Ritual released the original SiN in ‘98, bringing their unique take on the FPS genre with a game that brought comic book style violence and villains to the CRT screens of FPS addicts everywhere. It was packed with great levels that were as much fun to explore and manipulate as they were to destroy, allowing players to occasionally take different approaches to certain situations without leading them by the hand. Ritual also brought in a great deal of interactivity with SiN, rewarding curious players with little extras such as being able to access bank account screens to give Blade, the hero, an early raise. Players with a steady hand and quick trigger finger were also able to take advantage of its positional damage system, using headshots to thin the ranks of their foes or disarm them with a well placed bullet, things that they could also carry over to some extent in its multiplayer.
SiN would suffer from a legion of bugs, though, when it first came out. Other technical issues frustrated players that did not want to wait several minutes for levels to load especially when all they wanted to do was get back to where they were before they were turned into ground beef, and it also had to compete with Half-Life, which had also come out at roughly the same time. Still, it’s bloody take on action violence held a place in FPS history and when Ritual announced that they were going to follow up on what had happened in SiN with episodic content using Valve’s Source engine, quite a few people wanted to see what new tricks the blokes at Ritual had up their twisted sleeves.
Hard as Hell
Emergence takes place in Freeport, a city perched precariously on the bleeding edge of corruption. It is sometime in the near future and corporations are the new masters of the world order. One of the most powerful of these is SiNTEK which happens to have made Freeport its home. Police forces have been replaced with private security firms such as HardCorps and corporate juggernauts such as SiNTEK field their own, equipping them with the best tools that their stock options can buy.
Four years had passed since Blade had ended SiNTEK’s ambitions for Freeport, but the fight still continued as Blade tried to convince the rest of the world of what he had discovered buried in SiNTEK’s backyard. SiNTEK’s spin doctors ensured their employer’s secrets would remain exactly that, allowing the corporation to continue its plans unabated. And now, Elexis SiNclaire has resurfaced. The sultry CEO of SiNTEK had seemingly disappeared when Blade had won his private war to save Freeport, and now she is back and has a few plans of her own; plans that Blade had only temporarily put on hold.
The Set Up
It’s quite a bit of backstory for a shooter, but Emergence’s narrative stylings are as much a part of the title as the action that follows. Blending together story elements as well the frenetic action of a comic book style shooter is what Emergence is all about. Players looking for a little less storytelling meat to their game might find that Emergence is somewhat heavy in that department.
The title certainly earns its “M” rating in the first few minutes of the extensive introduction, as you come face to cleavage with main villain. The dialog that follows drops an F-bomb or two as Blade’s protege, Jessica Cannon, tells off a few SiNTEK guards that don’t take kindly to Hardcorps riding through their territory. There’s also quite a bit of dialog in between several NPCs and in their reactions to you, as well as when the action starts up and the guards start screaming in your direction. While the dialog won’t win any awards, the lighthearted tone and dastardly villain feel of the game are in keeping with its 80’s inspired one-man-army action which immediately guarantees a lot of gratuitous violence.
Although the voice acting is decent for the most part, with many of the original voice actors returning from SiN, one surprise was that the person that should have been doing quite a bit of talking doesn’t say much at all in this outing. Blade had almost as much to say in the original SiN as his partner JC, but here he’s as quiet as a mouse, saying something only when he acknowledges someone on the comm channel that he’s hooked into. It’s was probably done to get the player to identify more with the character they’re controlling, but with the emphasis on story in Emergence, I would have thought that Blade’s replies would have added quite a bit to what was there. As a result, it can feel more as if you’re leading him on from one objective to the next which may be disappointing to veterans looking to hear his unique take on events.
The opening theme of Emergence is sung by Sarah Ravenscroft, fulfilling the Bond-style approach that Ritual had wanted to take with it as it really stands out. The rest of the music sounds just as good thanks to Zak Belica, taking what Ritual calls the ‘incidental approach’ in playing only during key sequences of the title. The music really did a great job in matching the tempo of the scenes and of the action onscreen, helping to create the kind of action filled set pieces that Emergence seems to thrive on. As for the rest of the sounds, the gun effects and environmental ambience were also done quite well with little to really gripe about.
Gun play
Most of the gameplay is pretty simple to grasp and anyone that has played an FPS before will easily find their mouse and keyboard controls in familiar territory. The controls can be configured to however you want them as you would expect and the engine will recommend what it thinks are the best graphical settings for your PC. All of the other basic options that we’ve come to see in an FPS are here, including the ability to set subtitles or adjust your difficulty.
Emergence makes use of a difficulty scaling system meaning that depending on how well you do, you’ll either find some of the fights easier or a lot more challenging. In my playthrough, the title started off pretty easy and then became progressively more difficult especially towards the end when it suddenly spiked and I found myself being turned into a lead sponge. However, I’m not sure of whether or not it was due to the difficulty scaling or more because of the mix of foes that were now in my way.
It does make subtle changes to the mix of enemies that you may face, but nothing so dramatic as I had first thought. At one point, I found myself jumping from one ledge to the next and watched as a flying gunship came by and tore Blade apart while a chaingunner ahead came out from around the corner. When I had reloaded and tried that area again, the gunship was gone although the chaingunner was still there to make things interesting. In some areas, the difficulty didn’t seem to swing too far in any direction, especially when facing some of the more brutal foes towards the end who simply made it more challenging by being there. Reloading in those instances did little to thin the number of chaingunners that were liberally thrown at me later on.
Fortunately, you have a few weapons to help out. Although you only get three weapons in the entire episode, each weapon has an alternate fire option such as powered magnum shots from your pistol to a grenade launcher attached to your assault rifle. Your enemies drop enough ammo to keep you fighting and even a few grenades for you to throw back at your foes as well as valuable healing packs. Aiming is as easy as it has ever
Saves are also handled in the game thanks to autosaves which save your progress at certain points, or quicksaves that you can make on your own. The title also stacks its quicksaves to a certain extent, allowing players to step back a few more minutes with an earlier slot in case they had accidentally saved just a second before someone comes around the corner and blows them away. While saves are quick and subtle, reloading these isn’t as seamless as they take a few seconds to come up.
Gibs, Wonderful Gibs
The Source powered Emergence proves how well the engine has aged with every action filled scene. While the graphics can tend to appear less than impressive in certain areas allowing you to count the polys on some objects or wonder why some textures can seem a little bland, this is made up for the excellent level design that really helps to create the atmosphere of the game. Ritual’s passion for SiN is clearly evident in the detail that they have filled each location with, placing enough items and explosive goodies in just the right spots to allow the player to create as much damage as possible. Their sense of humor is also shown off in little touches such as the safety signs that are found everywhere such as one that advertises pipes as the new create. While it may not the prettiest game on the block, but the action that it wraps into each area keeps the focus on how fun it can be to just gun your way through the hordes that come for you. The special effects that Ritual has also put into place in the game, such as heat distortions, the water rippling across the bay, or the disruptions that holograms shatter with if you walk through them with your boots or your bullets are only some of the cool things that you’ll see here.
In another nod to SiN, the levels are also filled with a lot of interactive items can play with. Players can pick up barrels, crates, break glass, or even dial into the phones with any of the numbers that they see plastered on posters or with the gratuitous graffiti that fill the seedier areas. I can’t tell you how much time I spent just trying to dial in every number that I picked up just to hear what was on the other end. There are also a lot of destructible barrels in the game including a few that emit a strange mist that acts as a sport of ‘power up’ for Blade by slowing the action down around him while he’s ‘contaminated’. Although this was a nice effect, I thought it just got in the way since it didn’t offer all that much of an advantage.
At one point, you also get to ride shotgun with Jessica as she drives through an area to try and save your ass from being gunned down by SiNTEK goons. You can move around in the car and hang out of its windows to shoot back as long as you can remember that you’re also making yourself a target. The car is able to take quite a bit of damage along with Jessica. In fact, Jessica can take quite a bit of damage. She’s already earned the reputation among some players as ‘the Meatshield’ since she is literally invincible and this can, unfortunately, be easily abused.
At several points in the title, Jessica will team up with you and together you can go out and shoot up SiNTEK goons by the dozen as they come for you. The thing is, Jessica doesn’t die. On one hand, this is good since it doesn’t force the player to be dependent on her well being to progress in the game. On the other hand, this can be abused by turning her into your own personal Terminatrix.
At one point in the game, low on health, I managed to lock myself in a room while leaving Jessica outside to clear out the chaingunners, flying robots, and legions of soldiers that started to pour in from all directions. Reloading several times from that experience didn’t make it any easier, so I thought now was a good time for her to earn her pay and did she ever. Barricading myself in a room, I waited until the sound died down and walked out knee deep in the dead with Jessica running up to me as if she had just seen Blade for the first time. Blade’s a badass, but in some cases, Jessica tended to be harder than he was.
The main characters that fill Emergence continue to help show off more of Source’s character animation engine, showing facial expressions and the physical nuances that make them stand out. From the sneering face of Radek as he mocks you to the seductive physical charms of Elexis as she taunts you, their presence help to make Emergencefeel even more as the serialized action adventure that Ritual had set out to create. Even the thugs that they throw at you have as much personality, sometimes using hand signals to wave in reinforcements or headbutting you when you come too close. Some characters will react to you if you try the use key on them, and some will even say things if you’re just looking in their direction. Jessica had some of the best lines in the game if you simply decided to just leave the screen pointed at her, eventually telling Blade to get his mind out of the gutter.
And then there are the gibs. The glorious gibs. While many FPS titles today have taken care not to show off the results of what a rocket can do to people in order to cater to a better ESRB rating at retail, Emergence on Steam has apparently allowed Ritual to completely throw out any such inhibition. If the swearing and a half naked CEO weren’t enough of a taste of what was to come, then the gore is all the proof you need. Limbs fly, heads asplode from headshots, gore covers the walls, bullet holes riddle themselves into concrete and steel, and super soldiers wave wildly while on fire before they detonate leaving only their lower spine behind as an epitaph. With physics, much of this chaos looks even better as people go flying off buildings, jet pack’ed soldiers go spinning out of control before colliding with a wall, or entire offices fill with cubicle furniture as it goes flying.
Short on Ammo
Despite the carnal fun that Emergence offers along with the small touches that Ritual has filled the title with, the gameplay that it brings to your screen is still very much a straightforward shooter in the vein of early FPS titles. While this might be a lot of fun for many players that remember SiN, some players may feel that it doesn’t offer enough outside of the basics to really stand out especially for the price that it asks. The AI can tend to be a little too lemming like in certain situations making it very easy to simply wait at a doorway for them to come to you. Some enemies simply stand there, even after you peg them a few times from the safety of cover. And what is with FPS shooters and sewers? Does every trip into a building have to include a trip through the sewers?
While the episodic approach to the game isn’t so much of bad thing, though, considering that this is just an episode of a much larger arc, some players may want more than a few levels and a few hours of run ‘n gun gameplay for the money they may spend. Given that there may be other games out there which some players may not have yet had the chance to play for the same price that offer far more bang for the buck, it becomes even harder to justify spending the money. Although the inclusion of the original SiN and its multiplayer may help ease the hit and Ritual has done a great job in creating a unique atmosphere for i[Emergence]i, it remains to be seen if there will be similar extras offered in future installments. Ritual has a total of nine episodes planned out for SiN so another question is whether players will also want to spend nearly that much for every chapter depending on what else is offered.
I can see how this approach can help to keep the franchise feel fresh with regular installments instead of asking players to wait years until they get to play something, but other titles that other developers are creating aren’t standing still, either. With the number of games that are coming out today as opposed to that which was available several years ago, how the episodic content will continue to prove itself will be something to watch.
SiN: Episodes has gotten off to a pretty good start with Emergence, so it remains to be seen if Ritual can keep the excitement going over the course of their bold experiment. As far as the episodic content is concerned, the quality of several of the levels and scenes along with the presentation in terms of the voice acting and especially the music certainly can help to justify the purchase. Although there are reports of players having blown through the game in less than four or so hours, these seem to be more of the exception than the norm. My own playthrough along with others that have posted their own experiences with the game certainly comes close or passes the five or six hour mark that Ritual has said it would give and there’s always the choice of increasing the difficulty to score even better in the statistics that you can upload. Ritual has said that depending on the actions of the players in what they do to get through Emergence, future episodes may reflect the most common trends to shape what might be offered later.
On the more technical side of things, Emergence isn’t perfect. It tends to break up the flow of the game with unexpected loads while walking through hallways or going up stairs. These aren’t quick loads, either, but thankfully they don’t happen in the middle of a firefight. There were also instances where I noticed an odd stuttering to the sound during certain level transitions. There are also the usual odd clipping issues when foes get stuck in doors or walls as well as one area that had a broken portal where I literally couldn’t see the next zone until I walked through empty space and ended up inside a hallway. For the most part, however, Emergence was pretty stable and ran like a champ.
In addition to using Valve’s Source engine, Emergence’s episodic take to the franchise was also a new approach to design and distribution that many players would voice some concern about. Paying $20 for three to six hours of gameplay didn’t seem like much of a bargain, and asking players to potentially shell out almost as much for the next chapter was almost unheard of. Ritual was taking a few risks with Emergence and it remains to be seen how well this will work out in the long run. SiN Episodes: Emergence was purchased on Steam and is available for play solely for the PC at the time of this review. If you purchase it on Steam, you will also get both the original SiN and its multiplayer bundled in with the first episode.
Next Time, On SiN…
Emergence brings to the table a lot of old school FPS action backed by rivers of blood and chunks of scattering gore. With Ritual including the original game on top of the price of admission, Emergenc ehas something to offer the gamer that is looking to experience the kind of no frills gunplay that SiN was famous for which may be a mixed blessing for some. Aside from the environment and personal nuances that Ritual has added to the formula backed by Valve’s heavily tweaked Source engine, the gameplay is still very much a run ‘n gun shooter. But while it is simplistic in its approach to its overall gameplay, it’s still a good first step for the revitalized franchise and does a lot of things right in the carnage that it allows its fans to leave behind.
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