I revisited another old classic yesterday...Syndicate. (Some of you may remember me berating
Ninja Destroyer into completing the American Revolt campaign over in the screenshot thread, a challenge he met and completed, so fist him instead of me, because the Syndicate expansion pack is one of THE toughest challenges out there.)
...man, the memories that came back to me from playing this game. Back in the day there were loads of kids I knew that owned PCs and played games on them...but most of these were old machines without hard drives and only had CGA monitors. As a result many of these kids just dismissed the PC as a piece of trash that would never amount to anything...I stuck with it and watched it evolve into EGA, then VGA graphics, and the "sound" that soundcards provided instead of that headache-inducing PC Speaker.
In one particular case, 5 years had passed since me and a particular friend had talked on the subject of (PC) computers. He casually asked me if I was still into computers and if there were any good games around. I showed him the intro to Syndicate. He was speechless. To him, this was the same kind of machine that me and him used to play "Borrowed Time" and "Jumpman" on back in 1988. Now it was 1993 and he couldn't belive the advances that had happened. (Low-res) VGA graphics. Decent sound being belted out of a PC (instead of *bleeps* and *boops*). And then I let him play the first mission. He was floored. He felt like he'd missed out on something big. I showed him a few other games, but he kept going back to Syndicate. Being able to casually blow civilians away, then going "Fuck the police!" and blowing them away AND their cars. (I didn't tell him about the Access Card.) As one of the few people around here that knew that Doom was coming, I told him that there was more to come later. He was sold. We were a lot in touch for the next few months as he caught up, then he eased back a bit, but kept in touch to know what was the 'hot stuff' on the PC. That went on until about the time "Kingpin" was released, but by then his interest in fucking underage girls at high school got the better of him...a pasttime of his that I managed to benefit from a couple of times.
But my finest hour regarding Syndicate did not come from that guy, but from introducing Syndicate to the school network in 1995. The only games available on the network were Doom and the shareware version of Descent. I tossed in Syndicate, and it spawned one of the greatest fragfests I've ever been in. For one thing, EVERYONE knew what game it was, but none of them knew it had multiplayer (I saw no reason to tell them why that was). At first I only told the 'regulars' what was new in the multiplayer version, and it took scant minutes until 4-player matches were taking place where everyone were air-striking the fuck out of each other. Then I said that Syndicate supported 8 players...and that was when wheels started to turn.
What you're about to read is the strongest case of “RTFM!” that I know of. While I had taught the others how to play the game, I hadn't taught them everything I know. Everyone bought airstrikes and miniguns as well as multiple energy shields and Gauss guns to arm their agents, the standard megakill weapons of the game. A few of them bought medkits, and I recall one of them buying a scanner. I went for a more mixed approach, buying the airstrike (naturally), the scanner, an energy shield, medkits, a minigun, a laser gun, Gauss guns and finally the clone shield. One of each.
The game started and everyone immediately scrambled to find a hiding place from the inevitable barrage of airstrikes. While everyone else clicked on locations on the overview map to move their agents, I used the Scanner window to navigate, eventually finding a remote spot in the bottom left corner that couldn't be seen at all on the overview. This bought me absolute immunity to the airstrikes. I watched as 3 players were wiped out almost immediately by airstrikes and many others trying to keep on the move to dodge the lethal strafes.
I stood perfectly still, not even doing the obligatory double mouseclick to take my agents into PANIC mode and having them instantly gun down any threat that came near them. My strategy was to sit out the airstrikes, hoping everyone else would run out of cash before I launched mine. One player, evading airstrikes, got his agents too close to mine, so I used the Laser Gun to take him out. Unlike all other weapons, the Laser Gun doesn't reveal which direction it's firing from, so all he saw was his agents being hit by something before turning into little piles of ash. He never even knew it was me.
Eventually the dust settled with only 3 players left. Myself, the Blue player and the Yellow player, who only had 2 agents alive. Blue was out of airstrikes and Yellow was running around the map trying to find us. Unfortunately for him he stood still long enough for me to wipe him out with an airstrike. Finding Blue took me a couple of minutes, but a careful scan of the overview map showed me that he was thinking the same thing I did; hiding at the edge of the map to avoid the airstrikes. Unfortunately for him I could see one of his agents, and I launched airstrikes on him the moment I found him. Unfortunately for me, other guys in the computer lab were looking over my shoulder and managed to warn him just in time; he escaped with one surviving agent.
What followed was a game of cat and mouse, one Blue agent running for his life while my airstrikes raked lethal gunfire around him. He managed to find a safe spot: On the upper platform of a train station. The airstrikes couldn't get him there... so I decided it was time to get personal. But he had the high ground and could spot my agents approaching to give them a bad time... so I had an idea: How about a more subtle approach? Enter the Clone Shield.
I selected ONE agent, activated the clone shield (which disguises your agent as a civilian) and then spent 5 painstaking minutes walking around the map just like a civilian, walking along the side of the road, at the same speed as the other civilians, carefully avoiding doing anything that would give me away. This stealth approach got me as far as the bottom of the stairs of the train station, before the over-the-shoulders-audience once again warned Blue player about my cunning plan. He pulled out the minigun and started killing all civilians around that he could reach. And that was the moment I knew that I had him. I dropped the Clone Shield and activated the Energy Shield instead. Had he pulled out the Gauss Gun I would be dead as the Energy Shield offers little protection against that. But I doped up my agent, ran up the stairs towards his last agent and did what stunned everyone in the computer lab once I stood next to him:
I pressed CTRL+D.
Little-known fact: In Syndicate, once your agents have a advanced enough cybernetic torso, they gain an ability that is only briefly mentioned in the manual: A self-destruct mechanism. I self-destructed my agent right on top of his agent, killing both of them instantly. I emerged victorious from one of the most brutal deathmatch games I've ever played (fuck you Team Fortress 2) with 3 agents left standing in a remote corner of the map. I made the mistake of telling others what I had done. Another 8-player deathmatch was started. One player actually chanted "Allahu Ackbar!" before charging his agents into the nearest group of agents and killing them off in a blaze of "glory". Many others self-destructed their agents as well. It would take me a few years to even realize what his 'chant' meant.
Stay tuned for me revisiting other old classics from 20-25 years ago and hearing 'war stories' such as this one. :/
Hadn't even heard of the damn thing until I came here. But here is also where I found out about NEO Scavenger, which I love to death, so, give and take.
