Syndicate

The Good
In the summer of 1994, I was sworn to my nes. Then one time I went to my babysitter's and he had this new game, Syndicate. I was unaware of what that was, and when I watched it, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. As I watched the blood spray up after he hit some innocent civilian with the minigun and received no consequences, my mouth hung down for a while. Instantly I began saving up for this game, and it took me almost 2 months. When I finally had the money to purchase this game, I went to my local Electronics Boutique, which was then very small, and dumped all my one dollar bills and change onto the table, and the cashier smiled, but then when he checked his stock, he was all out. He felt sorry for me, and without even my asking, he ordered the game for me directly from the publisher. This, of course, was way before people working at electronics boutique became arrogant pricks, and 2 weeks later, I finally got the game which started my love for pc games. The graphics were slick, the game was actual fun, and I spent a good long time till I got it beat. I loved this game, and I wish people gave it due credit.

The Bad
The music sucked, and there was no ending.

The Bottom Line
Along with Half Life, it's games like this that make me remember why I have to work so hard to balance games and school.

The Good
In Syndicate, everything came together to create a near-perfect gaming experience. With great gameplay mechanics, excellent graphics (I would say they are better than those of its sequel, Syndicate Wars) and cool weapons, playing the bad guy has never been so fun. The tactical part of gameplay was plain sadistic fun as your agents run around town mowing down cops and enemy agents (and for those with genocidal tendencies, the civilians too!), while the pressures of managing money and research gave the game a satisfying strategic component. Syndicate was a bit on the easy side, but no one will ever forget the first time they played the Atlantic Accelerator mission, where death came in mere seconds for an unprepared player. All in all, Syndicate stands as one of the best games ever created, and easily the best game to come from Peter Molyneux.

The Bad
The worst part of the game was the music. There were only two different tracks: one when nothing was happening and one when enemy agents were near. Brief music clips were played after mission success or failure, but other than that it was the same music mission after mission. To add to the tedium, both tracks were short and repetitive, which will make you want to turn off the music if it weren't for the fact that you could tell enemy agents were near without looking at the minimap just by hearing the "Enemy Agents Near" music. It's a good thing the sound effects are excellent, or you'd be seriously wondering why you paid good money for a sound card...

The Bottom Line
A classic game, standing tall beside legends such as Doom and SimCity 2000.

The Good
The gameplay between missions is one of my favorate parts, building up a team of players with their different equipment and weapons is very rewarding. Salvaging equipment from the missions to increase your nestegg is a nice touch.

Missions are fun and fast paced and certain to get the adrenaline running. After all that hard work building a team with version 3 equipment, it would be a shame if one of them dies...

My favorate part af the game is watching the flamer do it's job; the gauss gun kicks some major butt also.

The Bad
God, why are the path finding abilities so bad? Don't click the mouse far away from your squad, or one of them is certain to go off on a dumb course and which most certainly will be the death of them.

The Bottom Line
Syndicate is an action packed game with enough elements of a strategy to keep my playing this long past my bedtime.