Syndicate borrows from pretty much every shooter out there, and makes a game that stands up to none of them, but is the most unique Shooter in an over-saturated crowd. So what is Syndicate.
Take the following:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution's: setting
Resistance PS3's: weapons
COD's: Perk system (apps)
Brink's: parkour / cover system
Borderland's: RPG element
That's Syndicate, and I could honestly end the review like that. But let's talk about why all this makes Syndicate unique, and why you should go out and buy it. Well Syndicate is set in the year 2069, where a corporation known as Eurocrop has pretty much successfully become Skynet / Wal-Mart / Apple of it's time and requires people of the World to insert a chip in their brains in order to interact with the vast amounts of digital data flowing throughout the world. While this seems like a great / interesting concept it's not going to be a major plot inducing force beyond you stopping hackers and harvesting their chips.
So story is not the draw, but the gameplay is. The game plays so well, that you often overlook much of the averageness. Running, sliding, shooting, hacking, is all natural and once you get the hang of it, it's easy to feel like a complete bad@$$ in this game, which in itself is unique for a shooter.
While this review may seem like Syndicate is bad game, that can't be any further from the truth. Syndicate is one of those games that just didn't do enough to push from being a "B game" up to "A". However, there are many great qualities in Syndicate, that makes it worth your purchase, and it's currently on sale for $10 at any Microsoft store. The game was said to have sold 150,000 copies, but seeing how shooters generally sale more on Xbox 360 and it's online community maxes at under 50,000 I doubt those numbers are true (VGChartz have it at 90,000). However, this is one of the few instances where a game deserves the support, and while the online community is small it is still there and alive.
Don't miss out on this game especially at $10. If you like any of the games that Syndicate took "inspiration" from then you and your friends should pick it up at your local Microsoft Store, you won't be disappointed.
Electronic Arts has announced a number of server closures in the coming months, including Apex Mobile and the 2012 Syndicate reboot.
Syndicate's big saving grace will soon be erased for good. I'll give *some* credit to EA in keeping servers up for 10+ years.
Oh yeah, an actual cyberpunk game. I have fond memories of the old bullfrog Syndicates.
Syndicate was a fun and high quality late PS3 fps that got swallowed in the sea of fps at the time. It was short and it didn't innovate but it had good visuals and fun combat. Starbreeze i believe. Rip Torn and Rosario Dawson.
10 years since the Syndicate series was rebooted as an FPS, perhaps it's time we got another reboot as a strategy game?
was this the game with the cars on rails and you could blow up killing everyone in it? l loved this game, lol
I couldn't get past the first half hour or something. Hard to remember but I didn't play long. I don't know if there was something wrong with the PC version or not, but the bloom was so bad it hurt my eyes. I started getting a horrible headache. I could hardly see anything because there was extremely intense bloom everywhere.
EA always let their PC versions fall by the wayside. The same thing happened with Dead Space 1.
This remains one of my fave hard sci-fi FPS games from the X360 era. A compelling premise with an interesting setting and solid characters, plus outstanding special ability mechanics. Def deserves more love.
Like children with new toys, developers can excitedly overdo it with visual effects until good sense prevails - here are five examples of exactly that from across video games history
Dirt on the lens (and JJ Abrahms style overuse of lens flare) is the worst, especially in war games like Battlefield. We're not supposed to be a camera! Way to ruin the illusion of actually being the player we're controlling.
Most soldiers today wear goggles or tactical glasses so dirt on the lens isn’t that much of a stretch tbh
Vignettes, chromatic aberration, and that annoying thing where they blur the corners of the screen. Also film grain.
All those immediately get turned off when I load up my settings haha. Unless I’m going for screenshots it’s more than annoying
You are mostly stuck with whatever terrible effects on console. There are some options like motion blur that can switched off but it's not common
Depth of field is annoying. Along with most camera or lens effects.
But DoF will be cool in the future when they can track what you are looking at and apply DoF accordingly.
The Syndicate reboot had the absolute worst bloom I've ever seen. It literally hurt my eyes and gave me a headache just from playing. I could never finish it.
Absolutely. Beyond the distraction and obstruction, it looked unpleasant a lot of the time.
For only $10 you can either go see a movie and fear getting attack (still can't believe that) or buy the Syndicate and enjoy 4 player co-op with your friends.
A word of advice for when you and your friends start off. Be sure to play the single player campaign up to the train level. it will teach you everything you need to know for co-op.
Also when you start playing co-op for the first time, a support role is generally best, since you don't have large amounts of health, so be sure to choose the shield and backfire apps, and use them frequently.
Also avoid the Colorado map at all cost, unless you all have infinite sprinting chip mod.
Do you guys remember the first Sin? And no, I'm not talking about the Source Engine reboot that was tried several years ago. I'm referencing the original Sin released back in 1998. So, do you? Well if so, that is how Syndicate plays and feels on the PC, at least, and we are in 2012 - 14 years since Sin saw release. The problem is that I actually found Sin to be incredibly entertaining and fun to play back when it came out. The same cannot be said for my hyphenated three hour experience with Syndicate.
It is graphically dated, gunplay mechanics rigidly stiff, collision detection straight out of 1998, AI is uncharacteristically robotic and dumb, voice-overs remain ho-hum, and PC controls inexcusably unmappable, and therefore broken. And while I have not played the console versions, I did give it another go with my wireless xbox controller, yet neither keyboard/mouse combo or controller felt "right."
So, what few redeeming features remain in Syndicate - setting, semi-interesting plot, hacking and "augmentation" abilities - are, unfortunately and unceremoniously, buried beneath the weight of the sum of its parts. And this is coming from someone that is always willing to give a game a fair chance despite mediocre or even negative reviews. With this case being the exception - because despite what I had heard, I was truly and genuinely excited to boot up Syndicate for the very first time, as I had enjoyed Starbreeze's past games. And therefore, I really WANTED to like this game. I was ready, damnit!
And then it happened...the exit to desktop and the fated uninstall. After a solid three hours of genuine interest and intrigue and attempts to really try and find something of entertaining value - something that would reach out from the beyond the screen and grab me! And...nothing. Not even a wink. Just disappointment on my end, with nothing to show for it.
But who knows? Perhaps there is some semblance of an enjoyable game to be excavated here. Sadly, I found nothing but silt and gray stone. But what's worse, is that Starbreeze allowed my grand expectations and faith in them, to fall to the floor like a $50 bottle of fine bourbon on pavement, and left me slumped broken and crestfallen, with my tears in the rain. Certainly a moment I will not soon forget, even despite my love for Riddick and The Darkness.
My score for Syndicate would be a mere 5/10.
Not Starbreeze's best game. The original Syndicate played a bit like a more tactical Cannon Fodder. I rented this and played through all of it with little fulfillment. I do like the fact that they kept so much of the universe from the original game such as the corporations, etc.
Although, I did enjoy the hacking of turrets in the game and the chain reactions caused by exploding guns was pretty decent too.
Now, Watch_Dogs, that looks like a real follow up of the ideas behind the original Syndicate by Bullfrog and it might just better the quick hacking which the recent Syndicate tried.
thank you so much for this review ...
syndicate kicks ass!
One thing I don't like is the overused bloom effect- I'm not far into this game but enjoying what I've played so far.