I think almost everybody agrees that whether or not they thought
SiN was a good game, Half-Life was better in almost every single
way. These two titles shipped at approximately the same time but
some bad bugs were present in SiN that turned off many gamers
from Sinning. These include things likes horrendous load times
(You could go grab a drink from the fridge before a level loaded),
bad AI (sometimes enemies would just stand and do nothing when
you stood in their FOV), and some other problems. SiN had pretty
good gameplay, and I guess 2015 decided with a few bug fixes
and gameplay additions, SiN could compete with Half-Life (and the
other successful FPS). I'm afraid to say I can't agree with them.
Sin: Wages of Sin is by no means a bad addon, but it's not working
off the best game base IMHO. I'm not afraid to admit it, I'm spoiled
by Half-Life and this game doesn't quite reach the challenge that
Half-Life issued for all future FPS.
One of the best things about this addon is that it's not just a mission
pack. It has 17 new single player missions, 10 DM levels, new
enemies, a bunch of new weapons, etc. This is what every addon
should be - not just a handful of maps designed to bleed some
more $ out of poor lil' gamers like myself :(. The number of new
enemies is ok, but I kind of wish there were a lot more new
enemies since you see a bit too much repetition among the
enemies in every level. I wish there were at least different skins
on some of the more common enemies, like the black "ninja" type
enemies, there just seem to be way too many of the same looking
guys.
The quality of the new maps, weapons, and enemies are all
relatively good, however nothing stands out as particularly
impressive. Although the maps are connected by a storyline, it's a
very loose connection that is kind of frustrating, there is no
transition at all. For instance one level you escape from this sewer
into a secret chemical lab, and then the next mission has you in a
club. The connection is that after you escape the chemical lab,
you go to the club to meet an informant. It's not tied together very
well. The quality of the maps is ok, but I can't think of anything
that really impressed me. The levels can get quite confusing as
well, which led to some frustration. The new enemies do the job,
they include mutants and humans alike, but again, nothing that
stands out. Some of the new weapons are interesting, one of my
favorite's is not a new weapon but just an enhancement of an
original weapon.
The standard gun can now deal out double the damage with 2
guns at once - John Woo style. Bringing down an enemy with a
shot of my double silenced guns was quite enjoyable. Some of the
other new weapons are interesting, but AGAIN, nothing terribly
impressive. (Notice a trend forming?). One of the weakest
weapons which I thought might have been kind of cool is the
flame thrower. The fire effects are kind of lame, and although this
weapon CAN deal out a lot of damage, it's very hard (because of
the flame effects) to tell how far the flame is going, and if you're
damaging guys straight ahead of you. It also has a really
annoying hissing sound when you have the weapon equipped and
you're not using it.
The sidewinder missiles are pretty cool, although it's a deceiving
weapon when you first equip it. All you have in your hand is this
little trigger thing, the rockets are strapped to your back and are
invisible in first person mode. They are quite powerful, and weave
around, creating lots of splash damage. They don't LOOK very
powerful or spectacular, which is annoying since I wanted big
thick smoke trails and huge explosions. Ah well :(
I do like the concussion gun, it has the most strategy of all the
guns, but I didn't end up using it a whole lot. Rocket jumping with
it is kinda fun because the damage was minimal, but you don't fly
very high up.
Without question the coolest weapon in this game is the missile
launcher. The coolest part is that you control the missile after you
shoot it, and you can fly around and aim at enemies across the
map. The rocket goes pretty damn slow, which is good in a way
since it's easy to control and (unrealistically) maneuverable, but
you're totally defenseless while you control the rocket. Very cool,
but slightly buggy since if you shoot it into the sky you get that no
clip, weird garbage when you fly out of the boundaries of a map,
and it's really screwed up.
The IP36 is a powerful ass weapon, it just looks really cool and
very damaging, and the explosion is really impressive. They
balanced the weapon's power very well since A) It takes AGES to
reload and B) It takes a little while to shoot after you press fire.
Sorry if I dragged out the gun descriptions, but that's basically
where most of the increased quality of the game comes from. The
maps are pretty good, but not great, the monsters are pretty good,
but not great, and there are still a lot of bugs with the game, which
I'll talk about in Fun Factor.
There are two new items which both work really well, a flashlight
and heat sensitive goggles. While a flashlight is nothing new, this
one works a lot better than Half-Life's flashlight does, and deserves
mention for looking and working better than Half-Life's. The heat
sensitive goggles are just plain cool; a lot of the game takes place
in dark or dimly lit areas, and the effects of the goggles are really
cool and very functional. Neat additions.
Wages of Sin definitely lives up to the original SiN, and sticks very
close to the style and mood the original game had. However, you
must remember that the original SiN, while being pretty fun, is
NOT as good as Half-Life, so we're working from a lower standard
here. The best part is that this addon continues right where the
original game leaves off (for those of you who actually passed the
original), and therefore helps flesh out the SiN story rather than
going off on some weird tangent like Blade gets swept into this
alternate universe vortex..blah blah blah...
The new weapons definitely increase the fun factor of the game,
but there is still a lot lacking in the SiN universe. This game can't
compete with Half-Life, I'm afraid to say. It just doesn't have the
same atmosphere, level design, weapons, etc. as Half-Life, and
unfortunately playing this game in single player mode is taking a
step backwards from Half-Life, even if it's taking a step forward
from SiN. There are a lot of bugs in this game still, the level load
time is still long, and it just doesn't work as well as it should. For
one thing, this game is choppy, a lot choppier than Unreal,
Half-Life, etc. I don't know why, I have a celeron 266 o/ced to 400,
64mb pc100 sdram, 16mb TNT, Sb Live!, etc., and it runs really
choppy sometimes. The sound is also really bad, in that it skips
and freezes the game temporarily sometimes. This _may_ be a
problem with my computer, or bad settings on my part, but I doubt
it, and it is a huge problem with the game. Also clipping
problems, AI problems, and some weird ass lighting problems
(there's a level where you can see bright lights through a solid
wall!) make for a not-so-fun game. As well the difficulty is very
high, and the level design + excessive amounts of enemies make
this game an exercise in frustration sometimes.
Improved Multiplay: [9/10]
SiN's one redeeming quality was good multiplay, the weapons
were well balanced and the addition of specific damage
depending on where you were hit made for a fun multiplay game.
This addon adds not only 10 DM maps, but a new way of playing
this game - Hoverbikes. They're pretty cool, very fast, and really
unrealistically maneuverable, and a lot of fun. Blowing up your
friend while racing on hoverbikes is a lot different from normal
DM, but still a lot of fun. To be honest it's a kind of wierd addition
to a FPS game, but a welcome one, because sometimes you just
get bored of the same ol' deathmatching eh? The DM is pretty
good, the new weapons add a lot of new strategy to SiN DMing,
unfortunately this will not be a really popular game and therefore
have a good time trying to find a lot of servers :). Fun multi, if
you're tired of Q2 or not enjoying HL's multiplay, it makes for a
nice break.
This is a good addon, as addons go. Unfortunately SiN wasn't my
favorite game, so this addon didn't do terribly much for me.
There's a lot of new stuff, and it's all pretty cool, but I can't help
thinking that this addon was designed to help SiN catch up to Half
Life, and it hasn't done it. If you really liked SiN, definitely get
this. If you were indifferent to SiN, this might still satisfy you. If
you didn't really enjoy SiN, I doubt this addon will change your
opinion, even though it is good....for an addon.