SiN is a First-Person Shooter action game for the PC developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in 1998. It's the first installment in the SiN franchise.
Set in 2037, the games follow Colonel John Blade, the commander of an elite private security force, HardCorps, in the fictional Freeport City. A number of private security forces have taken the place of traditional police - one of these being SinTEK, a biotechnology firm owned by Elexis Sinclaire, a charismatic and dangerous leader who plans to reinvent mankind in her own image using mutated humans. The original game begins with Blade investigating reports of a robbery at the Freeport City Bank. As he digs deeper into the case, he soon discovers that Sinclaire will stop at nothing to carry out her plan, and that he is the only person standing between her and global domination...
Throughout the game, Blade is aided via radio link by a computer hacker at HardCorps named JC, who assists him with hacking networks and discovering more information. To survive in his quest, Blade must travel through a wide variety of levels, battling SinTEK forces and scavenging health packs and armor off their bodies as he progresses, along with collecting a variety of weapons.
The original game (which was caught up in the wake of Half-Life despite releasing almost a month before it) was criticized for being buggy and somewhat generic gameplay, but praised for the strong level design and excellent music. It still sold well enough to receive several follow-ups, including an Expansion Pack called Wages of Sin, where the villain focus is Gianni Manero, a mafia boss who wants to eradicate Freeport City using Elexis's research. It was developed by 2015 Inc., fixed a few bugs, and added a new set of levels and new features, such as the ability to use the standard handgun two at a time.
The original SiN and its expansion pack, bundled as SiN Gold, can be purchased
for $9.99 on Steam and also on GOG.com. The Steam version in particular used to contain only the base game, and was exclusive to purchases of SiN Episodes: Emergence as a free bonus, however, after Nightdive Studios acquired the SiN IP in 2020, they separated it from Emergence, updated it to the Gold edition of the game, and made several enhancements that previous owners received free of charge on March 18th of that year; the enhancements were also added to the GOG version. Nightdive is also currently remastering Gold in its Kex Engine under the name of SiN Reloaded. The remaster is being made in collaboration with 3D Realms, whose own previously shelved attempt at a SiN remaster is given new life as a result of the IP's rights changing hands.
Followed by SiN Episodes: Emergence.
Both the game and its Expansion Pack provide examples of:
In general
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Freeport's sewer system not only has a long network of interconnected rooms, but pipes and passageways wide enough for a large man to swim through comfortably.
- Bag of Spilling: At several points, Blade will start a series of missions without bringing over the ammo and weapons from the previous levels. Most notable when Blade goes from HardCorps HQ to the SinTEK offices wielding nothing more than his handgun and fists (even though the previous level had him using four different weapons).
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: It is possible for enemies to shoot the gun out of the player's hands, but not vice-versa. And this only has the effect of forcibly switching you to another weapon; you can switch right back. Also a subversion in that it does as much damage to the player as hitting them anywhere else would.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Downplayed and surprisingly in-depth for the time, as armor is divided into several sections (helmets, vests and thigh pads) that separately deplete depending on where you get hit with only a small amount of damage sometimes getting through your armor for most enemy attacks. It's also treated realistically in that, rather than being able to somehow instantly repair your vest by picking up another one with almost no integrity left, you can only loot armor if it's in a better state of repair than what you currently have.
- Boss-Altering Consequence: Collecting a specific secret item in the first level reveals the name of the Final Boss: Thrall Sinclaire, the father of Non-Action Big Bad Elexis Sinclaire. It also unlocks several different cutscenes where the protagonists discuss the events with this newfound knowledge.
- Clothing Damage: If you shoot the female hostages and nurses in the right spot, you'll expose their nipples.
- Disconnected Side Area: In one of the strangest applications of this trope, with a little bit of searching in some levels it's possible to find areas that appear to be part of the level, but are actually a sneak preview of a level later on in the game.
- Emergency Weapon: Blade's fists, should you run out of ammo for all your weapons.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Blade can increase his health by finding and eating food hidden in the levels, such as apples, cookies, sandwiches, sodas or pizza slices.
- Incompetence, Inc.: In several points of both installments, important security computers are locked by passwords. To crack them, you need only find the really big computer and type in the name of the guy whose password you want. And this big computer, housing every password and controlling every camera, alarm, and security system in a whole level? It has no password.
- Shooting Gallery: There are four shooting galleries in the training stage: a sniper range, a skeet range, and the lineup and city ranges found in Hogan's Alley. However, the skeet range uses an inaccurate shotgun, and the lineup shooting range used a slow-firing pistol when you needed to hit three targets quickly. In all four galleries, reaching the score limit wraps the score to zero.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Blade can find a Rebreather that allows him to swim ad infinitum without the need to breathe. If you forget to take it, you can still complete the necessary level by using air bubbles.
- Variable Mix: The game shifts to a calmer music if there's no combat for some period of time.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: You could shoot, cripple and/or kill hostages and homeless people.
- World of Buxom: Pretty much all the female NPCs (such as the female hostages or the nurses) have pretty big breasts.
Base game
- Bank Robbery: Elexis was upset that it became a full-scale bank heist rather than just grabbing a single deposit box, because the full robbery was taking too long.
- Collection Sidequest: Blade can collect pieces for a Quantum Destabilizer that can rip through any enemy in the game. The only downside is that the final piece is only found four levels away from the end of the game.
- Cool Bike: The Mountain Gorge level of the main game, Blade must use an incredibly fast motorbike to traverse broken roads and bridges while lava floods the region.
- Developer's Foresight: In Elexis' estate, it's possible to find a secret janitor closet that has a camera feed showing Elexis sitting in a hot tub (which wouldn't be glimpsed until the next level). Although it's impossible to see what she's doing normally in regular gameplay, clipping out of the level will allow you to find the jacuzzi area before you exit, and you'll subsequently realize that the developers put a very special animation of Elexis (fully animated and all) for those who discover it.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In the final cutscene, Blade is distracted long enough by Elexis making sexually suggestive movements that she manages to escape using a hidden trigger-button in her chair.
- Easter Egg:
- Using the ATMs in the first level to access the account number 123456 with the PIN 1234 shows that President Skroob has an account with Freeport Bank.
- Taking the time to swim against a current of water during the underwater level (something which most players are unwilling to try) will lead you into a secret room filled with inactive submarines and a message telling you that you're not supposed to be there, along with the advice underneath to start playing the game again.
- Elaborate Underground Base: There is an entire complex located underneath Elexis' house, only accessible from an elevator in her main living room.
- Fate Worse than Death: At one point, Blade finds a homeless man being tied down and experimented on in Elexis' secret research laboratory. The player can either give him medicine to stop the pain or end his suffering.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- In the unpatched version, many players were never able to see an extra level (the Silo) accessed through the Freeport Dam, as the game would crash if the player happened to just walk down the only hallway leading to the alternate exit in the level.
- Even in the patched version, going through the "Biomass Reclamation Center" secret level will render the game unwinnable as the entryway into Darwin Chamber 3 will never open, forcing the player to no-clip through it.
- Insult Backfire: One of the very first enemies in the original game taunts Blade with "who are you, Barney Miller?" After gunning a few of them down, Blade gleefully responds "that's right, Barney Miller is back!"
- Island Base: The last missions take place on Elexis private island, which contains her labs, lava caves, a jungle filled with mutants and her personal villa.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The bank robbery led by Tony Mancini at the beginning of the game eventually leads HardCorps to discover that Mancini has ties with SinTEK's head honcho Elexis Sinclaire and eventually her plans to Take Over the World as Mother Nature, kickstarting the rest of the plot.
- No-Gear Level: Blade has to do this in one level (with an additional secret level) because he's been transformed into a monster. However, he immediately gets his entire inventory back (along with his clothing) the moment he changes back into his human form.
- No One Could Survive That!: What Blade says at the end after the missile launch (supposedly containing Sinclaire's transported body) is aborted.
- No OSHA Compliance: The Jungle and Mountain Gorge levels in the original are all subject to this, as a result of Blade's rampaging across the Secret Docks. This led to the area being filled with lava, rails being broken, monsters running amok and tons of SinTEK goons perishing. Not being careful enough in said levels also lock Blade from accessing several bonus areas, but that's a minor detail.
- Offscreen Start Bonus: There's an Easter Egg ATM located right at the starting point of the bank level in the original game that (if you obtain the codes from a computer later in the level) allows you to transfer Elexis' entire savings account to Blade, thus making him a very rich man. It's not even apparent that you can access the machines until you stand directly in front of it.
- One Password Attempt Ever: The computer to disarm the nuke only allows one password attempt, failure releases toxic gas. (Easy mode gives an additional chance.)
- Optional Stealth: The first SinTEK levels are supposed to be completed in a stealthy way, as you're undercover and must prevent the workers to raise the alarm and call the security: failing the stealth part (which is surprisingly easy in level 7) will result in more fights with more enemies.
- Rail Shooter: The opening bank assault level, where Blade must sit in an attack helicopter and shoot the enemies on the roof of the Freeport Bank and several adjoining buildings.
- Secret Level: Several in the main game, including the Silo, a bonus part in the Water Reservoir if Blade fails to stop the spreading of the poison, and several extra Jungle stages (to wit; the player can complete only one, or journey through three extra jungle-themed levels if they get caught in an undercurrent during the beginning of the first stage).
- Sinister Subway: The fourth level is set in an abandoned subway featuring flickering lights, cracking floors, thugs that try to kill you and a monstrous, mutated brute that stalks you throughout the level.
- Sniping Mission: The first Oil Rig level has a short section wherein you must snipe all the guards on the lower level before you can board it. An easy mission, as the guards are never close together and have predictable patrol routes.
- Stealth-Based Mission: The SinTEK office. Note that being spotted will not result in a game over, but it will make the level (and the ones after it) much more difficult.
- Storming the Castle: Done unwittingly. Blade doesn't realize he's reached Elexis's base until he's within sight of it, and by that point, there's no going back.
- Suspicious Videogame Generosity: In the final level, you're dumped from a meat cart into a seemingly empty level featuring a giant cache of ammo, weapons and health packs... then you walk outside and see Elexis Sinclair's several-foot high mutated father stalking towards you with a tri-projectile rocket launcher, and you'll suddenly realize the door to the supply room just locked behind you.
- There Was a Door: The mini-Manumit found in the Estate Sinclaire level bursts through a thick wall right after you enter a large testing area.
- Under the Sea: A long level takes place as Blade swims from the underwater research facility beneath an oil rig to a secret jungle facility.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change:
- The first mission of the game, as well as the beginning of the Oil Rig mission, turn the game into a Rail Shooter.
- Late in the game, Blade is transformed into a Manumit and is forced to fight with his bare claws and recover U4 flasks for his constantly-draining health.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: During the car sequence section of the fight against Manumit!Mancini, his uppercut can toss Blade out of the hole in the ceiling, leaving him unable to re-enter the car and finish the boss fight.
Wages of Sin
- Collection Sidequest: Two minor ones:
- A set of four different calendars, which unlock an extra cutscene that plays during the ending.
- An item ("Cheesy Poofs") that, if enough are found, a background detail in the ending is replaced with a giant spinning bag of Cheesy Poofs.
- Cool Bike: The multiplayer levels of Wages of SiN introduce a hoverbike which also is armed with lasers, missiles and hovering mines. In many of the levels are different checkpoints for doing races.
- Guns Akimbo: One of the additions is the ability to use two Magnum pistols at once as soon as you grab a second one - quite conveniently, sticking around in the opening of the first on-foot level for a few seconds has a single enemy graciously rappel in behind you and then drop a second pistol when you cap him.
- Limited Wardrobe: There's a part in the final three levels of the game where you can find a worker's uniform stashed in a vent which will help you past a few security checkpoints early on. Even when Blade has to fight the penultimate boss fight of the game, the cutscene still shows him wearing the uniform.
- Sinister Subway: The first couple of levels throw Blade from the surface into the sewers, and then into the subways multiple times. In fact, hidden in a bathroom is an abandoned bag of money assumed to have been taken during Mancini's original robbery in the base game.
- Story Branching: A minor example, If Blade manages to rescue a scientist who informs him of his kidnapped daughter in the first level then some of the game's next levels will be played in a different order with different enemies, most notably Daeneer Shipping will be set in either day or night, the day version allows Blade to pretend to be a new worker to sneak around and has weaker enemies overall while the night version has snipers, Blade is shot at on sight and more heavily armed enemies are present.
