Syndicate is an isometric, real-time, tactical game developed from Bullfrog Productions. The game made its debut in 1993 on the Amiga and MS-DOS computers and was subsequently ported to a wide variety of other platforms. It's really an original, addictive and long lasting game from the creators of Populous and Theme Park!
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY As the world slips into the future, multinational corporations grow in size and profits; they even own small countries and exercise direct influence over each government. They practically became the Earth's leaders, un-democratically controlling people's lives through commerce. These corporations, named MegaCorps, invented a device that can inserted inside a person's neck and stimulates the brain stem to alter his or her perception of the outside world. Your job, as the Head of a massive corporation larger than any government, is to slowly spread your influence country by country and save humanity from the shadows. You form a team of top android agents and your main aim is to order and take on the cities displayed via a fixed-view isometric style, in pursuit of mission goals such as assassinating executives of a rival syndicate, rescuing captured allies, "persuading" civilians and scientists to join your side or simply kill all enemy agents. With the isometric style view you can see a good portion of the city or complexes surrounding your androids. On the left of the screen is your tactical display that shows the status of your androids, the weapons, the ammo and the map. Along your missions you should research and develop new weaponry and upgrades by rising up your funds. The funds are increasing every time you complete a mission. The basic gear of your four team members is a pistol, but you can gain more destructive weaponry as you progress, like Uzis, mini-guns, flamethrowers, sniper rifles, time bombs, lasers and the enormously destructive Gauss gun. You can also collect several other items like med kits to heal your agents, scanners to locate pedestrians/vehicles and the "Persuadertron" to brainwash your targets into blind obedience!
GRAPHICS / SOUND The Jaguar version has pretty much the same graphics as the home computer versions (running in only 16 colors!), except that the map is slightly larger and easier to follow. Syndicate on the JAG is actually identical to the DOS version, with smooth multi-directional scrolling and very detailed scenery. The sprites are pretty small (as in all versions) but they are wonderfully animated. An added bonus for all Jaguar owners is the new Zoom function that allows the view to be zoomed out so you can see four times as much of the surroundings. The game's sound is typical, including a bunch of nice sound effects and a few gameplay tunes that do the job well and add to the war atmosphere.
Screenshots
Sounds
Intro/Menu music:
In-game music sample:
Gameplay sample
Amiga (original version)
Hardware information
Jaguar
CPU: The main processor is called "Jaguar" and it is based on a RISC 3000 MIPS. Co-Processor: MC68000 at 13,3MHz used as a general purpose control processor. MEMORY: 2Mb (64bit bus usinf 4x16bit fast page mode DRAMS GRAPHICS: GPU is called Tom at 26,59MHz, 32bit RISC architecture, 4Kb int. cache. Object Processor: 64bit RISC architecture (could do a variety of graphic architectures). Blitter: 64bit RISC architecture managing high speed logic ops, z-buffering, Gouraud Shading (64bit int.registers). DRAM Controller, 32bit memory management. SOUND: Sound chip is called Jerry. DSP 32bit RISC acrhitecture with 8Kb int.cache. It has CD quality sound while the number of channels used depends on the software. Two DAC (stereo) convert digital data to analog sound signals. Full stereo.