SiN Episodes: Emergent Silliness?
UK PC/game journalist Richard Cobbett has a sassy take on video game issues, and his latest journal update takes apart Ritual's SiN Episodes Vol.1, released last week during E3, with some aplomb.
You may recall that we marveled at Ritual's E3 booth 'attendants' outfits, and Cobbett claims that the plot is as thin as their costumes, noting of the Source engine, Steam-distributed game: "Characters stand around like lemons, idly watching as you massacre their workers and destroy their labs, only springing into action for their cut-scene. Elexis turns up every few minutes, gleefully talking about her plans for the main character one second, then trying to have him killed, then forgetting, then showing up again with a whole other idea...usually in holographic form, invariably with her breasts hanging out...and once again plotting generic evil with her collection of genetic mutations."
Cobbett's conclusion is cuttingly specific, if not completely damning: "Sin: Episodes is a bizarre game, really. The engine’s there, the production values are decent enough, there’s plenty of action, and you do get a solid chunk of game for your money... There’s nothing special about the action to keep you holding on for the next instalment; it’s nothing you wouldn’t get in just about any shooter you pulled off the shelves, and it’s sure as hell not one you follow for the story - a story which pretty much begins and ends with the artists getting to draw jiggling breasts, and the rest of the team playing dress-up with fetish models." Youch.
Comments
Valid points, but no mention of the stat tracking. For a first person shooter, this is amazing. I now know how many times I've ducked inside and outside of combat. Also, they rank you. I'm a grenade hoarder.
Chaingunners suck though.
Posted by: Ryan in Exile | May 16, 2006 10:15 AM
Hi Ryan,
"Valid points, but no mention of the stat tracking."
True, although it's really just a long blog post, not a full dissection, written freeform rather than with a list of everything worth covering.
In short, I might have been more inclined to be impressed with it, had the bizarre dynamic difficulty system not gone out of its way to make the entire Supremacy Tower before reading it a complete nightmare*, and thus the its opinion of my skill still mattering to me by the end of the credits.
(* Dear god, Ritual! It's like you had to pay real money for those health stations near the end! Spread the love already!)
Although for the record, I believe my final stat came out as something like Detail Orientated, Invulnerable, Tempted To Just Use The Goddamn Cheat Codes If One More Chaingunner Shows Up, Watching Newton Spinning In His Grave At The Physics Engine, Probably Should Lie About The Difficulty Level If The Number Of Deaths In The Last Five Minutes Is To Believed, Severely Underwhelmed Commander John Blade: Mime for hire.
Or something.
I did however find a couple of Dopefish. Which made me smile.
Posted by: Richard | May 16, 2006 2:37 PM