The Nostalgia Test: Syndicate Revisited

[News Portal]

Although the new remake of Syndicate was banned in Australia, the original, much-revered title is still available through GOG.com. But, nineteen years on, is the game still actually any good? Or are we all just looking at it through our rose-tinted glasses? James O'Connor has never played Syndicate before, and he teamed up with long-time Syndicate fan James Pinnell to see what all the fuss was about.

Read full article by J OConnor & J Pinnell

[asmodai]

The whole nostalgia factor is why I don't indulge that much at GOG. My memories gloss over the myriad of little (or big) problems I had at the time and only remember the awesome. Picked up the Might and Magic IV/V/VI pack last year and had a lot of trouble getting in to it despite spending months playing them when they first came out.

[Syncourt]

LoL @ Gauss gun picture

[Breakin]

LoL @ Gauss gun picture

hahaha

[antzpantz]

I've always been more of a fan of Syndicate Wars. Give that a whirl!

[sPOiDar]

Syndicate soundtrack was absolutely killer. In fact, all the sound effects were pretty damn satisfying.

The drug system is pretty crucial, mainly for the intelligence increase and it was trivial to decipher in those days, perhaps we were used to a lack of hand-holding. And as a mechanic I thought it worked very well, much better than the standard sort of cooldown you see these days. Being able to dumb the agents down when you feel safe, and having to super-micro-manage them, then boost all their abilities when things get hectic was quite brilliant.

I do actually remember path-finding being pretty terrible, exceptionally so in vehicles, to the point where you generally wouldn't bother with them unless it was required.

One of the great aspects of Syndicate for me was the atmosphere and attitude (which were lost a little in the sequels IMO), love it when the enemy agent music kicks in

I grabbed it off GoG when it dropped, but sadly my game time is pretty limited these days, will definitely crank it up in the near future and see how it's held up though.

But god damn would I play the **** out of a nice remake with modern tooling. Fscking Starbreeze FPS nonsense... *grumble* ... get off my lawn....

[a3gis]

at least someone mentioned the music

loving that they got that nod to the original in the new shooter

PS: the shooter is not terrible - found it quite fun, BUT it has 90's era difficulty. so play it on normal or easy ;P

[Axe_2_Gr1nd]

go on do another: x-com UFO!



I still have a go at it every now again, you can get the full pack on steam these days!

x-com & terror from the deep are still the best thow in my mind

[RSOblivion]

Interesting how it's hard to go back to lower gfx level games unless you started there. I have the same issue with FF7 as I my first introduction to FF was FFX which I found excellent (despite it's obvious issues!).

Back to Syndicate. I for one loved the original. The awkwardness of the controls and the rather frantic firefights were always a part of the game as well as the AWFUL pathfinding. However that was when the German train pathfinding was still in full force...

The cars however are easy once you know how to control them. They are basically trains in operation, only able to turn at the funny dome things at corners and crossroads. So you need to be careful where you click the vehicle to move to otherwise hilarity can ensue. Once I worked that out things got a lot easier.

The biggest issue with the game for me is the limited control over the agents and the pseudo 3D setting which meant on some missions you would be going in circles trying to get to the roof of a particularly annoying building.

The sequel which got mixed responses (though IMO corrected a lot of the original's errors) partially fixed those issues, but still suffered control clunkiness and tbh I think that's inherent with the viewpoint used and the relative level of zooming allowed.

Rose-tinted glasses are probably apt for a lot of the reviews (mainly for the atmosphere and music) but IMO it was and still is a gaming great, trying to take a new direction which with a bit more forethought could still work...

[James Pinnell]

The music was definitely a standout part of the game for me, it was, and still is, completely stellar.

[>XaartaX<]

And what was it that the voice said when you persuade someone with the persuadatron?

[caitsith01]

Interesting how it's hard to go back to lower gfx level games unless you started there. I have the same issue with FF7 as I my first introduction to FF was FFX which I found excellent (despite it's obvious issues!).

And equally interesting how people who struggle with old graphics will happily play a 300x200 res POS game on a phone like it's the bees knees.

[Rogue]

I do actually remember path-finding being pretty terrible, exceptionally so in vehicles, to the point where you generally wouldn't bother with them unless it was required.

Absolutely.

I really liked Syndicate back in the day - one of my favourite games of the era, no doubt - but almost 20 years later I don't think I'd enjoy it too much.

[Edward]

I first played Syndicate about 2 years ago and I loved it. Sure it has path finding issues but its to be expected.

Once you realise these things its easy to figure it out.

Maybe I can play older games without comparing them to modern graphics and UI etc. But I thought it was great and sure it has issues but its what I expected for the era and enjoyed it.

I personally like to find older games that I missed out on and play them, I'll play them for far longer than the latest games. I find them more addictive. Less about big signs saying go here, do this and more here is your map/world do your thing and figure it out yourself. Not expecting every player is a moron is refreshing.

You shouldn't have to be able to finish a mission on your first go.