GameSpot: The demo on display made a striking initial impression thanks to its use of Half Life 2's Source engine and offered a sampling of the action you'll find in the game. The demo begins with you making your way to Roddick's base and messing up all kinds of smack-talking fools with your trusty gun, explosives, and thrown objects. The demo showed off a number of different scenarios which showcased a good amount of variety. Besides the standard sections where you'll plow through with guns a-blazin', there were others with Half-Life 2-style physics puzzles, a nasty encounter with a massive mutant who was in a pretty bad mood, and even a section where you ride in a vehicle driven by your female sidekick Jessica. Though you can't drive this vehicle yourself, you'll be able to pop out and shoot incoming enemies.

As far as gameplay goes, SiN Episodes: Emergence features the familiar SiN run-and-gun mechanics, though the game's arsenal is being refined. The full roster of weapons from the previous game is on tap (and with the requisite facelift), but not all will be included in Emergence due to the way the story will unfold. However, weapons enthusiasts shouldn't fret as you'll still find a shiny and impressive number of weapons to use. Each firearm will come with a secondary fire mode as well as its own unique melee attack, offering you plenty of options for killing. Better still, the game is tweaking the Source engine's physics system in order to give you more options when causing mayhem. You'll still be able to pick up items and throw them, but their velocity will now be affected by where you pick them up. For example, if you pick up sharp objects by their corner you'll be able to throw them with some spin and get them to stick into walls (or people).

IGN: One thing that made the original SiN stand out was its interactivity, and SiN Episodes aims to keep the world just as lively. Simplistic things like paper towel rolls and soda machines will unravel or spit out sodas when you interact with them, but some items, like telephones, are there to expand on the game's setting. With the phones for example, players can dial numbers that they find throughout the world and hear messages that'll give you more insight into the ongoings in the universe.

SiN was also one of the first games to make good use of location-based damage, so the new series of course takes that to the next level. Players can shoot helmets from atop enemies' heads or bust a cap in their knee, which will send them screaming to the ground. Once they're down, a quick and hearty tap with the butt of a rifle will sprawl them bloodily atop the ground.

As far as a retail product, in the near future, what we'll do is we'll take 2 or 3 episodes and package it in a retail product so you'll have them in order. Beyond that it's entirely likely that we'll do a game based on our technology that's a SiN property either with another character or the main character. There's a lot of elements of SiN. The story has been in development for almost 6 years and 8 or more with the original SiN. So we've been working on this story and the background for this story and all the characters in the world for quite a long time. There's a lot of content there.