This just in: Syndicate sucks

[Wirdschowerdn]

Says the fat Brit that is Jim Sterling: http://www.destructoid.com/demo-jim...ctoid+(Destructoid)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Okay, granted, it's only a multiplayer demo, and Starbreeze never was really good at those...but what the fuck took them so long just to end up with an uninspired standard FPS? That shit has been in development since 2007 I think.

I actually enjoyed The Darkness and Riddick, but this looks like it's gonna be a total turd.

 

[Jasede]

I got so angry reading the thread title because I thought it was about someone dissing the old Syndicate.

 

[Haba]

http://www.ea.com/syndicate

Includes some higher res screenshots.

Looks pretty fukken awesome if you ask me.

NEVAR FORGET!

 

[Menckenstein]

Jim Sterling is just a character Bobby Kotick made up during his time with an improv group.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.ea.com/syndicate

Includes some higher res screenshots.

Looks pretty fukken awesome if you ask me.

NEVAR FORGET!

Nigga please. It looked pretty cool at first, can't blame me for being a Starbreeze fan. Though it turns out the Starbreeze that I used to love is dead for real.

 

[The Boring Incarnation]

On the one hand there is no possible way this game will be anything better than mediocre.

On the other hand, Jim Sterling.

I'm so torn.

 

[MisterStone]

The original Syndicate did suck; it was glitchy, unbalanced and required little in the way of strategy to win.

 

[LundB]

I'm pretty sure almost none of the people who did Butcher Bay are still at Starbreeze.

 

[Forgotten Friend]

The original Syndicate did suck; it was glitchy, unbalanced and required little in the way of strategy to win.

Don't make me pretend to be outraged over a game I pretend to have played. You wouldn't like me when I pretend to be angry.

 

[MisterStone]

Dude just post a RAGE emote and no one will be the wiser.

 

[RPGMaster]

How apt that EA are releasing a game called Syndicate.

 

[Phelot]

The original Syndicate did suck; it was glitchy, unbalanced and required little in the way of strategy to win.

True, but it was still an awesome game for the setting, simple, but fun gameplay, and pretty cool graphics for the time. I still think the game looks good.

I'd say out of your complaints the only one that really annoyed me was the glitchyness. Especially when trying to click behind buildings. Nothing like seeing your agent run around a building forever.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Guys, please, let's discuss the FPS here, not some shitty 20 year old pixel-pusher that nobody cares about.

3..2..1..

 

[MisterStone]

OK, 'suck' is a bit harsh. However I think it didn't really come together well as a game. People liked it because it was edgy and involved people being burned alive, etc. but there was too much cheeze- I could just hypnotize every civilian on the map with my hypnotizer thingie at full upgrade, I could shoot a missile from aboveground at someone who was underground in a tunnel and it would kill them, etc. etc. Eventually there was little call for anything other than just hosing down every damn thing on the map. It looked cool alright, but it was the equivalent of one of today's polished but dumbed-down AAA titles IMHO.

 

[Eyeball]

And it had oodles and oodles and oodles of sheer iron-clad grim nihilistic style. I cannot think of any games that have matched Syndicate's frankly icy atmosphere of total indifference to human suffering, even in the current era of faux plastic grimdark.

In most video games, you are penalised for killing civilians. In some games, like GTA or Carmageddon, you are humourously awarded points for wanton murder. In Syndicate, you get a number on a debriefing screen. That's it. The game doesn't give a motherfuck. This adds to the atmosphere hugely and emphasises how the corporation you work for is so powerful and amoral human life is essentially worthless to it.

 

[Jasede]

Spot on; the game was icy and dystopian in the harshest terms. The way you started to consider Civilians ants was incredible- after a while you fail to notice they are even there, unless you need to use them for a purpose, such as the persuasion device. There was a huge disparity between agents and civvies. In fact, when you start playing you play as if there are 3 categories of people: your people, hostiles and civvies. But after a while you ignore the civvies, treating them more like an ressource than anything.

 

[Forgotten Friend]

I liked syndicate, I was just being edgy. I sometimes suspect that's how some of its defenders are, since I never used to see people say they'd played it.

But I never got through a whole game. The missions are a lot like an extended fallout combat with miniguns and flamethrowers going to town. I expect fallout took some inspiration from Syndicate. The problem is it gets very MOTSamey after a while so I don't count it up there with the other big classics like some people seem to.

 

[Jasede]

I honestly couldn't finish the game because it was too difficult for me at that age. The last mission on the tiny island? A massacre.

And then I tried the Data Disk and got crushed at the first mission.

 

[Spectacle]

Plan of success: take vibrant, revered turn-based franchise, turn it into a workmanlike modern combat FPS, try to sell on name-brand value.

WTF, Syndicate was not even remotely turn-based! Has "turn-based" simply become an euphemism for "old game"?

 

[Forgotten Friend]

Also the interview with one of the programmers is my favorite Matt Chat. Very interesting.

 

[Jasede]

Who hires these people? We should be writing about old games, not them. We actually played them, for one.

 

[Forgotten Friend]

Skyway reads destructoid?

 

[Jasede]

What does this have to do with skyway?

 

[Forgotten Friend]

Because of the comment that they were raping a turn based game.

I'm just trying to fit in

 

[DwarvenFood]

I honestly couldn't finish the game because it was too difficult for me at that age. The last mission on the tiny island? A massacre.

And then I tried the Data Disk and got crushed at the first mission.

Atlantic Accelerator was a massacre, I never managed finishing it, even after reading strategy guides in magazines for it. Did finish the rest of the game without "help", had a couple of hard missions but American Revolt was just...