TNL Game Club Round 5: Syndicate

Back in 1993 a PC game was released that I immediately fell in love with, combining all kinds of interesting aspects into a totally unique fashion that led to me experimenting for months with all the different stuff that could be done. That game was the cyberpunk squad-based action strategy game of Syndicate.

I loved the game because of the total control the player had, the details in the whole experience, and they way they worked so hard to make it immersive. Walking around with guns drawn would make civilians run away and cops would pull out their guns and tell the controlled soldiers to stop, cars could be hijacked, people could be mind-controlled and used as human shields, guns could be pilfered off enemy corpses, and there were usually multiple ways to clear each level and force the country into the control of your company.

Click for full size


As you gain control of countries you also control their taxes, and can raise and lower them as you wish. A higher tax means people will grow unhappy, and they can revolt and you’ll need to head back and replay the level to regain control. All that money is needed to upgrade your team with a variety of cybernetic enhancements and research in order to gain access to new types of weaponry.

If there’s a major drawback the game has is that the rigid isometric view has no “invisible wall” ability to let the player see inside buildings when he/she needs to enter one. At that point you can only rely on the map and the cursor to try and guide your team to killing or persuading the proper people.

Stuff for fun:
There’s no upper limit to how many people can be persuaded. I would often try to collect an entire city before assaulting a base just to have waves of protection between my guys and the enemy. If people are persuaded they will also go for any guns the player clicks on and can arm themselves.

The cars also have no upper limit; they’re clown cars that will fit hundreds of people. I liked loading them with civilians and destroying them.

For a bonus I’m doing both games, including the 1996 sequel Syndicate Wars. Wars was much less successful, but in full 3D (allowing camera rotation!) and gives the player access to new weapons that can do things like completely annihilate those pesky buildings. Both of these games are very easy to get running on recent versions of Windows, though thanks to helpful internet people Wars is the easier of the two.

Click for full size


Also, if you just want to dick around with powered-up characters there's cheats available for money and missions.

• Freeware: Syndicate
• How to install Syndicate with DOSBOX
• If you have a CD of Syndicate Wars, here's an executable that will allow it to run on modern systems.
• Finally, Wars is in the usual places and requires zero setup, so if you want a no muss no fuss setup go check that out.

As far as rumors go, Starbreeze Studios has had their secret project of the last couple years all but confirmed to be a new Syndicate game running on the Unreal 3 engine. So there's maybe that too!

I kind of wanted to pick Shadow President.

This is a good excuse to get DOSBOX running, so I might as well.

No limit on how many people you can get sounds like my kind of game.

Fuck yes, syndicate was such a great game. Never really spent a lot of time with Wars though, it never clicked with me as well, can't even remember why. Maybe I can figure out why now after I spend some time with it again.

Little oddity that might throw off some people: To control all four agents at once in the first game click the button between the upper two and bottom two with the four people icons. In Syndicate Wars click on those three bars on the left hand side underneath the long bar.

Click on weapon icons to equip/unequip them, and I would highly recommend you purchase a persuade-a-tron as soon as possible. Losing an agent also means you lose any upgrades they had, so I would recommend lots of saving between missions as that can get expensive. In order to lose the game you must lose all your agents.

I'll post more stuff later if I think of it, my first post was starting to feel kind of bloated so I made this separate.

Looks interesting, might have to give it a whirl.

Video of an assassination mission where the guy persuades 113 people to use as shields.



Fairly bad video quality but a decent Wars mission.

I own this on three different consoles.
I will play the pc version.

Cool.

I think I'm going to have to go with Wars for this. I'm normally okay adjusting to weird old interfaces but there's something I didn't like about Syndicate's.

Does the consensus put Wars above the original?

These games are my second fav. pc game of all time next to X-Com.

I was never into this series before but I was going to give it another chance anyway. Now, should I start with the PC or Amiga version of the original?