SiN Episodes: Emergence

Moby ID: 22457

Description official descriptions

The follow-up to 1998's SiN, SiN Episodes: Emergence is the first episode of a planned series that never materialized. As an "episodic" installment, it is shorter than comparable games, comprising 3-6 hours of gameplay. You play as Colonel John R. Blade, the founder and top operative of HardCORPS, a private security firm operating in the city of Freeport sometime in the near future. Aided by rookie partner Jessica Cannon and technical wiz JC, you seek to shut down the operations of SinTEK and its founder Elexis Sinclaire, and prove that they are knowingly contributing to the outbreaks of mutant activity occurring in various districts of Freeport.

Gameplay is FPS-style, with a few non-standard elements, such as a couple of brief sequences where the player is riding in a car. All plot is conveyed in-game via NPCs and radio messages, rather than by cutscenes. Weapon variety for the player is limited to a pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle, each with a secondary fire mode, and incendiary grenades. Each weapon can also be aimed, which gives the player better accuracy at the expense of movement speed.

Enemy variety is similarly limited, with one basic trooper type armed with the same weapons as the player, a high-powered chaingun-wielding enemy, two mutant variants, and a super "boss" mutant. However, the game has a learning system that dynamically adjusts the game difficulty to your play style. For example, players who excel at making headshots will find that enemies later in the game begin wearing armored helmets to defend against the player's prowess, and that enemy trooper armament adjusts so that they are better equipped to fight at the player's preferred engagement range.

Spellings

  • シン エピソード1 : エマージェンス - Japanese spelling
  • 原罪第一部:浮现 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

91 People (63 developers, 28 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 34 ratings with 2 reviews)

A fun, futuristic, B-movie type of FPS.

The Good
Sin Episodes: Emergence contains strong violence, suggestive content, sci-fi elements, and heavy language to give it the feel of a futuristic B-movie. The game's graphics wonderful, considering the fact that it uses Valve's Source Engine, which was used in Half-Life 2 and many other Valve games. The characters are entertaining and given actual personalities. Sin Episodes features Doom-like shooting, making it nearly constant and endless, making it very entertaining. There is a "play arena" mode added for mindless fun.

The Bad
The game lasts about 4-5 hours on average difficulty. The story doesn't go too far, and of course, ends out of nowhere. This is sad, considering that an episode two was never created! Sometimes constant gunfire from the enemies can be frustrating, and there's barely time to rest. There are only three weapons as well, and very few types of enemies/targets. Fun, but underwhelming boss fights.

The Bottom Line
I would consider Sin Episodes: Emergence to be a hidden gem. It is not as good as other first-person shooters that came out near the time, but it is still a fun, B-movie-like first-person shooter that at least deserves respect for being pretty unique and crazy fun!

Windows · by Ian Dawson (7) · 2013

Part One of a new series kicks off with a Bang!

The Good
SiN Episodes: Emergence is the first part of what has been announced to be a nine part series. As such, it provides both a satisfying five or six hour game in itself, and good start to the series. Fans of explosions will find a lot to love here. Emergence uses the Source engine and Havok physics to full effect. Enemies ragdoll about when killed, exploding barrels and other environmental hazards are plentiful, and the incendiary grenades showcase the lovely effects of fire on both environment and enemies.

Completionists will have a lot to do as well. Forty-four "secrets" are scattered throughout Emergence's levels, and your final score is influenced by how many you find. Secrets range from the useful (crates with ammo and extra health) to the bizarre (the "Dopefish" has to be seen to be believed), but all will satisfy explorers. Finishing the main game also unlocks the utterly brutal HardCORP Mode, where no saving or death is allowed. It's something I'd personally classify as only appealing to masochists with too much time on their hands, but if a five hour marathon gaming session sounds like fun to some people, who am I to judge?

The Bad
Primary complaints about the game stem from a lack of variety in both enemies and weapons. Seeing the same style of enemy trooper, even if armed differently throughout the game, gets rather tiresome. Weapon issues are in a similar vein, with only three weapons available throughout the game. While each one feels substantial and useful through the entire game, it would have been nice to see something more exotic than just a pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle. The pistol I can understand, since it's Blade's signature weapon, but I would have liked to see the rest of the weapons be a little more exotic.

There's no multiplayer mode. This may be a deal breaker for some people. Ritual has promised to add multiplayer at some point, but for the time being, Emergence is strictly a single player game.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of shooters with good single player stories, then this is a game worth owning. As a bonus, If you missed out on the original SiN game, it's included with the Steam version of Emergence.

If multiplayer is your thing, or if you can only choose between this and Half-Life 2: Episode 1, then you'll probably be better off waiting until a couple more episodes of SiN come out and multiplayer game modes have been released.

Windows · by Shadowcaster (252) · 2006

Trivia

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Bianca Beauchamp and Cindy Synnett were hired to play real life versions of Elexis Sinclaire and Jessica Cannon for E3 2006 and other promotional events for the launch of SiN Episodes: Emergence.

Dopefish

SiN Episodes: Emergence is one of many in a long line of games to feature a cameo by the Dopefish. An aquatic character created by Tom Hall. The Dopefish's first appearance was in Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle.

Episodes

A total of nine episodes were planned in the SiN Episodes series, but because of the sale of Ritual Entertainment to MumboJumbo, SiN Episodes: Emergence was the only one released.

German version

There are a number of changes in the German version:

  • All blood and gore effects are removed. Despite contrary rumours, the original version only has gore for headshots and the Heavy Runner enemy type.
  • The ragdoll effects were replaced with a ragdoll-like standard animation.
  • When enemies are on fire, they burn for a shorter amount of time before dying and don't scream.
  • In the U4 Labs level, there is a cabin in which the player can transform a few grunts into mutants. Said cabin is empty in the German version.

A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

References

The security checkpoints at the docks, near the beginning of the game, display scrolling messages about prohibited items above the doorway, including;

No blades.

No bows.

Leave your weapons here.

This is a quote from the film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Information also contributed by Noah Aman, SDfish and WildKard.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Shadowcaster.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, Foxhack, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added May 24, 2006. Last modified March 6, 2024.