| SiN | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Ritual Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Activision |
| Engine | Quake II (enhanced) |
| Version | 1.12 (Steam Version) |
| Platform(s) | X86 (Windows / Linux), PowerPC (Mac OS / Linux) |
| Release date(s) | October 31, 1998 April 5, 2006 (Steam) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter, Third-person shooter, 3D platformer |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Mature (M) |
| Media/distribution | CD-ROM |
| System requirements
166 MHz Processor, 32 MB RAM, 2 MB video card |
|
SiN is a first-person shooter video game based on a modified version of the Quake II engine developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in late 1998. The game was later released over Valve Software's Steam Platform on April 5, 2006, either as a standalone product, or bundled together with its sequel, SiN Episodes.
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Set in the near future of 2037, many of the levels and locations are reminiscent of their current day equivalents. Banks, building sites, sewage works and other everyday recognisable buildings form the basis of many of the levels in SiN. One major difference in the world of SiN is the lack of a police force. Ten years prior to the game, the police force collapsed due to corruption and ineffectiveness against the rising tide of crime. Private security companies have taken their place, some patrolling the streets like the former police, some in charge of protecting their employer's assets.
One of these companies which employ their own armed security forces are SinTek, a large multi-national biotechnology corporation specializing in medical and chemical research, owned by the beautiful and charismatic Elexis Sinclaire. Elexis took over the firm following the mysterious disappearance of her father, Dr. Thrall Sinclaire, who formed it in 2005.
The protagonist of the game, colonel John R. Blade, is the commander of one of the largest security forces in the city of Freeport, HardCorps. Prior to the beginning of the game, John is working to rid the streets of a potent new recreational drug named U4, which is gaining in popularity in Freeport and is rumored to be able to cause genetic mutations to its users. Yet, the source of the drug is still unknown, and its effects not entirely studied. As the game begins, the player is placed into the shoes of Blade as he responds to a full scale bank heist and hostage situation perpetrated by a well known criminal boss, Antonio Mancini. But as the player progresses and pursues the criminals behind the heist, further questions are raised: Who is really behind the heist? And is this linked to the reported appearance of mutants in the city?
As the game progresses, it is gradually revealed that the whole bank robbery is funded by Elexis Sinclaire, who in fact only wanted Mancini to steal a safety deposit box from the bank's vault. When she learns that he launched a full-scale bank heist instead, she injects Mancini with concentrated U4 and turns him into a mutant, sending him after Blade. Later, Blade learns that Sinclaire's main goal is to poison the Freeport water system with vast quantities of U4, turning all of the city's inhabitants into mutants. He manages to thwart that plan, but it turns out to be just a diversion while meanwhile SinTek's troops steal nuclear warheads from a U.S. military base. Elexis threatens to fill them with U4 and launch them at specific targets, turning the entire world's population into mutants. As Blade becomes aware of that, he heads to SinTEK's main base in order to stop Sinclaire.
Throughout the missions, Blade is aided via radio link by a computer cracker working at HardCorps: JC, a skilled cracker, capable of breaking into even the tightest of networks. In fact, Blade first found out about JC when investigating a cracker who had broken into the HardCorps system. After tracking down the hacker, Blade, recognizing the perpetrator's talents, decided to make him a job offer at HardCorps instead of arresting him. Thus, JC became one of HardCorps most valuable assets.
SiN introduced many then-new features to the First Person Shooter genre like weapon reloading, secondary firing modes, third-person view mode, area-specific damage, the ability to knock the weapon off an opponent's hand, the ability to turn the player into a mutant, drivable vehicles and many more. It also featured three different types of body armor - for the legs, for the torso and for the head. Although drivable vehicles did not play a big part in the game, there were some sections and levels which required the player to drive certain vehicles, including an ATV, a patrol boat, a forklift and a helicopter. The camera viewpoint remained in first person mode during these sequences. Most of the Single player levels were real-life locations like power plants, dams, banks, subway stations, oilrigs etc. Besides them, there were also more sci-fi oriented levels like genetic laboratories, missile silos and more. These locations were all part ot SinTek's multi-billion empire. SiN featured one of the highest levels of interactivity of any first-person shooter at that time. Much of the environment could be interacted with, computer terminals could be manipulated through a DOS-like command prompt, and various objects could be destroyed. Besides, a player's progression through SiN was not entirely linear. Many levels had multiple ways in which to complete them, and actions could trigger drastic changes in future levels. This feature was intended to add a level of replayability to the game and force the player to think before acting. SiN also contained many Easter eggs, more so than most other games, ranging from some fairly obvious signs and graffiti, through to entire secret hidden rooms.
The game demo was found to have a CIH virus infection in one of its mirror links. Activision has advised gamers only to download the game demo from their website.[1]
Critical reception for SiN was mixed. While PC Zone gave the game 91% and a "Classic" award, praising its inventive level design and engaging plot,[2] most other publications did not have such a glowing view towards it. According to GameRankings, the game's average review score was 73%.[3]
One common complaint was the long load times, which measured in the minutes between each level, death, or quickload.[4] With later patches the long load times were greatly shortened, although compatibility with old save games was lost, forcing players to play through the game from the beginning or use cheats to progress to their previous point in the game. Another major concern was the abundance of bugs and glitches littered throughout the game. Some of the more widely reported bugs include a total lack of sound in the game, an end of chapter boss which couldn't move, a level on one path through the game not being finishable and general game crashes. Although these bugs were quickly patched up, the damage of the negative publicity had already been done, especially with the majority of the gaming press reviewing the unpatched version. The patch was exceptionally large; at the time it was normal to expect a game patch file to be up to 5 MB in size, whereas SiN's first patch was over 31 MB. This was at a time when a substantial percentage of internet access was via dial-up, causing Activision to take the unusual step of offering to send CDs containing the patch to any owners of the game who did not have sufficient bandwidth to download it from the Internet. A likely explanation for the multitude of bugs is that the game may have been rushed to meet the 1998 Christmas season, possibly as an attempt to beat Half-Life to market. These shortcomings, coupled with the great success of Half-Life, resulted in SiN not achieving as much success as the developers had hoped, although it did attain a moderate amount of sales during the 1998 Christmas period.[5]
In 2010, UGO included the game in the articles "25 Sexy Video Game Secrets" (as the #20)[6] and "The 11 Weirdest Game Endings" (as the #4).[7]
A mission pack was released for the game in 1999 by 2015, Inc., entitled SiN: Wages of Sin. The player reprises the role of John Blade, and the story picks up after the conclusion of the main game, pitting the player against Gianni Manero, a notorious crime boss looking to take over Freeport city.
In 2000, ADV Films released their 60-minute anime film, Sin: The Movie. Although loosely based on the game, with similar characters and plot elements, there are some big differences. For example, a major character from the game is killed off in the first few moments of the film and it takes place in the 2070s, in stark contrast to the games, which take place in the late 2030s- early 2040s and it acts like a OVA.
A sequel, SiN Episodes, was made by Ritual and was intended to be released episodically over Valve's Steam network. The only episode, titled "Emergence" was released on May 10, 2006.
An alternate reality game based in the SiN universe was launched in 2005 to promote the announcement of SiN Episodes. Various cryptic puzzles could be found on the website, and solving these would lead to new pieces of media and art. However, support for this piece of viral marketing by Ritual Entertainment did not last, although it has been claimed by Ritual that the final puzzles still remained unsolved.
SiN was also re-released on the Steam platform on April 5, 2006 bundled together with SiN Episodes: Emergence. This version of SiN (version 1.12) includes fixes for audio and video playback problems as well as integration with the Steam multiplayer server browser. Several textures have been modified in this release apparently due to copyright issues (the original images of many being replaced with SiN Episodes artwork) and all instances of nudity and drug references in the game have been censored.[8]
In late 2011, members of Ritual entertainment's fan community announced the forthcoming release of a in-depth mod that aims to improve the singleplayer campaign and tweak it to increase the replayability of the game. [9]
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