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Syndicate: The new one
13 years ago
General
I know its a few years old at this point, but I had initially avoided it due to... less than glowing reviews of my friends. Then I noticed while loudly EA branded it was made by starbreeze. Starbreeze had always surprised me in the past with making fun, while arguably simplistic, games. So I bought it on the cheap.
Syndicate was something I used to be a little obsessed with back in the day. I even wrote fanfiction for it. Haha, no not that kind of fan fiction. :D Though there was some inappropriate machine on man action, but I'd hardly call it porn...
The classic games were frustratingly hard and I admit to loving a bit of gaming masochism. Cyberpunk is something I really miss nowadays. Sure I can go back and play system shock 2, deus ex or ... or yeah that's how like cyberpunk there is out there. I guess there was the console shadowrun games too. Though the point is compared to military shooters there might as well not be any cyberpunk games.
So its another cyberpunk shooter for my starving ID. Which I like just fine. The game has fairly solid combat. It mixes it up with your powers. The enemies are fairly smart, and the game does not tie you down to its cover system. I'm starting to dislike cover systems because most games make you suction cup your ass to the wall all the time. This games not one of them.
The bad:
-There is not enough game. While some may argue this is a good thing, the entire game is infiltrate -> boss. Plus all the bosses get some animated kick your ass with melee time. Which if they put in the ability to fight back in some way I would find it less annoying. Not all of us want to be Jean Claude Van Damme. The plot could be told in a paragraph. The "flavor text" is all written like it was from a boring news teleprompter.
-There's only like eight weapons in the whole game. Three of them might as well be the same gun. Almost four as one weapon requires you to lock on a target before its like the other weapons. One of pistols is pretty good, the other is ass and they make you beat a boss with it. Then you have the sniper, laser and flamer weapons which have limited uses. I went the entire game without throwing a single grenade... I guess there's that missile launcher in the middle of the game, but you only see it once and its much smarter just to haul ass and bypass that entire section.
-One ending. It felt like they were going to give you two... but no. No multiple endings for you.
The good:
-Has co-op missions, but they are the same sort of cookie cutter formula so if you didn't like it in the first place you'll be left lacking.
-Solid combat. Sure some of the boss combinations can get a bit tiresome but this game has good meaty combat. Powers also keep combat interesting.
-RPGish upgrades. They don't do much, but it spices it up a bit.
So all in all I think starbreeze would have been better off not butthurting the cult fans and made up a name for it. It's a passable cyberpunk shooter. Could have been more too it, but I felt it is worth a play.
Syndicate was something I used to be a little obsessed with back in the day. I even wrote fanfiction for it. Haha, no not that kind of fan fiction. :D Though there was some inappropriate machine on man action, but I'd hardly call it porn...
The classic games were frustratingly hard and I admit to loving a bit of gaming masochism. Cyberpunk is something I really miss nowadays. Sure I can go back and play system shock 2, deus ex or ... or yeah that's how like cyberpunk there is out there. I guess there was the console shadowrun games too. Though the point is compared to military shooters there might as well not be any cyberpunk games.
So its another cyberpunk shooter for my starving ID. Which I like just fine. The game has fairly solid combat. It mixes it up with your powers. The enemies are fairly smart, and the game does not tie you down to its cover system. I'm starting to dislike cover systems because most games make you suction cup your ass to the wall all the time. This games not one of them.
The bad:
-There is not enough game. While some may argue this is a good thing, the entire game is infiltrate -> boss. Plus all the bosses get some animated kick your ass with melee time. Which if they put in the ability to fight back in some way I would find it less annoying. Not all of us want to be Jean Claude Van Damme. The plot could be told in a paragraph. The "flavor text" is all written like it was from a boring news teleprompter.
-There's only like eight weapons in the whole game. Three of them might as well be the same gun. Almost four as one weapon requires you to lock on a target before its like the other weapons. One of pistols is pretty good, the other is ass and they make you beat a boss with it. Then you have the sniper, laser and flamer weapons which have limited uses. I went the entire game without throwing a single grenade... I guess there's that missile launcher in the middle of the game, but you only see it once and its much smarter just to haul ass and bypass that entire section.
-One ending. It felt like they were going to give you two... but no. No multiple endings for you.
The good:
-Has co-op missions, but they are the same sort of cookie cutter formula so if you didn't like it in the first place you'll be left lacking.
-Solid combat. Sure some of the boss combinations can get a bit tiresome but this game has good meaty combat. Powers also keep combat interesting.
-RPGish upgrades. They don't do much, but it spices it up a bit.
So all in all I think starbreeze would have been better off not butthurting the cult fans and made up a name for it. It's a passable cyberpunk shooter. Could have been more too it, but I felt it is worth a play.
