Syndicate Xbox 360

Released on 24-Feb-2012

• "This is where our expertise lies" - Starbreeze explains Syndicate's shooter makeover

  Swedish developer Starbreeze, famous for the Chronicles of Riddick games as well as The Darkness, has spoken out about its decision to reboot the popular 16-bit strategy game Syndicate as a first-person shooter.

  "We'd been asked by EA - they came to us, and this is what we know; this is where our expertise lies. So that's why we made it an FPS," said CEO Mikael Nermark in an interview with Gamasutra. Nermark went on to explain that while the game involves shooting from a first-person perspective, that doesn't necessarily mean they're copying the big beefy military shooters that dominate the genre today.

  "When we look at any project, when we look at any games, we don't look at genre," he said. "If we put shooting in our game, it has to be top-notch shooting, and it has to be competing there, and it has to be right for the game. If it's driving, it has to be right for the game. I'm not saying that, if we do a shooting game, we have to go and compete with the Battlefields or Call of Dutys, but we have to have the right kind of shooting for the game we're making."

  Syndicate will be released in February for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
  

• No online pass for Syndicate

  EA has confirmed that its upcoming first-person reboot of classic 16-bit strategy game, Syndicate, will be launched without an online pass system. Both new and second-hand buyers will have access to the full game, without needing to enter or purchase a code.

  The decision was taken because the game's strong emphasis on co-op squad play meant that locking off online functions would harm the gameplay experience. "We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible. The co-op is equal billing in this," EA man Jeff Gamon told Eurogamer. "We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product."

  The game, developed by Riddick and The Darkness developer Starbreeze casts players as cybernetically enhanced agents, stealing corporate secrets in a dystopian future. But given that EA was the first publisher to roll out an online pass system, and has used it for most games since, how did Syndicate slip out?

  "Under normal circumstances it would have had an online pass," Gamon admits, "But because it didn't have competitive multiplayer and because we wanted as many people as possible to be playing co-op, we got away with it."

  Syndicate is out later this month on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

• Rosario Dawson and Brian Cox to star in Syndicate

  The forthcoming reboot of the classic Syndicate franchise is set to feature vocal performances from some big-name Hollywood stars, EA has announced.

  Rosario Dawson, Brian Cox and Michael Wincott will headline the voice cast of Starbreeze Studios' Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC shooter, which is set in a future world ruled by ruthless, warring mega-corporations.

  Manhunter and The Bourne Identity star Cox will play Jack Denham, the unscrupulous powerbroker behind EuroCorp, while noted character actor Wincott will play Aspari Corporation senior agent Jules Merit.

  Meanwhile, Sin City and Grindhouse actress Dawson will take on the role of EuroCorp rising star Lily Drawl, the conflicted designer of the superpowered military chips within the heads of players and other characters in the Syndicate world.

  The star said: "I'm amazed how videogames have become so deep in story, delivering fantastic worlds and memorable characters rivalling big Hollywood films."

  Syndicate hits stores next week and is a revival of Bullfrog Productions' acclaimed 1990s action series, featuring an in-depth story and four-player cooperative modes.

  Published: 13/02/2012

• Syndicate - Preview

  
  

  

  Back To The Future

  Ask anyone about the best games of the 1990s, and you're going to end up hearing a lot about Syndicate. Back in '93, this was about as good as gaming got, in fact: a dark, cyberpunk future ruled by corporations and shadowy governments, stocked with loads of weapons, loads of opportunities for comedic super-violence, and a brilliant real-time-strategy approach to the action that saw you gathering a team, making a plan, and then taking your rivals out one by one.

  Syndicate's been away for too long, in other words, and now, in 2012, it's back in the form of a weighty first-person shooter for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, from Starbreeze Studios. It's slicker, faster, and deadlier than ever before, and it's here to remind a new generation that guns don't kill people - serious men in leather trench-coats, mirror shades and huge boots do.

  

  Riddick-ulous

  Starbreeze is probably best known for its work on the brilliant Riddick games for the Xbox and Xbox 360. This time, though, the studio's ditching creeping around in the dark in favour of straight-up corporate warfare. Your job, as a hi-tech operative, is to storm rival corporations, steal their tech, and get out alive - although, really, when the bullets have stopped flying, it doesn't matter too much if everybody else is dead.

  As a shooter, it's fast paced and punchy, with a great selection of weapons ranging from standard pistols and assault rifles, to more elaborate tech, such as a machine-gun that fires bullets you can steer across walls. The action's brutal and bloody, but it's broken up with the odd puzzle or two as you work your way deeper into enemy installations and have to take on all manner of security devices.

  What's going to mark this out, though, is the breach system. As an augmented sci-fi mercenary, you come with a chip in your head that allows you to hack - or breach - elements of the environment. Incoming grenades can be breached to stop them from exploding, terminals can be over-ridden to give you access to turrets, enemy guns can be messed with to cause them to explode in their owners' faces - ouch! - and best of all, you can even cause your foes to shoot themselves instead of you - after they've mown down all of their own side first, of course.

  It's tactical stuff, then - nastier, wittier, and a little cleverer than the typical shooter - and that's not the half of it.

  

  Ganging Up

  Syndicate's single-player campaign is shaping up to be absolutely brilliant, but we reckon you should keep an eye on the multiplayer content, too. Syndicate will ship with 9 entirely separate co-op missions, designed around levels of the very first Syndicate game, but re-wired and re-imagined to get the most out of Starbreeze's new approach.

  With up to three other players, then, you'll be taking on deadly enemies in environments scattered around the globe, and your objectives will include everything from standard corporate sabotage to murder and kidnapping. You'll have to work as a team, moving steadily through environments filled with enemy agents, and you'll need to keep your breach skills up to scratch as you heal squad-mates, offer defensive and offensive buffs, and even hack enemy shields and vehicles in order to make your path through the game a little easier. Make no mistake: Syndicate can be a punishing game from the few hours we've put into it so far, but that just makes it all the more old-school - and it makes victory all the sweeter, too.

  With weapon perks and character upgrades, Syndicate's got everything you expect from a shooter in 2012, and it looks the business as well, with grim futuristic environments picked out in sharp textures and bright neon lights. If you've ever wanted to be a dastardly secret agent (the kind of man who drops onto an enemy base and decimates the place without breaking a sweat), Syndicate should be on your radar. Starbreeze is onto yet another winner, and, even if you can't remember the original games, this is looking very special indeed.

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss tops charts in PS Vita launch week

  The PlayStation Vita has blitzed the UK sales chart in its much-anticipated first week of release, with Uncharted: Golden Abyss leading the assault.

  Nathan Drake's debut handheld adventure topped the UK all-formats chart following its introduction alongside the snazzy new portable, accounting on its own for 31 per cent of all PS Vita game sales.

  Coming in second in the GfK-ChartTrack rankings was the PS Vita version of FIFA Football, with other Ps Vita titles reaching the top 40 including WipEout 2048, F1 2011 and Ridge Racer.

  Away from PS Vita's success, EA and Starbreeze Studios' revival of the Syndicate franchise on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC claimed a seventh-place start.

  Other top sellers included former number one UFC Undisputed 3, football favourite FIFA 12 and acclaimed platformer Rayman Origins, which saw a massive sales boost thanks to its new PS Vita version.

  Next week, a new batch of games will arrive on the scene to challenge PS Vita's dominance, including EA's SSX reboot and Nintendo's Mario Party 9.

  Published: 27/02/2012

• Rebooting The Classics: The '90s Games That Are Rocking 2012

  
  

  In our eco-friendly times, recycling is everything. But it's not just empty soup cans and milk cartons, as great ideas are increasingly being mulched down, rebuilt and turned into something cool. Hollywood, somewhat inevitably, is ahead on this curve, increasingly plucking its summer blockbusters from the TV shows, movies and even toys that we enjoyed in the past. Now the games industry is catching on, and publishers are rummaging in their cupboards for beloved franchises that are ready for a second chance.

  

  Everything Changes

  Syndicate, currently nestled in the top ten, is a prime example. First released in 1993 for the PC and Commodore Amiga, the original game was a cyberpunk strategy game in which you played as the head of a sinister international mega-corporation. Able to despatch (and then control) four-man squads of bionic agents to disrupt and destroy the competition - with little regard for public safety - the game was a subversive cult hit.

  Revived last week by The Darkness developer Starbreeze, the new Syndicate flips the perspective from top-down view to first-person shooter, and casts you instead as one of the elite agents, able to augment your attacks with an array of cybernetic abilities.

  

  Back For Good

  Not all reboots opt to switch the gameplay style so dramatically though. PC cult classic Jagged Alliance also began life with a birds-eye viewpoint in 1994, but when it was revived earlier this February it had retained the distinctive turn-based strategy top-down style. Once again released for PC, the new version - Jagged Alliance: Back in Action - stays close to the original template, but injects lots of modern ideas as you train mercenaries and wage war on evil dictators across a campaign that can last 70 hours.

  Have A Little Patience

  Then there are the retro classics that try to have it both ways. X-COM was yet another PC strategy game from 1994, when its B-movie tale of government agents battling alien invaders was a natural fit for a world besotted with TV hit The X-Files. The series eventually fizzled out, but will return not as one reboot, but two. 2013 will bring the now hyphen-less XCOM, which re-imagines the game as a 1950s-set first-person shooter, developed by some of the team behind BioShock 2.

  

  Before that radical re-do arrives, however, we'll get XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which stays true to the isometric 3D tactical gameplay of old but updates it with such 2012 flourishes as destructible scenery and advanced AI. Developed by Firaxis, the company behind the mighty Civilization series, it should be a real treat. Is this the future of video game reboots? One game for the purist fans, another for the modern blockbuster audience? That remains to be seen, but it's an interesting and commendable experiment.

  

  Relight My Fire

  Reboot fever isn't just restricted to cult strategy titles from the early 1990s, however. Take the Medal of Honor series, for example. The original was a sombre World War 2 shooter developed in 1999 in conjunction with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Interactive. A new version, still developed by veterans of the same studio, now called Danger Close, hit the shelves in 2010, updating the action to modern Afghanistan but kept the same sense of duty to its real-life military subjects. It's also the first of the modern reboots to spawn its own sequel. Medal of Honor: Warfighter arrives this October.

  

  Rule The World

  The trend has even spread beyond the obvious avenues of the FPS genre. This year the decision was made to defrost the 2000 snowboarding game SSX, and the result is on the shelves now. There's not much scope to turn extreme winter sports into a first-person shooter, so instead we get a game that sticks to the style and tone of the beloved original, but beefs up the gameplay with cutting edge physics, oodles of online social features and over a decade of accumulated wisdom regarding how best to allow players to flip, grind and spin on virtual boards. It effortlessly straddles the joys of both old and new,

  Is this urge to revive and remix the past a healthy one? It would seem so. The games industry has a better track record than Hollywood of improving franchises as time goes on, and few would deny that there are some amazing games and ideas in the history books, waiting to be dusted off and given new relevance. Combining the comfort of the familiar with the thrill of today's technology, what's not to love? And which would you like to see come back?

  Published: 01/03/2012

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