Syndicate Review

[Therumancer]

the worst part of this is the wasted potential of the IP.. they could of brought it into the 21st century but no they took the IP and wasted it on a bog standard bargin bin fps that people will forget in a month or two.

i never thought i would say this but im glad its banned here in australia at least people wont be regretting their purchase of this

Out of curiousity what was the reason for banning this in Australia.


They banned it cause you can.......

Force a guy to kill his allies then turn a gun on himself and commit suicide.
Make a chip in another person head superheated and self destruct destroying most if not all of the cranium.
Shoot people in half with the chain gun.
etc.

It's a shame this game will only be remembered for how it defiled and wasted the original IP. I doubt people would remember what kind of game it was in 10 years. Just that there was this really good Strategy game in 1993 that got a really shitty reboot in 2012.

You went from basically holding the remote control in the palm of your hand to being a puppet. In other words you were the CEO in the original to the Puppet in a children's play. I'm not joking about the children's play.

The story here is something I would use to teach a 5 year old why it's bad to be a murdering corporate puppet who was cybernetically enhanced. The original game asked one thing of you. Be Ruthless and play as you please. Here you can't go one level without getting a sermon.

I liked the music though.

Hmmm, sad to hear it. I thought Australia was over that and had it's "M" rated games rating and such. I mean as described that's pretty intense violence, but also arguably par for the course for action games. I mean ripping people to pieces with miniguns is pretty much standard for any game with miniguns, and that is well.. a lot of shooters.

I was wondering if it was something new that I had missed. Nothing important, but I remember Australia forcing Bethesda to edit Fallout 3 due to drug content... animations showing the character actually inject themselves with stimpacks and the like.

That said, I agree, I consider "Syndicate" one of those video gaming classics, and it's pretty sad to see how everything turned out. It's not even a good shooter.

As far as the moral subtext goes, I vaguely remember things being fairly ambigious. Your corperation being arguably the most benevolent of a bad lot when you read what some of the other corps were up to, especially in the final missions. I vaguely remember Atlantic Accelerator where your virtually required to sacrifice your team to win, being fairly heroic thematically. I could be remembering it wrong.

In the second game, which wasn't as good, the Corperation might be ruthless, but it was protecting humanity against brainwashing alien infiltrators. That was a bit wonky, but still the direction the series went in.

Still, getting preachy about morality seems to defeat the whole point of a "Dark Future" so to speak. I'm actually fairly shocked to hear they flubbed it that badly. If they are going to focus on the morality of cybernetic puppet killers, the dark future thing to do is to portray it as being the right thing to do in a warped context that pretty much renders any kind of moral system irrelevent before biggier issues and/or simple survival.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

 

[Nurb]

6 hours long

60 dollar game.

You're paying 10 dollars per hour of gameplay.

Expect 10-15 dollar DLC

And they expect gamers not to buy used games?

 

[draythefingerless]

ILL TELL YOU THE PROBLEM WITH THIS GAME. THE FUCKING BLOOM IS WHATS WRONG WITH IT. dear god its like htey took the flashlights from Battlefield 3 and the Star Trek deck and sprayed it in every.single.fucking.wall.

The gameplay is fantastic thou, such a shame that tehy didnt push for it. if they had worked on it more, gave it more character(to yourself and to the world and people around you) it would of been SUCH a good game....

oh and yeah, its a huge Deus Ex HR ripoff. not the cyberpunk corporation thing alone, but the game as a whole reeks of HR ripoff. a good ripoff thou. well could of been if they spent more time in it.

 

[Wil213]

6 hours campaign? I thought BF3 was short. I have to say that I was intrested. Still sorta intrested. The story is my sort of thing, albet tried-and-tested.
Tho I have to say, the music sounded awesome! If that is the whole soundtrack, its so sold! Tho mixed about the actual game.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

I love how you say my logic is flawed then follow it up by saying because the Call of Duty games are short, this game must be short too. And then you tie EA into it as if that will make it all make sense because, you know, if a game published by Activision is short, a game published by EA will be short too! Rock solid logic right there!

And then finally you basically flat out admit you haven't played the game.

Nice going man.

/slow clap

 

[Metalrocks]

had a feeling this game might not be that great. how can it be if ?A has their fingers in it. 6 hours, plus not available on steam, origin required. already this makes it a big pass.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

So a classic 90's game is rebooted as a generic modern FPS and comes out completely dull, uninspired and missable. Hands up if you're surprised.

...anyone?

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

Fucking called it. Instead of giving us a isometric game like the classic they went for the safe FPS route and made a overwhelmingly meh game. They may argue that the iso game would not have sold and they may be right about there not being that much of a market for it. But when you are the only kid on the block you are gonna get much more demand than if you are just a generic meh in a gigantic sea of meh.

The devs fucked up and I hope it sells really really poorly.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

I love how you say my logic is flawed then follow it up by saying because the Call of Duty games are short, this game must be short too. And then you tie EA into it as if that will make it all make sense because, you know, if a game published by Activision is short, a game published by EA will be short too! Rock solid logic right there!

And then finally you basically flat out admit you haven't played the game.

Nice going man.

/slow clap

Ofcourse i havent played this. Why would i waste the money. And if you want an example with Ea then very well, The recent Medal of Honour reboot. Terrible on all fronts, Ditto with Bulletstorm (which wasnt bad, but short as all hell). The point i was attempting to get across is, why has sub 5 hour games on the hardest difficulty suddenly become acceptable? Especially when the original syndicate would have you stuck indoors for days at a time, Hell, Corridor 7 was longer on its easiest difficulty.

You also ignored the initial point which is, what evidence do you have to say it was played on easy? The burden of proof is on the accuser.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

I love how you say my logic is flawed then follow it up by saying because the Call of Duty games are short, this game must be short too. And then you tie EA into it as if that will make it all make sense because, you know, if a game published by Activision is short, a game published by EA will be short too! Rock solid logic right there!

And then finally you basically flat out admit you haven't played the game.

Nice going man.

/slow clap

Ofcourse i havent played this. Why would i waste the money. And if you want an example with Ea then very well, The recent Medal of Honour reboot. Terrible on all fronts, Ditto with Bulletstorm (which wasnt bad, but short as all hell). The point i was attempting to get across is, why has sub 5 hour games on the hardest difficulty suddenly become acceptable? Especially when the original syndicate would have you stuck indoors for days at a time, Hell, Corridor 7 was longer on its easiest difficulty.

You also ignored the initial point which is, what evidence do you have to say it was played on easy? The burden of proof is on the accuser.

To reiterate, you haven't played the game, and you have no plans to play it, so any opinion you have it is rendered pointless. I haven't played Medal of Honor and have no plans to, but I'm not about to tell someone it's a shit game just because I may think it to be. That would just make me look like an idiot.

And no, I don't have proof. I just assumed he played it on easy. I know some reviewers play a lot of their games on easy so they can get through them quick and get their reviews out in a timely manner. For all I know he played it on hard and is just that good at the game that he didn't die once.

 

[Arec Balrin]

It seems like a game set in a future where company men call the shots has had its potential severely curbed...by company men calling the shots. I would have expected better from Starbeeze and the early negative feedback should have rang alarm bells.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

I love how you say my logic is flawed then follow it up by saying because the Call of Duty games are short, this game must be short too. And then you tie EA into it as if that will make it all make sense because, you know, if a game published by Activision is short, a game published by EA will be short too! Rock solid logic right there!

And then finally you basically flat out admit you haven't played the game.

Nice going man.

/slow clap

Ofcourse i havent played this. Why would i waste the money. And if you want an example with Ea then very well, The recent Medal of Honour reboot. Terrible on all fronts, Ditto with Bulletstorm (which wasnt bad, but short as all hell). The point i was attempting to get across is, why has sub 5 hour games on the hardest difficulty suddenly become acceptable? Especially when the original syndicate would have you stuck indoors for days at a time, Hell, Corridor 7 was longer on its easiest difficulty.

You also ignored the initial point which is, what evidence do you have to say it was played on easy? The burden of proof is on the accuser.

To reiterate, you haven't played the game, and you have no plans to play it, so any opinion you have it is rendered pointless. I haven't played Medal of Honor and have no plans to, but I'm not about to tell someone it's a shit game just because I may think it to be. That would just make me look like an idiot.

And no, I don't have proof. I just assumed he played it on easy. I know some reviewers play a lot of their games on easy so they can get through them quick and get their reviews out in a timely manner. For all I know he played it on hard and is just that good at the game that he didn't die once.

Ive never watched an Uwe boll film, but a petition asking him to never make another movie must say something. If not participating in something automatically makes opinion worthless then why are the people allowed to vote? Most people are mindless morons who wouldnt know what was good for the country if it was spelt out in triplicate with big words and pictures.

Co-incidentally, this looks like the bland generic DX HR curtail rider it looked like at its sneak peak. You dont have to agree with the opinion but an overwhelming "Meh" Speaks volumes.

And im not leveling blame at Starbreeze. The blame is leveled at EA. EA and Actiblizzion seem to look at a new idea and recoil like its holy water on a demon.

 

[Voltano]

I wondered if this game would do well. I never played the original "Syndicate" (though tempted to pick it up off GOG.com), but from what I recall this was shortly announced after the release of "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" last year, and I instantly thought this was only made to cash-in on the Deus Ex fans. I think that is still my personal theory, but it sounds like the game is dull and incapable of standing out.

Plus, while I heard many people saying this is "Betrayal" to the original reboot, I'd point out that this is no different from what Microsoft did with "Shadowrun" on the Xbox 360 years ago.

 

[Blind Sight]

Now, I'll qualify this by saying that I haven't played the game, so bear that in mind. I just read the plot on wikipedia and my first response is...my god this is tired and cliched.

Seriously, when I started to read the plot I pretty much predicted how the whole thing would go down. And what bothers me is...why do you have to play a good guy? Because that's a 'safe' story to tell? If you really had to make this game, why not at least play off the original and make your main character a brutal bastard? I mean, not just evil for the sake of evil, but an insanely pragmatic character who uses violence to solve his problems. Think cyberpunk Walter White. Instead it's standard cliched 'protagonist who worked for the bad guys but had a revelation and switched sides', standard cliched evil corporation, standard evil CEO, standard cliched Resistance, and standard cliche 'spy within the system'. Honestly, I'm very glad I didn't buy this game because I'm insulted by the plot.

Hey guys, remember that part in Deus Ex: Human Revolution where David Sarif turns out to be an evil businessman working for the Illuminati the whole time? Oh wait, that didn't happen because Eidos Montreal was smart enough to know that the tired 'evil business superior' trope has been done to death.

 

[Simonoly]

Been out for around a week and I've already managed to pick it up for £25. To be honest I was mostly sold on the co-op which I experienced in the demo and really enjoyed. So I'm not overly fussed with the short campaign. £25 seems a fair price for a game I expect to be spending a fair bit of time playing co-op with friends. Especially when I consider how much of a rip-off Shadows of the Damned was (completed it on hardest difficulty in 7 and a half hours, no new game plus, no multiplayer = zero incentive to replay). Ah well at least the main character said "****" at least once - very important to me.

 

[daveman247]

Whatever, screw the haters. I really like the game and have no problem with the bloom. Gives it a certain "look". Hope it does well and gets a more fleshed out sequal. There is MUCH potential here if the things in the games database is anything to go by.

And im a sucker for sci fi shooters so go figure

Still better than modern war games.

Just wish it had some competative multiplayer and did something with the whole syndicate thing. As it is, its just a fancy word for "clan".

 

[Adultratedhydra]

Now, I'll qualify this by saying that I haven't played the game, so bear that in mind. I just read the plot on wikipedia and my first response is...my god this is tired and cliched.

Seriously, when I started to read the plot I pretty much predicted how the whole thing would go down. And what bothers me is...why do you have to play a good guy? Because that's a 'safe' story to tell? If you really had to make this game, why not at least play off the original and make your main character a brutal bastard? I mean, not just evil for the sake of evil, but an insanely pragmatic character who uses violence to solve his problems. Think cyberpunk Walter White. Instead it's standard cliched 'protagonist who worked for the bad guys but had a revelation and switched sides', standard cliched evil corporation, standard evil CEO, standard cliched Resistance, and standard cliche 'spy within the system'. Honestly, I'm very glad I didn't buy this game because I'm insulted by the plot.

Hey guys, remember that part in Deus Ex: Human Revolution where David Sarif turns out to be an evil businessman working for the Illuminati the whole time? Oh wait, that didn't happen because Eidos Montreal was smart enough to know that the tired 'evil business superior' trope has been done to death.

I chose to ignore the story in my earlier rant because i called the plot twist when the game was announced. Boy the hatred that shall flow to EA if they release DLC titled "American Revolt". I also quite clearly remember that it was impossible for the agents to revolt against Eurocorp and the other syndicates due to Massive amounts of conditioning and brainwashing. The very idea (within the Syndicate universe)is ludicrous, ignoring the "LOLALIENS" reason in Syndicate wars.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

This. It was short (Although I beat it in just over 8 hours; reviewer must have been playing on easy)

I hate this logic.

Modern Warfares second map pack could be completed in under 4 hours on its supposed "Hardest" difficulty as could the Black Ops map pack, less if you ignored the clown sheds of the AI .its not a leap to assume that something shat out by EA can be completed in a similiar time on it's hardest difficulty.

And honestly this looks like Call of Duty: Cyberpunk warfare, and no amount of dubstep can change that. Come to think of it, maybe a game filled with the stuff will make it die out faster.

I love how you say my logic is flawed then follow it up by saying because the Call of Duty games are short, this game must be short too. And then you tie EA into it as if that will make it all make sense because, you know, if a game published by Activision is short, a game published by EA will be short too! Rock solid logic right there!

And then finally you basically flat out admit you haven't played the game.

Nice going man.

/slow clap

Ofcourse i havent played this. Why would i waste the money. And if you want an example with Ea then very well, The recent Medal of Honour reboot. Terrible on all fronts, Ditto with Bulletstorm (which wasnt bad, but short as all hell). The point i was attempting to get across is, why has sub 5 hour games on the hardest difficulty suddenly become acceptable? Especially when the original syndicate would have you stuck indoors for days at a time, Hell, Corridor 7 was longer on its easiest difficulty.

You also ignored the initial point which is, what evidence do you have to say it was played on easy? The burden of proof is on the accuser.

To reiterate, you haven't played the game, and you have no plans to play it, so any opinion you have it is rendered pointless. I haven't played Medal of Honor and have no plans to, but I'm not about to tell someone it's a shit game just because I may think it to be. That would just make me look like an idiot.

And no, I don't have proof. I just assumed he played it on easy. I know some reviewers play a lot of their games on easy so they can get through them quick and get their reviews out in a timely manner. For all I know he played it on hard and is just that good at the game that he didn't die once.

Ive never watched an Uwe boll film, but a petition asking him to never make another movie must say something. If not participating in something automatically makes opinion worthless then why are the people allowed to vote? Most people are mindless morons who wouldnt know what was good for the country if it was spelt out in triplicate with big words and pictures.

Co-incidentally, this looks like the bland generic DX HR curtail rider it looked like at its sneak peak. You dont have to agree with the opinion but an overwhelming "Meh" Speaks volumes.

And im not leveling blame at Starbreeze. The blame is leveled at EA. EA and Actiblizzion seem to look at a new idea and recoil like its holy water on a demon.

Don't really know how to respond to this so I'm going to go do something more productive and not waste any more time "debating" (And I use that word generously) you. I've made my points and you're just reinforcing them. if you can't see how faulty your own logic is then you are beyond help.