealing with chain gun soldiers. This places a greater emphasis on avoiding grenades or explosives as, not only will you lose a chunk of health but you will lose one of the greatest assets you have in surviving those encounters. In future episodes, I hope Ritual makes more use of sound as a survival asset.

All in all, sound and music = 7.

Gameplay The most important aspect of an FPS is the gameplay and Ritual does not disappoint. One of the selling points of this game that Ritual heavily emphasized is an adaptive AI not unlike Max Paine's but more advanced. This means that, the better you do, the better the game will do. Not only would this affect things such as accuracy but it would also alter it's AI to cope with your tactics. As an example, if you continue to deal out headshots, your enemies will increasingly wear helmets. If you rely on the game's explosive environmental hazards, the AI will adjust by having your enemies keep their distance from anything that can be detonated. Ritual boasted that they took two members of their team, one who was inexperienced in FPS games and one who was a hardcore FPS gamer, and had them both play the game with a timer. Due to the adaptive AI, the hardcore gamer finished only minutes before the newbie. Having played the game, I can say that Ritual delivered on their promise admirably. The AI truly does live up to the expectations that were set for it. This makes for a game that never felt too overwhelming or underwhelming in it's difficulty.

Like all good things, this does have one flaw in it. When you start the game, there are two sliders which adjust difficulty. The first slider, which determines initial level of gameplay, becomes almost meaningless as the game continues and it adjusts to your skill set. I played it once through on the lowest setting and I played through part of the game twice more on differing difficulties and the difficulty would eventually level out to roughly the same ability level each time. This is great for people who like a challenge that is suited for them but, for people who just want to breeze through the game just to see the story, this could be frustrating. The only way to mitigate this is with the second slider which determines how quickly the game starts easing off if you get stuck in an area where the enemy is mauling you. This can be set from Quickly for those who don't want to be stuck in an area too long to Never for those who have a serious death wish.

The only thing that drags this game down in the gameplay department is that there is the occasional clipping error, mostly around doorways. While these aren't huge errors, they can lead to a cheap death if, during a firefight, you try to get through a doorway to avoid a grenade and you get stuck. The worst of these errors has to deal with a section in the game where you have to get into a car to pursue Raddick. The first time that this happened was a hindrance but there was one point where the car had both passenger side doors blown off and it would not let me enter the car. I finally had to stand on the roof of the car, point my crosshair at the passenger side and click around to be let in the car. This issue is made worse because there is a point where you will want to exit the car quickly. The first time, Blade just kept popping in and out of the car until he was killed. After a couple tries, I learned how to position myself correctly and to anticipate when I had to get out of the car so I wouldn't be a sitting duck. While these issues may be addressed in episode two (Ritual has promised that subsequent episodes will also provide fixes for issues with previous episodes) if not in an earlier patch, this does drag the gameplay down to a 9.

So why not a 9? In my opinion, this game would earn an 8.7 which would round up to a 9. However, there are two other factors that need to be considered.

The first is that this is the first of nine episodes. This game is, in many ways, an experiment in whether episodic content will work. There are currently many debates going on with whether this approach is a good one or not. Detractors point out that you can buy an entire game for $50 while Sin: episodes, barring a price drop in later installments or a change in the number of episodes, will cost $180. Supporters point out that, at roughly 6 hours of gameplay an episode, the ratio of dollar amount per hour of gameplay equals or surpasses the $50 shooter in entertainment value. At the time of this review, it has yet to be seen whether episodic content will turn out to be the next big thing in how we play our games or if it will turn out to be another failed experiment. I am not bothered by this but I am aware that it greatly bothers others. Given the uncertain future of episodic content, this point is here only for reference and has no bearing on my score at all.

The second is the game's reliance on Steam. Even if you buy the game at retail, you must install Steam, register the game with Steam, and download files to unlock the game. Further, even if you make a backup through Steam of the game, any future reinstalls of the game will still necessitate a functional internet connection, Steam, and your username and password for Steam. While Valve sees this as necessary to prevent piracy, I find this type of protection scheme to be both invasive and almost a draconian way of punishing their customers for buying their game. The main reason that I bought this game through retail is I have a dislike of programs such as Starforce or Steam installing themselves on to my computer before I can play a game. While Steam isn't as bad as Starforce in that the game is upfront about having to install their program, I cannot, in good faith, avoid taking such invasive copy protection schemes into account when rating a game. This lowers my final score to a seven.

Final Score = 7

Verdict:

Sin Episodes is a great way to start off the episodic content experiment but, more importantly, it is a great game that is marred only by it's clipping errors and an invasive copy protection scheme. If Steam or the concept of episodic content does not hinder your enjoyment of a game, I would encourage all FPS fans to look into this. At roughly $20, this game is well worth your time. Remember to stick around for the end of the credits for a few comedic clips, some of which were deliberate and others which genuinely sound like errors during the voice acting sessions.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/11/06