Well, since I missed out on last week’s WBW, I figured I owe it to you, my loyal readers, to get another one out there. Getting busy sucks, but it’s no excuse! Originally released on DOS and Mac, and later updated to SNES and PSX with rereleases, this one’s a classic that, like Shadowrun, had a true sequel on the Xbox 360 / PS3 / PC that did NOT do it justice whatsoever.
Today, we’ve got another unique title that holds a very, very special place in my heart–Syndicate. In Syndicate, we’re (like Shadowrun Returns), in a world where governments have been trumped in power by the megacorporations of the world, who now shape the world as they see fit. Each corporation has their own agents to operate in the shadows and do the dirty work for them–be it corporate sabotage, securing a high value scientist from a rival corporation, or defending the corporation from espionage or attacks. These agents are cybernetically enhanced humans, operating in trench coats to hide their mechanical limbs and heavy weaponry.
You start off as a small corporation with no territory on the world map, but a few missions to get to. After using your starting funds to equip your team of 4 agents (at a time), you head off to complete the mission in that territory, granting ownership of that territory to your location.
Spend wisely–the more money to allocate to research, the faster it goes–but the less you have for everything else!
What starts off as a simple mission based game quickly expands into a full crime syndicate simulator, as when not on a mission and owning territory, you must manage the tax rate of areas you own to maintain happiness and your finances, and use those funds to research new weaponry, items, gear, and enhancements for your crew. As you progress, rival corporations attempt to take back unhappy territories, prompting revisiting old mission locations with new objectives. You can even spend money pre mission on recon and map information to make planning the mission out much easier.
Dominate the world!
On missions, combat is in real time, with you controlling your units isometrically like an RTS. You can change the equipped gear on your agents, control them all, or one at a time, as well as recruit civilians and police to your cause (and sometimes enemy agents if you can get close enough to use your persuadetron), or simply kill everyone (provided your mission doesn’t call for escorting someone for extraction). You do need to enter the mission, complete the objective, and get out successfully.
Kaboom! Swarm of persuadetron allies and big explosions–yummy.
While there is an end to the game, the missions do get progressively harder and harder, and you CAN fail to succeed if all of your agents are killed in action (you can get more during the game, but they are difficult and rare to come by–treasure your agents and take care of them!)
Gettin’ techy with it!
As usual, you can pick this one up from Abandonia, however FreeGameEmpire doesn’t have this one, sadly (no online play), so you have to use the DosBox DOS emulator to run it.
DeeWhee Gaming 