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Syndicate Wars

Moby ID: 551
DOS Specs
Buy on PlayStation
$33.00 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$5.99 new on GOG.com
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Description official descriptions

In the sequel to the dark isometric action / strategy game Syndicate, you control either Eurocorp Syndicate or Church of the New Epoch. These two sinister forces are battling for world domination. You must help them dominate the world across 60 violent missions spread through 30 cities - you receive e-mails containing the mission plans.

After selecting a squad of four men from your roster, you direct them through the rotatable 3D city views, shooting foes as the situation dictates. Nuclear grenades and psycho gas are among the new weapons. Tubes, a monorail system and unimpeded Antigrav vehicles give a futuristic feel to travel. In the PC version, 8-player battles over modem and network are available.

Spellings

  • シンジケートウォーズ - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

88 People (77 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 71 ratings with 4 reviews)

A fine sequel

The Good
My favourite part of the game would be the fully 3D cities with rotating camera, this is a major improvement over Syndicate where you could find your self lost or being sniped at by someone standing on the far side of a building where the 2D camera wouldn't show. Almost everything is destroyable which means those high explosives and suicide chest upgrades really pack that extra punch when you bring down a buidling or two in the blast. There is a wealth of new vehicles to use (including hover tanks) as well as new weapons there is no need for ammo as all the weapons run off self charging power packs. The option of playing one of two sides is a major plus.

The Bad
The flamethrowers aren't as effective or as satisfying as they were in the first game, agents still suffer from path finding and the AI has only one tactic - storm head long at you. While removing the ammo is nice, you will often find your self running low on energy with dozens of weapons around you, in the original you could have just picked one up and blasted away but this time you would have to retreat and regenerate your energy. The missions are about as varied as the previous game and can get very repetitive especialy since most of the cities are identical in appearance even if their layouts are greatly different.

The Bottom Line
A fine sequel with many needed features added, doesn't change too much to alienate original players but changes enough to make it new and exciting. I recommend playing the original first simply because it is still brilliant and will help the second one make more sense.

DOS · by Evil-Jim (145) · 2002

Fantastic CyberPunk style urban-combat game

The Good
The atmosphere of the game is superb, the weapons are great fun and the ability to destroy anything that gets in your way is great fun aswell.

Also the planning/preparation for each mission is very well done and makes you think first.

The Bad
The controls can be a bit extreme: either too slow or too fast dependant upon what's happening.

The Bottom Line
It's gang-warfare in a Bladerunner Enviroment with good graphics and great gameplay.

DOS · by Xeper La'Ark (2) · 2001

A great, wonderful, amazing game.

The Good
I sure would like to get this one for the next giveaway ;-)

This game ROCKS! It's one of the best I've ever played. I loved the original Syndicate and this one is even better! The most AMAZING 3D engine I've seen in a game up to that point in time, fast, smooth and great-looking even on my 486. Great missions, great controls, awesome gameplay and even the music/sound effects are improved. What more is there to ask?

The Bad
A little on the difficult side... but isn't that a plus?

The Bottom Line
An amazing game, one of the best ever created and even better than its prequel.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4534) · 1999

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Syndicate Wars appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

DOS version installer

The installer of the DOS version was apparently rushed, as it has some odd quirks. For example, when it asks for the language, it always shows all languages the game was released in, but you can only click on those that are actually available on the disc. Second, while you can set up a device for music, covering everything from Adlib to General MIDI, and even test your settings by hearing a song from the game, the game itself doesn't support any music source apart from CD-DA.

German version

In the German version, all blood and the civilian's cries of fear were removed.

Prime number

On the CD is a file MISC\PRIME1.TXT which is ~260KB. It starts with: "The Largest Known Prime, 2^859433-1 (258716 decimal digits) = 129498125604[...]". This was the largest prime number at that time. The largest prime number found in 2008 is 50 times longer, so this file would have been around 13MB!

References

Some vehicles (such as the car and the truck) are based on the designs of Hi-Octane, a little known racer also released by Bullfrog a year before.

Awards

  • EGM
    • 1998 Buyer's Guide - Games that Should've Stayed on the PC Runner-Up

Information also contributed by Evil Azrael

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  • MobyGames ID: 551
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

PlayStation 3 added by Picard. PSP added by Chentzilla. Windows, Macintosh added by Sciere. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: Alaka, Kabushi, Timo W., Luis Silva, Crawly, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added December 8, 1999. Last modified August 2, 2024.