SiN (PC) Review

The game begins. The hero you are in control of is John R. Blade; an elite private cop, of an elite private police force called HardCorps. A hacker-dude by the name of JC guides you through Blade's earpiece, throwing a couple of cheesy jokes while at it. The camera follows Blade's chopper, as he is sent to stop a bank heist in the futuristic (not really) town of Freeport. You take a good look at the generic goons that guard an entrance, who talk and laugh exactly as you would expect some generic goons to do so. Blade opens fire on his mounted turret and obliterates the opposition, right before going through the ceiling and start killing more of these fools on foot.

By now, most players have smelled the cheese. The hero has dreadlocks, a soul patch, and throws one-liners and 'damns' left and right; the female civilians you can save at the bank rock enormous, jiggly racks, and wear skin-tight, skimpy office attire; a busty girl on a swimsuit can be seen in a poster of this otherwise, very… bank-looking bank. Yes, this is one of these games. It's an unapologetic blend of '80s "radical," and '90s "cool," with tons of bad writing and enjoyable cringy-ness… and this is just the first level. You haven't seen the villainess of this tale yet. Or you have, and that's why you are here reading a review of an obscure FPS from 1998.

SiN is Teenage Mutant Turtles meets Stallone's Cobra, with the cherry on top being a voluptuous dominatrix that looks as if Jessica Rabbit had a child with the Dark Queen from Battletoads, which also happens to be a genetic engineering genius, and all around madwoman. Yes, this is cheesy, and that's not a complain. It's that kind of piece of media that wouldn't exist today, and that's part of its charm. It's a product of a small team that did what it wanted to do, and didn't care about anything else - an attitude that gave birth to juggernauts such as Doom amongst others. "But is the game any good?" some people are asking right now. Haven't you paying attention you dimwits?!? There's a sexy, evil babe here, with a pair of enormous, bouncing tatas! Of course the game is good!!!

In all seriousness, though… no. This isn't really that good. Part of the problem is the rushed production it went through. The initial release was filled with bugs and graphical glitches, resolution-locked UI and menus, doors that acted as deadly crashers (typical of Quake II engine games), music that would go bonkers, and levels that took eons to load. The updated 'Gold' edition, which was bundled along with the expansion, Wages of Sin, was a much more polished product, but a rushed production doesn't only leave behind bugs, which can be fixed, but also game design issues, which are hard or impossible to rework.

Ok, the gunplay is fairly enjoyable in the first hour or so. Movement is fast, the weapons behave the way they are supposed to, with enemy armour being a bit more realistic, in the sense that hitting armoured parts needs too much firepower, forcing you to go for that nice, clean headshot. Oh, and lots of gibbing on offer, with the shotgun creating lots of meaty chunks when fired. Even from the beginning, though, it's easy to see the lack of polish. Movement feels a bit slippery, weapon sounds are extremely weak, decreasing the immersion, and 99% of this is a linear path, with lots of hitscanner enemies scattered every 10 steps or so, making this a repetitive chore.

The weird thing? The generic "shoot bad guys" maps are actually the best, because apart from those SiN has plenty of stages with a variety of objectives, like disabling machines, avoid sounding alarms, driving vehicles, and many, many more, which more often than not make the game worse. Stealth is particularly badly handled, with the main tactic being the spamming of quick saves. Finally, like all rashly made products, the balance is all over the place, with weapons that don't do the expected damage, snipers that one-shot Blade (lots of snipers, by the way), and many, many more examples to talk of.

What one needs to understand is that SiN is considered a cult classic. In other words, while objectively it has many problems, lots of people have fallen in love with it. While this critic isn't one of those lucky chaps, he certainly belonged in the demographic this was targeted at, and kind of understands its appeal. SiN is deeply flawed and clearly an incomplete and untested piece of software, but it's also mildly enjoyable as a b-movie kind of experience. As such, you must embrace the cheese on offer, and set aside silly things as good writing, storytelling, or whatever, and just enjoy the not-so-badass-badass protagonist, the dad joke-level humour of your partner in crime, and the needlessly erotic behaviour of the biological terrorist/Hitler with big anime tiddies you are up against.

To be fair, whether you find SiN to be cheesy matters not. Its biggest problem is that it's pretty obvious that the developer had other plans for it, but in its hurry to release it, just threw everything in the garbage, which is a shame because the team's ambition can been seen in lots of places. The level design is probably one of SiN's better qualities. Not from a practical point of view, but in terms of visual appeal. Yes, almost all maps are generic, "realistic" places, but Ritual Entertainment has really pushed id Tech 2 engine to its limits, and created something that's very rough around the edges, but still manages to look good. Here's hoping the upcoming remaster from the experts down at Nightdive Studios will manage to - vastly - improve on the original recipe.