Seriously. I missed everything interesting in PC gaming right up 'til 2000 or so. I found an LP and it looks like some kind of fuzzy, blurry mix of X-com and a squad-based RTS. Why is this game so fantastic, and why is everyone so excited?

Oh, and this is an honest question - I don't mean this as a sarcasm, I'm genuinely curious; with the praise I've heard this game receive, it would be an insta-buy if I just happened to know what the deuce was so great about it.

Mostly - Nostalgia.

However also, because it was uncomprimising in a way that was not attempting to shock. It was simply cold. Modern games may be gritty, but they accentuate it. Syndicate was just - because we can.

Anyway - Nostalgia.

nostalgia .... and because for many it was the Shadow Run game that should have been.

instead of some generic fantasy "save the world from the big bad evil" plot that was consistently delivered in what few Shadow Run games we got, Syndicate just let you build a squad a wage cooperate war with no "oooh, you killed someone for money, you did a bad thing."

Well, those are good answers. Not sure I'll insta-buy it, though. If it were more X-comy and less linear, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I really didn't like it myself. Its got great atmosphere, but I felt the gameplay was was pretty dull. I bought it sometime around 2003. It might have been a lot more fun when it first came out, but it just didn't seem to have aged very gracefully. That usually doesn't bug me. I still love the heck out of my 2600. This particular game though... I don't know. It just felt too much like busy work.

I'll fifth, or whatever:

Nostalgia.

At the time it came out it was a very good game. I thought that the tactics you have to use is quite diverse and buying and equiping your agents is nice. So from the gameplay it is similar to Commandos from the setting more like Blade Runner (for me).

Of course nowadays you have much more other similar games which might be better and surely feature better graphics. And not everyone is excited. 30 people surely aren't everyone. For example, it may up on the wishlist for buying with discount - but then purely out of nostalgia.

Syndicate isn't linear at all. You can invade any country in the world as long as you control an adjacent country and the missions have no path or set sequence of events or objectives. There's something that needs to happen for you to gain control of a country and you must do whatever you feel necessary in order to make that happen.

HERETIC! Burn him!

although having never played the game, it seems to me that nostalgia isn't a valid answer to the OP's question seeing as the game got rave reviews back in 1993, and you wouldn't have felt nostalgic about a game the year it was released...

so, if there was something great about this game back in 1993 - and the game would never have achieved it's splendid reputation if there was not - that same thing would still be great about this game today.

the OP's question - and mine, though i've already read up on it - would be: what is it?

Has someone already said nostalgia?

It's very much a Bullfrog game. Great concept (it's hard to find another game that would be this bleak), execution which was way ahead of its time, gameplay mechanics that are fun but inevitably become extremely repetitive. It's one of those "you had to be there" games, I guess, but that is Bullfrog for you.

I wouldn't say it was that repetitive. One of the strong points was the diverse mission structure. You couldn't just shoot your way through most missions.

Back when I played it first, no more than a couple of years after its release, it was the atmosphere that really grabbed me. Some of the posts here describe it pretty well -- a futuristic, Blade Runner-like setting, the feeling of heading an uncompromising corporate syndicate that did whatever they needed to do to come out on top against their competitors... And then there was your team of cyborg special agents. Man, those guys were the baddest crew in town, and with the upgrades and weapons that your money provided them they got the job done. Every time. No matter what. And the gameplay was great as well -- I always felt I could choose whatever tactical approach I felt like on a mission and that's a pretty big deal. The game allowed you to use your smarts instead of leading you by the hand.

I really loved it back in the day. There was no game like it, and I don't think there has been since. There have been comparable elements in other games, but none that provide the same unique package. It's been years since I've played it now, so nostalgia is very likely affecting my memory, but that doesn't keep it from being an insta-buy for me the moment it pops up on the site, and I'm very much looking forward to playing it again ;-)

It's been years since I've played it, but I do remember the Persuadotron (or whatever it was called) being so extremely effective there was little reason to use anything else. I could be wrong, though. I've been wondering what's so great about Syndicate myself, because I honestly can't quite remember.

It's simple, yet deep enough to warrant spending more than ten minutes on it. I remember back then I compared it to a much more advanced Cannon Fodder, with more freedom, more options and a grittier and "metallic" setting.

And it's simply a lot of fun.

Another way to put it... it's one of Peter Molyneux's greats from the time when really was an innovative bastard.