Syndicate Wars™

Syndicate Wars is, in my opinion, superior in almost every way to the original. It takes the same basic gameplay and places it in a brilliantly rendered 3D cyberpunk world, then adds an intriguing new plot (corporation v techno-religious terrorists). Syndicate's world was a 2D affair, presented in drab olives and oranges. Syndicate Wars delivers huge 3D maps which echo Blade Runner, Akira, Ghost in the Shell and many similar cyberpunk films. You can rotate, zoom in and out and explore the cities where missions occur at your leisure. The third dimension isn't just a gimmick - you can now use flying cars to get around. Even better, the huge skyscrapers in the game can be brought crashing down with the advanced weaponry on display. And oh, the weapons. The minigun and long range rifle are still around, but they are complemented by insane additions, like suitcase sized nuclear devices and gauss rocket launchers. The missions are generally well thought out and interesting. The core gameplay remains similar to the original, although the new weapons and enemies make the game far more varied. I must mention the music, which is some of the best cyberpunk music ever recorded. Echoes of the Vangelis Blade Runner soundtrack, but with a style all of its own. Don't hesitate for a second, and don't listen to diehard Syndicate 1 fans who consider this a poor sequel. It is a masterpiece, and superior in every way to the original.

Not really a review of the game as such although certainly so far Syndicate Wars certainly seems worth the price I've paid for it but more of a heads-up to Windows 10 users who may be uncertain or not as to whether this game is compatiable. I've bought it, downloaded, installed it and played it and had absolutely no issues. Since the notes section here doesn't list Windows 10 at all as a compatiable platform, I had a look at the reviews and found none that spoke about its compatiability with Windows 10 either. So, this is the first and just writing in to confirm it's WORKED for me on Windows 10 with NO issues. Other than that, I remember playing Syndicate Wars on the Playstation back in the day and it has great atmosphere. Just getting back into it now. Hope this review and mention of compatiability helps someone. Thanks.

Syndicate Wars was a game I enjoyed back in the day. I remember I had to go over to a friend's house to play it, my PC was too slow and he had a a brand new, absolutely "screaming fast" Pentium MMX 166MHz that ran it well. So I was looking forward to replaying it. Sadly, this proves to only be frustrating. The game runs well in DOSBox, particularly if you replace DOS/4GW with DOS/32A but it has mouse issues. Randomly the mouse will become stuck to one side of the screen, rendering your game unplayable. Since there's no way to save or the like without the mouse, you have to scrap what you were doing and start over. It happens pretty often too, so it really makes finishing a mission hard. Because of the problems it is just not worth your money. It is either a bug in the game code itself, related to new systems, or DOSBox and either way not something that is likely to get fixed. So I'd give it a miss, you are likely to just be frustrated.

having played SW back in the days like crazy, i was very happy to see GoG release it, since i never seemed to be able to run the game beyond Win98 in a clear manner. My friend already bought it and we testet it together, only to find out that it does not run well. The sound breaks often and the speed of the emulation varies wildly, to the point of the game being unplayable.