『 シン エピソード1: Emergence 』

SiN: Episodes. Great game, great sequel, great idea [with the exception of the game being infected by a virus many know as Steam]. It's been a while since the release of Emergence, first of many planned episodes. I was starting to feel uneasy, thinking that Ritual developers must be a bunch of slackers, otherwise one episode wouldn't take this long. So I clicked around, looking for all possible signs of new developements.

Was I surprised, when instead of Ritual webpage, I've somehow managed to end up at Mumbo Jumbo, the home of "casual games" [casual games meaning total crap games]. As it turns out, Mumbo Jumbo, a company out of nowhere, took over Ritual and assimilated them into their evil collective. Nice.



This basically means I won't be seeing a second episode anytime soon. Unless it's a "casual" [crap] Tetris clone with SiN characters in the bacgrounds. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. At least we got one episode and a re-release of the old game. Plus some additional downloads through the damned Steam.

We can always go through the old screenshots of the game, showing some levels that weren't included in the actual first episode release and hope that it was something from the second episode. Something we can look at, but cannot play.



Below you can check out the SiN: Emergence trailer which shows you just how cool this title is. Source engine combined with Havok physics. If you love Half Life 2 and what Valve gives you just isn't enough, pick up SiN: Emergence. You won't regret it.



『 SiN: Episodes SDK 』

Whether we see any other episodes or not, Ritual and Valve were kind enough to supply the modding comunity with proper tools for developing their own content, aswell as modifying the already present. Yes, I mean the freely avalable SiN: Episodes SDK.



There's really nothing to it. If you already own Emergence, you've probably noticed that the SDK can be found in the "Tools" section of your Steam window. So don't be shy, give it a try. Yes, I know that rhymes.

The SDK menu lets us choose between face modeller / poser, model viewer and map editor [Hammer]. This, plus loads of documents, is more than enough to get you started. The menu also supplies you with links to Valve's developers community boards.



After I've downloaded mine, I just booted it up to see if it actually works. It does, even though I'm more used to much faster and comfortable UnrealEd. Still, the SDK has been out for ages now, which means there's plenty of content out there for us to grab. The only thing I could wish for right now, aside from Ritual making another episode, is more free time on my hands.



『 Dopefish 』

Damn! This entry is really heavy on SiN, but what the hell, the game is awsome and it deserves the attention. While running around one of the maps of Emergence, I bumped into a familiar figure!



Remember playing the first SiN game? Remember the Dopefish? Well, he's BACK! I found him just today and I'm quite aware that everyone knows all about it / him by now, but I'm not one of those gamers who look up every possible secret in the game through forums and faqs, so it's news to me! Besides, it's much more fun this way. Here's a shot of our fish friend as he appears in Emergence. You can see he got upgraded since the last game!



I'm sure there are those of you who actually have a life outside of videogames and have no idea what a "Dopefish" actually is. Well, a Dopefish was first created by ID Software and was one of many enemies in the Commander Keen series [it appeared in the fourth game to be exact]. Since then it became an internal joke and Dopefish made its way into some well known titles, even outside of ID. The wacky fish can be seen in such games as Max Payne, Hitman 2 and Psychonauts. Talk about viral character design. Since the Dopefish is loved by developers and gamers alike, it made its appearence in many homebrew mods of official games, aswell as in completely homebrewed titles. It even became a playable character for the M.U.G.E.N. engine.

『 ラビッツ・パーティー / Rayman: Raving Rabbids 』









『 大神 / Ōkami 』