 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Ritual Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Valve (via Steam) / Electronic Arts (retail) | |
| Genre: | FPS | |
| ESRB: | Mature | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | N/A | |
| Buy Now: |   |
The nature of the story in SiN Episodes: Emergence is likely going to be typical of future episode-based games. You get dropped into a situation with no back story, which is filled in by the other characters, you do a few things, and then the game ends on a cliffhanger to presumably convince you to buy the next installment. As stated earlier, you wake up on a table after being injected with some formula with a face-full of boobs on one side of the screen and some guy (whose name I never really did catch) that looks like this guy I knew in college who really liked nu-metal. Your partner, some redhead (whose name I also didn’t catch) breaks in and chases off the Nu-metal guy and the female antagonist while breaking you out. You pass in and out, see the female antagonist in some hallucination wearing nothing but a smile and some string, and eventually get dropped off at some dock to bust up some drug-ring. Typical shooter, right? Well, here’s my issue with the presentation: you, the protagonist, never say a word. That works in the Half-Life series because, simply, the guys at Valve are the gods of the FPS genre. They pull it off flawlessly. SiN Episodes: Emergence does not. If you’ve played through the original (it’s actually included with the retail version and as of press time was included with the Steam version), you’d know this is a criminal thing to do. Keep in mind the original dropped in 1998, only two years removed from Duke Nukem (on a side-note, that makes it a full decade of Duke Nukem Forever being in development). The main character, the same guy you’re playing, actually spoke. In fact, he was quite the smartass and dropped some classic one-liners. There is something to be said about the speechless narration in shooters. Some games, like Half-Life can say more by saying nothing. Other games, like SiN Episodes: Emergence can just be boring without dialogue. I mean, seriously, the rookie partner that drops you off orders you around and tells you to go do whatever, and your character (who is supposed to be some high ranking guy in whatever organization you’re in) just does what he’s told without saying a word.
This brings up another point about the SiN universe. There is absolutely no background information given about it. You don’t even know what side you’re on, why the city is divided, and what your goals as a group are. Yes, I understand that much of this is explained in the original game, but I have this nagging feeling that not many people are going to play a Quake II engine game in 2006, especially when people didn’t play it in 1998 when it was first released, to find out more on the background information. Compare this to Half-Life 2. If you missed out on Half-Life 1, you could still piece together the events that happened at Black Mesa through the dialogue (you pushed something through a portal, all hell broke lose, you became a hero, and took off with the G-man at the end). SiN Episodes: Emergence provides no such explanation, and simply thrusts you full speed into the universe without even telling you where you are or what you’re doing. The distinct lack of the dialogue also helps to develop a simple lack of concern for the other characters. The nerdy hacker guy who chirps in from your home base to boss you around is not used nearly enough, and you simply miss out on the interaction between your character and his partner. This becomes a huge problem when you consider the cliffhanger ending banks on your concern for your partner and the characters in general.
Yeah, the ending does leave the storyline wide open, but does it really make me want to spend another $20 six months down the line when the second installment pops out? I’m torn on it. This is the problem with episodic content. While Half-Life 2’s expansions will be eaten up by the masses, smaller developers like Ritual need to produce early in order to rope in a fan-base. SiN Episodes: Emergence shows a great deal of potential in every area, but it seems to fall short in almost every area at the same time. I beat this game in one setting in one night. I’m not talking about the Half-Life 2 style night either (which involves a pot of coffee and some food); I beat SiN Episodes: Emergence with enough time to go out and meet my friends at a bar for a drink. If you’ve played any shooter, even horrendous ones that require no skill, you can probably beat SiN: Episodes in less than five hours on the adjusting/normal difficulty.
I’m not expecting epic games with episodic content, but I do expect some sort of value. Charging essentially five dollars per game hour seems excessive, especially considering the game didn’t ship with any form of deathmatch multiplayer (although it was added in later patches via the Steam service). SiN Episodes: Emergence is a fun title, and the series does show a ton of promise. Because of that, and the fact that it does include the 1998 SiN title, SiN Episodes: Emergence is a great value to get a quick shooter fix. However, the long-term staying power of the series is questionable, especially since they didn’t do enough to make me give a damn about the characters and the story. Unfortunately, the price-tag does bring up an ugly issue with episodic content. Twenty dollars per fix may seem pretty low at first, and it is. However, looking at the long-term, you’re essentially paying 40 bucks for a 10 hour game. If that were the case straight out of the box, I as well as every reviewer across the world would pan the game for not offering enough game time for the dollar. Episodic content does manage to dodge the bullet for now, but I hope to see them either drop the price to $10 a title or increase the gameplay hours to about ten in future installments.
Bottom Line:
Sin Episodes: Emergence manages to fall just short of being exceptional in any way and raises many questions about episodic content. It’s a good value for the dollar for a quick shooter fix, and the episodic nature almost insures that Ritual will make adjustments and changes to the next SiN Episodes game based on the lessons learned here. If Ritual brings in better story development and more gameplay options (ie: Stealth) in the next episode, this series could ascend to the premier genre-busting series that it was originally billed to be in 1998 and become one of the first stars of the episodic content movement.
Like the kid in school who’s capable of genius work but never applies itself, SiN Episodes: Emergence is a C quality experience that shows promise that it could be an A quality experience. SiN Episodes: Emergence is a solid game, but not an excellent game. As long as Ritual keeps making steps forward, the series will survive and prosper in the long-haul. If Ritual trots out SiN Episodes 2 with a similar experience, no new options, and no attempt to make me give a damn about the characters, I simply cannot see how people will continue pay the $20 price of admission for each installment.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 7.0 |
Posted: 2006-07-16 11:22:47 PST