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Platform: PC
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SiN
Episode 1: Emergence
Ask
a marketer in the game industry what some of the important things to
keep in mind are when releasing a new title, and they’ll probably tell
you to time it properly. Send
out a new game at a time when people are busy with other stuff could
sink it. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened almost a decade
ago when Ritual Entertainment released SiN on the PC. The game was pretty good, but it happened to come out only
shortly after Half Life first stepped on the scene. As such, SiN was quickly forgotten by most, as Valve’s new
juggernaut soaked up the limelight.
Now SiN is on the comeback trail, and in episodic fashion, no
less.
In this first episode, players will follow the story of John Blade, commander of Freeport City’s elite security force, HardCorps. It’s been four years since the events of the original SiN, and players’ battle with the evil scientist, Elexis Sinclair. In that time, the long arm of the law has been unable to take down Miss Sinclair and her multi-billion dollar corporation, SiNTEK. As |
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such,
John is taking matters into his own hands, and joining him are a hacker
named JC, and Jessica Cannon, a rookie to John’s unit.
As
players undertake this mission, they’ll be greeted by significantly
improved visuals over that of the first game.
What’s nice about the presentation for this new SiN is that it
mirrors that of the animated flick that was released, based on the game. For a while, it would have been hard for a game to match that
aesthetic, but now it’s no problem.
So far, the art in SiN is looking to be a refreshing departure
from
a lot of the photo-realistic styles other first person shooters have
been going for. |
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Not
only will the levels be easy on the eyes, but there’ll be plenty to
blow up in them as well. Not
only that, but the vehicles in the game will be destroyable in a
meaningful manner. Usually
when someone opens up on an incoming jeep or whatever, the thing slowly
but surely turns into a burning heap, and that’s that.
In SiN, though, players can target specific parts of the vehicle,
pegging off weapons and whatnot.
Of
course the big hullabaloo about this version of SiN is that it is
episodic. With that,
players can expect each installment of the game to have about 3-6 hours
worth of content, with pricing adjusted accordingly.
On top of this, the game’s story changes depending on the
choices players make. No
matter how one looks at it, dividing the game into episodes will be a
grand experiment. No one
has really given it a serious go since Capcom did with their El Dorado
Gate games on the Dreamcast. Maybe
Ritual will have better luck.
Mr. Nash (April 13, 2006) |
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