Syndicate Review (6/10)

A fun but flawed reboot of a classic.
We're now in an age where the games industry is steeped with various FPS franchises that dominate their respective release windows- from Call of Duty to True Crime, there really is something for everyone, and that makes entering the genre a worrisome prospect for new developers. Nevertheless, Starbreeze Studios have leapt onto the scene with Syndicate. While it's intended as a spiritual succeesor to a 1990s top-down shooter which is now regarded as a classic by its fanbase, this tale of sci-fi treachery and technology manipulation is wholly its own, for better or for worse as that can mean we get a feeling of deja vu from other recent science-fiction entries too. Despite that, the gameplay itself is pretty solid, the controls operating well and the cleverness of the AI enemies ensuring that no gun fight is as easy as you might think, even with the mind-hacking skills you come to possess as the single-player campaign progresses. This heightened difficulty works even more to the game's favour in its co-op and online modes- for the first time in what feels like a long while, you and your friends can finally be met with a formidable team-building challenge that may well take you dozens and dozens of tries to complete. If that's your kind of game, then I have no doubt that Syndicate can provide you with a good few hours of entertainment (you can probably add another point onto the score too), but nowadays I'd say that having solid gameplay to match the FPS greats is rather obvious, and doesn't compensate for the sheer lack of innovation and originality here. As I said, the main storyline is linear and dull, following a set path that can rarely be diverted from and thus giving the sense that there's little incentive to replay it. We're left, then, with a 'solution'- I'd recommend this to you as I would any FPS, if that is you're here for the online co-op, but if you're looking for a meaty and emotional campaign, then Syndicate is not the game for you.