» Review: Syndicate | ABQ Journal

Syndicate takes place in the near future – when corporations have replaced governments as the controlling authority of life in general.

These powerful corporations deal in neural implant chips that enhance human capabilities and provide ready-made armies.

In this first-person shooter, you play as Agent Miles Kilo who sports the latest chip – the DART 6. This chip allows you to control those with inferior chips – a gameplay mechanic called Breaching.

This takes several forms.

Initially, you are able to cause an opponent’s chip to force him to kill himself (Suicide). Other abilities are added as you secure upgrades and the game progresses, including the ability to force an opponent to join your side for a limited time (Persuade) and the ability to knock down one or more opponents (Backfire).

The other major enhancement afforded by your chip is the ability to visually transition into the digital world, with simple imagery, the ability to move faster than opponents and to more easily recognize good guys from bad guys.

Use of these abilities hinge on filling up onscreen meters that allow them to be triggered, with a waiting period before they can be triggered again.

The breaching skills meters refill as you kill enemies, with the Backfire able to be ready to use again more quickly. In addition, some opponents had specially shielded chips, making defeating them a more tactical effort.

Syndicate does not offer full multiplayer action, instead focusing on a 4-player cooperative mode – an ode to the PC game from the 1990s of the same name that it is loosely based on.

In this mode, which is not connected with the single-player story, you are a part of syndicate sent on specific missions. They might include infiltrating a rival syndicate and killing the leader or retrieving tissue samples from deep within another syndicate’s walls.

It is recommended that four play on these missions, although as few as two can undertake a mission. As the missions get tougher, any fewer than four becomes problematic, however. To succeed, players in Syndicate have to enter co-op with a willingness to work as a team. Going it alone will only result in the failure of the mission.

New breaching skills are available in the co-op mode. Many of them are geared to enhance the team aspect of the mode.

You can enable shielding healing and damage enhancements for your whole team during battle. You can also directly heal an individual teammate, which becomes critical during the heat of combat.

Also added for the co-op mode is the ability to “reboot” a fallen comrade who has been incapacitated. If all players become incapacitated, the mission ends.

Completing a mission earns players tokens that can be used to upgrade weapons, add new chip abilities and unlock research documents to further upgrade your skills.

Players can also be invited to join a Syndicate, much like a clan in most multiplayer games.

In general, the co-op mode is solid and satisfying. Gameplay is smooth and rewarding, with the right set of teammates.

I found Syndicate a fun FPS with just enough of a gimmick (Breaching) to keep me interested. Strategy even entered the mix at times, often times tasking me to decide which opponent to stun and which to persuade to your side in order to complete an area.

My biggest criticism of the game was the need to always have an impediment to seeing what was going on. If it wasn’t lens flare, it was glare from any light you walked near. Or is was blood on the screen or fog or an annoying film on the sides that I’m guessing was supposed to enhance “immersion” in the action.

Rather than immersive, I just found it interminably annoying. With all this high-tech equipment packed into a cranial doodad, you have to wonder why the chip programmers couldn’t have tossed in a little polarizing filter into the mix.

Platform: PlayStation3/Xbox 360

Manufacturer: Electronic Arts

Rating: Mature

Score: 7.5 chilies