Syndicate was an old isometric real time tactics game from 1993 by Bullfrog Productions (Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, etc.) that is critically renowned and has even made a few Best Games of All Time lists. Obviously, the original game had a formula that worked-- so when EA and Starbreeze Studios got together to reboot the game for 2012 they did what any sane and logical person would do and change it into a first person shooter. Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Warning: Above trailer contains Skrillex
Yeah, instead of making a totally awesome modern version of the original game, they decided to push another FPS out on to an already crowded market. Well, Syndicate has to do something to differentiate itself from the Call o' Duties and Battlefields of the world, right? Well, kind of, it's a cyberpunk style game (which is one of my favorite settings) with a pretty well-realized and well-built world, which probably would of seemed pretty unique and cool had the vastly superior Deus Ex: Human Revolution not come out recently. So yeah, we've got a classic license, a unique world and setting, what do you do with it? Well, if you're Starbreeze (or EA I'm not sure whose idea it was) you cram all this into a generic FPS and ruin it.
I don't hate FPS games or anything (there are a lot of them I like, thankyouverymuch) but I do like my first person shooters to try and do something different from the norm. Syndicate in all it's fancy light bloom and cyberpunk world doesn't really try to think outside of that box much. Sure, you get powers (called apps, how current) and upgrades, but there's really only 3 freaking applications (suicide (not as cool as it sounds, your target just yells then explodes), backfire (mah gun broke!), and persuade (the AI hacking from every other game ever)) and the upgrades aren't cool in the least, unless you think additional health or slight improvements to one of your three boring apps is cool. The other move you have slows down time (which has only been done a gajillion times before), highlights your targets (kinda neat I guess) and gives you boosted health and damage. As you can see, Syndicate is pretty disappointing in the innovation department. You can hack certain things, but it's not any fun, you just hold the left button until a bar fills to a certain line, which is unfortunately the same way you use your apps. I guess if you really liked the active reload thing from Gears of War (which actually was innovative and cool at the time) and want to be doing it all the dang time then Syndicate is definitely your game, you weirdo.
[caption id="attachment_1607" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Chip-ripping dudes looks cool though."]
[/caption]The graphics, animation, frame rate, controls and all that jazz are definitely up to snuff, I mean, everything is functional and causes no frustration to occur, it's just that the game is so bland it doesn't even feel like it's worth playing. As I said before it does nothing new or interesting (or better than any other game) and doesn't have anything other than different setting to set it apart from the Call of Duties of the world. It's just a waste of a cool franchise and setting-- there is no reason this game should be as bland and generic as it is.
If you want a cyberpunk game, go play last year's Deus Ex: Human Revolution and if you want a good FPS, there's about 30 other ones more interesting or with better features than this has (Play one of the Bioshock games if you haven't already, or hell, Duke Nukem Forever is more entertaining than this). There's just no niche for this game to exist in, and you aren't going to miss anything at all if you pass it up.
Overall, Syndicate isn't bad, nor is it any good. It's the most middle of the road, generic, and uninteresting games I've played in a while. I didn't hate it and I didn't like it, I just felt nothing...and they may be the worst video game sin of all. Syndicate gets an absolutely middle of the road score:
No comments:
Post a Comment