Syndicate (2012). Review. If Bill Gates chipped everyone.

In 2012, Starbreeze studio under the EA publishing house released a corridor shooter in the style of Cyberpan, which at that time was first lost among other projects, and after that was completely forgotten. Only 150,000 copies of the game were implemented over the year, which was considered a definite failure. A wave of dismissal passed along the studio, which saved from closing, but reduced motivation. After Syndicate, she shot only Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, after which the developers took up Payday 2 and Overkills Walking Dead, cooperative shooters, which then gained popularity.

Back to the hero of the review. The action takes place in 2069 in the United States, where private corporations, and in the game syndicates, are fighting for monitoring the population. Our protagonist is Miles kilo, one of the Eurocorp syndicate agents performing all the dirty work. In the hero’s head, the last development of the company is the DART6 chip, which helps to recognize images, has a built -in thermal imager, a cracker of various electronic pieces, including chips in other people. As in the top ten and two of the shooters, there was a place for the Bullet Time effect, which is not just for a checkmark, but a full-fledged partner in the shooting of the enemy.

In a dark room, a thin man is tied to a chair. This room is located either in an abandoned house, or in a sleeping area for the poor. Windows, scattered furniture, inscriptions on the walls and lack of lighting gives us this hint. A man is approaching the prisoner, it seems a military man, with the intention of getting rid of a witness. But he suddenly comes to his senses and knocks the soldier off his feet with a strong blow. With a deft movement of the hands, the man is freed from the shackles and finishes the lying.

So we begin to master in the gameplay. Having picked up a gun, we pass through various corridors and stairwells in which we are noticed and here the first shootout begins.

Despite a very unexpected beginning, we are quickly revealed all the cards, and let us go into further swimming. You are an agent of the syndicate, and your mission is to do all the dirty work. The player is waiting for consistent tasks without the possibility of choosing, linear levels with stops for shootings and flat characters with exactly the same plot. But is everything so bad?

In the middle of abandoned slum, there is such an installation for assessing the effectiveness of the agent

The gameplay generally boils down to two types of actions – shooting and single -killer hacking. And the first type of action here is done perfectly. The weapon was worked out both in detail and in the very process of shooting. The scatter is felt, and the probability of hitting the enemy depends on the distance to the enemy. The shooting works as it should, from which the ordinary enemy quickly ends. And if they get into the hero, then the weapon begins to lead and gets more complicated. You can shoot with a cloth, but I didn’t use this feature so often, since the speaker in the game is high and it is better to constantly move, preventing the enemy from surrounding himself or getting behind.

Characteristic animation during shooting due to shelter. Beautiful and spectacular, but not effective

For accurate hits and evaluating the situation, there is its own Bullet Time. You press the button and everything around slows down, becomes plainly gray, and the enemies are illuminated by orange, so they are easier to recognize among the environment. It is also easy to recognize whether the enemy died or not, since the orange halo around is simply replaced by blue. Here lies the minus of the system, since the environment itself merges and sometimes it is difficult to recognize whether the enemy is behind the shelter or not. And the imposition itself deprives the joy of murder in Slo-Mo. The effect of approximately 5 seconds lasts, for which you can have time to ditch most of the enemies at the level. Usually more than 4-5 opponents do not come across at a time, which is done for the sake of entertainment and drive. The game is more revealed. Enemies do not run headlong under the fire, try to hide behind shelters, run from one place to another. They throw grenades if the hero has stayed in one place, and everyone is completely trying not to attack one at a time. Small flaws are present, but they are not very striking in the eye of the battle. I will even call it realism, as the enemy can start looking for you in the old place, and you have already run around for another shelter. Or he just remains to sit at the shelter in anticipation of the right moment while you run around to go into the back and punish in close combat.

Superstructure Dart6 in action. Nothing but the interface distracts from shooting.

In addition to shooting, there are three superstructures that we are introduced gradually, giving training in virtual reality between missions. This is suicide, overload and suggestion. The name accurately reflects the action. The first ability forces the enemy to commit suicide, while causing damage in the region, the second overloads the chip in the brain and the enemy will be stunned for a short time, and the use of the third allows the enemy to fight on our side for some time. Constant use is limited by the scale, which must be filled. And if at the very beginning of the mission all abilities are available, then it is necessary to shoot accurately to replenish them, since they themselves are not filled over time. Therefore, if the hands are crooked, like mine, then most of the level can be drawn without abilities. The benefit of cartridges is always enough and they fall out in excess.

Minimalistic learning interface. Using abilities and limited ammunition, it is necessary to solve simple problems to eliminate opponents.

The game also has conditional pumping of a character, the glasses for which are issued strictly according to the plot from certain characters. It will not work to fill out the entire table, only certain slots that are responsible for the amount of health and its restoration, duration of DART, the speed of restoration of abilities, ammunition and damage. It does not give any new abilities or skills. My playing style in shooters resembles ordinary rash, so I invested in health and ammunition.

Now about Haking, which is just to be here. Everything is done with one button that needs to be clamped for a couple of seconds. Opening doors, hacking of terminals and turrets, neutralizing grenades, all through one button. No complex riddles or there is hacking ciphers through mini-games, simple and without imagination. Sometimes it is necessary to turn on the slowdown in order to have time to do as many as two actions. It was really offensive here, especially against the backdrop of good shooting. It was possible to insert a hacking cipher through a digital system, connection of conductors, or just searching for cards keys. By playing our chip, the recognition of images is sewn, which is not used anywhere. At the very beginning of the game you still do not understand this and just look at everything around. Here is the table on which all the trifle that we recognize is – a glass, a table and tools itself. And okay, the tools would be recognized separately – a hammer, a wrench, a screwdriver, but it’s just “Tools”. The properties are not signed on such objects, so looking at the glass and see the inscription “glass” is very strange. This is just a background noise that distracts more, and does not help. The only thing where the recognition of images is organically sewn into the interface and gameplay is weapons and cartridges that are clearly illuminated on the floor.

It is a desktop or a working bench (Workbench), and there is a coffee glass on the table (CoffeeCup) and tools (Tools). This reminded me of one of the series of Silicon Valley, where software could distinguish between two options – a hot dog or not a hot dog

ENT games developers decided to tell through electronic https://slots-bonus.co.uk/ text messages that can be collected by levels. You approach the computer, click on one button and in a separate menu you read what you collect. Usually this is a couple of paragraphs of the text that give only part of a story that does not open to the end. This part was left on a player who can think about how to want, but it is not interesting to read, since the characters are different there, the hero does not feel them. They exist only in the text, no more. If these are voice messages transmitted by a limited number of characters that would reveal them during the plot, then the alignment would have turned out to be others. Sorry for the repetition, but damn it, we have some Uberchip in the head, about which the ton of advertising is in the game. The future is close, chip, new era. But what this chip gives to ordinary people, except for recognition of coffee mugs? Why the messages that we download cannot read at least an electronic voice or artificially synthesized, with the transmission of mood, which in our time can be realized? Moreover, there are no more than 10 pages of text, type 12 font in Word. A few plot inserts are implemented using video messages that are harmoniously inscribed in the interface. We do not have to climb into a separate menu, looking up from the process. Why they didn’t do the same, I don’t know.

Opened infobank, read a handful of text, closed the infobank. Forgot what I read

When I was just starting to play, I already knew that I would write a review. Planned to devote a separate large part of the characters, but this did not happen. There is nothing to mention about them or their character. They are voiced well, painted and animated too. That’s just nothing of them. The main character without a voice, part of the face of which is shown only at the end, a typical antagonist – the head of the large company Jack Dan, agent Julz Merit, developer of the Dart chip Lily Dron and a couple more characters who are given in total three minutes. We meet Denem at the very beginning of the game, in its middle and end. He gives a couple of phrases in the spirit of the mentor, one monologue in which the thoughts of the tree are spreading and another similar at the end of the game. Lily Dawn is devoted more time, but because of the punches of the game, it is not revealed. The most clear and understandable here is the agent Merit. He looks and speaks like after a hangover, shoots indiscriminately and simply executes the instructions from above. Despite the screen time, it is remembered. And thanks for this I want to say the actor of voice.

It may seem that Merit’s back is not a sniper rifle, but simply sophisticated spinning. The rest of the pieces are also simple attributes for fishing

Enemies in the game are found in four types – ordinary people in or without light armor with pistols, machine guns or shotgun, reinforced with shotguns or heavier weapons, guards with shields and drones. Artificial intelligence is worthy here, so you do not have to complain about the uniformity of shootings or their dullness. The developers are actively mumming this small deck and use the features of level design, placing snipers at the upper levels, releasing opponents with shotgun in narrow parts, drones in open spaces and armored children, accompanied by ordinary. In some levels, invisibles, which are clearly visible only through Dart, appear for a short time. I also have something to break out of enemies. A conventional pistol, a slaughter revolver, a couple of types of machine guns, a Gauss rifle shooting with homing shells, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, grenades of two types, a rocket launchers and rare flamethrower and a laser. The last two make it possible to feel like a terminator, spinning ahead and stripping everyone forward in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, the flamethrower cannot be transferred with you to another level, so it remains a disposable toy. The laser, on the contrary, can be carried with you, but it also appears only at the end of the plot campaign.

Separate lines deserve a few fights with other agents. Their main feature is of course a cloak. If it is, then the Syndicate specialized agent is in front of you. But you don’t need to guess, we will show us everything and so. There will be 5 such battles in total, of which I remember only three, and only two were pleased – the first and last. In this case, in fact, you do not have to. Just run, perform the simplest actions and shoot. Despite the simplicity, the entertainment of such battles at the height. I defeated the agent – take his chip and pump your skills.

Armor from Apple It’s hard not to find out

Only the ashes are nice to leave behind, although it does not last long

In general, the game looks worthy and I have not experienced any discomfort when passing. Pleasant and worked out animation, light rays beautifully pass through the windows, and shadows from objects gently fall on other surfaces. Bright here only with glare from point lighting sources that hit the eyes greatly and look very unnatural.

The color scheme here is monotonous, consisting of two basic contrasting colors – blue and orange. Warm lighting sources contrast perfectly with a gray-blue environment. If light sources are cold, then the surroundings of warmer tones come to their aid. Level designers tried well so that this effect was preserved throughout the game. They worked on the arrangement of elements on locations. In the sleeping areas, garbage from bags to waste paper on the ground is scattered, graffiti are painted and hung out of various kinds of posters, barrels around which people are warming up, as well as wooden benches and ragged walls. Despite such attention to the details, there are globally three types of levels-slums, an area outside of some syndicate and premises inside the syndicate. It is worth mentioning that most of the game we run through a slightly illuminated area, opponents in which we constantly have to look through the Dart system.

It is clearly seen here that global lighting is warm, and local sources are cold – information shields and signs. In this case, the upper part of the level is made in warm colors – supporting structures and struts, and the lower part in the cold.

Sound accompaniment is characterized as pleasant. Background sounds are present, the sensation of a vacuum does not exist here. Music always plays the topic and does not bother, and the weapon sounds voluminous and you just get high from each shot.

I liked the game. This is a decent corridor shooter for one evening, in which great shootings and good graphics. Levels are worked out and the atmosphere of the future in places is felt very well. The game does not have time to get tired of a short 5-hour plot company, but leaves behind a feeling. Characters rarely appear on the screen, and their motivation and character are not disclosed. At the same time, the ending is absurdly breaking off, hinting at the continuation. The world of the game is served with scraps from electronic messages that are simply uninteresting to read. The intrigue is absent from the very beginning, and the moment is closer to the end of the game, from which there should have been a “wow effect”, this does not cause. It is also not clear what exactly should give people chipping. Sing -button hacking mechanics does not benefit, but rather simply fills the empty places of the gameplay.

I can’t say anything about the cooperative, since I haven’t found it with whom to play. As a result, I launched the card in solitary mode, but I did not find the motivation to go through it.

My rating is 6.5 out of 10. Mostly for graphics, artificial intelligence and shooting. There would be a hard five without them.

In the game media, the project was estimated in different ways, from 5 out of 5 to moderate 6 out of 10. All the shooting praised and scolded the rest of the aspects of the game. Having passed the game, I did not find new words in its defense or excuses for a weak plot and gameplay. All this is aggravated by the fact that in 2012 a huge number of games that pulled all the attention were published: Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, Max Payne 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Cod: Black Ops 2 and the first phenomena of Half-Life: Black Mesa from fans. And these are just shooters.

Note:The responsibility for the script was on Richard Morgan, who in the past wrote the script for Crysis 2. And if you pass Syndicate, then you will definitely notice the connection between the two games. But Richard is not so much known for the scenarios for games as a modified carbon for his novel (Altern Carbon), also in the style of Cyberpan. The second time he could not repeat success.

Light at the end of the tunnel as a metaphor for the completeness of the game. Maybe EA Rushed Starbreeze, or maybe they simply could not realize all their ideas.

Having passed the game to the end, I gave myself a couple of days to think about what mechanics I would add or adjusted to fall in love with the game in order to replay it again and again. Of course, a large budget and desire for implementation will be required.

1. Mini-games for hacking doors, computers, turrets and chips of other agents.

For hacking the doors, you can make three ways: deceiving the scanner through the substitution of information, a banal hacking of the lock through a short circuit and the key-card, hidden at the level. The first method is a mini-game, in which you must first decipher the data for a certain time, and then replace this data with your own for the allotted time. As it moves in the plot of time, it becomes a little smaller, and the size of the cipher is slightly larger. In this case, you can and even need to use the time slowing down system to make data substitution.

The second method is to find the connection of the castle with the electrical wiring. We turn on the DART, look at the connections that are cunningly distributed in level, and switch where we need. Unlike the first way, you have to keep up with all directions and run back and forth according to the location.

The third way is to find a key card, the location of which is unknown by default. And here you can make players read dull e -mail messages that are collected through computers. There you can specify a guideline. It would be possible to implement the search mechanics in cabinets and other places.

There is another fourth way in which the player breaks the chip of a neutral employee (yes, they are also present here) through the “suggestion” and makes him open the door. The problem of this method is a limited amount of energy to the ability, so it may not be at the right time. But it can be a gameplay.

While I described all the methods, I came up with the fifth, the most banal. Do not want to do anything from the proposed at all? Look for a ventilation shaft into which you can climb. Find a mechanical switch to turn off the fan or just hack the knot remotely. Look for how to climb there, knock out your passage and that’s it, you’re ready. If this is difficult, I propose adding a single -button hacking as another ability. Spent once per level and all. Moreover, the doors here are usually 2-3, no more.

I was mistaken in the mini-game, get guards on his own head or turret.

2. Expansion of the Laura of the game.

In addition to simple text messages, I would add voice and video messages that would be built into the interface without the need to climb into a separate menu. By the way, the game also has profiles of certain characters, but they are poorly decorated. Here I would give everyone my image, parameters and characteristics to revive. Audio and video files should bind the characters among themselves, develop their small stories. Here a person in a letter said that he was going to a report to a conference on chipping people, but in another letter, already from the corporation, they want to interrogate him. And this chain develops further.

You can give clues or hints from these people that they have developed a new chip chip and hid until better times due to a side effect. We find this and get a new skill, for example, invisibility. Not the same as in Crysis, but simply interference in the chips of opponents who do not allow us to notice. And from here it was possible to go to the stealth, simple, but allowing you to get around some areas.

This is all good, but in order for the ENT of the game he really earned, it is necessary to rewrite the whole plot, more tightly blur black and white, show the complete failure of the concept of syndicates and agents, let a choice of at least two options. Show the side effects of the chip, give the hero a little hallucinations, hints of which are at the end of the game. Confuse us a little, give intrigues.

3. A variety of gameplay by expanding the number of characters.

This is the most difficult part, since it would require the development of additional levels and a mechanic for these same characters. I would add a gameplay for Lily Dronus, which would have to be carried out in stealth, encrypt or send data, rarely resorting to an open confrontation. As another character, he would take the head of the partisan detachment (I honestly did not remember him at all), which has a disguise. Here you can arrange a sabotage, quietly eliminate opponents, and prepare the ground for the revolution.