Syndicate
Price: £34.99
Publisher: Mindscape
0144 246333
Review by Alan Dykes for CU Amiga, June 1995, p.60
t is about time too. Syndicate
has been available on standard Amigas for nearly two years now; so long
that we had actually forgotten that there was no CD32 version. However,
Bullfrog’s omission came as a welcome break from routine here in the
office, because sometimes, when a game is re-released, it creates more
interest than some of the new games we have in. And so we had to lock
it away, just in case it went missing before it could be reviewed.
For CD32 owners who have not seen this classic on other machines, let me give you a brief run through of what it is all about. Basically, you are in charge of a group of assassins who operate on behalf of a ‘company’ or syndicate, a post apocalyptic semi-criminal business giant that seeks to run the world with the aid of advertising and coercion. There are up to four members in your team of cyborgs, and you can equip them with a variety of weapons, a scanner and numerous other miscellaneous tiems like ID Cards. The missions are all about either assassination or kidnapping, or both, and it does not really matter who gets in your way, as long as you achieve corporate objectives.
You enter each mission via a world map which shows the domination of your corporation, a mission briefing screen and an equipping screen. The equipping screen allows you to buy weapons and other devices, research new technology and modify your cyborgs with fast and stronger limbs, armour plated chest-pieces, et cetera. The mission screen itself is divided in two. On the right hand side is the playing screen which takes up about 70% of the total area. In it you see an isometric section of the city or village you are in and your agents, who are trench-coated and very suspicious looking. To the right there is a scanner map, four boxes, each containing the stats on your troops and a weapon/icon bar where you choose what to use and fire.
The interface is point and click, and Bullfrog have intelligently included a mouse routine for port two. You will still need your joypad plugged in to port one though, to evacuate once you have completed a mission. Thing is though, if you do not have a mouse and do not want one you will never get the most out of Syndicate - it is pretty difficult to play and enjoy just with the joypad.
Although the graphics are a tad grainy and glitchy through either
TV or monitor *you really need an RGB output to make them acceptable),
it is still clear what is going on once you have figured out what everyone
looks like. Despite this, it is still one of my fave games,
combining strategy with shoot em up action. Great.
|
B
C D Exit Screen E F G Exit Screen |
91 % |
Alan Dykes
CU Amiga, June 1995, p.60