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.