“SiN Episodes: Emergence” review
by Calmer Llama on Mar.19, 2010, under PC Game Reviews
| Game: SiN Episodes: Emergence Developer: Ritual Entertainment |
The world of SiN returns once more … this time in episodic format! Is Colonel John Blade still Ritual Entertainment’s answer to Duke Nukem?
It’s been eight years since we last heard from Colonel John Blade and HARDCORPS, his elite force of crime-fighting commandos in the original SiN first person shooter. Now, they’re back once more; hot on the heels of their arch nemesis and CEO of SinTek Corporation, Elexis Sinclaire. Blade discovers that she and her henchmen have malevolent plans for humanity and it’s up to him and his mayhem inducing persona to discover what’s afoot. Of course, its going to take sometime to discover just what those machinations are because Ritual Entertainment have decided to release the entire story in episodic format via both commercial outlets and the Steam content delivery system, similar to the upcoming Half Life 2 episodes. It is envisaged that around nine episodes, released twice yearly will bring the entire story to a close; I suspect gamers are going to have a hard time waiting four years to discover the secrets behind Elexis’ scheming.
HARDCORPS still patrols the detailed environs of Freeport but the city has received an impressive facelift with Valve’s Source engine driving the visually stunning settings the player will be experiencing. There is less urban decay than the grittier world of Half Life 2 which gives the game more of its own unique flavour. In any case, its light-years ahead of the original SiN title, which comes bundled with the game and shows just how far graphics and sound have come since the late 90’s.
The story is played out within in-game cut scenes as well as traditional game play. Fortunately, Blade has some able assistance in this latest saga with the return of the hacking wunderkind J.C. as well as the addition of a new gun-toting sidekick, Jessica. While J.C. continues to loiter around the HARDCORPS base offering assistance breaking through security systems, Jessica makes her physical presence felt during a number of in-game sequences, similar to Alyx in Half Life 2. As for the character models, lets just say that the developers are fully aware that sex sells. Jessica’s idea of regulation work attire consists of skin-tight pants with a exposed G-string strap high up her waist; and the less said about Elexis’ scantily clad body in one cut scene (complete with enhanced breast wobbling), the better. Speaking of in-game physics, the HAVOK physics engine continues to impress with its implementation of friction, inertia and motion of objects; when an enemy grenade goes off and knocks your own grenade back at you, you know you’re in for an intense game experience.
The music tracks are well scored to play at critical junctures within each mission and are not overbearing during routine game play. Sound is similarly well implemented with beefy weapon effects and explosions nicely counter pointing the ambient environmental sounds. Ever since No one Lives Forever, gamers expect a certain amount of “in game” voice acting; Emergence provides a reasonable amount of such content. Chat to some of the construction workers to hear some of their insightful comments on the world at large. You can also use the sundry phone booths scattered around Freeport to call up various stores and enterprises to see what’s on offer. Jessica and J.C. can also be routinely contacted for minor plot updates and inquiries.
There aren’t a wide variety of weapons to brandish or foes to use them against in the game, but given the episodic format and game length, it’s expected that the developers will want to pace themselves as the story progresses in future episodes. You’re given a standard Magnum pistol, shotgun and automatic rifle as the plot progresses and with their dual modes of operation you are provided with enough firepower necessary to progress without too much concern. The location based damage system also encourages the use of aimed “head shots” and a well aimed single pistol shot can take out most of the “entry level” opponents. There are incendiary grenades you can toss around to incinerate your foes but you are limited to carrying no more than five at any one time. Opponents are limited to a handful of human variety SinTek guards as well as a few mutants and bosses later in the game. There’s definitely enough here to whet your appetite for more in the future! Of more interest is the Adaptive AI touted by the developers. The idea is that if you repeated cannot progress past a particular point, the game starts to reduce the number of foes and/or their tactics/accuracy accordingly to give you a fighting chance. Given the presence of this feature, I played through the entire game at nearly the highest difficulty level and can report that this mechanism does cut down on the “frustration” factor found in other First Person Shooter (FPS) titles.
There are five chapters provided with settings ranging from Dock areas and U4 laboratories to the SinTek HQ building. As expected with the genre, each chapter is pretty well linear in nature, with the occasional “dual path” option at certain sections to give the illusion that you have more choice (similar to F.E.A.R.’s level design.) To add an additional element of game play, there are also quite a few barrels of mutagen scattered around the place. Shooting these and walking into the resultant cloud grants you a brief period of “heightened reflexes” similar to F.E.A.R.’s slo-mo implementation. As with the aforementioned game, you can play through Emergence without resorting to this tactic and its presence is more cosmetic than of any great benefit.
At its heart, Ritual Entertainment has created a formulaic FPS that follows design concepts first conceived in the early 90’s. The weapons and foes ramp up in power as the game progresses. There are no real puzzles to impede your progress and the most difficult concept you will have to deal with is how to move crates around so you can access unreachable areas. There are liberal secrets scattered around that are clearly indicated with the Ritual Entertainment logo when you locate them. The plot elements are limited in detail but there is undoubtedly enough character development here to foster interest in what will happen in future episodes.
If you’re looking for a game that revolves entirely around excessive amounts of gunplay against a horde of unforgiving foes with little else to distract you, Emergence will keep you busy for a good 5-6 hours of frenetic game play. It’s well polished, highly entertaining and a worthwhile beginning to the SiN Episodes series.
