SIN is a love letter to what we've come to expect out of 3D Realms and id efforts while for better and worse innovating on it. As we get towards the end of 1998 I am still surprised with every title just what FPS games can accomplish now on screen and through design. SIN feeds this astonishment as much as any other.
SIN took no time to get familiar with though it has plenty of shock value that left me extremely excited for the first hour, with that feeling coming and going for me the rest of the game. The game starts with a highly impressive in engine cinematic! Yes this game has in game cinematics for a shooter. While the animation and story telling possibilities of FMV's are far better it's pretty cool to have a more seamless transition to the game. This in game cinematic cleverly and impressively transitioned into me playing as Blade, the loud, funny action hero with a strong dash of Mr.T. After having Duke and Lo Wang it does feel like Blade fits by covering all the stereotype bases a wild action hero could have. Some of the action hero cliches are a bit over played as film moves quickly past them and the majority of FPS games take this approach in some way. I still managed to find the characters and atmosphere interesting enough though thanks to the evil villain being a massively endowed dominatrix and Blade having a rather amusing hacker friend on coms often. The color pallet and art of the game flow and look great in my opinion with teals, golds and blue, it captures the rather popular cyberpunk style of the late 90's. SIN's approach is tried and true and fun enough but there is a sense of fatigue in it for me at this point though that permeates throughout many aspects of the game beyond it's setting and characters.
Transitioning from a rather impressive in game cinematic to Blade allowed me to rain down hell from a mounted machine gun in the chopper before my character repelled down into the bank and full player control was given to me. The machine gun segment worked similarly to arcade style light gun shooters or segments in Golden Eye which shared a lot of light gun elements. It honestly looked phenomenal and had my jaw on the floor. Incredibly fun and satisfying. Video games are finally getting to where you really feel like you are the action hero in a movie, with little imagination required. These "set pieces" are new to the genre and largely games as a whole in 1998. One of the many purposes of role playing my current self in 1998 for this blog is to try and understand these moments I was too naive for or missed at the time. I'm truly blown away with the intro to SIN. There's nothing like it that I've played in the genre until this point. However being hunted by a mutant and taking a subway was the best use of this new design.
These set pieces are intertwined with some fantastic NPC behavior. Characters act and move realistically and according to your presence. This is made full use of when a Mutant through one of the early levels attacks and nearly kills you only to run away. As you make your way through the subways and even taking subway carts to other parts of the level these scripted attacks from the mutant and its quick retreats happened several more times. It gave me a real sense of being hunted by a character that was largely designed to spawn and appear but that intertwined with the sub carts moving and realistic environments made from one of my favorite experiences on this blog. SIN to great effect uses these kind of moments throughout the game and keeps the player grounded with its frequent use of in game cinematics for story. At this point in the blog I have drawn plenty of direct comparisons to SIN with multiple other games on this blog. While the game has it's own unique merits and takes it largely is based around id and 3D Realms work. The shooting at it's best feels extremely similar to Quake II. Naturally using the idTech 2.5 frame work similarities are inherit in a technical sense but here Ritual Entertainment has purposefully built off of them and I think it's a great move, after all Quake II is still my favorite playing shooter to date. (*98).
The weapons and enemy types are largely ripped right from Quake II. Because of this at it's best the enemy and weapon dance of Quake II comes through strong. It's a lot of fun. However Ritual Entertainment have decided to add reloading to many weapons. While I actually enjoyed this in Rainbow Six, it makes little sense here and plays poorly. Every time your getting a good combat rythem down most weapons either need you to reload or hit the use key to reload ahead of time. There's no indication that I am aware after my long time with the game that even lets you know when a "clip" is low. This creates a pausing or stutter in the combat of the player. Reloading looks and sounds cool but isn't fun as enemies seem to be just as aggressive as Quake II or any other traditional FPS since DOOM II.,The flow of combat and enemy encounters is further hampered by having to search enemy corpses for ammo and health.It's common that this pause reminds me of how Duke or Blood would play when I'd be low on health. Pushing forward only to fall back over and over until you make a break in the line usually staying around a corner. SIN makes this a tad more interesting since the NPCs will chase you to a large degree.
I didn't even known I needed to do this for the first couple hours of the game until it literally became unplayable. This would have been something my 1998 self would have had told to him through friends or coworkers. The game is about the same speed as Unreal though so having to stop, look down and search while being shot at or running through the level destroys the pacing. This in tandem with the reload mechanic create SIN's biggest problems for me, every time I'm getting my groove down the game stops me. The weapons do look awesome though. Particularly loved the chaingun and how Blade holds the feed with his left hand. Even the basic pistol looks awesome with tons of detail and constantly moves and animates. The shotgun kicks pure ass and feels great along with a very satisfying and unique silenced sub machine gun.The great weapon animations and constant movement give an immersive aspect to the first person view point while mitigating id Tech 2.5's famous polygon wobble.
SIN's better aspects are its destruction and interactivity in levels. It's largely in line with what I saw with the Build Engine over the last few years* and I'm ecstatic it's back. I'm a huge sucker for things blowing apart or walls exploding in games. Being able to open cabinets and shelves or interact with things that aren't even important to the game's design add to the immersive grounding of the world and do the most to feel like a real place your interacting with. Shelves and cabinets open in SIN like you'd expect in Duke Nukem 3D. Flush the toilets in you want. Open useless doors to useless rooms. Fire fights let glass and banisters shatter into pieces. Even bullets and associated sparks have some realistic simulated bounced that looks incredible, easily some of the best effects work I've seen watching it bounce around and around itself. 3D Realms did have a hand in helping Ritual Entertainment with SIN and it leaves me wanting for what a proper return of Duke. 3D Realm's influence extends beyond interactivity into the actual level design. Like any of the Build Engine games, SIN build's complex real world like levels. The office buildings, labs, bank, sewers etc are full of natural looking architecture and elevator lefts and over lapping ramps. id Tech 1 couldn't do this and Build Engine could hence why it became such a staple over the last few years. id Tech 2. 5 clearly has no such limitations as we've seen in Quake and it's sequel. SIN probably leverages this just short of as many complex ways as Blood did which I think pushed this design the farthest. Often I got lost or confused about what objects where required to be placed where for the story or for health. Its often just not initiative at all a problem id still faces in their recent FPS games.There is even drivable vehicles and much more freedom than what was seen in Golden Eye. I was able to use an ATV to not only run some enemies over in one place but hit them hard enough to splatter them into blissful Quake style giblets.
Realistic level design often leaves the lateral and vertical moment of the player and enemies more restricted. Like 3D Realm's games I find myself stuck in naturally occurring bottle necks that are not advantageous to moving around and shooting. Missing are Unreal or Quake's slopping ramps and interesting jumps or intersecting vertical leverage. While it's not always the most appealing to look at thing it's much better for game play. SIN doesn't really benefit in any ways from this aside from the visual presentation or grounded look of some environments while the rest of the game relishes in being self aware it's a FPS video game. The enemy types where a source of mild complaint in Quake II and I find the variety and pacing of when new enemy's are introduced to be crippling for SIN. It takes a couple hours to introduce heavy enemies. Enemies. I did enjoy in SIN where the difficult but fun spider bots. The leap from side to side that Spider bots employ compliments well the player's abilities to jump. but there isn't much I haven't already seen in plenty of games until now. I still find Quake 1 to have the most satisfying enemy types of any FPS. SIN's impressive set pieces are not the last thing to stun me. Introducing a stealth section in a FPS game took me completely by surprise and is the one part of the game that only felt familiar in the sense that it reminded me of last year's action stealth game Metal Gear Solid. Having to crouch and walk or take out scientist before alarm's are triggered was a unique and wild thing to experience in a shooter. Here the realistic level design compliments well the stealth gameplay of sneaking around these secret bio labs SINTEK runs. Here is a video game all about running and gunning and telling you not to do either! It broke my FPS 1998 brain. The stealth segment required me to restart as much as a hard combat section would, exponentially less rewarding with each restart. Still despite the common hang ups in pace with this game I found SIN's stealth segments to blow my mind and it does help break up the majority of the game which is pure id style running and gunning.
I really enjoyed just how far SIN takes its more "simulated" aspects. Most of the computers Blade interacts with allow the player to not just select things on them but give them proper text prompts. This mechanic is even essential for solving some security related puzzles which take things a step beyond the classic DOOM card system. It's crazy to be interacting with a computer within a computer game. 3D polygon games have changed everything possible. Just last year in this blog a large portion of the games I played used 2D sprites but here we are with set pieces, in game cinamatics, destructible props, colored lighting and high geometric detail, id Tech 2.5 has never looked better. While it doesn't have the impressive massive areas Unreal showed off or the fancy effects and lighting the set pieces, interactivity and cinamatics in SIN are features that impress me just as much if for different reasons than Unreal. It makes me wonder if this kind of thing is possible in Unreal and how that would look. Video add in cards have really completely changed PC gaming and their usefulness and progress are happening at an incredible rate. A construction site literally floods and lifts the player up in 3D. The lifts and ramparts all connect and intertwine. I'm shocked at whats happening and it didn't even take a new id Tech or Unreal to do it.
It is here I have to address,albeit for very different reasons I love the presentation and style of SIN as much as I do Blood. The games massive focus on massive boobs and a dystopian cyberpunk world with a not give a fuck Mr.T is sinful in how much I enjoy it. Sex sells and not only does SIN push this hard it pushes the limit of what it can do with it. In game boobs have their own physics when characters walk. Not to mention the massive amount of polygons afforded to them. Elexis Sinclaire is my favorite villain of any FPS. Literally slapping men around in her skin tight leather outfit as her breast basically explode. It doesn't get more silly and absurd than SIN. Even by Duke Nukem 3D standards. At times it's so on the point that I feel it'd be best suited for 13 year old boys than grown men but I do find it amusing and funny all the same. Like Shadow Warrior there where some moments even my 1998 self would cringe but all the same the boobs and setting of SIN are some of it's best features.
I mean if anyone has to be stopped its Elexis. FPS game's have never really delivered much of any story and this game probably over tries with details but I like the whimsical approach to set dressing SIN embodies here. Ritual Entertainment chose Quake and Unreal as it's focus while heavily dressing SIN in Duke Nukem 3D trimmings. Even borrowing from arcade light gun games, stealth games like Thief or MGS. Some of these design innovations like the stealth and especially the set pieces and in game cinamatics are brilliant and great additions to the FPS genre. The genre is ever widening and even traditional id style FPS games can have big new changes. I admit I am starting to feel some fatigue at the root of these types of games. SIN falls short of Unreal and Quake in both gunplay and level design but in terms of quality I put it close to Shadow Warrior. While Ritual Entertainment's contributions are often highly interesting others like reloading really drag the experience down and none of this fundamentally changes how id style this game feels. SIN and Rainbow Six exist in stark contrast of each other and a mile marker where the genre is. While it forks off into sub genres the id style back bone of the genre narrows down it's potential in trade for more polished and subtly varied entries.
I enjoyed Ritual Entertainment's debut FPS SIN to a large degree. It out right shocked me at it's best times and often was a lot of good standard FPS fun. It was good to get back to running and gunning after Rainbow Six's slow and tactical gameplay. In many ways it feels like Duke Nukem 3D 1.5. Overall SIN lacks the fluidity and sublime shooting bliss Unreal and Quake embody but I fell in love with its innovations and breast.
