Syndicate – Corporate Assassin [Review]

Syndicate is the 3D visualization in the form of a first-person-shooter and reboot of the classic game from 1993 with the same name. While I think Starbreeze (the devs) managed to capture cyberpunk aesthetics and the dystopian corporate warfare, the story could have been a lot better. It’s somewhat disappointing, considering the rich setting the game has to pick from. What’s much better is the gameplay. However, this part is not without problems either, even if it’s fun. Before diving into the story and gameplay details, we will have to go over some technical hurdles!

Technical and buying issues
For me, the technical issues were actually minimal, which surprised me. Titles from this era (around 2010) that didn’t have much of a presence always seem to come with a lot of difficulties when playing on a modern system. The only thing I had to do was to force Nvidia Fast Sync, under the Nvidia Control Panel, to reduce mouse lag and screen tearing. Yet, looking at the game page on PCGamingWiki there seems to be a lot of problems. So, I guess I was lucky.

Another conundrum is the buying of the game. You can’t buy Syndicate digitally anywhere, but at one point it was sold on EA’s Origin (now EA app), seeing as EA published it. For whatever reason, they have decided not to sell it anymore, which means the only way to get the game legitimate is to buy the retail version (physical copy). I got lucky here too, as I was able to find it new with the Origin code intact for 4 euros on an online trading site for second hand stuff. Hopefully, Syndicate ends up on abandonware sites someday, because being stuck at random retail sales is a fate worse than death for any game. Now for the story.

EuroCorp
You play as Kilo, EuroCorps newest recruit. It becomes clear rather quickly that you are not part of the good guys, which also comes as no surprise for veterans of the franchise. EuroCorp is embroiled in a clandestine (for the most part) war against other corporations, and this specific conflict involves a fancy new brain control chip. So far, all is good and comfy, as being a ruthless agent in a dystopian world where the corpos rule feels cool and fresh. Sadly, with all of these stories, and you can see and feel it coming a mile away: betrayal and the typical sinister revelation that you have been tricked is on the menu. The age-old question: Are we the baddies? A moralistic conundrum that puts everything in question, *yawn*.

I will not say exactly what happens, but I think you can figure it out. Your time as a hard as steel Syndicate agent will soon come to an end, because as it is, being part of a shadowy enterprise just can’t be allowed. You see, that would be morally wrong, and too awesome. Now, I wouldn’t say the story felt that great outside this inevitable twist, but the reveal is sudden, and above all predictably boring. Instead of playing into the brutal corporate cyberpunk future where agents kill each other for a small percentage boost in revenue, the protagonist must find his moral compass and act in revenge upon those that created him…

To be fair, you don’t become a model citizen, as the game is short, which makes the switch in allegiance come off as abrupt and disjointed. I’m not sure what the plan for the story was here, but I doubt this was it, because they hired some solid Hollywood talents (Rosario Dawson & Brian Cox) for the supporting characters. These characters are mostly wasted, but I have a feeling more cool stuff was planned, and the storyline we got was something written in the absolute last moment. Yeah, the story is that poor. I can’t be sure this is the case, of course. But, if the narrative was planned to be this pencil-thin from the start, Starbreeze had some seriously bored writers at the time, lacking important creativity for the job at hand.

Cyberpunk blasting
Where Syndicate fares better is in the gameplay. It’s fast, bloody, and incorporates awesome sci-fi tech and hacking in its brutalization of endless mooks. For the most part, it feels satisfying, with StarBreeze’s in-house engine providing sleek and fun action. However, it’s not without some serious jank. First off, and while I find it very cool, your body is an actual physical object in the world. Meaning you can see your legs for example. In the case of Syndicate, it also means that every object will interact with your body parts. Going up to a wall will shift around your weapons and arms, making taking cover, and shooting from it an ordeal, even when the game has specific mechanics for it. Another annoying issue (which to be fair could be because I played on hard) is that every unit, from the lowest of grunts, can eat a whole lot of lead before joining the man upstairs (or downstairs).

When several agents come at you at once, it becomes a game of hide and seek with extremely prolonged fire-fights thanks to this. Scoring head-shots included! Huge mistake in my eyes, because otherwise, the feel of being a cybernetic corporate agent is slick as hell. You can slow down time for precision aiming. You can hack enemy agents to turn on their friends, or just force them to suicide outright with a grenade, taking their comrades with them to digital heaven. Furthermore, you are also pretty speedy, which makes running up to dudes and kicking their asses in melee a viable tactic. This approach is also rewarded in the upgrade system, if you want it to be, that is. The only thing that drags down the experience is the health-bloat, since it makes everyone feel like an enhanced agent, just like yourself. But it’s not supposed to be like that, game! 

That’s not the only issue, sadly. The bosses are the worst when it comes to taking a beating. Having fantasy-esque bosses with modern weaponry and a massive health pool is never a good idea. You can spin it however you want. Shooting a guy two hundred times with a machine-gun in the face will always feel immersion shattering, both for me and the loaded jacketed bullets. Especially when they don’t even use a futuristic shield or anything sci-fi like that. They just absorb the bullets with their skin and somehow live, until the final round that finally penetrates their skull and ends their menace. Then you have mini-bosses that work on the same premise as the regular mooks, with the one difference that they must be hacked before their incredible health can be slowly whittled down. Painful.

Even so, I had fun in between when you get to battle standard grunts. It’s also much thanks to the cool cyberpunk aesthetics. Which leads me to the visuals.

Cyberpunk world
I wouldn’t say Syndicate matches the visuals from 1993, but it has this sleek cyberpunk vibe that makes you go: cool-shame-about-the-dystopia. The environments have an excellent look to them, and you will get to traverse all kinds: from the slums (where I would end up in this world), to sea-bases and sleek corporate buildings where I would be banned from entering. As mentioned, the visuals were one of the reasons why the game worked in the end, despite its shortcomings in the story and gameplay. Also, since it’s a cyberpunk game, the UI elements match the genre for once, even the hitmarkers, I must admit. Yet, I would rather see them removed from all first-person-shooters for all future games, if I had my way. 

The sounds and music are also great. With its theme (Skrillex) being more popular and recognizable than the actual game. It’s a rather cool remix of the original theme, admittedly.

The dialogue was also presented well, with one character standing out as exceptionally cool. Mostly for his voice, and that is your EuroCorp agent partner, Jules Merit. He is voiced by Michael Wincott, who has a very distinct and raspy voice. He plays the leader of the mercenary company in Alien: Resurrection—the most badass character in that weird but enjoyable alien movie.

Conclusion
Unfortunately, Syndicate does not feel like a lost gem, but I do feel it deserves better than to be forgotten like it is now. Despite its problems, it’s a fun little cyberpunk FPS romp, with way too many lens flares. One of the things that makes it playable, is that it does not overstay its welcome, as it’s rather short. I would have liked a better and longer game, if the gameplay and story matched its ambition. But for four euros, I can’t complain too much. It gave me a few hours of entertainment, when I needed some corporate warfare in my life!

Thanks for reading.

– Thomas