What do you get when you combine the Quake II engine with Duke Nukem 3D?
Well it might look something like SiN. SiN is the last swan song of the 90’s style FPS’s shooter genre and what a great way to end it. Originally when SiN was released, it was plagued with bugs that required 10-20 MB patches which was a lot to be downloaded over a dial up modem at the time thus it affected it’s reputation. It also didn’t help that it was released around the time when Half-Life came out and it was underappreciated and underrated. In SiN you play as John Blade who works for a security contractor with his trusty hacker friend J.C. helping you along it’s way as you try to uncover the plot of the busty and voluptuous Elixes Sinclaire who is the CEO of a drug manufacturer. My original journey for SiN came in 1998 when I got demo copy of SiN with a PC Gamer magazine. I really liked the demo level where you are fighting a bunch of bank robbers starting off in a helicopter with a machine gun where you are gunning down the robbers and then landing on a rooftop of the bank. I always wanted to play the game but forgot about it and never got around to it. So, a couple of years ago I brought the original game and downloaded the Widescreen Patch to play it on newer monitors. SiN replicates many of the interactivity that was done in Duke Nukem 3D like interacting with consoles to open doors and get passwords from computers and access security cameras. It also has some of the smack talk that Duke Nukem does via Blade as he makes his way through the game and also the banter that Blade does with his side kick J.C. The game levels are diverse. You will start out in an urban setting, to a sewer system, to a laboratory, to an oil rig, to a military Silo complex and even underwater and inside of a Elixes Sinclaire’s mansion. Throughout the game you get glimpses of Elixes Sinclaire via cut-seens as the game and the story progresses.
One of the unique things that SiN introduced was a location based hit system where the enemy would react based on where he was hit. You could hit them in the arm, the torso and the enemy would react based on where it got hit. The weapons in SiN are also great ranging from handgun, shotgun, machine gun to a rocket launcher and are really fun to use when taking down enemies. Unlike today’s games where you have auto health regeneration you really have to watch your health as you have to rely on health packs and just can't hide behind something for your health to regain and have to watch your ammo count especially towards the end of the game when those comes in limited supply. I really had to scramble towards one of the end levels where I was down to few bullets on my machine gun and my sniper gun and was low on health and I had to take on two bad guys. I had to try several times and finally managed to get one of the bad guys and had to run to a door on the other side of this location before the other bad guy could get me and had to resupply my ammo and later health before I could continue on in the level.
The graphics in SiN are good as it uses the Quake II engine but not great. Although there are other better looking games for its’ time like Unreal and Forsaken but since it uses the Quake II engine it is probably one of the better looking games for it’s time. I would suggest to go to Wide Screen Gaming Forums website and download the patch to make it work in widescreen. I played it on an older PC at 1440x900 with everything maxed out at 8XAA. I would also suggest to get the original copy off of e-Bay or get the GOG version as I had the Steam version prior but I was not able to change the SiN.exe file as it is required to try the new widescreen resolution SiN.exe executable. Can’t confirm if you can do it with the GOG version or if there has been progress made on Steam version that allows it to play widescreen but I just got the used copy off of e-Bay. On a side note I also installed the latest patch before progressing through the game as the original version was know to be very buggy.
The sound in SiN is fantastic. The music plays according to the environment you are in. If it’s action packed the music intensifies and other times it plays in a calm melody when there is less action. The soundtrack is great, mine personal favorite being the one when you are in Elixes Sinclaire’s mansion.
In summary, if you are looking for one of the last great 90’s shooters with one liners that talks smack with great variety of levels that is fun to play than look no further than SiN.