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SiN  "Blade's got a better attitude than Duke imo"

#121

View PostPlayer Lin, on 10 July 2018 - 06:21 PM, said:

I really hope there will be more SiN games, the episode project was felt so interesting, but never happened after Ritual became a casual game company and most of SiN devs left. :(

I think the only potential future that exists is some as of yet probably non-existent company does a remaster of the OG SiN that buffers out the snipers and amplifies the ATM accounts enough that people want more of the remastered vision of the property.

It's a goldmine waiting to be tapped, but gonna be a hard sell for anyone to take the risk.
3

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#122

I liked the snipers. They were Tom Clancy before there ever was such a thing as Ghost Recon.
1

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#123

I agree, the snipers were great. Their placement at the end of the aqueducts, and at the start of the mansion, wasn't. Honestly the mansion level is one of my favorite levels in a game. The entire concept of being sniped from the outside, with you inside a building seeking cover, for almost the entire level, is fucking brilliant. Especially since you CAN pick them all off if you want to, if you're smart about it.

Oh, yeah, and the hot tub. MMMMM...RUB A DUB DUB.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 11 August 2018 - 07:10 PM

2

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#124

View PostForge, on 09 July 2018 - 04:47 PM, said:

My opinion expanded:
JC allowed for Blade to come across as the i-want-to-punch-you-in-the-face-but-i'll-let-you-live-today tough guy, so he served a purpose, but I found him too smarmy and know-it-all-ish. It felt forced or cliche on several occasions.


Are you kidding me? This game is the most 90's thing in existence, to the point where I'd argue it's 90's blackface. It wakes up in the morning and pisses Surge.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 11 August 2018 - 07:15 PM

3

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#125

View PostPerson of Color, on 11 August 2018 - 07:14 PM, said:

Are you kidding me? This game is the most 90's thing in existence, to the point where I'd argue it's 90's blackface. It wakes up in the morning and pisses Surge.

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More nerd, less know-it-all. That's all I'm saying.

This post has been edited by Forge: 13 August 2018 - 08:41 PM

-1

#126

I actually struggled to find posts of yours to upvoat in retaliation. PoC is right, Sin sucked so hard it is where the 90's gravitationally ended.
1

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#127

View PostJumpJuneJump, on 13 August 2018 - 08:50 PM, said:

Sin sucked so hard

not as hard as you blow.

take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass
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#128

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#129

View PostJumpJuneJump, on 13 August 2018 - 08:50 PM, said:

I actually struggled to find posts of yours to upvoat in retaliation. PoC is right, Sin sucked so hard it is where the 90's gravitationally ended.


Dude, why the fuck are you so hard on this game? It's fucking phenomenal. It's my favorite single player FPS ever. It's Duke Nukem's logical closure point. You make so many of it's minor flaws out to be HUGE issues when in reality the Waterworks boss is the only serious problem. There are other flaws but nothing glaring. The ATV level isn't even that big of a deal and can be beaten easily by saving constantly, and makes up for it with a killer ending.

SiN's biggest "problem" is that it's caught between worlds. It's too advanced for many old school gamers to fully understand, with it's Deus Ex style interactivity, proto-Mass Effect storyline branching and consequences, and it's dependence on sharpshooting that rivals Counter Strike. New school gamers have no idea it exists and would be confused by it's old school design elements, which rock.

It exists to make a small number of elitist pricks very, very happy. The kind of guys who install a modchip in a Sega Saturn then go get shitfaced at a dive bar and make fun of liberals and how they've ruined culture, including gaming. The kind of guys who drive home from said bar with the top down, completely drunk with lots of weed in the car blasting FEAR and Midtown Bootboys in wealthy sheltered neighborhoods while shifting really, really late so their V8 wakes everyone up, just to show up the Hispanic guy driving next to them in a shitty riced out Honda. The kind of guys who end their night by going on 4chan and shit talking weebs and posting hot black girls in response to their yellow fever. The kind of guys who start their morning by hand writing a letter to Burger King telling them to bring back the B.K. Kool Kids Klub "except without the women, minorities, and crippled characters" because that would be, and I quote, "fake and gay."

What I'm trying to say is that this game was made for ME.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 10 September 2018 - 05:33 AM

5

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#130

View PostPerson of Color, on 10 September 2018 - 05:28 AM, said:

Dude, why the fuck are you so hard on this game?

What I'm trying to say is that this game was made for ME.

nothing to add
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#131

@JumpJuneJump - just registered after looking at this thread, so sorry if this was already asked - were you at Ritual during the Episodes' development? How would the storyline have progressed?

View PostFrederik Schreiber, on 05 August 2016 - 03:35 AM, said:

We'll work on getting a hold of all the old Ritualistic content.
We have the rest of the old SiN stuff.
Expect an official announcement soon!

2 years have passed :rolleyes:
0

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#132

View PostPlokite_Wolf, on 30 October 2018 - 01:55 PM, said:

2 years have passed :rolleyes:


Welcome to our Realm. Reality is our delays.
1

User is offline   SonicWind 

#133

3D Realms was working on a remaster of SiN, according to the 3DR Discord:

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Further info in the Discord says this remaster runs on a modified version of SiN's already-modified branch of the Quake II engine and that, should they be able to release it, they plan to have an option to turn off the fancy new stuff and switch back to the original textures.

A bit late in posting this, I'm aware, but I still thought I'd mention it here. Looks good. I hope they can settle on a deal so that all this nice work isn't wasted.

This post has been edited by SonicWind: 23 February 2019 - 06:48 PM

3

User is offline   Player Lin 

#134

I don't care until they finished and released it.

:)
0

User is offline   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#135

Didn't SiN kinda suck?
0

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#136

View PostNightFright, on 24 February 2019 - 02:29 PM, said:

Didn't SiN kinda suck?

define sucked.
it was rushed so it had performance issues at release
it came out late and ended up competing directly against Half-Life.

I found the game quite enjoyable.
2

User is offline   Malgon 

#137

Sin was 90's cheese, grilled to perfection. I'd definitely play a remaster if they can manage to get through the mumbo jumbo of getting it released.
5

User is offline   SonicWind 

#138

View PostMalgon, on 24 February 2019 - 11:54 PM, said:

Sin was 90's cheese, grilled to perfection. I'd definitely play a remaster if they can manage to get through the mumbo jumbo of getting it released.

...You made that pun on purpose, didn't you?

Anyway, I've played the game up to the stealth section after the subway level because I'm really not fond of stealth missions in FPS games... or any kind of action game in general (though in SiN's defense, it doesn't force you to start over by booting you to a previous save or checkpoint). It's enjoyable, and I'm thinking of jumping back in.

This post has been edited by SonicWind: 25 February 2019 - 12:49 AM

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User is offline   Kerr Avon 

#139

All I really remember about Sin was that it was a nightmare to get working right on some PCs. I take it that later patches (official or fan-made?) fixes all of the major problems.

If so, I might pick it up, I've just checked, and gog.com has it (I love GOG!).





View PostSonicWind, on 25 February 2019 - 12:44 AM, said:

...You made that pun on purpose, didn't you?

Anyway, I've played the game up to the stealth section after the subway level because I'm really not fond of stealth missions in FPS games... or any kind of action game in general (though in SiN's defense, it doesn't force you to start over by booting you to a previous save or checkpoint). It's enjoyable, and I'm thinking of jumping back in.


Stealth is mostly horrible when it's forced on you in an otherwise non-stealth game. Especially when it's the sort of stealth where is an enemy sees you then it's instantly game over. You should at least have the chance to save the situation by, for example, having the chance to silence the enemy before he gives the alert (when he presses a nearby ALARM button, or gets close enough to more guards for him to shout out the alert and be heard), but in far too many non-Stealth games, there's are stealth sections where you the guards are presumably telepathic and can issue an alert the moment that they see you. And for some in-game reason, you can't continue your mission when the alarm is given, it's just game over.

Goldeneye on the N64 did a good job, in that it was never necessary to use stealth, but if you liked you could use it to avoid some encounters. The game wasn't built for stealth, but it had things like different weapons having different sound volumes so quieter weapons wouldn't alert close by guards (an impressive feature back then), and if you looked through windows from the sides of over the window ledge, then enemies wouldn't notice you.
0

User is offline   necroslut 

#140

View PostSonicWind, on 23 February 2019 - 05:50 PM, said:

3D Realms was working on a remaster of SiN, according to the 3DR Discord:[...]

It was long "known" they were working on something Sin-related, but I guess now we have confirmation and details and know what became of it. Though to be honest, I had hopes for a sequel/follow-up/newgame rather than another remaster. The original game works fine and doesn't really need it IMO.

View PostNightFright, on 24 February 2019 - 02:29 PM, said:

Didn't SiN kinda suck?

No.

This post has been edited by necroslut: 11 March 2019 - 05:00 AM

0

User is offline   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#141

Your opinion, but no need to give bad rep for it if someone has doubts. It's OK to have different opinions.

This post has been edited by NightFright: 11 March 2019 - 06:02 AM

1

User is offline   necroslut 

#142

View PostNightFright, on 11 March 2019 - 06:00 AM, said:

Your opinion, but no need to give bad rep for it if someone has doubts. It's OK to have different opinions.

Haha, did I do that? Yeah, that was gay. I recommend Sin though.
0

User is offline   Sledgehammer 

  • Once you start doubting, there's no end to it

#143

Interestingly SiN on Steam was discounted on latest sales (I've got the thing during Winter Sale) which didn't happen since 2013. I wonder if there is some movement in regard of the series. I hope 3DR release their remastered version considering it's based on source code.

View PostNightFright, on 24 February 2019 - 02:29 PM, said:

Didn't SiN kinda suck?

It was definitely overlooked, kinda like System Shock. Thanks HL I guess which is too bad because not only SiN (which has potential) flopped, we'll never see continuation of HL either.

Spoiler


This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 11 March 2019 - 08:44 AM

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#144

View Postnecroslut, on 11 March 2019 - 05:00 AM, said:

The original game works fine and doesn't really need it IMO.

Yeah it works for the most part but it could still certainly use some polish, there are still some bugs in there that could be fixed and i would love proper support for higher resolutions. Even with using the widescreen patch the experience isn't as good as it could be... the computer consoles for instance could certainly use some optimizations.
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#145

Decided to go through Sin again.

I think it's a very interesting experiment in interactivity. They poured a lot of resources in making parts of the map open up or explode via scripting. It feels like the main goal with the project was to expand the interactivity in Duke 3D's maps by having things such as objectives encouraging you to destroy machinery or use DOS-style computers to open up doors or shut down security. There's a ton of love put into tearing parts of the map into pieces and playing with computers. Particular standout moments are all of Geothermal Plant and rendering the base inoperable in Underwater Passage.

Another standout feature is how what you do in one map affects the other. Destroying everything you can in Geothermal Plant floods parts of Jungle with lava and opens up a route to a brief secret level in Area 57. A secret in Abandoned Buildings unlocks another secret in Construction Site. Failing the objectives in Waterworks Part 2 leads to a second area in the Dam level instead of game overing you right then and there. Little touches like that help sell the idea that you're actually affecting the world instead of just carving through a maze filled with enemies and occasionally getting booted back to the load save screen for pressing the wrong button.

Combat is a bit more basic than you'd expect from some of the guys that worked on Duke 3D. The enemy damage area system that encourages you to go for headshots does spice up what is essentially shooting the same hitscan guy with bad AI over and over again. However, the game suffers from a seriously limited arsenal. The only practical weapons are the shotgun, assault rifle, chaingun (until you get the rocket launcher), rocket launcher, and sniper rifle (on the rare occasions you get ammo for it). The energy weapons are all pretty crap, despite one of them making you find the parts in order to use it. The "ultimate" weapon feels like Half-Life 1's Tau Cannon but worse in every way, and the Tau wasn't even HL1's ultimate weapon. You essentially spend the entire game shooting the game dude and his army of reskins and remodels with the same shotgun or assault rifle you picked up in the first three levels throughout the entire game.

The game tries to mix combat up with traditional monsters, but it doesn't really work. Their movement AI is erratic as hell, making it hard landing hits on them. Their actual attack range seems very inconsistent with length the attack animation implies, so there are several cases where you'll get hit even though you swear you were out of range when it attacked and vice versa. It makes fighting them feel like a coin toss instead of something you can predict and work with, like in other games.

The combat is really not for people that hate hitscan because of how much it plays into the game. Attempting to play it like Doom or Quake will get your ass handed to you quickly. However, if you enjoy juking enemies and gaming their AI so that you can micromanage their numbers, Sin's combat is quite fun.

Map design has some issues as far as playablity goes. It seems to struggle with going beyond exploring what feels like the same corridors and rooms, just with different textures and enemies. Biomech and Waterworks are the most egregious examples of this, since they feel like the same areas copy and pasted, just with different enemies standing around. Dam, despite the interesting premise, feels like the same areas copy and pasted as well, but it's not as bad as Biomech and Waterworks since the dam area that connects the samey areas is interesting.

This doesn't mean the maps are shit, though. Mansion Sinclair is amazing, despite its short length. It has a whole underbelly that can be skipped and the second part lets you infiltrate it from the ceiling, surprising the snipers that would otherwise make life hell. The Geothermal Plant has a very cool concept, letting you essentially destroy the entire hub, that is still pretty neat today. The Silo is a pretty simple area, but combat is really fun since it lets you let loose with the big guns like the rocket launcher and chaingun without worrying about your ammo, which doesn't happen too often in the game. The missile theft/launch scenario at the end is also clever and adds a sense of pressure that most of the game is missing. The underwater map is the only underwater level I can think of that's actually enjoyable to go through, since it takes advantage of the verticality swimming gives you by making you sim up or down a lot to proceed, along with objects falling on you, forcing you to watch your step as you swim.

It has some very cool brushwork. The Oil Rig, despite being very simple from a gameplay perspective, has some impressive brushwork that makes the place feel alive for a 1998 game (thanks Charlie!). Even HL1 doesn't manage that. The Xenomorphic Labs have some neat brushwork that sells the idea that you're really in an Alien-inspired lab well.

The early portions of the game have an odd focus on stealth and avoiding alarms being pulled, with the SinTek offices outright giving you a soft game over if the alarms are pressed. It feel fairly jarring for a game that's all about gunning dudes down. Why does Blade need to worry about sneaking around when he just shredded an entire gang of bank robbers into giblets? What's even stranger is that the alarm system essentially disappears once you complete the second chapter, only briefly reapparing in Mansion Sinclair near the end of the game. It feels like a semi-aborted concept that never panned out, so it was never done past the second chapter. As a completionist, it's a bit frustrating because I want to complete the levels without the alarms being raised as much as possible, even if it leads to constantly save loading or outright having to restart a level. But, that's a problem on my end, not the game's.

I also have a small gripe with how non-hostile NPCs are treated. Some non-hostiles will trip alarms, while others will not. However, if you kill one that can't trip an alarm, JC gets pissy at you for killing friendlies, even though you just killed the exact same-looking NPC that tried to pull an alarm in the previous room. If you don't know what NPCs can trip an alarm ahead of time, it feels like a crapshoot killing "friendly" NPCs. What's the point of having a system where JC chews you out for killing "friendlies" when he gets mad for killing an NPC in one room, then shrugs his shoulders and says nothing when you kill an NPC that looks exactly like the one you killed two rooms ago, but bolts to the alarm as soon as he sees you?

I did notice that the game is still a little bit buggy, despite the patch that improved it. I found that the objectives in Waterworks Part 2 tended to bug out a lot, with the game considering them not completed despite you actually using both switches and the game marking the objective as completed. It felt like it would be easier to fail the objectives there and go for the second part of the Dam instead of try to make game actually register the objectives as done via trial and error. There's also the Area 57 bug, where going through the Biomass Reclamation Center makes it impossible for the final test chamber in Area 57 to unlock, forcing you to noclip to proceed. It needed another cleanup, but was unfortunately unable to get one before the plug was pulled on development.

One thing that doesn't get enough praise is how pure 90s it is. The game looks, feels, and sounds like a so-called adult comic from the early 90s. It has lots of gore, tits everywhere, cheesy dialogue (including the loading screen briefs), a Saturday morning cartoon-tier plot that tries to be more serious than it really is, a wise-cracking badass made of pure muscle, big guns, corny-looking mutants, and a sexy antagonist that loves having her cleavage out. The only thing it's missing is a full-frontal nude shot of Elexis and a sex scene to truly feel like a dumb and edgy "mature" comic from the early 90s. It's a period piece, but in a good way.

Sound design needs some work. While most sounds are fine, weapon sounds are pretty pitiful, with most weapons feeling barely audible. It makes combat feel weaker than it should be as a result.

Even without the bugs and performance issues that plagued the original game, it would still be beat by HL1. Sin lacks the "wow" moments HL1 has, such as the tram intro, the resonance cascade, the rocket launch, the dam, and the cliffside run. HL1 doesn't run into the issue of samey areas that Sin tends to stumble into. Combat just isn't as interesting nor fun as HL1's due to the lack of weapons to play with and the very simple AI.

Despite it's flawed nature, Sin is still a good game. It feels like combat and some level design was sacrificed for all of the interactivity that the game prides itself on, though. There's little else out like it out there, with interactivity and choice affecting how the game plays and architecture looks instead of simply changing what voice clips characters use or swapping one set of NPCs out for another. I think the move towards "the player must be able to enjoy all of the content in the game in the first run" has killed attempts at evolving Sin's formula, at least in FPS games.
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#146

Great post ^

Yeah you're not wrong about some of the game's more lackluster elements, it's like one of those cheesy 80s/90s action movies with all kinds of production goofs but it just oozes such character and attitude that you can't help but feel a certain joy from. Absolutely a product of it's time.

It's somewhere between a cult hit and a bargain binner or maybe both. Love the shit out of it though!
0

User is offline   SonicWind 

#147

So, it seems Nightdive Studios is now publishing SiN Gold on GOG, according to its game page.

What could this mean?
0

User is offline   TerminX 

  • el fundador

  #148

View PostSonicWind, on 26 January 2020 - 10:29 AM, said:

So, it seems Nightdive Studios is now publishing SiN Gold on GOG, according to its game page.

What could this mean?

Another rushed, shitty re-release with Kex welded onto it?

I can't wait to see how they manage to come up with something even worse than the censored Steam version.
4

User is offline   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#149

I wonder how Kaiser justifies this. Another attempt for a quick cash grab? After Fresh Supply this seems to be the next bad move by Nightdive. I guess the enhanced Strife port before was half-decent, but nothing spectacular, either. I had a lot of confidence in these guys at first, but recent developments make me frown.

This post has been edited by NightFright: 26 January 2020 - 12:49 PM

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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#150

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