SiN

SiN is a first-person shooter video game based on a modified version of the Quake II engine developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in late 1998. The game was later released over Valve Software's Steam Platform on April 5, 2006, either as a standalone product, or bundled together with its sequel, SiN Episodes.

Plot

Set in the near future of 2037, many of the levels and locations are reminiscent of their current day equivalents. Banks, building sites, sewage works and other everyday recognizable buildings form the basis of many of the levels in SiN. One major difference in the world of SiN is the lack of a police force. Ten years prior to the game, the police force collapsed due to corruption and ineffectiveness against the rising tide of crime. Private security companies have taken the police's place, with some of them patrolling the streets like the former police, some in charge of protecting their employer's assets.

One of these companies which employ their own armed security forces are SinTek, a large multi-national biotechnology corporation specializing in medical and chemical research, owned by the beautiful and charismatic Elexis Sinclaire. Elexis took over the company following the mysterious disappearance of her father, Dr. Thrall Sinclaire, who founded it in 2005.

The protagonist of the game, colonel John R. Blade, is the commander of one of the largest security forces in the city of Freeport, HardCorps. Prior to the beginning of the game, Blade is working to rid the streets of a potent new recreational drug named U4, which is rapidly gaining popularity in Freeport and is rumored to be able to cause genetic mutations to its users. Yet, the source of the drug is still unknown, and its effects not entirely studied. As the game begins, the player is placed into the shoes of John Blade as he responds to a full scale bank heist and hostage situation perpetrated by a well known Freeport criminal boss, Antonio Mancini. But as the player progresses and pursues the criminal behind the heist, further questions are raised: Who is really behind the heist? And is this linked to the reported appearances of mutants in the city?

As the game progresses, it is gradually revealed that the whole bank robbery is funded by Elexis Sinclaire, who in fact only wanted Mancini to steal a safety deposit box from the bank's vault. When she learns that he launched a full-scale bank heist instead, she injects him with concentrated U4 and turns him into a mutant, sending him after Blade. John manages to defeat the huge creature, and afterwards learns that it was in fact Mancini himself. Blade also finds out that the substance found in Mancini's body after his death, is only manufactured by one company - SinTEK. All these unavoidable facts force Blade to embark onto an investigation into SinTEK's vast industrial area located in the outskirts of Freeport.

Later, Blade learns that Elexis Sinclaire's main goal is to poison the Freeport water system with vast quantities of U4, turning all of the city's inhabitants into mutants. He manages to thwart that plan, but it turns out to be just a diversion, because in the meantime, SinTek's troops steal nuclear warheads from a U.S. military base. Elexis threatens to fill them with U4 and launch them at specific targets, turning the entire world's population into mutants. As Blade becomes aware of that, he heads to SinTEK's main base in order to stop Sinclaire.

Throughout the missions, Blade is aided via radio link by a computer expert working at HardCorps: JC, a skilled hacker, capable of breaking into even the tightest of networks. In fact, Blade had first found out about JC when investigating a cracker who had broken into the HardCorps system. After tracking down the hacker, Blade, recognizing the perpetrator's talents, decided to make him a job offer at HardCorps instead of arresting him. Thus, JC became one of HardCorps most valuable assets and the only one able to assist them in hacking-based missions.

SiN introduced many then-new features to the first-person shooter genre like weapon reloading, secondary firing modes, third-person view mode, area-specific damage, the ability to knock the weapon off an opponent's hand, the ability to turn the player into a mutant, drivable vehicles and many more. Although drivable vehicles did not play a big part in the game, there were some sections and levels which required the player to drive certain vehicles, including an ATV, a patrol boat, a forklift and a helicopter. SiN also featured three different types of body armor - for the legs, for the torso and for the head, with each of them depleting separately according to where the player was getting hit.

SiN featured one of the highest levels of interactivity of any first-person shooter at that time. Much of the environment could be interacted with, computer terminals could be manipulated through a DOS-like command prompt, and various objects could be destroyed. Besides, a player's progression through SiN was not entirely linear. Many levels had multiple ways in which to complete them, and actions could trigger drastic changes in future levels. This feature was intended to add a level of replayability to the game and force the player to think before acting. SiN also contained many Easter eggs, more so than most other games, ranging from some fairly obvious signs and graffiti, through to entire secret hidden rooms.

The artificial intelligence of the enemies in the game was on a very high level for its time, with the foes being able to run for cover, call for reinforcements, locate the player throughout the levels, respond to specific scripts etc. However, there were some issues with the game code which prevented the enemies to act completely in the way they were supposed to and unleash their full potential.

Most of the single-player levels were real-life locations like power plants, dams, banks, subway stations, oilrigs etc. Besides them, there were also more sci-fi oriented levels like genetic laboratories, biomech assembly facilities, missile silos, and more. One of the innovative levels featured an entirely underwater landscape in which the player had to find oxygen supply in order to survive. The weapons that the player could obtain in the game ranged from near-future equivalents of present day conventional weapons to experimental devices that required power in order to operate.

Link to download game : http://sh.st/qQQRs
size of game to download : 154.67 MB 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS

CPU Type: Pentium

CPU Speed in MHz: 166MHz

RAM: 32MB

Hard Drive Space: 50MB

Sound Card: Sound Blaster compatible

CD Drive Speed: 4X

Modem Speed: 28.8Kbps

Video RAM in MB: 2MB