SiN Gold

SiN might be held up as a cult classic in some circles, but it was overshadowed by it's '98 contemporaries for a reason. An ugly artstyle, jerky animations, and the worst level design I've ever seen in an FPS of any era make for a frustrating experience. However it must be said that when the atrocious levels weren't getting on my nerves with areas that look virtually identical, terribly implemented stealth sections, snipers that instantly knock half my health off while perched above and behind me and a serious lack of health and ammo, the actual gunplay was pretty smooth and fun. Until the game would inevitably throw more frustrating, poorly thought out design choices at me anyway. If you're interested in trying out old-school FPS games, don't play SiN. It might ruin your view of them and cause you to miss out on some real gems.

I haven't played this in my childhood, so my review is not tinted by nostalgia. Pros: * Graphics are okay for the time * Pretty cool animations, enemies' gibs * Targeting different body parts causes different effects. Like, you can shoot an enemies' hand and they will drop their gun * Cheesy voice acting and a B-movie plot are pretty fun Main problem with the game for me is the gunplay. Here are some of the issues: * When fighting, enemies often run around erratically making predictive aiming irrelevant, aiming feels like a gamble * The sound of enemies' footsteps is very quiet, I've been jumpscared by enemies coming from a corner more times than when playing horror games * Balance is weird: I've played first 16 levels just taking all encounters head on with no issues, but then they introduced snipers that kill you in 2 hits and are placed in inconvenient locations, so you have to save, die to them to learn their position, then carefully take them out. That is not fun at all Some other cons: * Stealth sections. I have no idea what they are doing in a shooter. The AI is very sensitive and notices you very easily, so you generally need savescumming to pass them. If you don't, an alarm is triggered and enemies just spawn endlessly * Sound design. It felt poorly balanced. Some environmental sounds were too loud, while, as I've said, enemies' footsteps were too quiet and so on The bottom line is: it's an FPS. To be good an FPS absolutely must have good gunplay. This game fails in that regard, its gunplay is either just tedious or not fun at all.

Doesn't compete with Half-Life but still a good FPS from 98

Sin is a game that drops the ball so many times at the worst possible places that it becomes absolutely crystal clear why history has forgotten it. For what I played, it was decent at best. The cheesiness of the voice acting and some of the level design practically charmed the pants off of me. Though, like nearly all Quake 2 Engine games, the controls were terrible. I felt like I was driving the bus when I tried to move from one side of the room to the other. To top it off, I lost all of my saved games thanks to the worst video game menu I think I've ever seen. You'll be spending more time looking through the game's files to see what player names you came up with weeks ago and which one has all your progress, only to find out that it just disappeared without a trace. Great. I do understand why a lot of people love this game. I'm sure there are some nostalgia goggles, though when the game is working, it can get pretty fun. Except for stealth, that is just terrible... Purchase at your own risk. It's shoddy programming at best and you'd be better off playing old 90s FPS games that people actually remember because they were good. It's safe to say, this game being swept under the rug did not harm the Gaming Industry in the slightest. If you want a true timeless classic that also runs on the Quake 2 engine, I'd check out Soldier of Fortune.

Graphics are not a problem, I regularly play older shooters, the engine even has some charm. The main issue is that the game is uninspired. It tries to copy other games and brings nothing to the genre. The sole innovation is the possibility to use computer interfaces. Apart from that, it is a collection of clichés: characters, settings, weapons... Released a few years earlier, it might have stood a chance, but in 98, it was clearly outdated. Does the job but rapidly got boring for me. It takes dozens of bullets to kill an enemy.