SiN Episodes: Emergence update released

[Everlost_MI]

The official website for the SiN Episodes (http://www.sinepisodes.com/) has released an update (http://www.sinepisodes.com/index.php?news) for the first episode, Emergence. The update will be installed and applied automatically when the Steam client is restarted.

Here's what the update contains...

* Fixed a bug sometimes causing the challenge to never ease up on the player, making it unforgiving.
* Fixed a bug that may have been causing sound-stuttering issues for some players.
* Fixed a bug where changing the fov made you a cheater.
* Fixed player stats not always reporting while you are in the car or otherwise locked in place.
* Fixed the instantaneous challenge rating sometimes reporting 0.
* Fixed a texture problem that was causing a lock-up on some video cards when loading in U4Labs.
* Fixed a texture problem that was causing a crash on some video cards when fighting the Quadralex.
* Fixed a texture problem that was causing a crash on some video cards when inside of green poison gas.
* Fixed a path-finding issue preventing the game from progressing after talking with Radek at his headquarters.
* Reduced point-size on some fonts to fix some close captioning to not fit for some languages.
* Fixed a path-finding issue with one map.
Anyone snag this game/episode yet? If so, what do you think of it?

[Draft]

I haven't enjoyed it, and a big reason why is performance issues. Lots of stuttering. Maybe this will fix it.

[Steve_Erhardt]

No performance issues here, but I'm not all that far into it yet, either.

What I have seen is nice, though. Especially Alexis. However twisted that is.

[sparkfizt]

It was all right. I felt I got my 17 bucks worth out of it. my only problem may be related to the first bug... I set the difficulty a little over halfway on the slider, but by the end of the game it was nearly impossible to beat :P My only real beef with the game itself is that I felt lost in the story. There was'nt really enough of it to give you a good sense of what you're doing and why. All in all it was all right(expectations were not too high), i'll likely get the next episode wh en it comes out.

[StoneGut]

I'm liking it. Was having some performance issues as well but I just got my video card back from warrenty repair (Great & Speedy service ATI!!) so that will probably change when I play it again later tonight.

Check it out.

[torrefaction]

Heh. There's a much cooler "Emergence" that I'm looking forward too.

[askheaves]

I don't know why, but this list of fixes makes me giggle.

It's almost enough alone to make me want to buy it when i can scrounge up 70 odd bucks (that includes the 40 or so for New Super Mario Brothers which, obviously, takes priority).

[Draft]

No performance issues here, but I'm not all that far into it yet, either.

What I have seen is nice, though. Especially Alexis. However twisted that is.her jiggles are so last gen compared to DOAX2. Need to get some Aegaia physx up in this piece.

[Steve_Erhardt]

her jiggles are so last gen compared to DOAX2. Need to get some Aegaia physx up in this piece.
M'eh... outside of Christie, none of the DoA girls really do anything for me, and where that whole "I'm to kill you while we fuck" look goes, Alexis still has it over Christie.

Though of course, turned actual flesh and blood, I'd turn niether down. ;)

[kabutor]

prices in Steam are not for real life people, are for hardcore hyped players only.

DoD Source still 20$ ? C'mon, it was released like years ago?

Sin episodes 20$ ? Im waiting for some sales here to jump in, maybe with ep2, if it cames at all?

Steam needs to double check the prices, 29$ HL2 after all this time is like a bad joke.

[Draft]

M'eh... outside of Christie, none of the DoA girls really do anything for me, and where that whole "I'm to kill you while we fuck" look goes, Alexis still has it over Christie.

Though of course, turned actual flesh and blood, I'd turn niether down. ;)listen to you, rationalizing last gen jiggling. You sound like a Nintendo fan.

[NeuroMan42]

So far I am really enjoying the game. I really liked the first SIN game, as it had a cool plot for an FPS. It was nice to play a FPS with a story and not just shooting everything.

[Steve_Erhardt]

listen to you, rationalizing last gen jiggling. You sound like a Nintendo fan.
Well I'm not THAT far gone for digital chicks... yet. :p

[Ph00p]

$20/episode x 6 (or 9?)= you do the math

they really killed john, I don't think I heard "bitchin'" even once :( part of Sins charm was John's colourful character.

[Paranoia]

The stuttering is still there? It seems to be a common problem with the Source engine.

[Paranoia]

$20/episode x 6 (or 9?)= you do the math

they really killed john, I don't think I heard "bitchin'" even once :( part of Sins charm was John's colourful character.

Great. Thanks for telling us the ending without spoiler tag. :mad:

[Wombat]

He wasn't saying they killed John, he was saying he barely says a word throughout the thing, so they 'killed' his characterisation from the first one.

[Paranoia]

He wasn't saying they killed John, he was saying he barely says a word throughout the thing, so they 'killed' his characterisation from the first one.

Right. Sorry about that then.

So John doesn't say anything at all? What is up with that anyway? John was better with voice. Now he ends up mute like the rest of those one dimension characters (Gordon Freeman, Mathew Kane, Doom 3 guy, & the rest of the mute characters). Not good.

[miah]

I preordered this and played it the day it came out. I'm easily 90% done, just haven't finished it. The boss fights are fairly challenging, so far I'd say its definitely a good game. I was having some studdering issues, and some video glitches, but I upgraded my soundcard drivers as well as my ati catalyst install and all problems went away. There are some funny phone #'s plastered all around (posters on the wall and such), dial them on the phone for some short silly messages.

[sparkfizt]

Mute characters are a different narrative technique that I like better sometimes. Just like in GTAIII the main char never speaks, so instead of the character saying something you disagree with, they merely say nothing at all. not bad... just... different.

[robotfighter]

Thank God for a patch, I fired it up, and it was stuttering at inopportunte moments. Will have to see how the new fix helps, because what I was able to play was fun, generic, but fun.

[Paranoia]

Mute characters are a different narrative technique that I like better sometimes. Just like in GTAIII the main char never speaks, so instead of the character saying something you disagree with, they merely say nothing at all. not bad... just... different.

I for one glad they drop the mute main character. Vice City & San Andreas main character spoke so to me it was a huge improvement to the storyline & character development.

[TheHulk]

How was the original Sin? Don't remember hearing anything good about it. Is it worth picking up and trying to get to run on XP?

[Paranoia]

The original Sin was fun. Unfortunately the game had tons of bugs and it had one of the biggest patch at the time (50MB?). The expansion pack was also good.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Well I had it preordered for a while... finished it on day one and loved it. No performance issues at all with max settings. Fun fun game.

~Anyone know where the damn third uber coin is for the boss on W1?

[bean19]

Even at a bargain price, I'm not enjoying this play-by-the-numbers FPS. Nothing in it is inspiring or new, including the plot line. The enemies are soulless and boring, and I hate the fact that I'm playing a cop named "Blade".

The one redeeming quality of the game is that your sidekick Rebecca has some really great lines. She is hilariously obnoxious and irreverent. . .

It's the games main plot line that is derivative and dull, the characters are believable and well voice-acted. I get the feeling that there was a talented writer behind this game that was given a main story to follow by someone who is NOT a writer. That, or it is a single vision by someone who excels at dialogue and sucks at plotting. That's easy enough to fix if you read this. He needs to read more stuff so that he starts realizing when his ideas are horribly cliche. . . or even play more stuff. I'd be happy if the plot was memorable of a book I'd read, but being memorable of gameplay. . . teh suck.

The weapons (you get 3) are a pistol, shotgun, and machine gun. . . no surprises there. They also have secondary modes that have much fewer bullets but deliver very powerful shots.

The whole changeable difficulty thing didn't seem to be working on my game. The bad guys always seem to be very accurate so I had to do a lot of darting in and out of cover and luring, but all of the standard enemies go down with one headshot fired from any weapon (though the shotgun is worthless from more than a few feet away - as it should be).

A lot of the "puzzles" really aren't puzzles at all. They are just poor game design. I know, we'll make the player struggle to find out where to go by hiding a switch to a door in another room on a panel he's seen a 100 times before but wasn't interactive until now. Very retarded.

It's May though. There isn't shit coming out for a long time. Pick it up if you like. You get the original Sin game along with the purchase.

However, this thing is going to have to only release in the Summer or get a lot cheaper or (prefferably) better, before I buy another episode.

[Rafer]

I for one glad they drop the mute main character. Vice City & San Andreas main character spoke so to me it was a huge improvement to the storyline & character development.

It's like a few years ago everyone decided that having a character talk takes you out of the game. After playing HL2, Doom III and Fable within a few months of eachother I got really tired of the "mute protagonist" cliche. Like it works for HL2 but after those games, playing Riddick was a relief as it showed having a few cut scenes and a talking character which can actually help a FPS.

And I'm surprised I haven't seen more coverage and reviews of Sin, what the hell was the game press doing last week? (E3, I know).

[Cyotik]

I'm enjoying SiN. I see the occasional hitch during gameplay but its very rare with the settings maxed out. The game isnt amazing, feels a little generic and not as well thought out as it could be but for 20 bucks I'm not going to complain.

[6 String Guy]

The stuttering is still there? It seems to be a common problem with the Source engine.

I had a bad case of the stuttering problem with my machine as well. It got to the point where some maps would cause my machine to crash. DOD Kalt was one of them.

I'm an audio engineer and I noticed the same stuttering problem when I was mixing music on Cakewalk's Sonar 5 while opening and closing secondary windows. I eventually purchased a SATA drive for all my audio tracks and the stuttering with Sonar audio playback ceased. I then moved all my Steam games over to the same drive and the stuttering was reduced to next to nothing. I then upgraded my Radeon 9700 Pro to the X1300 pro and now Source engine games run smooth as silk.

IMHO, I think the stuttering issues are not all sound card related. It's also how full your hard disk is and whether or not it's the same drive the OS runs on. Others have had success with changing the PCI latency timers. I experimented with it and it did not help much.

Eric

[DirtyChimp]

how long did this episode take to complete? is it worth $20?

[Strand]

Sin Ep 1 isn't anything revolutionary for sure. Its a fun game for a couple nights if you're bored and have nothing else to play. Its nothing to be excited about and its definitely not the next Half-Life or anything.

I finished it and I'm not excited for the next episode or anything. If it comes out when there is a dry spell of good games I'll grab it maybe. It is just another FPS but it is fun and the controls are tight. I can't say anything bad about it but there is nothing good to be said about it either.

[Shifter]

I'd agree with many of the comments above. Not much stuttering for me, and I did finish it. The boss fights are fun (stupid helicopter!) and the game gets creepy at times in a very HL2 kind of way. You're seldom in a really bad spot though, as the game provides a liberal number of heath packs, etc. I played at default medium setting and it felt right -- I only wanted to throw my mouse a few times. I wish they'd implemented a better system for toxic gas cannisters which are supposed to make your reflexes better but in truth are just disorienting.

Mute main characters are annoying, but there are some colorful sidekicks and villains. The extras you get during the credits for finishing the game are pretty funny. There's about 4 hours of gameplay here. Not awesome, but I'd say it was worth it for under $20. I'll probably pick up the next episode if there's nothing else going on.

Overall, beats a bad movie but not better than late night Cinemax.

[Snowmit]

I liked it well enough. I had the loading stutter problems that plagued HL2 when it first came out. I didn't so much like the story though it was enough to make me want to play episode 2. The world is very interesting and everywhere you go you feel like there is backstory happening but the dialogue wasn't all that good and the plot of YOUR story wasn't all that good either. I hate scripted cut scenes where I have a clear shot at the bad guy but I'm magically not allowed to shoot. Either put them behind bullet proof glass or let me get some shots off.

There were a few confusing moments where they changed the rules on me (surprise this panel suddenly works now where everywhere else it was filler!) so I wandered around in cirles. It was hard enough in places that I did a fair bit of dying and reloading, but I really love that part of firefights.

The weapons were convincing and fun. I didn't mind that I only had access to 3.

I will be buying Episode 2.

[51|RandoM]

I played through with max settings at 1920x1200, no stuttering at all, performance was fine. Did have one crash, but it appears that it might've been one of the fixes mentioned in this patch.

The game itself isn't anything special, though, imho. It felt an awful lot like FEAR with no fear, weak graphics and less AI. I think some of my disappointment was with the weapons. They work ok and all, but I only found 3, and they were your basic pistol/rifle/shotgun with alt-fire modes as well. I tended to use the pistol most of the time, as long as I a) had ammo for it and b) wasn't fighting the minigunners.

[Stormwatcher]

Mute main characters can be great. Gordon Freeman and the Fable guy are 2 examples. And Freeman is a hell lot more tridimensional than several loquacious protagonists.

But John Blade should talk trash. It's part of the character.

[Citizen Philip]

I got a "meh" from the whole experience, max settings no bugs. I was more interested in seeing the naughty bad girl nemesis: as her model was the only one I didn't see 40 times. Her and the huge fat monster.

And really.. I didn't like her bikini at all.

[bobmitch]

I didn`t enjoy it at all - in fact, I didn`t finish it.
It felt very much like a good amateur total conversion than a pro standalone game.
The weapons feel decidedly ineffectual, and the weird gliding sensation of movement is very disconcerting, and can`t really be tweaked in the options - there is no real sense of connection with the character or the game world.
The sound and music are very good though, and the pacing is also quite good - but overall the game does feel pretty rushed. Another couple of months in polish mode might have done the trick.
Compare it to the, by now, ancient HL2 opening levels.... well... it doesn`t.

[bean19]

Can someone PM me with information on how I beat the fucking helicopter?

Please!

[Ravenlock]

I'm in with the "for the price, it's fun and mindless" crowd. The combat is solid (HL2 engine is bound to be, after all), the guns feel good, and the short length fits with the fairly repetetive gameplay - I'm not done with it yet, but I expect I will be before it gets old.

If you "hate that you're playing a cop named Blade", you shouldn't have bought a SiN game. Over the top cheesy action-hero stuff is the series' style. It is indeed a shame that he doesn't talk this time around, but the writing and acting for the other characters (so far) is quite good. I like that the thugs have their own conversations going on, similar to the way henchmen did in the No One Lives Forever series. It's not like it makes the game deep, but it's more fleshing out than I expected for a $20 balls-out shooter.

[Kefkataran]

You guys check out the latest podcast to see what I think of the game. :)

Can someone PM me with information on how I beat the fucking helicopter?

Not PMing, I know, but, well... you shoot it. That's it. Seriously.

[bean19]

Not PMing, I know, but, well... you shoot it. That's it. Seriously.

Well, the PM was so that you wouldn't spoil it for others. . . so I can see why this isn't a spoiler.

I am out of ammo, and I've searched all around the top of the building for more. That thing is not hard to avoid fire from, it just won't fucking die.

Quite possibly the lamest, most bullshit boss mob ever.

[Kefkataran]

Well, the PM was so that you wouldn't spoil it for others. . . so I can see why this isn't a spoiler.

I am out of ammo, and I've searched all around the top of the building for more. That thing is not hard to avoid fire from, it just won't fucking die.

Quite possibly the lamest, most bullshit boss mob ever.

It's annoying cause they make you fight him RIGHT after the big guy with no chance for health or ammo refill, yeah. Honestly, I got stuck just taking him out with my shitty pistol. Took five or ten minutes, but he went down eventually.

[Schnoogs]

The ending was actually a bit too easy at the easy setting...ammo was plentiful...now I wish I had picked something more difficult

[Kefkataran]

Yeah, I just set it to the middle for me, and from about two hours in until the end it was fucking nuts.