PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

hole in the wall in real-time, then get
out, and never operate another
vehicle again. What was a bombastic
corridor shooter in a subway station
five minutes ago becomes a stealth
game that asks you to sneak around
the Sintek labs with nothing but
judicious use of the crouch button to
mask your presence.

CREEPING DEATH

That stealth section, just five missions

into the story, proved an impasse for

me at the time of SiN’s release. It’s

tricky to shuffle around the many

nigh-identical rooms of the

laboratory and tick off the mission

objectives without a single NPC,

guard or camera spotting me now. To

13-year-old hands in ’98, it was

unassailable. It would be months

before I’d get to see its later levels.

Months spent in the uncaring vision

cones of Sintech’s spider robots and

wall-mounted miniguns. The

indignity of Mr Blade himself sliced

and diced by high-calibre rounds.

Modern sentiment towards such a

hurdle at the hands of clumsy stealth

mechanics would be damning, but

you didn’t excommunicate a game for

trying something in the beige age.

Besides, I’d previously spent

several days stuck on a construction

site puzzle that required you to look

up and shoot a girder out of the sky

in order to rupture a water pipe at

your feet, allowing Blade to swim out

of the hole he was in. And another

few days figuring out a platforming

run behind some loose bricks and

ascending the floors of a derelict

building in the precious few seconds

before a bomb went off. What was

another few weeks reloading the

same quicksave?

YEAR OF THE GUNA timeline of shooters from 1998

UNREAL

MAY 22

Wake up on a

wrecked prison space

ship, meet Skarj,

shoot Skarj, look

incredulously at nice

water. Prettyshallow,

but Unrealmade a

leap forwards visually

from incumbent FPS

king Quake II.

TOM CLANCY’S

RAINBOW SIX

AUGUST 21

Guns, yes, but also:

tactics. A

revolutionaryidea

only diminished by

the clumsyplanning

stage which worked a

bit like giving

RTS-style orders

then executing them.

SHOGO

M.A.D.

SEPTEMBER 30

Mechs, yes, but also:

guns. Will the

revolutionaryshooter

ideas never cease

this year? Monolith’s

take on the FPS stood

apart from the Quake

clones. Also about 20

feet taller.

SIN

NOVEMBER 9

As Quake and Unreal

dialled back

exposition and

dialogue, SiNwanted

to take FPS gaming in

a more cinematic

direction.

Characters,plot,

set-pieces... it was a

grand plan.

THERE WASN’T AN INVERTED

CROSS, ALIEN LANDSCAPE OR

POWER-UPIN SIGHT

HALF-LIFE

NOVEMBER 19

It upstaged SiN. It

made Unrealfeel like

a tech demo. Tom

Clancy’swaypoints

and Shogo’s mechs

were laid to waste. So

were thenext 300

shooters. Gordon

changed it all,

forever.

EXTRA LIFE

NOW PLAYING (^) IUPDATE (^) IMOD SPOTLIGHT (^) IHOW TO (^) I DIARY (^) I WHY I LOVE (^) I REINSTALL (^) IMUST PLAY
And you thought it
all started with
Thus begins another Deus Ex, eh?
chapter of ’90s
forced stealth.