The long awaited first part of the SiN series has arrived, the first episodic game to be delivered to people's PC's via Steam. Developed using Half-Life 2's Source engine, this shooter continues the story that was started in 1998. You take on the role of John Blade, commander of HardCorps, an elite security force that protects Freeport City. In the first game, you battled Elexis Sinclair, a brilliant scientist and owner or SiNTEK who was out to redesign humanity according to her own vision.

Emergence takes place four years after the first game. Elexis was too powerful to be brought to justice, so Blade decided to launch his own vendetta to bring her down. When the game opens, Blade has been captured by Elexis and her right hand man, Viktor Radek. While Blade is strapped down to a table, he is injected with a mysterious serum before your faithful friend Jessica busts you out. Here starts the high-speed adventure that is episode 1.

SiN delivers fast-paced sci-fi action, and fully delivers. On the surface, it's pretty much like most shooters. The Source engine still looks as great as ever, bringing characters to life with facial expressions and spectacular physics effects. Objects can still be interacted with, offering multiple solutions to some problems. Barrels explode to quickly take care of multiple enemies. The levels are well designed, and also include secret areas with supply boxes, which is refreshing since we can't even remember the last game that featured secret specials. There are only three guns to choose from: a surprisingly powerful pistol, a shotgun, and an automatic rifle. All three have secondary fire that causes devastating damage. The pistol's secondary goes through multiple targets if you manage to line them all up in a row. Additionally, you carry a handful of grenades that have the annoying habit of bouncing all over the place. Those looking for a big variety in weapons should look elsewhere.

Along the way, you'll deal with smugglers, mutants and try a one-man raid against SinTEK's giant corporate tower. As you get more engrossed in how the story progresses, you come to appreciate all the nuances Emergence has to offer, like the system scaling difficulty adjusts to the player's skill as they play. If you seem to be plowing down guards by the dozen, more powerful ones will start showing up, and they will arrive in larger numbers. The only thing they don't do is get smarter, so as long as you're prepared to take on hordes of bad guys, you'll manage. If you get in a lot of head shots, they'll start arriving wearing helmets to protect themselves. By that same token, if it seems like you're constantly reloading the same area over and over again, the game will dynamically scale itself to become easier. Everything eventually culminates into a very enjoyable game experience with scenes that are completely over-the-top. There is one scenario where you are trapped in a large room while powerful foes arrive in squads from the elevators. Health packs are pretty plentiful, and most things in the game can be interacted with. The canisters can even be shot to create a regenerative cloud.

For a game that costs about twenty bucks, Emergence offers awesome gameplay that keeps players moving with very little down time. This game is well worth the money, even though it's pretty short and there's not much variety in bad guys. In the end, the game delivers on what it promises: a game with a story that will continue in subsequent episodes. Hopefully, the wait won't be too long.

Our Final ScoreGood

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