Available for some time for online purchase via Valve's electronic distribution platform Steam, the first-ever episodic action game is now also available in retail stores throughout the European territories. Well, excluding Germany, for some reason or another. Ritual's SiN Episodes: Emergence had a rather voluptuous appearance at E3 2006, though early reviews weren't especially ecstatic about the game's short (but fun) experience.

The developers were hoping that SiN Episodes: Emergence would break new ground as the first major episodic action gaming release. Episodic games are a new format for PC games that provide gamers with more intense and affordable game experiences at a quality level at or above traditionally priced products. Several leading developers and publishers are expected to follow suit with episodic releases throughout the year, starting tomorrow with Valve's Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Emergence, the first in a series of episodic games (nine hinted so far), casts players as HardCorps commander John Blade, stepping into the living world of Freeport City to defend humankind against Bianca Beauchamp Elexis Sinclaire, a beautiful and ruthless Playboy model scientist out to remake humanity according to her own perverted twisted vision. The law has failed to bring Elexis and her SiNTEK empire to justice, so you and your allies, the secretive hacker JC and fiery rookie Jessica Cannon, must bring down Sinclaire and her mutants before she can set her deadly plan in motion and forever alter the shape of humanity. Poor thing.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)