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    Syndicate

    Game » consists of 8 releases. Released Feb 21, 2012

    Syndicate is a reinvention of the 1993 game by Bullfrog. Developed at Starbreeze Studios, the game puts players in the shoes of Miles Kilo, one of the cybernetically-enhanced Agents who wages war against enemy mega-corporations on behalf of EuroCorp, his sponsor syndicate.

    Syndicate Hands-On: The Suicide Rate Is About To Skyrocket

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    ryanwho

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    #51  Edited By ryanwho

    @Shaanyboi said:

    Wait... are you saying people on the internet were overreacting without any semblence of objective opinion or impressions? NO WAY

    Opinions are never objective, dumbass. You shouldn't pull out 5 dollar words if you can't cash them.

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    Rayeth

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    #52  Edited By Rayeth

    So it's still not a strategy game. I am still disappointed then.

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    probablytuna

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    #53  Edited By probablytuna

    The main character reminds me of Michael Fassbender for some reason...

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    lockeyness

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    #54  Edited By lockeyness

    I played an incredible amount of Syndicate, albeit on the Genesis, but I still think this looks great. I've been a big fan of Starbreeze and I hope this does well.

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    Enzo_0

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    #55  Edited By Enzo_0

    @Rayeth: Except the original also wasn't a strategy game. It was a more complicated Cannon Fodder basically.

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    NoookNookNook

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    #56  Edited By NoookNookNook

    Yay more shovelware stealing old games names to trick people into buying another shitty "cinematic" FPS.

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    PeasantAbuse

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    #57  Edited By PeasantAbuse

    Trailer looks super cool.

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    xbob42

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    #58  Edited By xbob42

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

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    prestonhedges

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    #59  Edited By prestonhedges

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    I wonder how Jeff would have reacted had Mortal Kombat 9 been a first-person shooter. You know, because no one buys fighting games anymore.

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    DavoTron

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    #60  Edited By DavoTron

    ON BOARD SON.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @ryanwho said:

    Cool so Mindjack. Mindjack turned out awsome.

    You're smarter than this. You know the difference between concept and execution. Mindjack's problems were in execution, not concept. Be upset if you want to, but don't pretend to be stupid.

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    prestonhedges

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    #63  Edited By prestonhedges

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

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    ryanwho

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    #64  Edited By ryanwho

    @Brodehouse said:

    @ryanwho said:

    Cool so Mindjack. Mindjack turned out awsome.

    You're smarter than this. You know the difference between concept and execution. Mindjack's problems were in execution, not concept. Be upset if you want to, but don't pretend to be stupid.

    Im not entirely sold on the concept either though. A novel idea in a game where standard shooting is just as effective or moreso is an idea you try once, then you do the more efficient thing. Like Patrick was saying about Dead Island, yes there are multiple ways you can approach something but there's a best way and it works every time. If this is a game where stealth plays no role at all and you can sponge in bullets, is mind control ever the best option? Or is it just a novel thing I can choose to do instead of the more efficient thing? The problem a lot of these games have, like Timeshift, Bioshock, or Prey, etc. They have a novel idea but they don't lean on it enough to make it the best option so it becomes something you don't do. The best option continues to be circle strafe, hide and grenade, pop out and shoot, and aim for the head. That's the problem with these games. They want to continue to allow people to steamroll through COD style which makes the other options redundant.

    I'd love to be wrong. I'd love to find out people who try and play this like any other shooter die very quickly. I just have doubts based on what little gameplay I've seen so far.

    Also, "lol he's not pretending", someone I've butthurt in the past will insist.

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    thetrin

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    #65  Edited By thetrin

    I really don't care if it's a really good FPS. I don't want an FPS. I want a damn Syndicate game.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

    If isometric strategy games are easily profitable on downloadable services, why hasn't there been a truly great Syndicate clone on them? If the isometric perspective and management is really what gamers want, then why hasn't anyone made it? EA doesn't have the rights to a style of gameplay, and no one has complained about the Syndicate 'fiction'. With both X-COM and Syndicate, I never understood how the demand was that they should be exactly like the decades-old games, and yet no one demanded that there be any new games in that style.

    Snider himself said the key for old, unused game genres is indie devs or smaller devs taking the best elements of the old game and modern design and making new games. Look at From Dust or E.Y.E. And yet those small devs aren't making modern style Baldur's Gates, they aren't making Syndicate, or X-COM, or Resident Evil 1-3. I'd like it if they did, but they aren't. And people are mad at EA and Capcom for not throwing money into a furnace spending 50 million dollars to make an isometric strategy game.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @thetrin said:

    I really don't care if it's a really good FPS. I don't want an FPS. I want a damn Syndicate game.

    Except no one is making Syndicate games.

    Is the argument that they don't like that an old (and let's face it, basically meaningless in modern markets) license is being used in a different fashion than it was 20 years ago? I like the Shadowrun tabletop game, and I didn't like the multiplayer Shadowrun game... not because it wasn't the Shadowrun RPG, but because it was kind of garbage. If it was great and in the Shadowrun fiction, I could really care if it was a motorcycle combat game (fuck, that would be awesome).

    I can't believe people are angry at a game because of the name on it, especially before they've even played it. If this was called Cyberopathy and not Syndicate, would you like it more? If that's true, you're crazy. Jeff referred this in a Bombcast, I think it was about X-COM, saying that people are crazy if they think "this game better not be called Spec Ops!"

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    prestonhedges

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    #68  Edited By prestonhedges

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

    If isometric strategy games are easily profitable on downloadable services, why hasn't there been a truly great Syndicate clone on them? If the isometric perspective and management is really what gamers want, then why hasn't anyone made it? EA doesn't have the rights to a style of gameplay, and no one has complained about the Syndicate 'fiction'. With both X-COM and Syndicate, I never understood how the demand was that they should be exactly like the decades-old games, and yet no one demanded that there be any new games in that style.

    Snider himself said the key for old, unused game genres is indie devs or smaller devs taking the best elements of the old game and modern design and making new games. Look at From Dust or E.Y.E. And yet those small devs aren't making modern style Baldur's Gates, they aren't making Syndicate, or X-COM, or Resident Evil 1-3. I'd like it if they did, but they aren't. And people are mad at EA and Capcom for not throwing money into a furnace spending 50 million dollars to make an isometric strategy game.

    Nah, I give Capcom credit for bringing back the fighting game. Remember those? They weren't profitable at one point in time, either. I can't believe gamers are arguing for less options to choose from in the name of companies getting more money. Bite me.

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    renzu

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    #69  Edited By renzu

    While I've never played Syndicate 1, I played a little of 2, and to translate that into a modern game would make it a more chaos-oriented Assassin's Creed, where you can (along with going incognito, etc.) hack & control zombified crowds of pedestrians, demolish skyscrapers, and so on.

    In other words, this new game needs to go beyond corridor shooting with token powers. Unfortunately corridor shooting with token powers is exactly what this preview describes.

    "Great, we really need more of those."

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    Rekt_Hed

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    #70  Edited By Rekt_Hed

    @SlashDance said:

    All games should be announced this way.

    "Hey guys check this new thing ! By the way you can play it in less than 6 months !"

    if only........IM LOOKING AT YOU BIOSHOCK INFINATE!

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

    If isometric strategy games are easily profitable on downloadable services, why hasn't there been a truly great Syndicate clone on them? If the isometric perspective and management is really what gamers want, then why hasn't anyone made it? EA doesn't have the rights to a style of gameplay, and no one has complained about the Syndicate 'fiction'. With both X-COM and Syndicate, I never understood how the demand was that they should be exactly like the decades-old games, and yet no one demanded that there be any new games in that style.

    Snider himself said the key for old, unused game genres is indie devs or smaller devs taking the best elements of the old game and modern design and making new games. Look at From Dust or E.Y.E. And yet those small devs aren't making modern style Baldur's Gates, they aren't making Syndicate, or X-COM, or Resident Evil 1-3. I'd like it if they did, but they aren't. And people are mad at EA and Capcom for not throwing money into a furnace spending 50 million dollars to make an isometric strategy game.

    Nah, I give Capcom credit for bringing back the fighting game. Remember those? They weren't profitable at one point in time, either. I can't believe gamers are arguing for less options to choose from in the name of companies getting more money. Bite me.

    I was unaware that the fighting game 'went away', because I was playing Guilty Gear while people waited for Street Fighter IV to say 'fighting games are back!'.

    Less options? Are you for real? You can maybe get on EA for not making an isometric strategy game in a cyberpunk setting at whatever price point it would be profitable at, but you can get mad at every single developer in the world for doing the same. Valve hasn't made a new Syndicate-style game, they're making another Dota game. Blizzard is making Diablo. Why doesn't Blizzard create a new cyberpunk strategy IP? 'in the name of companies getting more money'. Man, maybe in your perfect world game developers wouldn't make any money whatsoever, but yeah, I do want game developers (like Starbreeze) to have jobs and make good games (and Jeff says they're doing a pretty good job). If the market is going to support an old-school Syndicate game, there would be one. If it would be successful, someone would be doing it as we speak. Maybe they are and we don't know about it yet.

    And 'bite me'? Grow the fuck up.

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    Blind_3

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    #72  Edited By Blind_3

    That all sounds pretty neat. But where are the trench coats?

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    Jumanji

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    #73  Edited By Jumanji
    @Brodehouse said:

    @thetrin said:

    I really don't care if it's a really good FPS. I don't want an FPS. I want a damn Syndicate game.

    Except no one is making Syndicate games.

    Is the argument that they don't like that an old (and let's face it, basically meaningless in modern markets) license is being used in a different fashion than it was 20 years ago? I like the Shadowrun tabletop game, and I didn't like the multiplayer Shadowrun game... not because it wasn't the Shadowrun RPG, but because it was kind of garbage. If it was great and in the Shadowrun fiction, I could really care if it was a motorcycle combat game (fuck, that would be awesome).

    I can't believe people are angry at a game because of the name on it, especially before they've even played it. If this was called Cyberopathy and not Syndicate, would you like it more? If that's true, you're crazy. Jeff referred this in a Bombcast, I think it was about X-COM, saying that people are crazy if they think "this game better not be called Spec Ops!"

    King of Dragon Pass just got an ipad port... If the King of Dragon Pass license had been sold in a fire sale to EA and made into a shitty arpg, we would not be living in a world where you can play KoDP on an ipad...
     
    The issue is that shitty remakes poison niche licenses. Maybe a faithful X-COM update was unlikely, but after the debacle of the FPS it will be impossible.
     
    EDIT: Anyways OT, syndicate sounds retarded... let's get an over/under on 
    a)this game being railz railz railz
     b) the binary good/evil ending will be triggered by a single choice made 5 minutes before the final boss battle.
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    tourgen

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    #74  Edited By tourgen

    great! This is some great info, thank you! Yeah I'm not that hot on playing yet another scripted FPS game. I guess if it has some depth to the gameplay and some RPG stuff thrown in I'll check it out when it drops to $30.

    EDIT: alright I see what you mean about mad people on the internet. To clarify I'm not saying, "give me isometric or give me death!" That's dumb and an isometric game can't sell for full price, I'll bet. I'm just generally disinterested in another FPS no matter how good it is. Played too many of them. But something with a party would be cool. And I seem to remember loading out and upgrading your crew between missions was pretty key in Syndicate.

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    thechronodarkness

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    Its not like starbreeze has exactly made a bad game yet. Dear lord, play the riddick collection on pc or 360. Some amazing piece of software

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    DarkbeatDK

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    #76  Edited By DarkbeatDK

    I wouldn't have minded seeing the new Syndicate becoming a team strategy shooter akin to Freedom Fighters, but I guess this game sounds cool too. I'm not really a fan of Jeff's idea that people are crazy if they don't make first person shooters. There's nothing wrong in trying to revitalize other genres like turn based strategy games, rather than trying to create mass appeal every time and end up with a mediocre product (Dark Void comes to mind). Valkyria Chronicles is a great example of a modern turn-based strategy games and my favorite game of this generation, both because it's really fun, but also because there isn't anything like it.

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    thebigJ_A

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    #77  Edited By thebigJ_A

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

    If isometric strategy games are easily profitable on downloadable services, why hasn't there been a truly great Syndicate clone on them? If the isometric perspective and management is really what gamers want, then why hasn't anyone made it? EA doesn't have the rights to a style of gameplay, and no one has complained about the Syndicate 'fiction'. With both X-COM and Syndicate, I never understood how the demand was that they should be exactly like the decades-old games, and yet no one demanded that there be any new games in that style.

    Snider himself said the key for old, unused game genres is indie devs or smaller devs taking the best elements of the old game and modern design and making new games. Look at From Dust or E.Y.E. And yet those small devs aren't making modern style Baldur's Gates, they aren't making Syndicate, or X-COM, or Resident Evil 1-3. I'd like it if they did, but they aren't. And people are mad at EA and Capcom for not throwing money into a furnace spending 50 million dollars to make an isometric strategy game.

    Nah, I give Capcom credit for bringing back the fighting game. Remember those? They weren't profitable at one point in time, either. I can't believe gamers are arguing for less options to choose from in the name of companies getting more money. Bite me.

    I was unaware that the fighting game 'went away', because I was playing Guilty Gear while people waited for Street Fighter IV to say 'fighting games are back!'.

    Less options? Are you for real? You can maybe get on EA for not making an isometric strategy game in a cyberpunk setting at whatever price point it would be profitable at, but you can get mad at every single developer in the world for doing the same. Valve hasn't made a new Syndicate-style game, they're making another Dota game. Blizzard is making Diablo. Why doesn't Blizzard create a new cyberpunk strategy IP? 'in the name of companies getting more money'. Man, maybe in your perfect world game developers wouldn't make any money whatsoever, but yeah, I do want game developers (like Starbreeze) to have jobs and make good games (and Jeff says they're doing a pretty good job). If the market is going to support an old-school Syndicate game, there would be one. If it would be successful, someone would be doing it as we speak. Maybe they are and we don't know about it yet.

    And 'bite me'? Grow the fuck up.

    Just a correction. There's a game called Xenonauts in development that is basically a modern X-Com, isometric and all, being made by an indie, and it's very hotly anticipated among X-Com fans. Assuming it isn't shit, it'll make money. Oh, and also, Paradox are making a new game like Syndicate.They just announced it, it's called Cartel. Paradox are pretty big in the PC gaming world.

    So these games are being made.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @Jumanji:But the licenses don't matter. You can still make a Syndicate or X-COM clone out of totally new IP. It's not like either of them have some storied fiction. There's no reason why the license MUST remain in one genre for all eternity (especially if someone's putting 50 million dollars into making the game). If the problem is that there is no longer many games in that genre, someone should design their own for whatever budget the market will bear.

    @thebigJ_A: Exactly! Great! There are old X-COM styled games being made by someone. So I don't understand how Starbreeze is under the gun to make their new Syndicate game play like it did 20 years ago. Should Saber make Spec Ops: The Line play like a PS1 game? Ironically, it's gamers who hate anything being different that cause publishers to not take risks and turn everything into a first person shooter or God of War clone.

    As I said, I would like it if a Shadowrun game came out that played like Mass Effect in the Shadowrun world. Deep RPG systems lifted from the tabletop game, awesome fiction, great potential for art design... but most of all, I want it to be good. I don't care if the gameplay was Money Idol Exchanger with Shadowrun art on it, I just want it to be good. If Syndicate is released as a crazy isometric strategy game with awesome progression trees and intuitive controls, great. If it's a fun FPS with crazy powers, cool. If it were about hockey played by cyber-augmented mercenaries, fucking awesome, as long as its good.

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    xbob42

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    #79  Edited By xbob42

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Except this is one of a billion first-person shooters. It no longer has any bearing on the Syndicate name for me. Which means my options go from "The only real strategy game of this nature on the market" to "one of a billion first-person shooters."

    I'll stick to other genres, I'm done with shooters for a good, long while. Not even interested in BF3 anymore... Also, in one of your follow-ups you talk about a $50 million strategy game; well, maybe that's the problem. A strategy game shouldn't cost $50 million to make at all. Budgets are out of control for the stupidest reasons. Companies need to get their pocketbooks in check and start making (and spending!) money wiser. This "let's throw a shit-ton of money at this game and hope it sells or we'll a) stop making the series b) stop supporting the console in question or c) go out of business!" is just idiotic.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @xbob42: What are you talking about in your 'options' part? A new Syndicate being made into a FPS doesn't remove the original from existence, and it's not like if you somehow made it so it wouldn't be a shooter, they would make it into a strategy game. They just wouldn't make a new Syndicate game. You're seriously saying that you'd prefer the world to have nothing to a (potentially) good FPS game if it's called Syndicate. Well, that's crazy.

    And if you want to talk about budgets, gamers don't buy games for full price if the devs don't spend and spend and spend. Considering the amount of sacrifices developers make when building their game, to say that they're (as a whole) wantonly irresponsible is a complete invention. A game with no budget comes out looking like Alpha Protocol, or that new X-Men game. And then no wonder it's not very good compared to Gears of War.

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    xbob42

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    #81  Edited By xbob42

    @Brodehouse: What I mean by "options" is this isn't Syndicate. It has nothing to do with Syndicate except the name. If Strategy games don't sell... Why the fuck are they using the IP? Clearly it's unpopular. Why not just make a new IP? They already are. I'm not going to buy this because I'm done with shooters, and I'm certainly not going to support more strategy-games-turned-shooter-for-no-goddamn-reason.

    Nothing about this makes any sense. Furthermore, your example of only games with big budgets selling is completely laughable. Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Dead Island, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and many other games are all on budgets only a fraction of the size of their big-budget counterparts (If any exist, since everyone's making shooters.) and they've all become very popular. Of course, because they don't have an inflated budget of half of any mid-sized state's GDP, they can not only sell at a lower price, but they need to sell far less copies to be successful.

    Of course, clearly all that matters to you is budget, and another big first-person shooter is all it takes to satisfy you. That's fine, for you, but it's not fine for me. I don't give a shit what the trends are, it doesn't change my tastes. No amount of arguing will justify this kind of stupid shit to me. "Strategy games are unpopular like dating sims so we took an IP that no FPS fan has ever heard of and turned it into an FPS for some reason, which will be great for disappointing the fans of the IP while at the same time using name recognition to not pull in anyone else because they've never fucking heard of it!"

    Stupidest goddamn shit I've ever heard.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @xbob42 said:

    @Brodehouse: What I mean by "options" is this isn't Syndicate. It has nothing to do with Syndicate except the name. If Strategy games don't sell... Why the fuck are they using the IP? Clearly it's unpopular. Why not just make a new IP? They already are. I'm not going to buy this because I'm done with shooters, and I'm certainly not going to support more strategy-games-turned-shooter-for-no-goddamn-reason.

    Nothing about this makes any sense. Furthermore, your example of only games with big budgets selling is completely laughable. Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Dead Island, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and many other games are all on budgets only a fraction of the size of their big-budget counterparts (If any exist, since everyone's making shooters.) and they've all become very popular. Of course, because they don't have an inflated budget of half of any mid-sized state's GDP, they can not only sell at a lower price, but they need to sell far less copies to be successful.

    Of course, clearly all that matters to you is budget, and another big first-person shooter is all it takes to satisfy you. That's fine, for you, but it's not fine for me. I don't give a shit what the trends are, it doesn't change my tastes. No amount of arguing will justify this kind of stupid shit to me. "Strategy games are unpopular like dating sims so we took an IP that no FPS fan has ever heard of and turned it into an FPS for some reason, which will be great for disappointing the fans of the IP while at the same time using name recognition to not pull in anyone else because they've never fucking heard of it!"

    Stupidest goddamn shit I've ever heard.

    Once again, it's this "all games must stay in one genre forever" line of thought that prevents developers from taking any kind of risks when it matters. Shinji Mikami had to fight tooth and nail to take Resident Evil in a new direction in the fourth installment, and if "that isn't Resident Evil!" had won the day, the gaming world as a whole would be worse off.

    You're referencing a bunch of downloadable titles (and Dead Island, whose budget shows through in its flaws and weird bugs) made by small studios (or portions of larger studios). Starbreeze does not have the same structure as Team Meat. If your suggestion is that Starbreeze lay off 90% of the company and make downloadable titles instead, alright. But that's not really feasible, nor is it to suddenly just spend less money on retail games and expect gamers to not be incredibly pissed off. They already think every game on the market is too short, or too ugly, or too simple, or too boring, and demand the developer make it better. 'Make game good' doesn't just happen magically and then the money gets wasted on silly hats, money and time (which is money) are required to iterate and make 'okay' into 'great'.

    'All that matters to me is budget'. You can make your own straw man, but it's not the truth. "all it takes to satisfy you is a first-person shooter". No, all that takes to satisfy me is a GOOD GAME OF ANY GENRE. Jeff's article, if you read it, is that he thought the game was looking pretty good. I don't care what genre it is. And then near the end you just turn into a dervish of entitled anger. I don't know if there's any point trying to reason with you. Have your anger, I hope you enjoy it.

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    Jumanji

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    #83  Edited By Jumanji
    @Brodehouse said:

    @Jumanji:But the licenses don't matter. You can still make a Syndicate or X-COM clone out of totally new IP. It's not like either of them have some storied fiction. There's no reason why the license MUST remain in one genre for all eternity (especially if someone's putting 50 million dollars into making the game). If the problem is that there is no longer many games in that genre, someone should design their own for whatever budget the market will bear.


    Sure... but these games aren't like interchangeable big box stores in whatever suburban wasteland you were raised in... they're like the Mostar bridge... part of loving these games and wanting to see them restored means wanting to experience (improved, or at least re-interpreted) graphical, audio, thematic, plot, character cues from the original. Also the license adds value to the remake as a selling point to the nostalgic... 
     
    i don't think that there's a problem that there people aren't making iso squad-based games... because JA2 v1.13 is still getting hella patches and is still a better balanced and more dynamic/challenging game experience than literally anything released by a big studio in the past 5 years with the exception of Demon's Souls. Frozen synapse is WEGO iso heaven.  decent, fast paced iso would kill on ipad...

    Ultimately though, I think the game jeff is describing sounds boring. it sounds like it will be a supremely stupid on rails experience that uses cyberpunk in the most horseshit lame manner possible. this game does not sound like it needs the syndicate license to be what it is...
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    prestonhedges

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    #84  Edited By prestonhedges

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @gladspooky said:

    @Brodehouse said:

    @xbob42 said:

    "Don't worry, the next Gears-of-War might be a flight sim, but it's gonna be a really good flight sim!"

    "But I don't like flight sims either way..."

    "Yeah but it's gonna be a really good one!"

    The difference being that Gears is one of the best selling games of all-time, and isometric strategy games are about as popular as dating sims and rogue-likes.

    The option here isn't isometric strategy game or first person shooter... it's first person shooter or no game at all, and you have to be pretty Goddamn bitter to prefer nothing at all.

    Because downloadable markets don't exist, or are popular at all. Oh, wait...

    If isometric strategy games are easily profitable on downloadable services, why hasn't there been a truly great Syndicate clone on them? If the isometric perspective and management is really what gamers want, then why hasn't anyone made it? EA doesn't have the rights to a style of gameplay, and no one has complained about the Syndicate 'fiction'. With both X-COM and Syndicate, I never understood how the demand was that they should be exactly like the decades-old games, and yet no one demanded that there be any new games in that style.

    Snider himself said the key for old, unused game genres is indie devs or smaller devs taking the best elements of the old game and modern design and making new games. Look at From Dust or E.Y.E. And yet those small devs aren't making modern style Baldur's Gates, they aren't making Syndicate, or X-COM, or Resident Evil 1-3. I'd like it if they did, but they aren't. And people are mad at EA and Capcom for not throwing money into a furnace spending 50 million dollars to make an isometric strategy game.

    Nah, I give Capcom credit for bringing back the fighting game. Remember those? They weren't profitable at one point in time, either. I can't believe gamers are arguing for less options to choose from in the name of companies getting more money. Bite me.

    I was unaware that the fighting game 'went away', because I was playing Guilty Gear while people waited for Street Fighter IV to say 'fighting games are back!'.

    Less options? Are you for real? You can maybe get on EA for not making an isometric strategy game in a cyberpunk setting at whatever price point it would be profitable at, but you can get mad at every single developer in the world for doing the same. Valve hasn't made a new Syndicate-style game, they're making another Dota game. Blizzard is making Diablo. Why doesn't Blizzard create a new cyberpunk strategy IP? 'in the name of companies getting more money'. Man, maybe in your perfect world game developers wouldn't make any money whatsoever, but yeah, I do want game developers (like Starbreeze) to have jobs and make good games (and Jeff says they're doing a pretty good job). If the market is going to support an old-school Syndicate game, there would be one. If it would be successful, someone would be doing it as we speak. Maybe they are and we don't know about it yet.

    And 'bite me'? Grow the fuck up.

    Uh, okay. First off, there are isometric strategy games being made. You know the 3DS? There's one on that. I guess if you're going to point to Guilty Gear, I get to point to a Tom Clancy game. The point is, just because a game in a genre exists doesn't mean that genre is popular, and just because a genre isn't popular doesn't mean it will never be popular. Also, I think this game seems totally fine, from what I've seen, and it may well be a proper Syndicate sequel. I just think it's hilarious that the argument always boils down to "But the accountants! Think of the marketing division!" Nah. If Starbreeze makes games they want to make, then great. If they're doing it just to get some profit, then they've got far bigger problems than what some gamers on the internet think.

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    xbob42

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    #85  Edited By xbob42

    @Brodehouse said:

    Once again, it's this "all games must stay in one genre forever" line of thought that prevents developers from taking any kind of risks when it matters. Shinji Mikami had to fight tooth and nail to take Resident Evil in a new direction in the fourth installment, and if "that isn't Resident Evil!" had won the day, the gaming world as a whole would be worse off.

    You're referencing a bunch of downloadable titles (and Dead Island, whose budget shows through in its flaws and weird bugs) made by small studios (or portions of larger studios). Starbreeze does not have the same structure as Team Meat. If your suggestion is that Starbreeze lay off 90% of the company and make downloadable titles instead, alright. But that's not really feasible, nor is it to suddenly just spend less money on retail games and expect gamers to not be incredibly pissed off. They already think every game on the market is too short, or too ugly, or too simple, or too boring, and demand the developer make it better. 'Make game good' doesn't just happen magically and then the money gets wasted on silly hats, money and time (which is money) are required to iterate and make 'okay' into 'great'.

    'All that matters to me is budget'. You can make your own straw man, but it's not the truth. "all it takes to satisfy you is a first-person shooter". No, all that takes to satisfy me is a GOOD GAME OF ANY GENRE. Jeff's article, if you read it, is that he thought the game was looking pretty good. I don't care what genre it is. And then near the end you just turn into a dervish of entitled anger. I don't know if there's any point trying to reason with you. Have your anger, I hope you enjoy it.

    All games must stay in one genre forever? Whoever said that? I said I'm sick of STRATEGY games being turned into SHOOTERS. Resident Evil got more action-y, sure, but they didn't turn it into a racing game. Furthermore, it completely reinvented the entire genre it "swapped" to, and was highly regarded as one of the greatest games ever made, influencing even your precious Gears of War in many, many ways. That said, I can still understand the complaints from people who loved classic Resident Evil, because for everything RE4 was... It wasn't really Resident Evil. But considering the series was starting to stagnate and become flop after flop, and they were totally unsatisfied with the "original" Resident Evil 4, they had a plethora of reasons to try something new.

    In this day and age, releasing Syndicate as a Strategy game WOULD be something new, releasing another shooter is what's stagnant, the same old bullshit everyone else is doing. Why should I care? Because I can make some guards shoot themselves? In the end it's going to be a shooter with a gimmick. Yeah, I referenced downloadable titles. Is that a problem? They're leading the way in innovation and quality creative design this generation, not the big guys, who are almost entirely playing it safe. Of course, gamers like you who thrive off of shooters see no problem with this, because you get another shooter, even though you could get this same exact shooter without disappointing a bunch of Syndicate fans.

    You can be happy with a "good game of any genre," but see, other people have something called TASTE. We like some things, and DISLIKE others. I can't help it if I'm sick of shooters, I don't want to play them anymore. I've played too many in too short a time because that's almost all we're getting. Too much of anything will make you sick of it. You can't "reason" with the fact that I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANOTHER SHOOTER, so yes, you're correct. I would have LOVED to play a new Syndicate strategy game, though. Do you see why people are angry and/or disappointed? You're trying to reason with me to be happy with something with which by its very design seems like it was created to piss me and others like me off. You still haven't addressed my comment about Gears of War being a flight sim, aside from saying it sells well and it's popular, as if I give a shit about any of that. Would YOU be happy? Cause I tell ya man, it'd be one SWEET flight sim. Oh, wait, you also said that nobody plays Strategy games, does that mean YOU don't? Because you DID say you love games of ANY genre, so a Gears of War flight sim would clearly make you utterly ecstatic, right?

    Do you see what I'm getting at?

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    Subjugation

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    #86  Edited By Subjugation

    @Blind_3 said:

    That all sounds pretty neat. But where are the trench coats?

    Straight from the trailer posted right here on Giant Bomb:

    No Caption Provided
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    Roger778

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    #87  Edited By Roger778
    @AssInAss
     
    I have never heard of Syndicate before, and because of that, I never knew it was a Strategy Game.  But, I love Starbreeze, so I'm curious about this one.
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    MormonWarrior

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    #88  Edited By MormonWarrior

    Looks like it could be pretty cool. I'm 100% unfamiliar with Syndicate...

    But seriously, chill people. Genres come and go in waves. This generation has been heavy with shooters. Last gen was heavy with third-person action games and evolving polygonal gameplay, the generation before was establishing what you can do in 3D mainly with platformers, and before that everything was a platformer, Japanese RPG, strategy game or fighting game. When the market gets tired of the same old thing, the producers will respond by making different experiences.

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    SeriouslyNow

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    #89  Edited By SeriouslyNow

    @MormonWarrior said:

    Looks like it could be pretty cool. I'm 100% unfamiliar with Syndicate...

    But seriously, chill people. Genres come and go in waves. This generation has been heavy with shooters. Last gen was heavy with third-person action games and evolving polygonal gameplay, the generation before was establishing what you can do in 3D mainly with platformers, and before that everything was a platformer, Japanese RPG, strategy game or fighting game. When the market gets tired of the same old thing, the producers will respond by making different experiences.

    I wish Mormons would go in waves...

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    MormonWarrior

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    #90  Edited By MormonWarrior

    @SeriouslyNow: I...that...what does that even mean? :)

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    #91  Edited By Hass

    And still, it's just the name of a franchise, that once stood for something, put on another generic game.

    It's not like Deus Ex Human Revolution was more than repetitive after the first parts of playing.

    All in all, sounds like it will sell.

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    ryanwho

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    #92  Edited By ryanwho

    Im seeing a bit of nonsense in this thread. Look, either Syndicate as an IP has clout in which case it makes no sense to not make the kind of game people expect. Or nobody cares about the IP anymore, in which case there's no value in taking the name to begin with. So either way, there's not a very good rationalization for this. Other than somebody thinking the name "Syndicate" sounded neat, completely divorced from any love of the IP itself. They could have called this game, idunno, Proxy or something, and avoided this drama completely. I just don't get the plan behind using an IP and completely changing what it is. You undo any market value of the IP name at that point, so what was the gain?

    Maybe I've read too much into this. Maybe its just a matter of a publisher going "we'd like Starbreeze to make an FPS set in the future because market research trends in that direction, lets mine our library and give them a vague foundation to start on. Hey, this old game had cyborgs and shit, perfect."

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    thebigJ_A

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    #93  Edited By thebigJ_A
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    Rowr

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    #94  Edited By Rowr

    @AssInAss said:

    @Rowr said:

    Well yeh its starbreeze, starbreeze are fucking awesome.

    But i still want isometric syndicate.

    Paradox's Cartel: This game is for all the Syndicate fans who want an isometric spiritual successor.

    Starbreeze's Syndicate: This game is for all of us who never played the old games.

    Win-win situation, don't you think?

    Thanks for pointing this out to me.

    In other similar but different news, there's a Jagged Alliance reboot on its way for anyone unaware.

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    triple07

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    #95  Edited By triple07

    Sounds pretty interesting. As I never played or had even really heard of the old Syndicate games so I can't really speak to the change in genre but I do like the work Starbreeze has done in the past so I'm looking forward to this.

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    Cubical

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    #96  Edited By Cubical

    I still fucking hate it they turned the series into a first person shooter for console noobs.

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    craigbo180

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    #97  Edited By craigbo180

    I still fucking love that they turned it into a first person shooter for console BEASTS!

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    Boopie

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    #98  Edited By Boopie

    7.5 rental incoming

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    #99  Edited By GGear0323

    @ryanwho: people never seem to consider that a development team wanted to use the universe of the original IP to make a new game. people either think they are using the brand recognition of the IP or they were making a game anyway and the publisher told them to use the IP. very cynical if i do say so myself and i don't see why? x-com is literally the only other time this type of 'strategy game turned FPS' thing has happened and it hasn't even released yet. and in x-com's case, there have been at least a half dozen 'spiritual successors' released over the past 5-10 years that no one has cared about or bought. people are acting like they care about Xenonauts, but that game is only using the backdrop of the press around the reboot to drum up anticipation. otherwise, it, like all the other clones that have bee released, would be forgotten and just prove that the genre doesn't really sell. with every other recent game modernized from older games (System Shock/Bioshock, Deus Ex, Fallout), the new games have reviewed well, sold well and were all good or even great games.

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    sandweed

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    #100  Edited By sandweed

    As a guy involved in making a pen and paper RPG heavily inspired by syndicate this is a dream come true. Finaly I will be able to kick as much ass as agents do.

    In the game, agents was the big bad that showed up if you disrupted the Corporation to much. Since we usually played criminals in the game this happened more than once. One time I actually managed to take one out, but I had to get new legs afterwards.

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