Between Dusk, Forgive Me Father, Turbo Overkill, and more, the boomer shooter has recently been propelled back into fashion. The ‘90s were a glorious time for the FPS game – catalyzed by the whirlwind success of the original Doom, within the space of a few years we were rocked by Quake, Half-Life, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Unreal, the original Team Fortress, and dozens more. When it comes to all these modern, spiritual successors, naturally, they take the majority of their inspiration from these huge nostalgic names. But there’s another golden-era shooter, developed by a team that would later work on Counter-Strike, that deserves more recognition. Fast, funny, and with a pioneering gore system, this particular slice of shooter history is yours for less than $3.
This is SiN, the ultra-rapid, quasi-comedy FPS game from Ritual Entertainment, which would later co-create Counter-Strike Condition Zero and Legacy of Kain Defiance. As the superbly named Colonel John Blade, your mission is to defeat the equally superbly named Elexis Sinclaire, who has transformed the residents of Freeport into ghouls and monsters using a DNA-altering chemical. Visually, SiN is pretty simple. Likewise, it’s a straightforward run-and-gun shooter without big gimmicks. But the devil’s in the details.
More than Half-Life, and arguably more than Quake or Doom, SiN feels fluid and frenetic. It has speed and grace above most of its contemporaries. It also has a – for the time – intricate gore system, whereby wounds and blood stains appear on specific areas of enemies’ bodies. Two years before Soldier of Fortune and the notorious GHOUL Engine, SiN pushed the dial on vivid videogame violence.
Fun, fast, and the perfect encapsulation of ‘90s FPS games, you can get SiN Gold, the remaster and re-release from Night Dive Studios, for the low, low price of $2.49 / £1.99. Just click the button below to go right to GOG.
Alternatively, you might want to try some of the other best old games, or maybe look ahead to the rest of 2024 and all the best upcoming PC games making their way to you.
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