SiN Episodes: Emergence

[Rob Williams]

John Blade is back, and he's not alone. We check out the first part to this Episodic adventure, with Blade continuing his journey of defending Freeport City. Elexis is still evil, but at least JC and Jessica are by our side. Let's see if Emergence lives up to the original.

After reading my review here, discuss it here!

I mostly agree with your review, especially the part about the dynamic difficulty. I was stuck at several points for extremely long because the game apparently decided I was good enough to face it at a certain level… in one case it took me well over a day to finally make it through.

One bug I have not seen mentioned is that the subtitles do not match up to the actual spoken text at many points, especially during the "radio" transmissions from JC or Jessica to Blade. In an otherwise well-polished game this comes across as especially jarring.

The closed captioning (only briefly used) is even less supported: several effects are not captioned at all.

[Rob Williams]

I actually had no idea that there were any subtitles. I didn't enable them, so would not have noticed that problem. Next time I play through, I will definitely enable them.

I too have been looking forward to this game for some time - but I was mostly underwhelmed with this release. It's a shame, as I am all in favour of episodic games.

Perhaps it is my advancing age, but this was simply too much of the same old run and gun (with a boss or two, of course, at the end). Like, been there, done that, umpteen times! Fear, or even Doom (which didn't do much for me) did a better job with this uninspired approach, and this is no foundation for a long term franchise. There was little of the great story we were promised, and little to keep a thinking person interested. I could live with the length if some originality had been there. Though Jessica is cute (which may serve its purpose for the juvenile market), her role is a simple rip-off from HL2.

And the run and gun I found pretty straightforward at the moderately difficult level. The AI is average at best.

Graphics and sound were mostly good (to be expected with the source engine), with some spectacular scenes.

I don't regret the $20 and will not give up on this game solely based upon episode 1, but this team (or tribe, if they prefer) needs to bring something fresh to the genre if this series is to go anywhere far. There are HL2 mods out there with greater creativity.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Though Jessica is cute (which may serve its purpose for the juvenile market), her role is a simple rip-off from HL2.

I agree with you completely. Sadly, the game reminded me a -lot- of Half-Life 2.. it's incredible. I still enjoyed the game for what it was, and played through it twice even. I am hoping that Ritual will listen to all the feedback they are receiving to make Episode 2 far better.

Here's to hoping.

I found that at times when I would stare at Jessica's butt or zoom in on it, she would ask if "...you see something on my ass?" or some other smarta$$ comment. I really enjoyed it although it's way to short. No technical issues worth noting and didn't really pay much attention to the changing difficulty....just died a lot (lol). Think $12-15 bucks would have been appropriate.

[Rob Williams]

There's another quote that she says to the affect of, "I said to kick ass, not lick ass." She says around 8 different things if you get down towards her ass. If you get in front of her down to her unmentionable, she will say different things.

I think $20 was worth it really, especially if you play it twice. There are so many easter eggs in the game, and lots of areas to explore. It could have been better, but I still think it is worth the asking price.

I appreciate your response Rob....gonna go play it again.

I am a bit late but...rumours say, there wont be more episodes? Sad indeed since I found this really a fun mixture of swearing..sexual content and butchering. Like a real action movie or something hehe.

is this true although?

[Rob Williams]

That's no rumor... it happened about a month after the release of Episode 1. As sad as it is... there will not be an Episode 2. Too much work for not enough money.

Ahh damn no more Elexis boobies and manslaughter then! Heh! Ohh well. Any crazy mods made yet?

[Rob Williams]

Not sure, I haven't looked around for some. I enjoyed Episode 1 quite a bit, it's just too bad it didn't pan out the way they wanted it to. They should have promised a 3-episode game, like Half-Life: Episode, instead of a whopping nine. They sunk their own ship before the first episode released.

Hopefully there will be another SiN game in the future... a complete non-episodic version, heh.

[Merlin]

Steam has it for 14.95, after hearing about it here, I had to get it.
There are three files ( games ) Sin1, Sin Emergence and Sin Multiplayer.
Almost finished DL

Merlin the Coastermaker )

[Rob Williams]

The original SiN is a great game. When first released, it was one of those ":-O!" type games, where the game pushed certain barriers, namely with the graphics. I remember having a rough time with it on my PC when it was first released. Aside from that, it's a difficult game, but has some solid gameplay and is one great classic that will never die.

Yeah was a nice game but 9 Episodes was a bullet put in the foot yeah...