Review: SiN Episodes: Emergence

May 23rd, 2006 by Matt Stone in News

The original SiN game came out at about the same time as Half Life, in 1997. And as Half Life stole all the attention, not much was left for SiN, witch was a mediocre game, all things considered. Now the first of several episodes has been released via Steam, and sports a few hours of game play for roughly $20. But is it worth it?

In SiN: Episodes, you continue the role as police officer Colonel John R. Blade, fighting crime in the futuristic Freeport City. I won’t go into details about the story, mainly because the details are quite sparse, and also because while it only lasts a few hours, I don’t want to ruin it for you.

The game is played like a typical FPS and features some quite impressive A.I. The enemies will try to hide from you, surprise you and group together. The A.I. adjusts after how well you perform in the game, but you can manually adjust the settings as well. Since most of the action is “run and gun/fast reflex shooting.” veteran FPS players should complete the first episode in around 3-4 hours.

SiN Episodes uses Valve’s award winning Source engine, and it does look pretty good. The problem is, it looks too much like Half Life 2, and occasionally it feels like a third party mod, not a complete production. The physics are the same as other Source powered games, very good, and contribute positively to the overall game play. It should be said that while the game uses the Source engine, it does not feature any HDR (high dynamic range) rendering, which I was a bit disappointed with.

The audio is what you expect, sounds are spot on and the music is great. There aren’t many cut scenes to interrupt the fast paced game play either. The weapons, while there are only three in the game (pistol, submachine gun and shotgun) all sound good and look realistic.

SiN Episode 1: Emergence, at its low price and solid game play, definitely offers something for the money. It even includes the 1997 game for free. Perhaps more weapons would give the game more diversity, and a longer storyline would be appreciated. The worst thing, if you would put it that way, is that the game feels like Half Life 2 a lot of the way. Certain sounds, explosions, enemy movement etc. are just like Half Life 2.

Overall, a decent game that will keep you busy until Half Life 2: Episode 1, Prey or Hitman: Blood Money come out this summer.

Final score: 5/10

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