PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

O

n November 1 9, 19 98,
Sierra released
Half-Life. In the time
it took to install
300MB of exquisitely
poised shooter off its CD-ROM,
everything from the genre prior
became part of a bygone era. And
perhaps the unluckiest of the lot
was Ritual’s SiN, which released
just ten days before it.

Here was a game that, like Half-Life,
wanted to bring a bit more
storytelling back to the genre after a
long period of dominance from
dialogue-averse id Software and
similarly laconic newcomers Epic
Games. It had a spectacularly named
hero in John Blade, and in its
antagonist Elexis Sinclaire a
typically salacious depiction of a
woman – though to give Ritual some
credit, both black player-characters

and female CEOs were wildly

progressive ideas for the era. It had

voice actors. It was set in a

recognisable near-future. There

wasn’t an inverted cross, alien

landscape, or power-up in sight. If

John Romero wasn’t already turning

in the grave he was slowly digging

for himself at Ion Storm, the posters

on SiN’s walls hilariously stating

‘Lex to make Romero her bitch’ on

them would have sealed it.

Though it was destined to be

forgotten in Gordon Freeman’s

wake, the story goes like this:

billionaire biotech company owner

and apparent PVC fetishist Elexis

Sinclaire is making dangerous drugs

that mutate humans into giant veiny

hitboxes down in the Sintek labs.

Freeport City PD’s finest and most

implausibly musclebound colonel

John R Blade gets wind of the

scheme when his Hardcorps team is

called into a bank robbery led by a

mob boss who abruptly erupts into

something beastly and inhuman

mid-chase. Blade, with hacker

sidekick JC in his earpiece and

splicing into various mainframes

from back at headquarters, must

track down the supply of the street

drug U-4 causing the mutations and

take down Sintek.

Not one for the Booker shortlist,

but SiN’s great appeal was, and

remains, the sheer exuberance with

which it goes about telling that tale.

It’s a game full of moments that

clearly, transparently began with

someone at Ritual saying, “It’d be

cool if...” Design document be

damned. Market research can do

one. What can this new toy of 3 D

interactive space do?

It can drop you from a helicopter

into a bank heist in progress. It can

turn a construction site shootout

into a platforming puzzle, and then

throw a driveable digger in there

purely to allow the player to bash a

SIN

Remembering the last shooter of the pre-Half-Life world. By Phil Iwaniuk

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASE

1998

PUBLISHER

Activision

DEVELOPER

Ritual Entertainment

LINK

bit.ly/ 3 krVRVs

OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

REINSTALL

TOP: (^) Don’t do drugs,
kids – or else.