SiN Episodes

I pre-loaded Emergence (Episode 1) as soon as it was available, and headed out to Best Buy on Wednesday to purchase a hard copy. They didn't have it, so I tried EBGames. They had it for $19.99 CDN (currently ~$18.00 US, thanks to a shitty US dollar), so I bought it, headed home, opened it up, typed the CD key into Steam, and I was ready to go (after a brief download).

Very pretty, better voice acting than the first, and generally slicker all around. The presentation and production values are really nice, and it has been quite fun to play so far. My only gripe is with Blade's character: They seem to have made him very "Gordon Freeman"-ish. He doesn't interact with characters at all! The only time I've heard his voice so far is when I hit the communication button to contact my team and he says something like, "I know you're listening...". That's it! What the fuck!? Blade's supposed to be a real sass-talking, no-nonsense motherfucker, and here he is acting like some out-of-place scientist from a completely different game!

Guh. Still a fun game, and it includes the original SiN + multiplayer.

I've already finished this episode, but I don't feel ripped-off. It was a hell of a lot of fun, just the right kind of challenging, told an enjoyable (albeit mindless) story, and ultimately kept me entertained and satisfied. I'm already playing through it again.

With regard to "right kind of challenging", the game tunes itself to your abilities as you play, but you can still choose which difficulty level it rests at once it has learned your style (I went with 50%; default is 25%). You can also have it assist you by dumbing things down if you're having trouble with a particular part, but you define how quickly things get dumbed-down (I turned this option off).

While it was indeed short, it wasn't much shorter than most story-driven single-player FPS games available these days. It was nowhere near the length of the original SiN, but then again, I felt that the original was a little too long and drawn-out.

Regardless, the inclusion of HardCORPS mode (no saving; finish the game in one sitting), the original SiN + multiplayer, loads of secrets to find, and a style of gameplay that hovers somewhere between Half-Life and Serious Sam definitely adds replayability. Totally worth $20.

P.S. I found two DopeFish!