Syndicate

aka: BOB, Cyber Assault, Higher Functions
Moby ID: 281
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the future, the world is controlled by a handful of global corporations (syndicates). You are the Marketing director (hitman) for one of these companies. It is your job to take control away from the competitors. The job is not one of diplomacy, but one of brute force and physical control. Advance your way to the top of the corporation by successfully completing your missions and managing the money you make from your territories.

The gameplay is visually reminiscent of X-Com, with an angled top-down perspective, but it is real-time rather than turn-based. You have missions ranging from infiltrate and capture, to seek and destroy. In each of these, you direct a team of four agents as they move through the world shooting at anything that gets in their way.

You can upgrade and modify your agents, as well as equip them with tools you have researched or liberated from opposing syndicates. As you complete missions, you gain more funds to use for purchasing agents or researching upgrades and equipment.

Spellings

  • הסינדיקט - Hebrew spelling
  • シンジケート - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

68 People · View all

Game Design
  • Bullfrog Productions Ltd.
Producer
Management
Assistant Producer
Programmer
Computer Intelligence
Graphics
Level Design
Sound
Music
Technical Support
Intro Sequence
Additional Support
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 42 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 214 ratings with 10 reviews)

Very good and sometimes very frustrating game

The Good
The graphics are of very fine detail (thanks to the use of VESA modes) and very nice to look at. The overall atmosphere is immense - from the cool introduction video sequence to the dark, mood-enhancing ingame music, everything reflects this cold future world where the syndicates rule.

The missions are suspenseful and you really got many different tasks to master. Rescuing some professor, killing the other syndicate's agent teams or just gathering some innocent people as new recruits are just three of the diverse missions you can encounter. The mission descriptions are always informative and sometimes even downright funny. With the huge arsenal of weapons and other stuff to research, you really have something to do even outside the combat action.

The best thing of all is the really high level of detail. There are innocent bystanders, running away in terror when I draw my gun. There is the brave policeman, trying to stop my team - but he has no chance against four miniguns :) You can shoot waste baskets which would burst into flames, you can drive any car you encounter (and blow them up)... and it's so suspenseful when standing in an empty street with your agents, watching for an enemy to come around the corner, hoping he won't have a Gauss Cannon or Laser which could fry you instantly... and on the other hand, you DO hope he has some major gun in his pocket which you can loot when he's dead :)

The Bad
Sometimes, the action could be a bit confusing - due to the fact that the perspective was static. You couldn't always figure out where the enemy agents were (because you didn't see anyone). One or two missions (Atlantis for example) were simply unfair and could only be mastered if you had luck.

On most 1993 PCs, the graphics were a bit jumpy (hires graphics and slow CPU doesn't fit too well).

Spoiler Alert: the endgame sequence is hilarious - one page of "Thank you" text and the game will exit to DOS :(

The Bottom Line
Syndicate is a very good strategy game with LOTS of intelligent ideas. If you see it - buy it! And play it all!

DOS · by phlux (4296) · 2002

It left a great taste in my mouth........ for almost 8 years.

The Good
In the summer of 1994, I was sworn to my nes. Then one time I went to my babysitter's and he had this new game, Syndicate. I was unaware of what that was, and when I watched it, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. As I watched the blood spray up after he hit some innocent civilian with the minigun and received no consequences, my mouth hung down for a while. Instantly I began saving up for this game, and it took me almost 2 months. When I finally had the money to purchase this game, I went to my local Electronics Boutique, which was then very small, and dumped all my one dollar bills and change onto the table, and the cashier smiled, but then when he checked his stock, he was all out. He felt sorry for me, and without even my asking, he ordered the game for me directly from the publisher. This, of course, was way before people working at electronics boutique became arrogant pricks, and 2 weeks later, I finally got the game which started my love for pc games. The graphics were slick, the game was actual fun, and I spent a good long time till I got it beat. I loved this game, and I wish people gave it due credit.

The Bad
The music sucked, and there was no ending.

The Bottom Line
Along with Half Life, it's games like this that make me remember why I have to work so hard to balance games and school.

DOS · by oh noz (4) · 2001

Perhaps one of the most addictive action/strategy games of all time...

The Good
In Syndicate, everything came together to create a near-perfect gaming experience. With great gameplay mechanics, excellent graphics (I would say they are better than those of its sequel, Syndicate Wars) and cool weapons, playing the bad guy has never been so fun. The tactical part of gameplay was plain sadistic fun as your agents run around town mowing down cops and enemy agents (and for those with genocidal tendencies, the civilians too!), while the pressures of managing money and research gave the game a satisfying strategic component. Syndicate was a bit on the easy side, but no one will ever forget the first time they played the Atlantic Accelerator mission, where death came in mere seconds for an unprepared player. All in all, Syndicate stands as one of the best games ever created, and easily the best game to come from Peter Molyneux.

The Bad
The worst part of the game was the music. There were only two different tracks: one when nothing was happening and one when enemy agents were near. Brief music clips were played after mission success or failure, but other than that it was the same music mission after mission. To add to the tedium, both tracks were short and repetitive, which will make you want to turn off the music if it weren't for the fact that you could tell enemy agents were near without looking at the minimap just by hearing the "Enemy Agents Near" music. It's a good thing the sound effects are excellent, or you'd be seriously wondering why you paid good money for a sound card...

The Bottom Line
A classic game, standing tall beside legends such as Doom and SimCity 2000.

DOS · by tritium4ever (37) · 2023

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

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

Civilians

In pre-release versions of the game, the cities apparently also featured (in addition to the normal civilians) Mothers with baby-carriages and Dogs. These extra innocents were removed from the game before its release.

German version

In the German version, the blood was removed.

Influences

The architecture in the game, aside from more obvious cyberpunk influences, is also inspired by Surrey Research Park, where Bullfrog offices were situated at the time.

Multiplayer

An article by Edge magazine, dated December 4, 2009, and titled "The Making Of: Syndicate" features interviews with several developers of Syndicate.

Among other things, it is revealed that the game was initially developed as a multiplayer game. The developers built and tested it as a network game first. Then, based on the experience they gained from their network games, they started to build single-player missions.

However, during the Quality Assurance process, it was decided that the multiplayer component had to be removed because, in Alex Trowers' words: "EA couldn’t get the network game working on their system, so we had to drop it".

The American Revolt add-on would however restore the multiplayer capability of the game.

Player characters

Syndicate's four character design was based on a similar concept which had been removed from an earlier Bullfrog title, Flood, during development. At one point in production Syndicate had as many as eight on-screen characters to lead, but the number was cut back to four as the majority of the development team felt that controlling so many on-screen characters was unwieldy.

Programming tutorial

Bullfrog did a special feature with UK games mag PC Format, at the time ('93) in which they wrote a C Programming tutorial based on some of the Syndicate code. The tutorial involved using the internal graphics libraries from Syndicate to animate and move agents on the screen. Although the C tutorial was largely useless it was a fairly interesting read for those interested in the way Bullfrog operated.

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 02/1994 – Best Strategical in 1993 (Readers' Vote)
  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #67 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #75 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1994 – Best MS-DOS Game in 1993

Information also contributed by Agent 5, lulalurl, PCGamer77, phlux and Tibes80

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 281
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

Amiga added by Famine3h. Jaguar added by Kartanym. Windows added by Sciere. Amiga CD32 added by Kabushi. Macintosh, FM Towns, PC-98 added by Terok Nor. 3DO added by Indra was here.

Additional contributors: xroox, Chentzilla, Martin Smith, Crawly, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, lilalurl, Rik Hideto, Victor Vance, FatherJack.

Game added September 19th, 1999. Last modified January 19th, 2024.