SiN Reloaded Review

This was a game I always heard of certain places. One of those "cult classics" that would I would hear of from time to time. It's recently gotten the Nightdive treatment and I consider it to be a solid game. I'm not 100% familar with the differences between this and the original. With that said, it's often said how the quality is uneven and the game gets worse as it goes on? Yeah it's still true. I do find it charming enough to get through even with that quality decline.

Sin gets compared to Half Life a lot. It's always brought up that it released close to HL. If anything Sin feels like Medal of Honor, No One Lives Forever, Soldier of Fortune and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The FPS that creates the feeling that you are in a dumb over the top action movie. With an an over the top protagonist and him chatting with his tech support guy as he goes on a mission tracking down the over arching bad guy.

The opening is really enjoyable in that you'll be thrawting a bank heist, infiltrating labatories, warehouses, missile silos, and eventually infiltrating an oil rig. Different objectives being completed can have the mission being affected in different ways but this could've amounted to more.

It's cool to see an early version of an FPS with more tangible locations with an action film narrative connecting everything. It can feel more like an adventure than a series corridors with a loose narrative.

Combat is just "fine". Machine guns aren't the greatest at staggering enemies. The shotfun feels better to use and the rocket launcher does a better job at killing enemies. Snipers can also feel better to use than the machine guns do since it enemies in few shots.

The health system is unique in that you have different hp in different body parts so it's different in other hitscan games. You can't hold medkits but it's not a game over if low on health well sort of. You can get different health packs for different parts of your health so enemies might hit you in a different spot instead of instantly getting a game over when seemingly on low hp.

I'll start with the negatives is that the ATV controls like garbage and while the villain does tend to have her fans, I didn't find her that interesting or have her actions amount to much of anything.

With all this said, the quality drop off does have different answers from people but for me it's when you enter the jungle. The levels go by very quickly, are connected in a very loose way and it feels like the game just wants to hurry up and end. There's a mechanic where John can turn into a monster but this is underexplored for the most part since it appears towards the end of the game. You also get very little health packs and then there is a giant monster that gets introduced out of nowhere.

At this point, the game feels like it just wants to wrap up already.

Overall, this remaster of Sin was a charming enough game and I can see where the quality drop off comes from but I mostly had fun with it until around the ending few levels.