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So, I have started to play Syndicate again...

In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
I loaded an old save and the first thing that greeted me was 3 of my provinces rebelling. It made me rethink my approach to the game.
I think I was using too much brute force. Like taxing all provinces 40%, getting a squad with tons of implants, miniguns, a laser, etc.

I have restarted the game and took much subtler approach - now I'm taxing all the provinces 20% to keep them from getting discontent and I'm making a low-budget squad - buying only stuff that I need.
I started doing weird stuff like using pistols/uzi to stop enemy agents and finishing them off with a shotgun/flamethrower.
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
I just realised funny thing. The enemies in the game are scaled. I just did two missions where normally the enemy agents would all carry Miniguns but now they had Uzis.
It seems that they react to how heavily armed is the player's squad.
Too bad that they don't have weapon mixes. For example I'm using 1 Uzi, 2 LR Rifles and a Flamethrower. 3 agents "suppress" the enemy and one agents burns the "suppressed" enemy agents.

It's interesting to play the game in a low budget mode. And I find it fascinating that they actually made it playable in two ways. Actually, judging by the mission briefings, it's the default way this game "should" be played. Otherwise it ends with high ammo costs and cities rebelling from high taxes.
 

puke

Novice
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Sep 18, 2006
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wow, i had no idea the levels were scaled.

i thought they were at least partially scripted, as I remember certain cities reliably having certain equipment -- specifically, i seem to recal learning how to make a bee-line for the nearest provence that would provide a minigun to reverse engineer.

And I remember re-doing early missions later in the game, and having them still present only the level of resistance and equipment that they had originally.

Also, I remember attempting the AA in the mid-game but never being able to pull it off until I had full mods and fully loaded with lasers.

But then again maybe my experience was tainted by my tendency to bull through with miniguns and persuadeatrons.
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
I haven't been to AA yet. I've done Siberia, Kazakhstan and Kamchatka. Normally enemies would carry miniguns but now they carry Uzis.

Has anyone seen enemy agents use flamethrowers?
 

Baron

Arcane
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Jul 10, 2010
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2,887
Loved this game soo soo much, especially when I had agents spread out across walkways indiscriminantly firing uzis at approaching agents below. But sadly, I resorted too often to the same technique... four guys with shotguns huddled inside a doorway. Cheap, nasty, effective.

For civilians I used flamers. That's why the game recovered and received a perfect score. The game was just so wonderfully wrong.
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
One thing that I dislike about Syndicate is how revolts are handled - it's just re-doing the same mission.
I often reacted to revolts by killing everyone in the town with flamers and longe-range rifles. Too bad it didn't have any terror effects.

It would be awesome to actually have a "quell a revolt" mission. Just imagine fighting hordes of policemen, guards and civilians (armed and unarmed).
I think that Syndicate could seriously use some free-form partially randomly generated combat missions besides the scripted stuff.
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012
a budda said:
stop talking about it already or I will cry :/
There's a Syndicate remake in works. I bet they'll implement a mission and campaign editor at some point.
 

SCO

Arcane
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
There's no story in syndicate...

Except if you mean, "hey guyz, we are winning, they're all against us now".
 
In My Safe Space
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I would rate them equally. Both have their strong and weak sides.

Wars got nerfed miniguns and way too tough cars.

Syndicate lacks building transparency and has awful pathfinding.

Both have great atmosphere, great graphics, good music and are very fun to play.
Syndicate Wars is pretty linear, but Syndicate doesn't use its non-linearity to full potential and the whole conquest of the world stuff is pretty contrived. And re-doing missions because of rebellions doesn't make sense.
 

puke

Novice
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Sep 18, 2006
Messages
39
I'm not sure how long freesynd has been around, but it feels like one of those things perpetually in development and never really getting anywhere. I think it is just a direct remake that reuses the same data files and ports to unix, not a new engine or content.

There was another one called "syndicate remastered" that was going to remade the game in 3d and make it more modable and etc, but I think it died before it got anywere.

On the other hand, news of an official remake is running rampant:
http://kotaku.com/5516807/syndicate-rem ... ore-likely
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/30 ... ked-again/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/29 ... -molyneux/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... nfirmation

I also looked into a newish game called Shadowgrounds which is a similar real-time squad tactic thing. Much to my dissapointment, it was just a monster-shooter.
 
In My Safe Space
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There's no such a thing as a EA Syndicate remake until they say that it's anything like the predecessors. Though, taking in account that they have stuff like the Sims and Command & Conquer series, maybe the new syndicate will be like SW, not a FPS.
 

Storyfag

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Awor Szurkrarz said:
Though, taking in account that they have stuff like the Sims and Command & Conquer series, maybe the new syndicate will be like SW, not a FPS.

Have you seen what those EA hacks did to Command & Conquer?! While 3 was a worthy successor of 1 & 2, 4 was a travesty. What with streamlining Tiberium mining and base building away to make the game more fuucking accessible and faster paced :x

And now I hear those fucks have the rights to Syndicate?!

:rage:
 
In My Safe Space
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Messages
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Codex 2012
Storyfag said:
Awor Szurkrarz said:
Though, taking in account that they have stuff like the Sims and Command & Conquer series, maybe the new syndicate will be like SW, not a FPS.

Have you seen what those EA hacks did to Command & Conquer?! While 3 was a worthy successor of 1 & 2, 4 was a travesty. What with streamlining Tiberium mining and base building away to make the game more fuucking accessible and faster paced :x

And now I hear those fucks have the rights to Syndicate?!

:rage:
Syndicate was all about fast pacing and accessibility. That's why I'm not sceptical yet.
 

Marobug

Newbie
Joined
Sep 2, 2010
Messages
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We know the videogame industry reached a sad state when anyone can guess the next syndicate game will be a fps with health regen and feature a popamole cover system.

sigh
 

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