Syndicate was a great sci-fi strategy game for the PC back in 1993 (or so I’ve been told), but how does this classic stand up to being reinterpreted as a contemporary sci-fi shooter? Pretty well actually. A lot of the fans of this ancient title may be more than a little miffed about the face-lift, and there isn’t much here that will sway them; the bottom line is that this game is way different from the original. As someone looking at it through fresh eyes I can tell you that the game is very smartly designed with fun controls and great combat scenarios that go beyond the standard hip-high cover we’ve all come to expect from this generation of shooters.
Mechanics:
Shooting is pretty straight-forwardbut, the use of your DART 6 Chip implants allow you to overcome obstacles and enemies in a variety of unique and entertaining ways. Enemies with different implants can be hacked and forced to assist you, once these reluctant allies have helped you finish off their friends they will politley kill themselves. Enemy soldiers and flying drones with shield technology that is otherwise inpenetrable must be hacked on the fly so you can get off a shot that will injure or hopefully kill. The chip even allows you to send enemy missiles flying back at the source. Survival requires you to get good at reprogramming turrets and unlocking doors. All these crazy tech tricks cost you time, you must have the target in your sights long enough to perform these hacks. These time sucking hacks help add to tension of being under assault by five or six advancing troops and drones, and greatly increase the satisfaction of defeating them in smart, creative ways which would have otherwise been simply monotonous and generic.
In addition to all the creative and entertaining hacks comes another implant generated power that slows time and damage taken, while increasing the effectiveness of my weapons. With just a tap on the shoulder button I’m suddenly playing a sci-fi version of Max Payne, it’s a welcome addition to the gameplay even if it’s not the most creative feature here. Weapons in Syndicate are pretty entertaining as well. I’m a big fan of the lock on feature with one rifle that lets me send rounds into a target while we’re both behind cover. With hacker skills that put Anonymous and Lulzsec to shame, techno-bullet time and an assortment of pleasing weaponry, Syndicate really becomes the game I always dreamed Deus Ex could be.
Boss Battles are usually against agents of rival corporations with their own crazy implanted powers. Beating these meta-humans spells upgrades for you, since after you promote them to the next plane of existence you extract the implanted chip from their dented skulls. The boss battles themselves can be entertaining since they vary in tactics from fight to fight. That being said, only two really stand out in my mind, they could have benefited from a little more developer attention.
Story:
This is by far the weakest point in the campaign, which is unfortunate when so much attention was clearly paid to making the combat a blast. It’s predictable, boring, and generally well voice-acted thanks to the talents of Rosario Dawson and Brian Cox. When you’re spending the money to bring in actors of that kind of caliber, I usually expect the game to have a story that can at least stand up to most if not all saterday morning cartoons. You play as Kilo, a corporate agent for Eurocorp who with his experimental DART 6 chip implant goes forth to accomplish missions for the betterment of the company, until the shocking realization comes over him that the company that has been sending him out to steal, kill, and kidnap is actually evil. There are a couple of little details but the punch line is you’re gonna quit your job.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer in Syndicate is limited to a co-op mode but can be pretty entertaining if you remember to have three of your friends join you for it, two-player cooperative play is challenging. The co-op is entirely seperate from the story in the campaign but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You get nine maps to perform retrievals and assassinations and it can get a little tiresome. But with a few more upgrades for your implants and a bunch of new hacking apps it can be a pleasing if not repetitve experience.
With a campaign that lasts roughly nine hours Syndicate is a pretty impressive game for one that started twenty years ago in a different genre. and although the story has a climax about as predictable as a man jumping off the empire state building, the combat with its unique challenges more than makes up for it.