SiN Episodes - Emergence Review

Along with pale imitations, it seems the destiny of genre-defining games to provoke a reversal in design decisions. The success of 3D platformers has lead to a renaissance in 2D gaming, World of Warcraft has pushed online game designers away from the fantasy genre, and Half-Life 2 has prompted a lot of story-light brainless shooters. It's this last genre that houses SiN Episodes: Emergence. A traditional run and gun First Person Shooter (FPS), SiN is a blood-soaked five hour jaunt you can download from Steam for about twenty bucks. At that price and that length, this Aeon Fluxian gorefest may just be a happy start for the age of episodic content. Read on for my impressions of a good-looking throwback that proves you don't need millions of dollars to make a fun title.

• Title: SiN Episodes: Emergence
• Developer: Ritual Entertainment
• Publisher: Valve
• System: PC

Calling SiN story-light might not be fair. It would be more accurate to say that this first episode of the 'season' isn't heavy on plot elements. Ritual plans on making these 5-8 hour gameplay releases a regular event. A 'season' will be a complete story made up of three episodes: a beginning, a middle, and an end. You're awakened at the start of this episode staring into the um, eyes of an attractive woman and a well-dressed guy. You're strapped onto a table, and have apparently been injected with something. Before you can really understand what's going on, another attractive woman comes to your aid, spiriting you away in her auto.

What follows is a textbook-standard FPS. You make your way through the grubby urban environments, a secret underground lair, and moist crawlspaces, shooting the faceless bad guys that get in your way. Weapons are fairly limited in this first episode; For most of the game you have a pistol, a shotgun, and grenades. Really, though, what else do you need? Enemy models and map creation are fairly generic, though they are competently executed. There's a couple of nice action set-pieces, such as a fight against jet-pack wearing baddies from inside a cargo crate being lifted over a body of water. The few explanatory plot moments are used with the in-game engine, as in cousin Half-Life.

If there is a differentiating element to SiN, it is the adaptive AI and stat-tracking that haunts you throughout the game. Every bullet you fire, which gun you use, whether it hits or not, all are tracked as you move through the title. The enemies will start off fairly dumb, but if you find yourself having an easy time of it you'll start to notice the enemies beginning to adopt new tactics. If you pwn the bad guys hard enough in the first few levels, you may even find yourself outclassed when the action gets fast and furious later in the episode. This intelligent adaptation to your gameplay is a little spooky once you start noticing it. The first time you find yourself in the middle of a well-executed pincer maneuver, with soldiers on all sides closing in, you'll know you've gotten the AI's attention.

Visually, SiN looks a lot like cousin Half-Life, which only makes sense; Emergence was created with Valve's Source engine. All the 'fun with physics' moments you can have in Half-Life 2 are here in SiN, with some extra surprises. Despite what the Mythbusters had to say on the subject, compressed air tanks make surprisingly good weapons here. The polish on the game's look is less pronounced than it was with Half-Life 2, the result of a smaller budget and shorter development time. The audio is run and gun standard, but the weapon sounds are surprisingly satisfying. They have a lot of heft, which partially makes up for the very few weapons you'll have access to in the game.

If Emergence was $15, this would be a sure thing; At $20 I'm not sure this particular ride is worth the price of admission. Just the same, if you've got the money lying around and are a fan of the FPS genre, you're probably going to enjoy SiN There's nothing particularly wrong here, just a general sense of 'been there, done that'. At only five or six hours play time, you probably won't even have time to get bored before the episode is over. Future episodes will elaborate on the plot, give us more enemies to fight, and more weapons to fight with. As such, the pricetag may be more justified for future episodes. For right now, though, here's hoping they drop the price to make this bite-sized FPS morsel taste just right.

Ummm... Air tanks do make great weapons

Despite what the Mythbusters had to say on the subject, compressed air tanks make surprisingly good weapons here.

Ummmm... They didn't say that compressed air tanks don't make good weapons. They said that they don't make good IEDs. They make great missles.

can someone explain the second sentence?

The success of 3D platformers has lead to a renaissance in 2D gaming,

I guess I don't follow games that closely anymore. What 3d platformers have I missed, and what games defined the 2d renaissance that followed?

Really?

Half-Life 2 has prompted a lot of story-light brainless shooters

IMHO, HL2 wasn't about being a immersive story-telling game. It was about showing off the new engine until mods that made the first HL (Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, etc) so popular were released under source.

That being said, I did enjoy HL2, but I didn't buy it for the story line. From what I've seen, most FPS shooters aren't built for the story line. They're built for action. And guess what, we got action with HL2 and the various mods.

Re:Really?

I DID buy HL2 for the storyline and I wasn't disappointed. The game isn't narrated, per se, but the story is there for those who look for it. It's a Pulp Fiction of games, requiring you to play it a few times to catch some of the subtle hints.

For instance, at the beginning when Gordon's teleportation goes wrong he winds up in the office of the nefarious Dr. Breen who is talking to SOMETHING on a video display.

In one level you find an evolutionary poster showing the transparent skeletal heads of an ape, a human, and a strange human\alien "combine".

In the opening sequence the G-man tells you "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world," and he goes on to make repeated and illogical appearances all over the game, talking to unexpected people, strolling through areas you've infiltrated while barely outrunning death itself, having just done who knows what.

Even the graphical textures and level designs hint at a personal history of inanimate objects. The meticulous totalitarian dystopia of City 17 is complemented by the spotless streets and gleaming buildings in perfect repair. You can only speculate how much work Civil Protection, or likely the citizens themselves, put forth to keep the city clean - especially in contrast to how filthy the rest of the game is, by in large. HL2 has story all over the place in little chunks. Whether the story is cohesive is irrelevant to me, personally.

SiN, on the other hand, is a brainless blast-a-thon that wasn't worth the effort pirating. I deleted it in 20 minutes. Nice boob physics though.

Re:Really?

Half-Life's story is about videogames. More specifically, it can be read as an insight in the life of a videogame character. Note that Gordon Freeman is resurrected "on request" and placed inside the context of the game without any recollection of the previous years. Also note that the G-Man always appears to help Gordon/The Player continue through his quest. Gordon Freeman never speaks, an empty shell that encases an external entity. Furthermore, the G-Man is the only person that can pierce the fourth-wall and reach the player.

At the end, the player is left with a very important question: "Who is Gordon Freeman?".
 
I wish there were more games with stories like these.

Where's the damn flashlight...

The game doesn't have a flashlight, unlike HL2/DOOM3/QUAKE4. There are some darks aeas where I could've used a flashlight. I think every law enforcement officer should has some kind of flashlight, either the small pen variety or the large billy club type. Not having one is inexcusable. Otherwise, I love the game.

So right!

HL2 was only the latest in a long line of games to exhibit this behavior, but since it's the one I last played I'm gonna pick on it.

It doesn't matter that the HL2 takes place in a future society where teleportation devices are becoming reality, self guided robots follow you around in order to either take your picture or slice you into ribbons, and we see a variety of directed energy weapons including a "gravity gun" (not to mention personal force fields!). Why? Because apparently, in this reality, nobody can figure out how to build a fucking flashlight with as much candlepower and battery life as the headlamp I bought at EMS in real life for about thirty bucks.

Game designers, get the hint. Limiting the battery life of the flashlight is stupid.

Far too slippery

I couldn't help but notice that whenever you're running (which is almost all the time since you run by default), any semblance of control goes out the window. It's like playing on ice half the time - you pretty much have to use "walk" for any kind of controlled navigation or platform jumping, which is annoying as you have to be running to make it across most of the gaps.

It's also pretty buggy, with the game actually stopping at one point because the AI had "forgotten" to blow a wall that I needed to pass - thankfully there was a workaround, but I suspect that the short turnaround planned for this series will result in more bugs that usual.

That said, aside from the length (under 4 hours playtime) it was an enjoyable FPS - although I did find myself getting by almost entirely with my pistol until the ammo started to become scarce in the later levels. One headshot will happily take out 90% of the enemies you face.

I bought it.. Not worth it..

I got it, mostly because it came with the first SIN game for free. Anyways, I played through the episode in about 5 hours.
 
As for the game, it felt like a poor-man's half-life 2, and I can't think of anything remarkable about it.
 
I definitely won't be buying any future episodes.

It's not so much the $20...

... it's $20 for 5-8 hours of gameplay. I often spend $40-50 for a 40 hour game. Through the joys of episodic content, that 40 hours is going to cost me $100-160 based on their estimates. No wonder they like it!

Gameplay time & price way too unproportional

To refer to another /. story from earlier today, this reminds me of the .Hack series of RPGs Bandai put out. You payed the price of an average PS2 game for about 15-20 hours of game content. That means that at 4 games to the series, you got about 65-80 hours of gaming for $120. If SiN really takes only 4-5 hours for an episode, they seriously need to reconsider the price per episode before I start handing moolah over Steam.

plots in FPS

...and Half-Life 2 has prompted a lot of story-light brainless shooters.

Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and a host of other FPS that were released way before Half-Life 2 have had little to no story at all. HL2 changed nothing.

This sounds a little fishy to me

First, I just have to write that I really miss good, old fashioned 2D games. Sure, there may be a bit of a rebirth of the genre, but nothing with the shear fun/greatness of those old Konami games (the up, up, down, down crowd) like Contra and Lifeforce. Does anyone else remeber Rush 'n Attack? That game was awesome, and all you did was run and stab. A game company could never make something like that now adays. Gamers everywhere would say "what, only 1 knife? And no camo changes? And what's with all the lineral movement?" But I digress. Part of me actually likes the idea of an episodic game. Not only does it allow a company to develop a game and its story over time. But it also allows the designers to correct gameplay issues or shortcommings as they develop. The Gamer effectively becomes a test market. As much as Blizzard annoys me with their constant server screw-ups often related to patches and tinkering with their systems, I do love the fact that WoW is continually developing. When weaknesses are shown, they can be fixed. At the same time, another part of me I really doesn't like the idea of episodic gaming. Do you have to buy all of the episodes to play one? What if I get to the game late, do I have to start from the beginning? Or what if I just don't want to shell out the $15 some month? My WoW fee annoys me enough, but this seems somehow even more insideous. It could be like those micro-payment systems that are comming around that are designed to get people comfortable with many small payments, rather than just one big initial payment for the game. And in the end you spend more than you ever would have initially. Somehow WoW's subscription fee feels less creapy to me... I guess I just don't know... we shall see...

EULA nastiness

I saw the original SiN Episodes box for about $20 at a local store and almost bought it, before reading on the box that I have to have an online connection and sign up with Steam in order to play the game I'd have paid for. Not because it needs it (it's not a network game), but, well, no reasons given, let alone good ones.

I don't care if Steam's a useful service or not. This whole "We'll package something in a box that you'd expect to be a more-or-less standalone product" - ok, it needs a compatible computer, but that's it - "but then we'll add strings so you can't use it without giving us enough information to sell you more crap" is getting out of control.

No thanks, Ritual. I loved the original SiN, but I don't "subscribe" to games, I buy them.

Re:EULA nastiness

It's true that you have to go with Steam in order to play the game, store-purchased or not. It's true you have to have a Steam account and you have to associate your purchase with Steam using an Internet connection. If these are deal-breakers for you then that's a position you're free to take. The number of people who take issue with this notion to the point of refusing to partake in HL2 or SiN:Ep is small enough to ignore.

However, a few points to make:

- You have to have an Internet connection all of once. If you only play SiN:Ep then you never have to have Steam online again. Like HL2, it can be played offline. Actually until the multiplayer addon is released, it's offline-only. It's not like CSS where Valve can reserve the right to ban you for cheating.

- The main logic of having it done through Steam is to unify future updates. This way when they release new contents or patches, they do it through Steam and everyone gets it, no matter how they bought it. Ask anyone whose Direct2Drive copy of Oblivion is impossible to update how much this notion is convenient.

Their use of Steam is less devious than you give them credit for. I think you may be confusing software licensing and episodic content.

Re:EULA nastiness

No, I BUY games. Few people license any software (though most of us agree to EULAs at some point, but EULAs are not licenses.) Virtually nobody licenses music who isn't redistributing copies in some shape or form.

The "You only license software" line is bullshit peddled by certain groups in the software industry. The copyright laws are the same for software as for books, music, and movies. If you've bought a copy, that copy's your's. Copyright prevents you from copying it (except under limited circumstances), but the physical media and copy is yours to use.

In any case, your point is completely irrelevent. There is no reason to force your customers to register with a third party (or even you) in order to use the product they've bought.

Delicious AI Pie

My spirits were dampened when I stormed through it in 5 hours, but I still came away from the game with a feeling of satisfaction. The idea to go with an adjusting AI that tailored itself to your gameplay was GREAT. Too many shooters have an element where you find one good technique and use it on every single enemy: "headshot...headshot...headshot", but in SiN, after a few headshots the enemies come equipped with helmets (the weapons they carry, body armor, and even their numbers differ on how you're playing). I wish more companies would take this approach -- it seems like it makes for a very versatile experience.

It was odd to hear Cortana swearing

That is, the actress who does the voice for Jessica also does Cortana. Only difference is the swearing in SiN. The review is basically right. $15 is a more reasonable price point. My TTGM (Time-Till-God-Mode) review is pretty good. I got through the game on hardest all the way to the final level before turning on God-mode. More variety in the enemies might have improved that. (For comparison, I've completed HL2 and Halo multiple times without God-mode, and Doom3 was so unengaging that it took less than an hour for God-mode to be switched on.)

8/10

Hey, where's the rating!?

I wanted to post some screenshots (see last paragraph), but instead I'll write a few sentences about the game to make this post at least somewhat useful.

Boobies! Here's the attractive woman [imageshack.us] from the first scene. They have realistic shake physics, that's probably what Zonk meant by "fun with physics". There are some other fun aspects, like the warning signs which say "When all else fails, use crate" or com-stations (basically phone booths) where you can dial a number you see on ads.

Shooting stuff is, I'd say, quite satisfying, although there are only 3 weapons. A very accurate and powerful piston, a shotgun, and an assault rifle. They all have alternative fire which you often have to use to kill off tougher enemies. The ones at the beginning go down with a headshot, or a shotgun blast from a close distance will send body parts flying, so that's always fun to watch. Some heavily armored fuckers at the end require a good portion of the AR mag.

To the whole episodic concept, well I didn't find it too unreasonable. Not unlike HL2, it leaves the story hanging, but it's not much (if at all) shorter than Max Payne. Considering it's not full price, that's not very bad, although of course cheaper would be even better.

I have a screenshot gallery with over 60 shots in it, but I decided not to post it here for two reasons: 1) I host it on my DSL line 2) I wrote the gallery perl script myself, so it's probably quite dangerous. I'll try to get a static version online, though.

Multiplayer.

I was a huge fan of the original SiN, but I won't even think about picking up SiN episodes until the Multiplayer is up.

WoW is genre-defining?

World of Warcraft has pushed online game designers away from the fantasy genre.

Can someone with knowledge confirm this? The MMORPG [wikipedia.org] wikipedia entry tells a slightly different story. According to this article, the major non-fantasy MMORPGs were all released after Everquest but before WoW. I have myself played neither of these games, but from what I understand EQ is closer to a genre-defining game. It was followed not only by clones (ultimately including WoW) but by a plethora of non-fantasy games like Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, and Star Wars Galaxies.

But in comparison...

How many of you will give out $20 for Half-Life 2 : Episode 1?

In many respects, after all, Half-Life 2 is also just another FPS.

Personally, I will be buying Episode one due to exchange rates, and a love of the Half Life series. Let me explain, the game costs $20, with 10% off special offer means 4-6 hours of game play, which I'll likely replay for:

17.95 USD United States Dollars = 9.53067 GBP United Kingdom Pounds

In the UK, that's very little in comparison to a new game (£40, or £50/60 for newer x360 titles) and I don't know where you get those ultra cheap second hand copies but due to there basically being a lack of any independent stores around here, second hand copies get, at most, 25$ knocked off their price.

£10 sounds good enough to me.

``Ragnarok

Sin-tillating

Despite the comedy breasts and the paper-thin plot, I found the game an excellent waste of not only the 7 hours at least it took me to first complete it, but the equally enjoyable 4/5 hours I took to play it again. Its not rocket science. Its not hugely original. But it is damn good fun! Yes its priced $5 too high but still- if you are looking for something fun I can heartily recommend it. I also very much enjoyed the sound- all the way through the game the sound production is excellent, and there is even a theme tune which plays on the menu screen which is absolutely fantastic! Anyone know who that is by the way?

From under my rock

I've been playing HL since the early days, and I loved HL2 when it came out. But, I have to admit, I've been too bizzy to see any of the other things that's been going on. This is the first I've heard of episodic games. I think the idea rox, even if everyone thinks SiN is week. I'm a filmmaker, and video games are giving the movie industry a run for it's money (It could overpower it with better stories). Man, I'm getting all kinds of bad ass ideas just thinking about the prospect.

episodic gaming

the .hack series put me off of episodic gaming for good.

Good!

SiN is a blood-soaked five hour jaunt you can download from Steam for about twenty bucks. At that price and that length, this Aeon Fluxian gorefest may just be a happy start for the age of episodic content.

Excellent! Just as I want from 3D FPS'es! That's why I still play Doom1/2, after all (think: http://www.3dgamers.com/about/archives.html [3dgamers.com]).

Flashback to the other weekend....

SiN is a blood-soaked five hour jaunt

Almost, but not quite like SiN [return.to]!

Two words...

"If Emergence was $15, this would be a sure thing; At $20 I'm not sure this particular ride is worth the price of admission."

PRE LOAD saved me two or three bucks... it was palatable at $17.95. All the same, I'm not sure it was worth the price.

The adpative AI thing screwed me over. On minute I'm poping off headshots and the next I can't round a corner without someone having a bead on my toe as it crossed the thresehold of view. It got stupid hard _very_ quick and made me get bored of the game in no time.

One more thing... I wasn't expecting a full game, but I was expecting at least four guns and 6-7 hours not 3 guns and 5 hours.

light on plot?

Half Life 2 has one of the best game plots I've ever seen. The dudes at Valve have redefined what a good FPS can be. What rock did you just crawl out from?

Secrets

One thing I enjoyed was the secrets, although most were pretty easy some still have me scratching my head. I will probably play it again just to try and get the ones I couldn't figure out the first time (where you see something you can't access but you know there is a way).

Easter Eggs (Spoilers)

Hey, it's got Dopefish in the very first level! http://www.dopefish.com/fishinfo.html/ [dopefish.com] Commander Keen's nemesis appears several more times in secret areas.
In the Docks level in a building full of large chemical tanks are many warning signs not to inhale or ingest chemicals. One of them has an urban translation at the bottom, "Do Not Attempt To Get Crunk In This Bee-otch"
There is a secret room in the Highrise level where you can find a sign that says, " OH SNAP - We Beat DNF Out Twice!"

I love games that reward exploration. Sorry folks, but 20 bucks is the price of a nice lunch. If you explore the levels you get a lot more entertainment for your money. I also like Steam - when WinXP becomes unuseable because of the usual bit rot I can easily reload all my Steam games just by logging back in to my account.

AI killing boring.

I'm sorry but I just don't get it. What is the appeal of killing AI? Since I have played fast paced shooters like the Battlefield or CS series I have lost all interest in bot killing. It's boring, predictable and totaly joyless. Playing against AI is like sitting in the corner playing patients when there's a 20 chick no guy, ecy rampaged strip poker game going on in the next room. Why?! (Noted if u don't have a net connection but who's reading this without one?)

Personally

I wouldn't pay more than $5 for an episode of any game. 5 hours of gameplay is worth about $5 bucks in my opinion. So, in response to your statement that this might be a "happy start for the age of episodic content", i'll have to say no Zonk, no it's not.

My Impressions

This SiN episode was a waste of money. Just was really medicore and I'm a touch bitter that it actually cost me MORE to buy it through STEAM than at the store.

Big PASS from me!

Note to developers

Please don't be greedy, i'd buy the "episode" for 10 bucks, maybe for 15, I won't buy it for 20.

I can go buy a full game for 20 bucks (just got startship troopers which is turning out to be decent but fun) and often wait until they are that price until I do buy a game.

20 x 5 episodes = 100 bucks for the "full" game?!?! um no, i'd rather buy 5 different games, or 2 gotta have games as soon as they are released and enjoy years of mod enjoyment...

Re:yawn ... zzzzz

http://sapphirescar.marsmodule.com/site/ [marsmodule.com] Here's a total conversion mod for Doom 3 that's similar to Bioshock.

Re:For 20 bucks

For nothing (other than the cost of the electricity), you can play Solitaire for 50 hours. Or 100 hours.

My point is that yes, you can find other ways to spend your time for more or less money. But it isn't the same experience you'll get playing this. The real question is whether or not this game is worth the money, not what else you could do with that money.

I agree with the reviewer that at 20 bucks, it's probably slightly overpriced. If it were a little longer or a little cheaper, it'd be a great deal. But, having played the entire game, if I could get in a time machine and go back and advise myself on whether or not to buy the game, I'd tell myself to go ahead. I'd probably grumble about it, but I'd give it a nod.

Re:For 20 bucks

How is this offtopic? Really? I'm talking about the price of a game versus its length, which the article has a whole paragraph devoted to, and I said it wasn't worth it because I could get much more bang for my buck elsewhere.

What the heck?

Re:For 20 bucks

If you really want the most for your entertainment dollar: masterbate.

Your counter-examples of cheaper games aren't even in the same genre or platform!

Ladies and Gentleman....

I give you the industry shill...

Re:For 20 bucks

Note that for that $20, you also get the full version of the original Sin, which does definitely play on modern machines. It's spectacularly dated, but if you're into that sort of thing it's definitely worth poking at.

Your $20 also gets you a few different multiplayer modes, but with one small snag: they're being patched in at an undisclosed date. Not exactly my cup of tea, on the multiplayer or "ship now, patch later" front, but different people have different tastes and tolerances.

I'm not sure if I'll pay $20 for the other two episodes, though. If they have more value-added stuff, like the Wages of Sin expansion and additional gameplay modes, then sure. Otherwise, I'd feel much more comfortable paying $15. Ten bucks is just insulting, though.