Syndicate

The Matrix Meets Cyberpunk

The year is 2069, corporations are more powerful then nations. Three mega corporation have carved up the world which they now rule with impunity. Over half of the world’s 15 billion inhabitants are neurally chipped. Those without a chip are not given a second thought. They can’t get a chip and live a dystopian existence. The game is part Matrix in style. You play as an agent, you even wear a trench coat, and you have the ability to slow time. The marketing puts the game in the cyberpunk genre. You are an agent for Eurocorp one of these mega corporations. Bio engineered implanted chips fueled by adrenaline in their agents are the main weapons of these mega companies as they carry out industrial espionage. You have a top of the line DART-6 chip. With the help of this chip permanently eliminating your competition is not frowned upon, but encouraged. Anything to get the upper hand over your rivals.

Overall this games is an average shooter with some nice weapons and a hacking system. One of the coolest guns in the game is the Gauss gun that lets you select a target and fire from almost any position. The bullets then automatically finds the target, even when firing from behind cover or a corner. The plot is not that compelling even with mainstream actors such as Brian Cox lending his voice to the CEO of Eurocorp. When you have a name like that you sort of tip your hat to some of the plot points. However you need to have something to move the story forward in order for you to have your fun in downing the opposition in the game. Rosario Dawson has also been cast in the game which was probably a very easy gig for the both of them to just show up and voice act for a few days.

Your matrix influenced character/agent has his brain chipped with the Dart-6 in order to give you abilities like double the ammo capacity or the ability to generate a shield. As you progress through the story you gain points that you can spend on many abilities like these. The chip also lets you hack or breaching as the game like to call it. The breaching lets you compromise your enemy’s equipment and even other agents/mini bosses. The bosses require you to knock down their shield with a breach and then you can deplete their health bars. It’s a fun mechanic in the game. You can also hack turrets and solve environmental puzzles with your breaching ability. The skill is very diverse in it’s ability to aid you in your missions.

The online portion of the game was enjoyable because you could run it with 3 other friends. It is very useful to play with others as you level up because on the hardest difficulty you can be downed pretty easy. With the help of friends you can be picked up and use abilities to enhance your friends combat. You can go at it alone, however on the harder difficulties and with no upgrades it is very hard. Once you are maxed out the missions became much easier to complete. With a group of maxed friends it is very easy. Starting at zero even with friends you will get destroyed immediately. You will not even be able to get past the first group of enemies in the first mission. It is that tough and unforgiving. That is why you will need to level up abilities and weapons. The leveling system lets you upgrade your weapons and abilities with the experience gained from completing missions. You can prioritize what to upgrade with a primary and secondary target. If you happen to max the first target during a mission the Exp will flow into your next choice. So it is important to manage where your Exp will go before you start missions. You will be playing a lot to upgrade everything. Luckily there is a good amount of missions that will keep it fresh and not overly repetitive. Also keep in mind that this game had a server shutdown in 2023 and you will most likely not be able to play the online portion of the game any longer.

The one thing that really annoys me in the storytelling aspect of games in general is the blurring effects that simulates you being incapacitated in some form. I get that it is required to move the story along. That you have to convey this to the player somehow, but it’s a poor cliche. Syndicate uses the three color (RGB) phase shift blur to illustrate this. That creates three images all on top of each other. There has to be better ideas to convey this in games. So add this to the easily predictable plot, set in a semi interesting futuristic world, and you get a crappy game. Luckily what elevates this game to the middle of the pact is the game play, the gun play, and the game mechanics.