[h1] SiN Episodes: Emergence is a case study of what could've been an ABSOLUTE SINEMA [/h1]
It's a vague title of my review, because Im still not sure what to think about this game. It has upsides, but it feels like it had to sacrifice part of its own SiN identity to become more like HL2.
Starting with the positives, despite a small roaster of enemies(and some enemies being spammed a lot, like the regular grunt, and heavy machine gunner), I think the game does its best job at using them intelligently. I recommend playing on almost highest difficulty sliders(theres two, one for general difficulty, and one for adaptive difficulty, adaptive one you can keep on medium if you're afraid game might be too unfair), because thats how the game kept being challenging. I constantly had to manage ammo, corner peak shoot enemies, use grenades on groups of people, use alt fire shots. It's hard to describe but it constantly felt like you're on a run, barely scraping by, fighting off enemy bigger then you, something that I didnt feel in HL2 much on hardest difficulty(even thought I would rate HL2 above Sin episodes). It helps that the enemy roaster itself is good despite its size: You have combine typa grunts, but you also have flying grunts who appear in the middle of the game, and then disappear until end game, you have drones that shot your general area, you have mutants who appear in middle game only(besides the mini boss), and lastly theres heavy machine gunner. The last enemy type was especially fun, since despite being a heavily armored guy, hes not that slow, if you just happen to stay in the corner for more then a second, he immediately will try to rush you to close the distance. Which puts a lot of pressure on you to act quick in killing them. Gun variety is also sadly lacking, but having grenades, and alt fire ammo for each of the 3 guns is juuust enough for 5 hour campaign. Especially since the difficulty comes from ammo management, where you have to constantly be on the lookout for ammo, go for secrets, since thats where most ammo n hp packs are.
Last compliments I'll give is to the overall presentation of the game, and the map design. I like how the environments look, even if most of the time you'll spend indoors, most maps look unique enough from one another. But the outdoors are especially captivating,
[b] So what are my problems with the game? [/b]
I think that the game has sacrificed parts of its own SiN identity, in order to mimic HL2, and poorly in most parts(except combat). The biggest example of this is the story. Yes, original SiN and its expansion, Wages of SiN, didn't have a super detailed, expansive story, nor did it have super casual, and fun story, but what it did have is its own charm! It was super campy, but it was sincere, which is very lacking in modern gaming storytelling, where it goes into either extreme, either being super serious or self aware, depricative "well that just happened" kinda humour. Because of that, SiN Gold now stands out in modern era as breath of fresh air, while SiN Episodes just tries so hard to be HL2. It just fails at it. It has way way less action/story sequences, its story is weaker, and characters are just way less memorable then in HL2. Characters themself are worse: Jessica(new character) feels like a knockoff of Alyx(her voice isnt the problem, its writing quality), J.C. who was your IT guy in the first two games, went from fun tech guy, who butts heads with Blade sometimes, but both obviously like company of one another(aka true friendship), to just boring co workers, where J.C. occasionally shows up in the story to say a few lines, and hes gone. Blade got the worst of it, he had a decent va, Blade acted like a sort of duke nukem parody, while having his own quirks(like being bashful around main antagonist, Elexis), but here, he's almost mute...
But those were small nitpicks I had, the bigger issue I have with Sin episodes Emergence is how it stripped nearly, if not all unique gameplay features of SiN 1. The best Sin 1 gameplay element that I adored was bonus chapters. Sure there weren't many, and the game didn't flesh em out too much, but they were there, it was a fun reward for exploring the level, or doing secondary objective(secondary objectives arent in this game either). But not anymore(well there is ONE secret that leads to mini level, which reuses previous location but upside down, that was cool but it happened once). Sin 1 also had hidden exits, leading to different starting location on new map. Now they're gone here too(except one single hidden exit).
All of Sin 1 original DNA, sacrificed to mimic a fraction of HL2's DNA, only for SIN Episodes: Emergence to not even age too well. im not talking about graphics quality, or even about how we never got other 8 episodes(and the sole one we got is only 5-6h long even on hardest difficulties, while getting all secrets). I'm talking about how now, we have HL1 and HL2 mods, on steam store page, with steam achievements, that are absolutely F R E E, that are higher quality then this game, both story and gameplay vise(games like Entropy Zero 1 and 2).
I would still highly recommend trying this game out, especially if you into HL2 type of gameplay, because the gameplay is genuinely tense, and captivating. I just wish it retained what made Sin 1 interesting to me(as a newcomer to the series). On the slightest chance either Nightdive or Ritual developers read this commend, All the power to you both if you decide to reboot this franchice and give it its needed episodes. But please consider bringing back some of the Sin 1 DNA back. Story fix would arguably be the easiest one, bring back Blade's va back, and just say in next episode how "the virus made him selectively mute", just some campy explanation, and now he and JC will finally have chit chat/banter throughout the levels from time to time. Bring all other va's back if you can, but give Jessica a different personality, something that can work off JC and Blade. As for gameplay, bonus chapters and secret/alternative level exits are a must have. It would also be nice if maybe doing different bonus chapters affected the story, like say if you prevent mutagen bomb from going off, you dont have to fight town full of mutants, or if you found a hidden lab(which is a bonus chapter), you can prevent future catastrophe, but its not necessary.
