It was violent, thought-provoking and insidiously addictive.
Ryan looks back at Bullfrog’s 1993 tactical classic, Syndicate…
It seems odd, then, thatSyndicatedidnt get more negative press than it did.
Having successfully completed a mission, that part of the map came under the control of your burgeoning corporation.
There was one mission, in particular, which summed up the elegance ofSyndicates design.
Now, there were at least two ways you could do this.
Syndicatemissions often resulted in a landscape full of corpses and burned out cars.
The game was also a nail-biting one at the best of times.
Theres one particularly useful weapon in your arsenal: the Persuadatron.
That assassination mission we wittered on about earlier?
Theres another approach you could take there.
It was another example of the games captivatingly nasty logic.
More than any other game released before 1993,Syndicatecaptured the lizard-brained essence of a corporate dystopia.
Civilians were, at best, malleable pawns.
Personal freedom meant nothing.
Its operatives, which were kept in check with a cocktail of drugs, were mere tools.
Even when played today,Syndicates flow of logistics, planning and violence pack a satisfying punch.
But theres also the same disturbing sense of futility, too.
Two decades on,Syndicateis still the ultimate videogame dystopia.
