Subject: REVIEW: Syndicate
From: [email-masked] (Gary Bradley)
Date: 4 Dec 1993 20:55:26 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Syndicate

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review originally appeared in
	comp.sys.amiga.games in July 1993 and is posted here with the
	author's permission.  I have adapted it to use the c.s.a.reviews
	"Template" but have otherwise not changed the text.  - Dan]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	Strategy and shoot-em-up game set in a dark future.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Bullfrog, Electronic Arts

LIST PRICE

	34.00 pounds (UK).

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Apparently runs on all Amigas.
		"Amiga 1200 or better" is recommended on the package.

		[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Reports on USENET indicate that the
		game may crash on Amiga 4000/040's.  - Dan]

		1 MB RAM required.  Hard drive recommended.

	SOFTWARE
	
		None.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.  Hard drive installable.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 500
	AmigaDOS 1.2
	Two floppy drives

INTRODUCTION

	Well I bought this game really really blind.  I had never heard of
Syndicate, nor even knew what sort of game play to expect.  All I had heard
was a good report from a friend who has the demo that appeared in a recent
UK Amiga magazine.  Also, I have an ancient (WB 1.2) Amiga 500 with nothing
special except an external floppy drive, so I was really taking a risk!  If
you want to know how I feel today after splashing out the cash yesterday,
read on.

THE PLOT

	In the dark future, massive corporations become so have powerful they
replace Governments as the real powers ruling countries.  Naturally, the
criminal element infiltrate these power bases, and the result (after years of
sporadic wars) is the world is now ruled by 8 large companies (or
Syndicates).  Each of them will stop at nothing to undermine the power of the
others and tip the balance of power enough that they can seize overall
control and dominate the entire planet.

	You take control of the European-based power and must take over all
other regions while avoiding costly rebellions in the regions you already
rule.

OVERVIEW

	The game is played from a world map with 60 or so regions
colour-shaded according to which syndicate controls them.  Whenever a region
experiences an event that upsets the balance of power within it, it flashes
on the map to tell you (the greedy controller of Euro-Corp) that there is an
opportunity to send your cyborg agents into the area to cause enough
confusion that you grab control of the region.  Naturally, other syndicates
have the same thing in mind and will think nothing of blowing away your
agents if their paths cross while they undertake their own missions!

	These opportunities present themselves as a mission brief tied to the
area in question.  The missions (I have only seen 3 so far) tend to involve
either an assassination of someone or the recruiting of someone to your side
via the use of a nasty little gun called a Persuadatron.  [This short range
weapon zombifies the target so he/she can do nothing but follow you around
like a human shield.]

	Using a combination of your judgement and the resources available,
you must assemble a team of cyborgs best suited to the job.  The team can
consist of 1 to 4 members, and each can carry 10 (I think) pieces of
equipment chosen from dozens of possibilities.  Overkill when choosing the
team is a waste of valuable corporate funds, while underkill will almost
certainly result in a massacre (of your side!).  For this reason, mission
hints and an enhanced map for the mission can be obtained - for a price.
These will give you a better idea of what to expect and how best to
configure the team you plan to send.

	At this point in the game, you can also allocate funds to your
scientists in a "Mega-lo-Mania" sort of way to get them to develop even more
devious ways to kill enemy agents in spectacular fashion.  True to the spirit
of "Syndicate", the more money you throw at the researchers, the faster they
succeed in their task.  Another nice feature is that any unknown devices or
weapons you take from enemies (whose heads you have just blown off) can be
given to the lab boys after the mission and developed much quicker than
starting from scratch.

	Once your team of cyborg agents is selected and kitted out, you send
them into the appropriate hot spot in the region (e.g., a small village in
one of the missions I played) to carry out their task.  The execution of the
mission makes up the major aspect of the game.  This is presented in an
isometric point of view - much like Populous, but far, far more detailed.

	A weird point I will make here is that game does resemble Populous
and other "play God" sort of games to some extent, but is much more precise
and playable than I have found that category of game to be.

	Your no-holds-barred killer cyborg agents can act independently or as
a group, and have efficient scanner devices allowing them to locate the
various targets (as well as spot enemy agents). In fact, every member of an
area's population appears on the scanner - it is VERY detailed (as the next
paragraph will reveal)!

	Apparently, entire cities are modeled as living, breathing entities
in this game, right down to the whereabouts and activity of the most
insignificant member of the populace, and including entire working (and
usable) transport networks.  This claim I can believe as the little village
I infiltrated had a population of around 30 little people, and intelligence
in each was obviously present:  when one of my cyborgs pulled out a
nasty Uzi machine gun in the middle of the town square, everyone around
scattered for cover while the village guards and police ran at me with
pistols blazing!!!

	The documentation also mentions that the "living city" simulation
will go on without your intervention.  This was proved as I sat and watched
the daily lives of the villagers for about 3 minutes -- before giving into
the temptation of killing a few by doing a drive by in my cyborg's bubble
car and launching my flame thrower out the window!  Great Fun!

	What really shocked me was my underestimation of how much detail the
game actually includes in its city models.  At one point, I had 4 cyborg
agents in my team, and we had just gotten out of our car when the villains
opened fire at us in a crowded public place.  Foolishly, I pulled my agent
with the heaviest weapon to one side and opened fire at the baddies.  The
result of this one burst of firepower was 2 enemies killed instantly, the
car they were standing beside exploding (blowing away several innocent
bystanders), my car exploding as it was parked too close to the first car
(this blast blew more civilians, enemies and even my other 3 agents all over
the place).  By the time things had stopped exploding and dying, the quiet
public square was littered with bloody bodies, burning cars and burning
people (still running around in flames screaming until finally dying and
dropping to the ground quietly). I was left with one agent, standing alone,
presumably with mouth agape, with the innocent-looking flame thrower still
smoking in his hands. I had no time to mourn, though, as already the police
were moving in!  The combat really is that exciting!

	And I must add, as a final point, the flame thrower is by no means
the most powerful weapon available!!!!

GRAPHICS

	The graphics are excellent.  The intro to the game contains quite
simply the best animation I have seen in an Amiga game.  It looks like a
couple of scenes out of Blade Runner (though a darker, better imagination
would seem to be at work).  Most impressively of all, the animation is
FAST... extremely fast.  It reminded me of the animations in EPIC, but much
smoother and 20 times faster.

	There are in-game animation sequences too (though these CAN be turned
off to speed up the game).  So far, I have only seen two (those where you
succeed and where you fail a mission!!), and these are also excellent; up to
the calibre of the intro.  The hilarious "failure" animation involves an
irate syndicate leader throwing an object through a hologram of the mission
blueprint in disgust - very, very slick.

	The initial screens where mission briefings, mission hints and
enhancements and so on are given; and those where you choose and equip your
team of cyborgs are beautifully drawn.  Full details and nice pictorial data
of all the available weapons, espionage devices and bionic implants are
available.

	In the game proper, the cities are absolutely gorgeous.  They really
do have a dark "Blade Runner" futuristic feel and are extremely detailed -
right down to the ever changing animation on the huge electronic billboards
that decorate the buildings!

	The people are tiny (about 1.5 times the size of Sensi Soccer
players) but still big enough to have enough detail so that you can see what
they are.  [Your cyborgs for example look like 1940's gangsters with long
overcoats and hats shadowing their faces appropriately].  No matter how nice
the little folk look, no one will ever convice me that they don't look best
when blowing to pieces (or burning)! :-)

SOUND

	Curiously, the docs make quite a fuss of the music but I haven't
heard any yet!  The spot effects are good, my favourite being the agonised
scream of burning civilians!  There is digitised speech in places too.

GAME PLAY

	I would be lying if I said I got the hang of the game immediately.  I
still haven't got it.  I found it difficult to control my team of cyborgs,
especially when I was under fire and panicking (though a panic button is
available).  I definitely think the control interface could be greatly
improved in "Syndicate".

	I also am completely bewildered by the agents' stats bars
(Intelligence, Perception and Agility) and how to use these bars to change
an agent's capabilities!  However, I can see light at the end of the tunnel,
as I could easily detect improvement in my game as time went on.  Since the
control system uses both mouse buttons (one to tell the agent where to walk
and the other where to fire at), I foresee the time when I improve enough to
have my agents shooting and ducking like natural born killers!

	Another couple of gripes.  Whenever your agents enter buildings, you
cannot really control their actions nor tell what they are encountering
inside - in these circumstances it seems a bit hit-and-miss to me!  Massive
room for improvement here.

	Final gripe:  the AI given to my agents seems to result in them
wandering off on their own for no discernible purpose when I don't want them
to.  Though I suspect at this stage this is simply because they (even with
only version 0 cyborg brains) have much more of a clue on how to accomplish
the mission than I have!  The manual suggests that intelligent agents will
act on their own for the good of the syndicate, so maybe this is OK.

GAME PERFORMANCE

	Disk swapping: None at all so far!  With Disk 1 in DF0, and Disk 2 in
DF1, I played the game for 5 hours last night without having to swap disks
once.

	Disk Accessing: Once every time I accepted a mission (no doubt
loading the mission itself - took around 1 minute), and once every time I
went into research mode to develop new weapons (no more than 30 seconds and
you can only do this between missions).  Once just before all in-game
animations (just under a minute again; they only appear between missions).
Since the few missions I played each took between 30 minutes and an hour, I
would say that disk access is not a problem (and the animations can be
disabled)!

	Game Speed: Fast enough for me!  I haven't seen the game run on
anything else so I can't compare.  There is a tiny bit of slow-down when a
lot of people appear on screen, but in general I needed the extra thinking
time to spot what they were doing or who was shooting at me and so on.
However, a screen shot on the back of the box shows a train station with
over 50 tiny little people in view... how fast it will run in those
situations is anyone's guess.  My motto: if it slows down because of the
people... blow some of 'em away!!!

PACKAGING

	The box is nice and big, and the instruction manual is huge and very
clearly and wittily written (though I suspect Australians may take offence
at some of the comments made about the Tasmania Syndicate - a rival
syndicate originating from down under!).  The manual implies that the game
has been in development for a LONG time (over a year) and that every feature
incorporated in the original (I assume PC based?) version has made it into
the Amiga version.  It even confesses how SLOW the game ran until some
programming genius (whose name escapes me) came along to accelerate the
graphics routines.

CONCLUSIONS

	I like this game a lot (even on my ancient 500).  It gives the
exciting sensation that "I ain't seen nothing yet" as far as the few
missions I have played go.  It absolutely eats up time.  I played for 5 hours
and this felt so much like 1 HOUR.  I had to be convinced it was 1am and not
9pm when I finally finished!  There is a great "dark future" atmosphere
around and many, many little features help to enhance this (the animated
billboards on the buildings just have to be seen to be believed!).  I still
think the control method is a bit awkward, but I have every faith this gripe
will vanish when I "get better".

	All in all, I'd say buy it:  you have never seen a "play God" type
game with so much detail and atmosphere that is so much fun to play!  Also,
if you get a pirate copy, you will get nothing out of the game without the
manual - so don't bother.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Anyone can reproduce any bits of this review wherever they like and
for whatever purpose.

+---------------------+------------------------------------------+
| Gary Bradley        |   "You receive a love letter from me and |
| ORACLE Corp, UK     |                  you're f*cked forever!" |
| Edinburgh, SCOTLAND |        - Frank Booth ("Blue Velvet")     |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------+
| Email:  [email-masked]                                 |
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