But yeah, the XCom remake, in spite of being good, still angers me. Good figure. Go figure. Actually maybe that's why it makes me mad.
Syndicate is a FPS, though it falls more towards the goofy future shooter genre than the military sim genre. I feel sometimes like there's only three aspects of shooters and all games are just somewhere between the holy trinity of the Doom, the Deus Ex and the Call of Doot Doot Doot. That's incorrect, but you can place 90% of them on the graph. Syndicate is ever so near the deus ex. That's not much of a surprise, since the one might have inspired the other, though I'd have to go look that up and I'm just not doing that.
Like Deus Ex - HR mind, I didn't have a computer capable of running the original during the hey day of that particular game - you play a super-soldier augmented with technology, though I don't think they call it augments in this game. No, here everything is chips, with hacking and breaching chips and chipped guns, so forth, so on. The impact here is that your character has, much like DE:HR, abilities way outside just holding the trigger down and screaming at the top of your lungs.Unlike DE:HR though, there's no stealth issues and civ casualties, as the tagline and your partner say, are a non-issue.
Syndicate is a game of many parts, and many of those parts are terrible. Some of them are really awesome, though. In terms of designing a dystopian / utopian duality future, the game is extremely successful and I really enjoy the way the levels look. I don't want to say level design, since that is a more complicated answer, but I do really enjoy how Syndicate looks. There's a couple really slick touches that don't immediately leap out at you, but you pick up over time.
The powers granted to you are sort of interesting. You open with access to an increased power mode; faster, harder hitting, take less damage for a couple seconds that takes time to recharge. Over time you gain three 'hacks'; Backfire, Suicide and Persuade. Of the three Backfire is the most interesting, as it has an improved damage bonus but also knocks the opponent down or aside. As such you best use it by lining up where the opponent is going to be and plugging them in the head. The other two are more trump cards than consistently used, although Suicide is sort of novel in that the enemy goes crazy then explodes. I kinda hate persuade and wish they'd given you something that would work on bosses, like a short blind or something less 'big red button'.What is worth mentioning is how slick the improved power mode is, it reminds me of FEAR's time acceleration power, but not quite as overpowered and more tactical. It allows you to see through cover - which includes more than you'd think - and highlights points of interest. I think I appreciate this power more than anything simply because in the mixed, complex terrain, being able to flicker the mode briefly to pick a target out is a huge benefit. And hey, it feels like you'd do that if you had that power in real life! A couple of the guns can push through cover as well, which functions a little wonky, but is generally useful at certain points in the campaign and then totally useless.
The engine is largely good, I like how stuff moves and the world building like I said is excellent. The game isn't quite up to say RAGE level, but it compares well to the second Crysis game or thereabouts in terms of graphical quality. The little details are really nice though, the game had some extremely talented people who really wove in some really neat touching. One thing Syndicate does very well is feel less visually repetitive than other shooters. Lots of graffiti and the lighting has been played with in such a way that even if the room looks the same, the shadows fall differently and you don't notice quite as much. I actually really appreciate the game visually, as I said, some real talent went into the art.The game does have some really irritating gameplay issues. In Crysis, or Crysis 2, your "suit powers" were very reliable. You didn't scramble to get them to work. In Syndicate, the breaching mechanism is just oddly dainty. Dying because you have to move out of cover to get a grenade to become hackable, or just to show the prompt, baffles me.
Feedback in general is rather limited, and the game has odd issues with not really conveying what a given prompt is actually going to do in a situation. You see a prompt to "do something", you hit the button, and then you're left wondering what it did. Then you die. There's also just a general issue that too much of the game relies on rather than is rewarded by the breach 'mini game'. Mini-bosses and bosses alike require a prompt usually to do something dumb like damage them at all, or disable cloaks, all of which you need to get the stupid prompt to pop up to do. I'm not really sure what the design idea is here, as though wireless transmission needs line of sight or something. It's also difficult to reliably figure out, ahead of time, if you're in cover or not. On top of all that, the context pop ups (which have to be popped up to work) are rather flakey. I encountered more than a couple points in the game where a context button press was necessary, but didn't pop up and even after popping up didn't work, for quite a while.
Encounter design in Syndicate is extremely wonky, with some fights being really slick and others being bonegrindingly poor. There's a bit in mission 10 where you're giving a seeking MIRV launcher and thrust into an arena with a bunch of robots. It took me more than a couple tries to get confused - there's basically infinite enemies, and you're mowed down pretty quick. The solution is to, I kid you not, stand behind cover while your health regens because the robots can't shoot around corners. I mean I guess it is reasonable that a modern shooter would include cover: the great solution, but this is some NES level shit. The best thing is the hacking prompt does pop up for them, and I think all it does is reduce the amount of damage they take. The prompt is unreliable though, so good luck killing them.I'm going to be honest here: In mission 10 there's a boss fight that is phased, takes multiple minutes to get to the part where it isn't pointless tedium, involves multiple QTEs and disarms you beforehand. Straight up, not gonna lie, I actually for the first time in years looked up and used cheatcodes. I'm not even saying I got frustrated or mad, I actually full on just tried it a couple times and seriously thought "why would anyone do this". On every level. Why would put a QTE boss battle in a FPS game? Why would you take away someone's guns in a FPS game for a boss battle? And why you make it take so god damn long?
Like, seriously. This is it. This is the worst encounter in any game I've ever played. It's not upsettingly difficult. It's just straight up not a game anymore. You click mouse buttons while waiting for him to let you kill him, and then you don't even get to kill him - you knock him off a railing and then he beats you up. I find paying my VISA bill every month both more interactive and more enjoyable. I am not kidding. You also can't kill him unless a very specific set of events occurs. Get it out of order, and it just keeps cycling along.
All in all, Syndicate pissed a ton of people off being made as a FPS and using a classic game's name. The game opens with your character being repeatedly hit in the face. They knew what they were doing. I can never hate this game, since the Bro Team video here is probably top 5 of bro team videos for me. I love murder! That being said, Syndicate is not very long, and as I said the encounter design is all over the place. The idea someone sat down and was like, you know what, we should do a boss fight where you can't fight back and you have to hack the other guys missiles, that's a good idea? That just blows my mind.
As short as it is, I eventually just lost interest in Syndicate. The gunplay isn't really great, you empty a clip too quickly with too little impact and in the late game you're constantly reloading or hacking nonsense with very little sense of satisfaction. I got to what I imagine is one of the last boss fights which centers around a pair of agents who have the stupid hack to bring down shields (this mechanic gets a bit overused by the end) and then they resurrect.
So you assume you have to kill both of them to put them down, but it doesn't work. They just constantly re-resurrect, and while they're resurrecting you can't walk near them or they shock you. I just ... Like, what? This is the third time I've had to look up a fight, and the game crashes when you alt-tab about half the time, so I closed the game then just uninstalled instead. Seriously, it is a shooter. You can use a thousand ways to convey how to finish the fight, but all you get is the AI going FINISH YOUR KILL. What ... Does that even mean? Do I have some narrow window to mouse over them to hack them or something? I dunno, but I just got sick of it and yeah, done with that.I looked it up and the one youtuber just ran up and melee'd them once they were done ... Uh, so they'll sustain infinite bullets if I don't run up and kick them in the face? I don't get it. Well, still not the worst encounter in the game, but I shouldn't have to look up how to kill people in a FPS. This isn't a puzzle game.
Still, although I don't really recommend the game, I do think there's a great deal of awesome looking work in Syndicate that if you're a fan of seeing sci-fi worlds built in a game you should consider picking it up just to check out the visuals. I definitely don't regret spending the four or five dollars on it, as the visuals along were creative and interesting enough to get a couple good 'wow that is neat out of me'.
On the other hand I sort of wish you mixed these powers with some of the Crysis powers. Backfire especially seems like it would be a great power to put in more shooters. But I could do with never having to hack someone's shields down again or whatever.
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