Zero Punctuation: Syndicate

TWEWER

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That college freshman girl analogy made my day. Maybe I just like the braids with grasses combo.
 

JoJo

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This episode was alright but not great, it started off very strongly but about 2 to 3 minutes in kinda just lost it's narrative coherence and seemed to finish off listing random jokes about the game.
 

Simonoly

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Oct 17, 2011
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Spot on Yahtzee! The single player had some great concepts but it never bothers to do anything with them in its insultingly short playtime of 5 hours. The co-op is pretty solid though, but I wish they had chosen better looking characters.
 

Bluecho

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Dec 30, 2010
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Honestly, I don't see why corporations with armed mercenary forces having at each other and commiting industrial espianoge is any different from what governments do all the time. Because a government is nothing but a business that just happens to have its hands in a large number of industries (monopolistically), and gets dressed up with a venear of "legitimacy" because some of their executives are chosen by people rather than by business hierarchy.

So in a dystopian future governments fall and corporations rise to take their place? What exactly has changed then? Only that a corporation can't extort money from people by way of "taxes", and patriotism doesn't blind people to a company's malarky. Other than that, you still have large economic bodies waging war and subterfuge against each other. Just that they've hired the agents, rather than simply drafting them (or having them enlist).

Which is not to say I think soldiers are wrong for wanting to defend their country from threats, just that I don't exactly trust the ones giving them orders and taking advantage of their faith in the state.

Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a rant about the Syndicate? Woops.
 

grumbel

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Inkidu said:
Is the original Syndicate anything like X-Com: UFO Defense? If so, I might just want to go find it.
The metagame is rather similar, you pick up weapons, do research on them, equip and upgrade your teammates. The actual gameplay of Syndicate however is a multi-unit action game, not really a strategy game. In some ways its actually even more a puzzle game then an action game, as a lot of the difficulty doesn't resolve around being fast, but around figuring out the best way to get a job done. Or to put it yet another way, Syndicate is a lot like modern sandbox games like GTA, except you have four guys, an isometric perspective and you die a lot (at least in Syndicate Wars, Syndicate might have been a bit easier).

The real crux with turning Syndicate into an FPS isn't that Syndicate was some depth slow strategy game, but that in Syndicate you don't play the agents, but the guy in the chair commanding them. Turning it into a FPS breaks that whole premise.
 

ZakCanard

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Oct 17, 2007
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Antonio Torrente said:
Anyway, can you think of another old IP that big game companies could use and might suffer the same fate as Syndicate?
I can see EA turning the rest of Bullfrog's back catalogue into First/Third Person Shooters with mixed results. Magic Carpet would work well under modern tech, and a third person remake of Dungeon Keeper could be like Orcs Must Die! but with a bigger budget. Populous on the other hand just wouldn't work and Theme Park would end up being banned in at least Australia and Germany on taste and decency grounds.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Proverbial Jon said:
Ringo Starr was actually a very good narrator and I love Thomas the tank engine... so yeah, take that.
Yeah, but he probably wouldn't have been on Shining Time Station if he wasn't the least liked member of a now-defunct band. Harrison and McCartney both moved on with their careers to a large part. Starr was an also-ran in his own band, and it never really got better.

Still, I enjoyed him as Mr Conductor, so there's that.[/quote]

Granted, Ringo was hardly the best of the Beatles and frankly he's one giant jerk nowadays, especially after he publicly shunned his own "fans". But I did enjoy his narration all the same, however short lived.

Being British myself I have not been exposed to any Shining Time Station and if I'm honest I didn't even realise Thomas had such a large presence in America as far back as the late 80s. I'm certainly curious, I might have to look that up, for nostalgia's sake if nothing else!
 

XDravond

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Mar 30, 2011
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Hehe I don't remember Syndicate (even though I've heard about it) but I still want to set certain publishers offices on fire! :)

Nice to know that it is still standard practice to rip off nostalgia people by using old unused IP's. If they keep this up no one will want to buy Call of duty 27 because the know it will s*ck... So I say keep it up...:)
 

6SteW6

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The sad fact is, half the people supporting this game are going to be the people who remember the original fondly and, through nostalgia coloured glasses (Yes nostalgia is a colour) will pick this up AND THEN realize it's a piece of shit. Making EA think it was popular and make a sequel!

Next up, Dungeon keeper, but instead of being evil and building your own devious dungeon you play the good guys, and it's a first person open world RPG, cause, you know, Skyrim's popular.
 

Duskflamer

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Qitz said:
Antonio Torrente said:
It's a shame that its developer StarBreeze laid off its some employees after finishing the development of this game.

Anyway, can you think of another old IP that big game companies could use and might suffer the same fate as Syndicate?
Wasn't Xcom being "re-made" as an FPS shoot as well? Coming from a Strategy game. It seems pretty much any game that had guns will be re-made into an FPS.
The FPS XCOM game has been delayed actually, the current timeline has the proper strategy re-imagining XCOM: Enemy Unknown coming out before it.
 

FallenMessiah88

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Jan 8, 2010
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Ah, the FPS era claims yet another victim.

I must say, the only reason I am even somewhat interested in this game is because it is made by Starbreeze and from my experience they have always been good at making games based on existing franchises, like Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
 

Doc Cannon

I hate custom titles.
Feb 3, 2010
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"A syndicate ran by Brian Cox doing his best Rip Torn impression".
I laughed my ass off.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
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I wish I could get upset, but gamers are getting what we deserve because of what other gamers (or their parents) spend money on.

If gamers and kiddie gamers stopped throwing money at first person shooters that are nothing but graphics engines with games stapled on, we could have some damn variety.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Hmm. Random thoughts.

When Fallout gets remade into a shooter, it's accepted with blind fan glee, accolades and awards (to some small amount of polarizing controversy).

When X-COM gets remade into a shooter, it's rebuked by a chorus of hate so strong that it forced 2k to give Firaxis the task of making a much more awesome looking game.

When Syndicate gets remade into a shooter, it's accompanied by another chorus of hate, said hate is ignored, and nobody is surprised when it turns out to be a bland forgettable mess that virtually nobody likes or wants.

What a shock.

Now we just have to see how the X-COM games turn out.
 

cookyy2k

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Aug 14, 2009
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I'm just waiting for RTS season to come around again and have all FPss of now re-made as RTSs...
 

Tontomanzz

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Apr 29, 2010
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Well as EA holds the 'syndicate' name we won't ever get a proper remake. Still waiting on dungeon keeper. Needs to be a time limit if the titles aren't developed.

Turning a game that would be something different in todays gaming (and cheaper to produce), and instead turning it into another generic FPS, omg.