Reply With QuoteIt will become innovated by becoming a FPS.
I love my FPS as much as the next guy, but syndicate(and wars. I personally loved the difficulty) has a special place in my heart as far as strategy goes. Messing with it is like furries rule 34ing me.
To quote pspupdates.net:
It's only a rumor for now, but the word on the virtual street is that Electronic Arts is readying a new Syndicate game. This could be the secret "Project RedLime" game that Starbreeze Studios signed on with EA for, which according to the Starbreeze forum is "in production
Link:
http://pspupdates.qj.net/EA-rumored-.../49/aid/125081
Personally I`d friggin love it if a new Syndicate game was in the works ASLONG as it follows the isometric view of the previous games + the strategy and research elements.
Discuss.
It will become innovated by becoming a FPS.
I love my FPS as much as the next guy, but syndicate(and wars. I personally loved the difficulty) has a special place in my heart as far as strategy goes. Messing with it is like furries rule 34ing me.
If they do what Microsoft did with Shadowrun I`m going to be PISSED OFF.
I do believe I called this back in the speculation thread. And if not I plan on taking some sort of credit for it any :P. That is unless its a steaming pile of ghey in which case I'll just join the FUCK EA guys again.
I wouldn't mind if it was a tactical FPS. (I was even fantasizing about making some sort of mod for it, I'd only need to buy the Leet Modder skillbook and train it for a few years)
Last edited by DaBeast; 18th Oct 2008 at 03:17.
It's... PSP.
Starbreeze? The guys who specialise in FPSes these days? Interesting choice, but the last RTS they made was their first game, and I don't think anyone remembers The Outforce. Maybe they're making a PSP FPS or something?
I remember saying that EA could do an awesome Syndicate, a long time ago. I was joking then, but it IS richly ironic. Remember the intro to the old Syndicate, folks? It's kind of symbolic for what EA's capable of doing to this franchise, and what it's done with others. (i.e., Wing Commander)
Also on ps3, which means 360 and PC also.Originally Posted by Koki
Oh boy, I just can't wait for EA to fuck up yet another franchise.
Runs around room excitedly...
Done properly, this would be a trip down memory lane. The original was one of the first games I played (go go COOPER TEAM), along with the original Prince of Persia, and pretty much got me into the PC gaming scene...
The sound of 4 mini-guns firing on full auto, people running around screaming after being set alight by the flamer, and the techno-ish score were fantastic. The graphics were also pretty decent for a fixed perspective isometric game in 1992.
Please DO NOT Greg Norman this remake...
I wil choose to give EA the benefit of the doubt and be cautiously optimistic that they won't fuck this up.
Why do I do this to myself?
Because hope springs eternal...
They`ve released a few good games lately, so I`m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as well.
I just hope to god that Starbreeze are sensible enough to keep it bird's eye third person.
They're a good developer, so I think they'll treat the IP with the respect it deserves, but I can't help but think that there's an overwhelming tendency among publishers at the moment to make anything even remotely shooty a first person game.
I thought the current trend was over-the-shoulder-cam? Meh.
Syndicate is long due a worthy successor, so good luck to them with this one.
Incidentally, at the time the original game was released I was fortunate enough to have a bona fide SoundBlaster 2.0, which was one of the very few (if not the only) soundcard that would play the sound effects without 'issues'.
I've found that the latest version of DOSBox plays the sounds and the music pretty well for Syndicate.
Anyone tried Syndicate Wars in DOSBOX, or had any success with a slow down utility ? The game plays like its had a few dozen double-strength expressos for me...
That's the mark of the Bullfrog.
All Bullfrog games suffer from that.
Years ago I wrote a very simple slow down utility especially for Syndicate Wars. But being very simple, it left a lot to be desired. It couldn't handle hyperthreading/multicore processors and it could lead to some jerky performance because it used the archaic DOS timer interrupt that only fired once every 18th of a second..
It did however make it possible for me to play SW on my P3 750Mhz.
I can imagine the hassles trying to get it to work with multi-core rigs. I think I've still got an old P2 around somewhere that I might have to fire up tonight, and try out MoSlo again...
Synd Wars was one of those ambitious games I had a love/hate relationship with - ultimately I applauded what Bullfrog were attempting to achieve (3D rotable environments, different factions, flying cars, skin grafts etc), but the technical implemenation and some of the design decisions really pissed me off.
Don't suppose there were any mods to render the graphics of SW differently to the low res environments and low poly character models ?
You could try emulating the psx version, but the controls are horrible. I'm currently trying to play it on psp, but I think I'll pass
I did, but it was ages ago (I think it was Win95) so probably not too helpful.
Chances are that with a P2 you don't need any slow down utility to play SW. The P2 is roughly the recommended system for it.
As for enhancement mods, I don't know. But I doubt there are any. Character models were all sprites btw, but perhaps the vehicles and buildings can be enhanced. However I do suspect that the models aren't just a list of polygons, but that the polygons where listed in such a way that, when drawn in order, they would always come out ok without the need of any depth sorting or z-buffer. Though not impossible, it's probably not easy to change or alter them.
I too had some issues with SW design decisions, the limited view, even when zoomed out completely with a long range weapon in hand, irked me continuously.
Also the game is hard. In places it felt harder than the American Revolt add-on for the original, and that one is bordering on the ridiculous.
---
As for the rumored game:
I do hope they don't try to give the agents some character, no WarCraft3 like heroes. Part of the charm of syndicate was the stoic chess-like approach to 'spending' agents.
Also, I hope they don't give the cyberagents any real voices, at least not beyond the -Minigun type grunts.
Also, unless they can stuff it into the format of some optional cyberagent ocular video feed, they should stay way of the first person view IMO. We the player are corporate managers, waging this war from our distant corporate blimp, we're not magically floating mid-air, inches away from the agent.
What perhaps would be fitting, is to be able to gain access to CC-tv feeds for indoor actions.
The later levels of Syndicate War was almost fuckin impossible without losing a squad member or too. You would spend 30 mins to an hour in the one level, and there was no save option so if all your squad guys died you had to start from scratch. Gah.
One of the things missing from the first game that I was sad to see go was of automatic reflexes. In the first game once you had your squad augmented pretty well you could sit them in the middle of wherever with enemy syndicate guys rushing at you from all directions and the troops would shoot them on their own. But in Syndicate Wars you had to do it all yourself. That said I really enjoyed the game. The levels had a darkness to them which even the original lacked.
All in all though the first game is easily my favorite of the lot.
Cheers Addink, I'll give the P2 a go - I was sort of hoping that some of the graphics issues could be improved with a better vid card, but from your description that wont be the case - c'est la vie. Welcome back win98 SE :P
The difficulty was insane at times - I think I must have played that last level on the orbital space station/moon several dozen times, and never actually won. I really only minded losing an agent if they were one of the ones with a skin graft upgrade. Focus fire tactics (I rarely split my team up in the later levels) and nuclear grenades were my saving grace on more than one occasion, provided I wasn't blowing up banks with them
Icemann: I think you got it spot on - the atmosphere of SW was of a very dark, bleak, corporate dystopia, where the commercial oligarchy was being challenged by the church of the new epoch. It reminded me a lot of both Aeon Flux and Snowcrash, and the in-game adds for Ghost in the Shell were a nice touch.
More please
I had to cheat to beat the last level. Was too friggin hard.
That game kicked (my) ass. No to a shooter.
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