Ritual Entertainment SIN Episodes: Emergence review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 27 Jul 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: David Ludlow

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

SIN Episodes: Emergence is a surprise sequel to the first SIN, which was released in 1998.

Once again, you play as Colonel John R Blade as you try and track down Elexis Sinclair, an evil and impossibly buxom super-villain. She's injected you with a mysterious compound (rather than simply killing you), so you need to find the antidote. This plot is just an excuse to drop you into the action, where you can shoot pretty much anything that moves, plus quite a lot of things that don't move.

For a game so heavily focused on action, there's a surprising lack of weaponry. Through the whole game you have just three weapons: a pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun. You also get grenades, but these bounce around the scenery like rubber balls, so they're more likely to kill you than cause damage to your enemies.

The controls feel jumpy and the mouse is very quick, even on the lowest setting. This can make it difficult to shoot accurately. The fact that each bad guy can take two or three shots adds to the frustration. Navigating through levels is also a pain; there's no status indicator to show which way you're supposed to go. All too often, we wandered round the same section of the game until we stumbled on a well-hidden door we were supposed to open.

The game looks good, as it uses Half-Life 2's engine. But as that game was delayed for so long, it doesn't look as beautiful as some of its competition, such as F.E.A.R and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Using the Half-Life 2 engine also means you have to use Steam, so expect long download times, forced updates and possibily reconfiguring your firewall.

Emergence isn't a bad game, but it doesn't seem to have moved on much in eight years. If you like shooting things you'll have fun, but there are plenty of better first-person shooters.

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