SiN Episodes Hands-On and Interview
The game that has many people thinking “CES Game of Show”, whatever that means
Tags: Sin Episodes Categories: PC Previews, Previews, Xbox Previews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 15th, 2006
Hand it to the folks at Ritual Entertainment for delivering what is one of the biggest surprises at CES 2006. For the first time ever, they were displaying their first installment of the upcoming SiN Episodes, entitled Emergence. The game itself was full of nice surprises, but perhaps the biggest is some of the talk about what may be in store for the series.
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I’ll cut right to the chase. One of the things I specifically wanted to address in my talk with Ritual co-founder Tom Mustaine was the methods for content delivery. As many of you undoubtedly know, Ritual is working alongside Valve (the creators of the legendary Half-Life series), to deliver each installment of SiN Episodes on Valve’s Steam service, allowing them to distribute the installments in short, episodic bursts at a bargain bin price without actually being delegated to a bargain bin in your local Gamestop or Best Buy. Mustaine says that, while the episodes may be compiled into a retail package in the future if they prove to be successful enough to warrant demand, releasing them first on Steam deflects a lot of the risk involved with a retail product.
“Interesting,” I say, “It seems that with stuff like SiN Episodes, Rag Doll Kung Fu, and the recent deal with the folks at Strategy First, Steam is shaping up to be the PC equivalent of Xbox Live Arcade. Have you guys given any consideration of porting the SiN Episodes to the Xbox 360?”
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“Funny you should ask me that,” he responds. As it turns out, the success of Xbox Live Arcade titles like Geometry Wars and Gauntlet has not been lost on Mustaine and the folks at Ritual, and they’ve been in serious talks with Microsoft’s Live Arcade people about the possibility of bringing the SiN Episodes to Live Arcade as well. “The only major problem is one of filesize. Currently the first episode is bigger than the size cap on the Xbox Live Arcade, which would seem to indicate that if the game is to make it to the 360, either something will have to be cut or scaled down or Ritual will have to do something impressive with the compression to make it fit.
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Looking at the game, you can see why. It’s absolutely gorgeous. You can tell within an instant of looking at it that it’s powered by Half-Life 2’s Source engine, as it shares many of the same effects, such as that title’s beautiful water effects and exquisite bump-mapping. Mustaine is quick to point out that while the episodes will use Source engine, they are capable of building on it over time, and future installments will undoubtedly look better as more work is done on the engine. For example, while the first SiN Episode won’t support Valve’s highly-touted HDR Lighting, the second installment will (High Dynamic Range Lighting, for those unaware, makes light act in a manner similar to the way your eyes percieve it).
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On the surface, the gameplay in SiN Episodes looks very nice, with plenty of adrenaline-pumping action, and an environment that Ritual has tried their best to make as interactive as possible. Mustaine also noted, with a wry smile, “and then there’s the computer interfaces. You know the interfaces they had in Doom 3? Yeah, we invented that.” However, when all’s said and done, it’s what’s under the hood that’s impressive.
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Perhaps the most notable accomplishment Ritual has made with SiN Episodes is their approach to the challenge level. Unlike other titles, which give players an options setting to determine difficulty level, SiN Episodes will adjust to players’ performance on the fly using a feature called Dynamic Difficulty, updating game balance and enemy A.I. every two minutes to best match the player’s level of skill. If players are taking down swarms of enemies with quick headshots, the game will start giving them bulletproof helmets. If the player is running through the level at a speedy pace, the game will toss in a horde of enemies to slow them down. By contrast, if the player isn’t doing too well, the enemies will get dumber, becoming more prone to standing in areas where they’re more suceptible to your gunfire, or worse, taking cover behind those infamous exploding barrels.
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This constantly-updating challenge level is a really remarkable concept, and I have to wonder why no one’s thought of it before. Mustaine was particularly proud of the fact that earlier, the demo had been played by both a CPL FPS tourament champion, as well as a strategy game enthusiast with little FPS experience. Yet, dispite their extreme difference in skill, both players completed the demo within fairly close proximity of each other. Mustaine says that the game’s ability to ensure a decent length (roughly four to six hours per installment) will be very important to give players enough bang for their buck.
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In addition to using all this information about the player to switch up its AI, the game also allows players access to this information so they can gague their performance, and compare how well they did with other players. And although the first episode won’t give players the opportunity to match their skills directly in a multiplayer deathmatch, this feature is being planned for a later installment (likely the second one) to get the first episode out within the next few months.
As it stands, the game is very far along, and should please PC FPS fans looking for a great-looking, great-playing title on the cheap. And with any luck, it may be pleasing Xbox 360 owners as well.
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Tags: Sin Episodes
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 15th, 2006 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews, Xbox Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
