Syndicate

They shouldn't have hijacked the IP. Yet another shooter, this one preying on the existing goodwill of fans of the original Bullfrog games, was always going to meet some resistance.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
They shouldn't have hijacked the IP. Yet another shooter, this one preying on the existing goodwill of fans of the original Bullfrog games, was always going to meet some resistance.
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Yup, my hatred for EA grows and grows. First they spit on Origin Systems with the Origin name for their atrcious storefront. Now they spit on Bullfrog with this travesty of IP hijacking. Thank you so much EA for destroying good developement houses and then perverting their names or their IP.

Needless to say I'll not be buying or playing this POS.

Regards,
SB
 
Well, not having played the 93 version, it seems like the same game to me. Only a change of perspective from a top down game to a FPS. Not unlike the transformation that GTA made in order to update the IP.

But, I will admit, when I said 'No Love?' I wasn't expecting hatred.
 
The 93 game was a tactical squad management game. You directed AI agents with a point-and-click interface, and it was mostly about strategy. Set up an agent around that corner with a flame thrower. Psyche an agent with adernalin to get him running. Lure the enemy around...

This reaction is similar to the XCOM shooter reaction. People hearing about a sequel to a loved product get all excited, and then learn it's not a sequel at all, which inverts their excitement. That does happen with bait-and-switch. ;) If the game dropped the Syndicate name then it could be considered on its own merits. It's interesting that in an explanation, the devs (or marketing men) were saying they wanted to keep that universe. I have no idea what the companies in Syndicate were called! I doubt anyone else really cared. The whole corporate war thing was immaterial - it was the gameplay that we liked.

It's also gameplay that'd fit tablet ideally. Same with XCOM. I don't know why some folk don't give that a go, along with 4S games. We could see a renaissance of 1990's computer gaming genres.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
...It's also gameplay that'd fit tablet ideally. ...
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Agreed, but I'll add a note here ...

It would also fit Move and a Kinect2 and not be hindered with subpar hardware! :devilish:


I've had a nostalgic bug hit me recently brought on by my wife's desire to play more story driven games which aren't twitch based action fests. There were a ton of those back in the day on the pc, but I hadn't played one in quite a while. So I decided to say what the heck and try and load up some old games from this era (including Syndicate Wars). What a pain in the neck!

I forgot what a pain it used to be to get games running with the obligatory boot disk prior to win95, IRQs, etc, but now it seems most won't even run properly on modern comps mostly due to soundcard issues. :cry:


Having said all that, this game does look like it could be fun... as long as they bring in the persuadatron and gamers can get civilians to join in like a huge gang again! :LOL:
 
TheChefO said:
Agreed, but I'll add a note here ...

It would also fit Move and a Kinect2 and not be hindered with subpar hardware! :devilish:
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The install base for Kinect and Move is much smaller. It's also less convenient for those who put Move/Kinect away and only bring it out for parties. It'll also be less comfortable than small movements on a tablet. And the game wouldn't need the most awesome power to be a good game. Hell, it could be done with 2D sprites same as the original.

Given a choice, I'd pick the tablet experience for an old-school PC revival. Take it anywhere with you. Have it comfortablt positioned. Not be dependent on access to the TV. Have a very natural point-and-click interface.

As for playing old games, use DOSBox. It's awesome. I've played plenty of Master of Orion on it, with good upscaling. Your wife should also have a look at the remastered Monkey Island on Live! if you haven't done so already. Great recreation bringing that awesome game to a new audience.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
The install base for Kinect and Move is much smaller. It's also less convenient for those who put Move/Kinect away and only bring it out for parties. It'll also be less comfortable than small movements on a tablet. And the game wouldn't need the most awesome power to be a good game. Hell, it could be done with 2D sprites same as the original.

Given a choice, I'd pick the tablet experience for an old-school PC revival. Take it anywhere with you. Have it comfortablt positioned. Not be dependent on access to the TV. Have a very natural point-and-click interface.

As for playing old games, use DOSBox. It's awesome. I've played plenty of Master of Orion on it, with good upscaling. Your wife should also have a look at the remastered Monkey Island on Live! if you haven't done so already. Great recreation bringing that awesome game to a new audience.
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Smaller hardware install base for sure, but I'm not sure how many of those pad owners are really gamers, not just people that would waste some time for free with a distraction for a bit.

Agreed though on hardware limitations not being an issue for most point/click adventures, but I had to throw that dig in. ;)

Personally, I'd prefer the big screen and the couch with Kinect2 (better accuracy, less lag) or Move, but that's me.

Thanks for the tip on DosBox and Monkey Island. Unfortunately some still have issues on DOSBox (Full Throttle) and my wife wasn't a fan of Monkey Island on live (not sure why, I thought they did a heck of a job myself too!)
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Given a choice, I'd pick the tablet experience for an old-school PC revival. Take it anywhere with you. Have it comfortablt positioned. Not be dependent on access to the TV. Have a very natural point-and-click interface.
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Heck yeah, there's a lot of old school PC games that would be awesome on a tablet. Rogue, Cannon Fodder, Syndicate, Populous, Fallout, Ultima series (before they dropped stat based gameplay in favor of action based gameplay), etc...

Heck many of the early turn based RPGs would be fantastic on tablets. Pool of Radiance, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, etc.

Old strategy and sports games. Imagine the first few Maddens on tablet. Being able to just touch the receiver you wanted to throw to.

TheChefO said:
Agreed though on hardware limitations not being an issue for most point/click adventures, but I had to throw that dig in. ;)

Personally, I'd prefer the big screen and the couch with Kinect2 (better accuracy, less lag) or Move, but that's me.
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Adventure game revival on tablets would certainly have me grinning from ear to ear. Even though there are some good ones that pop up now and then on PC, I still miss companies like Sierra (King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc.) and Lucas Arts (Grim Fandago, Maniac Island, Monkey Island, etc.).

And you can game on the big screen with a tablet easily enough. Well at least I can with my Windows Tablet. Although there's a bit of a disconnect between touching the screen of a tablet and watching your actions on a big screen.

Also wouldn't see mind trying to play many of the aforementioned games with Kinect.

Something like Dungeon Master by FTL or Eye of the Beholder by Westwood would be perfect for full body control. Especially the first as you had to choose runes to cast spells. You could actually pick up and throw things (both games). Attacks are easily emulated as they were basically just slash and shoot without any aiming requirements. And they had somewhat realtime combat with easy to kinecticize movement. Might and Magic RPG series by NWC would be right up that alley as well.

Regards,
SB
 
I was strongly considering picking this game up but the reviews say the single player campaign is pretty weak aside from the gunplay/melee. It sounds extremely linear and restricted in gameplay style. Apparently Starbreeze and/or their publisher decided to try to go the trendy route of coop shooter w/ added single player mode. It's all the rage with the kiddies.

One of these cyberpunk games needs to go sandbox.

Shifty Geezer said:
This reaction is similar to the XCOM shooter reaction. People hearing about a sequel to a loved product get all excited, and then learn it's not a sequel at all, which inverts their excitement.
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Said people are also apparently ignorant of the UFO series and other X-Com tactstrat-style games. There is also the consideration of X-Com Interceptor and X-Com Enforcer, which already tried to go new directions with the name so it's not unprecedented (and incited untold amounts of fan whining). I think X-Com Apocalypse flopped and so they tried to diversify the brand.

The new shooter looks rather bizarre but, if it doesn't turn out to be shallow fake-door nonsense, I might check it out.
 
swaaye said:
Said people are also apparently ignorant of the UFO series and other X-Com tactstrat-style games. There is also the consideration of X-Com Interceptor and X-Com Enforcer, which already tried to go new directions with the name so it's not unprecedented (and incited untold amounts of fan whining). I think X-Com Apocalypse flopped and so they tried to diversify the brand.
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And those non TBS games basically flopped as well.

Apocalypse did relatively well but was the start of the end as they started to move away from what made X-com so popular among its fans. It introduced real-time combat (unpopular) but at least you still had the option of turn based play. It introduced constantly adjusting difficulty based on how the player does (not well implemented and again, hugely unpopular).

And then there was the whole problem of the dual developement. The original X-com team working on the gameplay while Microprose insisted another team work on the graphics. That didn't turn out well, and ended up delaying the game as well as resulting in an inferior product (bad and buggy performance on the majority of systems out at the time).

All of which was a sign to the fans that the series had lost sight of what made the series great and hence many, like me, just didn't buy any X-com games after Apocalypse.

I'm not what developers don't get. Players generally like franchises mostly because they hope it gives them more of what they want. When you start deviating too much from giving the players more of what they want you start losing sales.

There's obviously some frachises that defy that generality (Anything Mario related for example) but generally holds true for most games.

If you're going to change the gameplay at least change the IP, or make a variant/offshoot of the IP. When NWC decided to create a TBS game set in the Might and Magic world they didn't call it Might and Magic. They called it Heroes of Might and Magic, a distint enough departure to let fans of the RPG series know at a glance that this isn't a continuation of the RPG series.

That's the perfect way to leech off of the popularity of a Franchise without bastardizing and ruining the franchise.

Really, deveopers and publishers shouldn't be at all surprised that when they shit on the fans of what made the franchise great that it's going to have serious negative reprecussions in most cases.

Regards,
SB
 
swaaye said:
It sounds extremely linear and restricted in gameplay style.
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I bought it for the PC expecting some limited sandbox like the Riddick games and The Darkness, and was disappointed to find the game is completely linear. The gameplay is restricted to pretty much straight shooter mechanics too, but its really well done, so I've no complaints about that. Also, at least the PC version suffers from excessive bloom and an awful glare effect on the sides of the screen when near bright light sources, neither of which were in any of the pre-release footage I've seen; I'm curious to know if its the same on the consoles.
 
RenegadeRocks said:
The game seems to be getting good reviews everywhere.
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Must be reading the same reviews as me.

As far as the single player goes, from what I've read it's about the story.. its not supposed to be a sandbox and the guts of the game is supposed to be the 4 player co-op.

Also, if you wanted a cyberpunk sandbox game, there's always Crackdown.
 
Starbreeze always makes solid shooters and I'm enjoying this one. I think the hub-based world as seen in The Darkness would have worked better here, but the action is solid and the gunplay is great.

One thing I will say is that I am finding it to be quite HARD, even on normal difficulty. Maybe I just can't play shooters anymore, but the AI is constantly out flanking me. I've been able to get by so far, but I typically die once or twice when coming in to a new area. I must have replayed the nightclub battle 10 times before I cleared it.
 
Playing a replacable meatbag ?
Doesn't sound too interesting. I remember using them as tools and not caring one bit about them besides the expense they represented ;p
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Really, deveopers and publishers shouldn't be at all surprised that when they shit on the fans of what made the franchise great that it's going to have serious negative reprecussions in most cases.
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Fallout 3 worked out alright regardless of the psycho haters there. :)
 
swaaye said:
Fallout 3 worked out alright regardless of the psycho haters there. :)
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Meh, a lot of the people that made FO3 so popular didn't even play FO 1 or 2. So not terribly surprising that with most of its sales on consoles that it would do well as a Shooter. And at least it still featured some vestiges of RPG combat. Still not as good as either the first or second game, IMO (yes, I'm sure lots of people will disagree :)).

Morale of the story, if you want to make money on either X360 or PS3, make a shooter.

Regards,
SB
 
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