(Thanks, Wikipedia!)Intro:
SiN Episodes: Emergence is the follow-up to the Half-Life competitor SiN (and its expansion, Wages of SiN), and much like the continuing adventures of Gordon Freeman, the SiN Episodes were meant to be individualized Source engine-powered chapters following John Blade and his gangly crew at HardCORPS. The series was designed around digital distribution on, what else, Steam.
Originally, this review was written prior to me getting a clear glimpse of the original SiN game (they're packaged together on Steam, don'tchaknow), but having gotten a good look at it, I now intend to compare and contrast the two a bit, since it's relevant. So if some parts of this review seem a bit disjointed...shut up.
Story:
It's 20 minutes into the future and all is not well! A mega-corp called SinTEK is up to no good, creating horrible mutants and injecting people with strange chemicals. John Blade and his partners Jessica Cannon and JC Armack (yeah) must put a stop to SinTEK CEO Elexis Sinclaire's naughty plans. Unfortunately, that bit has to wait because Viktor Radek, a smooth-talking foreigner type is...being evil! And that's more or less the plot of the game.
SiN: Emergence's biggest flaw is the fact that it feels very episodic. Fair warning right now, but you're going to have to put up with lots of Half-Life comparisons during this review, I'm afraid, because the two game series are eerily similar at times. So. Unlike the Half-Life 2 episodes, that are nicely concentrated bites of Half-Lifey goodness, SiN just doesn't feel focused.
The game starts with a cold open. John Blade wakes up on an operating table, and overhead Elexis and Radek jabber about being evil. John's injected with god-knows-what, and is promptly saved by Alyx V...Jessica Cannon, his spunky but lovable sidekick for this outing (who, notably, is voiced by the lovely Jen Taylor, AKA Cortana from Halo and Zoey from Left4Dead). Jessica rapid-fire implies backstory we're not privy too, followed by explaining that there's some sort of big plan, and that Blade has to get moving and meet someone, and all the while John is far too busy blacking out and having visions of Elexis in a bikini to pay attention.
I...um...uh...yeah.This felt like a really odd way to start the game. The game's plot is entirely brand new, not a direct extension of the original SiN's or its expansion pack's, and unlike in Half-Life 2 where the cold open was used to great effect, here it just seems like an excuse to set up the series' main plot device, which was apparently meant to be Blade's injection of god-knows-what. And this is where the game's episodic nature hurts itself - there's no resolution of this plot point at all in the first game (Spoiler alert! Or is that an anti-spoiler?). In fact, it barely seems to come into play at all in the game, despite being one of the main motivations to go after the two eeeevil villains. You spend half the game going after Radek, only for him to tell you he doesn't know anything. And yet he's still who you end up going after for the rest of the game. Gah.
Even worse, Blade barely even has a role in his own game. Once again taking a page out of Half-Life's playbook, John seems to fall into the role of silent observer to the game's events. Yet unlike Gordon Freeman, he's definitely not mute; there are occasional small snippets of dialogue from him. He was much more wisecracking and likeable in the original SiN outing, so this is both odd and disappointing.
I don't want to be too hard on the game here, because it clearly doesn't take itself as seriously as Half-Life, but the plot really doesn't mesh. In lighter games, the story tends to be over the top to match the gameplay, whereas SiN's plot seems to be shooting for Half-Life's complex, layered structure, but puts it right next to big jiggly tits and more classical FPS run-and-gun action.
Graphics and Sound:
Since this is the Source engine, the graphics are yummy, and they run smoothly to boot. The enemy models are lively without being too distracting, though the major NPCs slip towards the uncanny valley. Also Radek has double sideburns and I hate him for it.
Seriously. What a douchebag.The environments are unfortunately...um...familiar. Industrial complexes, warehouses, old canal tunnels, construction sites, docks... They're never outright derivative of Dr. Breen's Happyfuntown (AKA City17), and I'm not exactly complaining, but it stuck out at me. These retread locations do at least have some personality of their own and eventually give way to the more fresh palatial SinTEK highrise.
The sound is good, epecially on the weapons, which have an interesting sound style that for whatever reason I just like. The soundtrack is actually quite rich, if not particularly memorable. Its implementation falls a bit short, though. Basic triggers seem to be used to activate each piece, leading to times where I'd trigger the big fight music, only to go "oh yeah, I need ammo" and go back to the previous rooms to loot some extra bullets with the music blaring at me.
Enemy sound effects are probably the biggest problem. The generic mercenaries of SiN do take a cue from Half-Life 2 and FEAR by using reactive voice clips, such as a soldier calling out when they're the only one left of their squad, and that's great. But basic enemies (and their weapons) otherwise manage to have a very small sound footprint, unlike their distant cousins the Combine. There were actually times where I'd be shot at, couldn't find the shooter, and discovered that he was standing right next to me. The AI compounds this problem, as I'll explain soon.
Gameplay:
SiN: Emergence is...an FPS. The end. Yeah, I know.
There's nothing strictly wrong with SiN's gameplay, but...it has problems.
1) This is going to sound absolutely bizarre, but...the Source Engine. Let me explain. The original SiN ran on a modified version of the Quake 2 engine, which powered its fast and frantic "classical" FPS run-and-gun style, and it did it extremely well for a game of its time.
As much as I love Source to death, it does not do run-and-gun well. Source is appropriate for the methodical shooting/puzzle-solving of Half-Life 2, or the mindbending physics of Portal, but I've never felt a great sense of speed when playing in the engine. Run-and-gun relies on abusably fast movement, and fast-firing guns. SiN Episodes really doesn't have either.
It would be interesting to see how different the game is in Dimension B where SiN Episodes was crafted using the Unreal 2.5 engine. (Also, presumably in Dimension B it went all the way up to Episode 20 or something, before becoming a major motion picture, and then getting a reboot game based on the movie.)
2) Three weapons. Yeah. Three. They're not bad, but there's only three! This could've been alleviated somewhat if their alternate firing modes were true secondary firing modes, but instead their ammo is rare and kept clamped to prevent overuse. The original SiN didn't have that many more (a Heavy Machine Gun and some kinda BFG, in addition at least), but more guns > fewer guns. Since it'd be easy to do so, here's a quick rundown:
- The M90 Magnum. Not really a magnum by my standards, but a surprisingly accurate and powerful pistol. This is your workhorse for about the first third of the game. The secondary fire is a "D.U.A.G (Depleted Uranium Anti – Gen) Round" but it's known to me as the "fuck you" shot, as it will generally one-shot the basic enemies, though the usefulness of this is slightly suspect when a single headshot will usually do the same.
- X-380 Prototype Scattergun. AKA the Shotgun. I find this to be a rather weird weapon. While it does shoot straight (rather than at 45 degree angles), it felt like the pellets from this had a tendency to dodge around a target. And it noticeably lacks any stopping power. When combined with its somewhat slow firing rate and small clip, this makes the Shotgun pretty dangerous to use. It will at least kill the most basic soldiers in one or two shots at close range, but that luxury doesn't last forever. Secondary fire is a shrapnel burst, very similar to the Flak Cannon from Unreal Tournament, but with more emphasis on its ability to ricochet. The usefulness of this is slightly suspect, because bouncing grenades around is hard enough.
- M590 Assault Rifle. The most generic of the weapons. Rapid fire, noticeable recoil, scoped zoom, grenade launcher secondary fire. This basically replaces the other guns for a good portion of the game due to lack of ammo for the others and the need for fast takedown power.
- G50 Incendiary Phosphorus Grenades. I love fire. The only problem I have with these is that they lack weight, leading to easy over-shoots and annoying tendency to bounce around. Therefore, their usefulness is slightly suspect.
3) Lack of health/armor balance. Half-Life 2 had a very well-balanced health and armor system. Barring bad luck or stupidity, there was never really a time where you had to suck it up and try and get past some kind of gauntlet with just 30 health or something equally harsh. In Half-Lfe 2 there were three units of health: 10 HP vials (from enemies, somewhat rare), 25 HP medkits (from crates, common), and 50 HP healing stations (occasional). Armor came in small chunks of 15 or stations that gave 30.
SiN, despite being so Half-Life-ish, throws this away. Health comes in three units: 10 HP vials (from enemies as well as crates, fairly often), 50~ HP (from breaking health canisters), and full 100 HP heals from healing stations (increasingly scarce). While sometimes you get lucky and receive more than one 10 HP vial from a crate, you still never normally get much more than 30 extra health, whereas in Half-Life 2 you almost always get 50. Plus, most of these crates are secrets and therefore are rather well-hidden.
The ability to break open loose health canisters for a boost is dubiously useful. About ninety percent of the time these canisters appear in tandem with an empty healing stations and therefore installing them is worth more health. Of course, they're often lightly hidden as well, but at least the sight of an empty station is a good hint that one is available somewhere. The other obvious problem is that...they're breakable! While I didn't run into this problem too often, it's still possible to accidentally blow up your health for that segment. Also, unlike HL2's medkits, breaking one of these open requires you to stand in the healing vapors for several seconds, which means they're largely worthless for mid-combat healing.
While I understand that it's more realistic, featuring health stations that have already been partially used is bullshit as well, and feels like an artificial way to ramp up the difficulty. Also, you cannot pop out a used-up canister and replace it with a fresh one, to my dismay.
As for armor...there isn't any! That's right, zero. Max Payne had bullet time to help prevent his body from getting swiss-cheesed. Blade has no such gimmick.* This means that issues with the health system are magnified, as it's the only thing you can rely on. It also means that a single grenade is usually enough to completely ruin you. And yes, SiN had armor! In fact, it had a surprisingly detailed and realistic armor system no less!
*Okay, this is actually only half-true. There are these green barrels full of eeeeevil chemicals left lying around willy-nilly throughout the levels, and shooting them will fill the area with eeeeevil green gas. This gas produces a slow-mo effect, and the game implies that using it to your advantage is a good thing, but I never figured out how they were anything other than a hazard, as they obscure your vision and slow you down too.
4) Cheap enemies and difficulty. Ugh. The computer is a cheating bastard. There are often shotgunners who will hide around blind corners, you will be sniped across the map, and enemies seem to occasionally decide to shrug off bullets. Oh yeah, and enemies use the same guns you do, including the secondary fire. Have fun getting fuck you'd.
Likely to blame for the absurd difficulty curve is the fact that SiN uses an adaptive difficulty system, but it feels terribly off-kilter. Wikipedia says that "a bug present on release in the dynamic difficulty system caused the system to never ease up on players making it overly challenging and unforgiving. An update released through Steam on May 17 2006 resolved this problem." Honestly it feels like this bug still exists. Oftentimes I'd get mowed down (mind you, on a relatively low difficulty setting), only to restart from a checkpoint and have the encounter get rebalanced with harder enemies! WTF?
Another lauded element of the adaptive difficulty is that enemies will learn your playstyle, and...adapt...in order to ramp up the challange. Unfortunately, this effectively manifests as a direct punishment to the player for being good, or consistent, since getting lots of headshots will give enemies head protection, which isn't always obvious to discern while trying to snipe at them. Or even when at mid-range (some get faceplates instead). Presumably this applies for other kinds of shots as well. I suspect that it's also easy to game the system; acting like an idiot early on will make the rest of the game a little easier.
I've taken the liberty of translating what these sliders actually mean. Keep in mind that I never went past exact medium, and still eventually encountered soul-crushing difficulty.In terms of basic AI, most of the enemies are actually rather simplistic (or just dumb). While they will rip you apart if you let them, they have two modes: run suicidally into your bullets or hang back and snipe at you, while standing absolutely still, sometimes ducking behind really lousy cover. Bizarrely, you can very rarely come across inert NPCs that you apparently haven't quite triggered yet and more or less kill for free...
These four issues make the game less of a fight against SinTEK mercenaries and more of a fight against broken game mechanics. It reminds me slightly of Max Payne in that regard, but at least Max Payne had an actual plot to follow and a bolder style to help prop it up.
Final Thoughts/Price:
There are things I actually like about this game, honest!
For one, it has classic level secrets. As I'm the kind of gamer that will constantly ask "can I get up there," having rewards for that curiosity is always appreciated. This doesn't always work out, sadly, as there were a few secrets that were hazardous to get (due to fall damage or enviromental damage), and there were others that felt like they should've been standard "end of a big fight" caches of health, but they're otherwise generally well-handled and clever. Though there was also at least one secret that spawned an ambush for some goddamn fucking reason.
The level designs (stock environments aside), while usually relying on ubiquitous locked doors to move you along the linear path, are otherwise fresh and fun to play around in. And the pseudo-run-and-gun, when it isn't unbalanced by the broken AI or adaptive difficulty, is actually pretty enjoyable.
Jen Taylor adds a spark of life to what is otherwise a fairly blah T&A sidechick, and there are clear signs of potential throughout the entire game. This being the first episode of what was meant to be an ongoing series, a lot of the more obvious flaws would've likely been phased out over time.
I'm really in a odd spot, I guess. The game is what I would call fun, or at least has the potential for fun, but it eventually got keyboard-slammingly frustrating. The game is derivative, but somehow stands out despite its similarities to others in the genre. I love it, but I hate it.
I suppose the real agony of it all is that the game will never improve. Most unfortunately, a few key developers left the company, and the rest of the team was absorbed by a tangentially-related company, one uninterested in making FPSes with tits and explosions. Bah.
On the plus side, SiN Episodes: Emergence is only a mere $9.99 on Steam, and comes with the original SiN to boot. Ten bux for a Half-Like and its surprisingly engaging predecessor is definitely worth it if you're looking for some quick, cheap FPS action like I was. Just cross your fingers and pray for the AI Director's bratty predecessor to be nice to you.
(Also, fuck heavy machine gunners and fuck double sideburns.)
These friendly fellows were what caused the first draft of this review to be filled with 30% more swearing.These fun people made SiN Episodes: Emergence fun (while it lasted).
