I managed to get some games going later in the evening. I just need to be patient, the 10 minutes waiting for players kind of patient. I'm afraid the game is going to be a ghost town after ME3 is out though.
I did Atlantic Accelerator on hard. Started out alone, made it halfway through the level all by myself before two more people joined the game. They knew what was up, we wrecked shit and I didn't embarass myself during the agent fight. I took down one one agent, helped with a few others, rebooted twice, never went down. Felt amazing.
Mozambique on expert felt less amazing. We managed to get through it after multiple wipes, but it was brutal. I can't imagine what the tunnels in China are like on expert.
The breaching is a great mechanic , the implementation was kind of limited though. You can breach enemies, turrets at anytime, and in one milestone a turret follows you around helping you. In some areas they attempted some puzzles, hack objects in the correct order, use dart mode to breach everything before they reset. It's a mechanic that can definitely be build upon.
I agree with many of the posts about how good this game is. If Syndicate had a competitive multiplayer component with the same level of quality as its single player and co-op portions EA could have had a hit on their hands with this game. The ideas and level of execution in this game are excellent. The singleplayer is a great tutorial for co-op and would have worked for competitive multiplayer as well. The basic shooting controls and level design are great and the breaching mechanic would have been brilliant in multiplayer.
Being able to breach other players shields, hack turret emplacements, using backfire to move in for a melee kill, heal team mates by breaching them, and even the persuade and suicide apps could have all worked in multiplayer. Some adjustments would have to be made to the cooldown on breachs so they could not be spammed (especially healing) and apps like suicide would have to be one time uses per round. Maybe they could only be used close range after hacking a players shields , in a system where shields would act as a protection from breaching but not damage. The overlay could even be balanced by adding an upgrade that made other players invisible to it when equiped. Take out sniper fire penetration through solid cover and this would work. Add a deep upgrade system like the one in co-op and it would all be amazing.
It's a shame this game will probably get buried and forgotten, because even as it is Syndicate is one of the best first person shooters this generation. It has a great singleplayer campaign and co-op that rivals Left for Dead. People incensed by a Syndicate game even being a FPS should give this game a shot, they might enjoy it. I really hope Starbreeze make a sequel.
Finally finished the campaign on Hard (PC). I really loved it! Very satisfying ending as the woman says the last words and then music fades in, badass! Awesome boss battles (only first one was lame), got really crazy like the missle ping-pong one and the twins. I love that you got tips for the bosses in the infobank. I like that they brought out the environmental hacking of cover because you couldn't use Suicide or Persuade on them, made for intense multi-tasking battles where you really had to think on your feet.
I really love this world, even when you can't explore it like Deus Ex. The backgrounds and environments are to die for (credit to Robert Wilinski and John Miles). The visual design is gorgeous and the colors were paced really well with the story, starting with the oranges and reds of Los Angeles to the cyberpunk black and blues of New York. La Ballena, the floating city, was as cool as the upper-and-lower Hengsha of DX:HR, and it was hilarious hacking the tourist hologram. Enough changes of location and situations like the downzone to keep me visually stimulated, especially the last location (Burning Tower) where it's full-on Blade Runner at night. I probably took around 100+ screenshots!
It's a great shooter. The tools you have at your disposal, like the Backfire, Suicide, and Persuade, secondary fire modes for each weapon, heft of the weapons and punchy sounds, the gibbing and decapitations, melee executions, the best cover system in a FPS, and interacting with the environment such as having a pet drone made for a multi-tasking dance. Weapons and enemies were refreshing and were paced really well, it didn't feel repetitive to me at all. I liked the stripping of your abilities in the downzone except Backfire, and the invisible rebels with EMP mines. The AI is smart to duck and roll or slide into cover just like you. Combat encounters were well-designed, they weren't always rushing you like most modern shooters. Although it did get pretty wave-y at the end of the penultimate location, but that's because multiple corporations are against you now and felt like an end-level boss.
"You're going to make me proud, son". I really liked the plot twist, wasn't expecting the cyclical nature about
the origin of agents' parents murdered so they can imprint your whole life and memories. That whole flashback cutscene in the eyes of another agent was chilling, reminded me of Leon The Professional, especially with young Miles Kilo hiding under the bed
.
I don't know why critics were bagging on the story (Richard Morgan), the plot outline was predictable for sure but had enough twists and details to the fully fleshed-out world like the propaganda, locations tied to different corporations, and the Church of the New Epoch. There was no sequel begging. The voice acting was uniformly great (Michael Wincott, Rosario Dawson), with Brian Cox given the chance to belt out powerful monologues. All your favorite voice actors are in there too, like Jennifer Hale, Nolan North, Steve Blum, and Yuri Lowenthal! The nihilistic tone is appreciated as a contrast to Deus Ex's optimism, here we've lost the human revolution to corporations. Either you're chipped or you're not and thrown into the downzone. Civilians are only ever shown in distress or as hobos, with you given power to execute any of them ("Civ casualties is a non issue"). A cool detail was how you couldn't execute civilians after
you had rebelled near the end and regained a conscience
. The protagonist is just a tool, without a voice or conscience for the most part. The last location is insane, with
. I'm surprised there was no controversy to that imagery.
Co-op obviously is great, fun even with randoms like L4D and I appreciate the deeper character progression. Just wanted to say my 2 cents about the campaign.
After less than 2 hours I was ranked in the top 2000 players... It really is a ghost town
Such a shame that a great game like this has been totally ignored by the masses.
Also to the guys who said they had issues on PS3 when in a syndicate, I've had no trouble so far. Maybe it's down to numbers in the syndicate (mine only has two at the moment), or maybe they fixed it on the server side.
I spent all day playing, earning more stars and grinding experience for research. Northern Territories on expert is no joke, but we got it done in the end, and I got my last star.
Agent fights on expert can be incredibly tense, and it's great to see how people adapt to what other people are doing and work together, without saying a word.
I was thinking of perhaps getting the last few achievements I was missing, but breaching 873 grenades? Fuck that.
I spent all day playing, earning more stars and grinding experience for research. Northern Territories on expert is no joke, but we got it done in the end, and I got my last star.
Agent fights on expert can be incredibly tense, and it's great to see how people adapt to what other people are doing and work together, without saying a word.
I was thinking of perhaps getting the last few achievements I was missing, but breaching 873 grenades? Fuck that.
I think the breaching grenades one will come without too much grinding, I'm up around 200 grenades after 6 hours of gametime in co-op. The 50 kills with all weapons will be a bit tricky though; which levels actually have the Swarm, and Riotlance?
After less than 2 hours I was ranked in the top 2000 players... It really is a ghost town
Such a shame that a great game like this has been totally ignored by the masses.
Also to the guys who said they had issues on PS3 when in a syndicate, I've had no trouble so far. Maybe it's down to numbers in the syndicate (mine only has two at the moment), or maybe they fixed it on the server side.
I think the breaching grenades one will come without too much grinding, I'm up around 200 grenades after 6 hours of gametime in co-op. The 50 kills with all weapons will be a bit tricky though; which levels actually have the Swarm, and Riotlance?
I have 20 hours of play time and 297 breached grenades. Completing all challenges seem like a grind as well. I haven't even seen a mercenary yet, or at least not killed one.
I disagree with the CoD sentiment. For something to feel like a CoD clone, I expect less strategy, more stop and pop, unlimited spawning enemies until an invisible threshold is crossed, and significantly more scripting than this.
Syndicate is a linear corridor shooter. One of the better ones, I'd argue.
Yeah, how do you trigger them? I saw a guy in a lobby the other day with 6 mercenary kills but he left before I could ask him.
EDIT: Apparently they spawn randomly (but infrequently) on Western Europe (near the first APC), Colorado (on the middle helipad), and Scandinavia (near the large warehouse gate). They most commonly seem to appear on Expert difficulty, and many people have said that they seem to spawn more frequently when taking a long time to progress (especially on Western Europe). They appear in a dropship, usually in a group of around 7 or 8, and have red health bars like SGT's. This is what they look like:
I'm trying to get 50 kills with every weapon, and only have the frag grenade, LAWS, and Swarm left to go. The thing is though that I haven't seen any Swarm launchers in the co-op yet; any idea where I can find one?
Also the Mjolnir should be a weapon that you can refill the ammo on; even when fully upgraded it's still a pretty shitty weapon in comparison to things like the TAR and Kusanagis. I can see some weapons being OP enough that you can't refill them, but not the Mjolnir.
One final question: has there been any word of patches? On the PS3 version you'll occasionally be blasted with a massive burst of static noise (it's ear splitting) when using mics and it's fucking painful and annoying. It happens once every 15 mins or so.
The biggest problem for me is that it's banned in my country, so not too many people playing in the 'prime gaming time' for my timezone
Luckily a few of my clanmates have decided to pick it up so we shouldn't have trouble organising four man games. I do wish more people would try this game though, it's so good when you get a four man team going.
I'm trying to get 50 kills with every weapon, and only have the frag grenade, LAWS, and Swarm left to go. The thing is though that I haven't seen any Swarm launchers in the co-op yet; any idea where I can find one?
Also the Mjolnir should be a weapon that you can refill the ammo on; even when fully upgraded it's still a pretty shitty weapon in comparison to things like the TAR and Kusanagis. I can see some weapons being OP enough that you can't refill them, but not the Mjolnir.
One final question: has there been any word of patches? On the PS3 version you'll occasionally be blasted with a massive burst of static noise (it's ear splitting) when using mics and it's fucking painful and annoying. It happens once every 15 mins or so.
There are enemies with swarm launchers on the Argentina and New England mission, but only on the expert difficulty I think.
I agree about the Mjolnir, it will actually get refilled if you have the standard shotgun as primary weapon, but it makes no sense to carry them both around. Strange that some weapons like the electron mace can be refilled but others can't.
According to a developer at Starbreeze's forum it's all up to EA wether we get a patch or not. I'm not too hopeful that anything will get fixed after seeing how EA treated this release :/
There are enemies with swarm launchers on the Argentina and New England mission, but only on the expert difficulty I think.
I agree about the Mjolnir, it will actually get refilled if you have the standard shotgun as primary weapon, but it makes no sense to carry them both around. Strange that some weapons like the electron mace can be refilled but others can't.
According to a developer at Starbreeze's forum it's all up to EA wether we get a patch or not. I'm not too hopeful that anything will get fixed after seeing how EA treated this release :/
Thanks for the info fork, I haven't tried any Expert missions yet (have only just finished all of them on Normal and Hard) so I guess that explains why I haven't seen any Swarm launchers yet. Also great tip on the standard shotgun giving you ammo refills for the Mjolnir, I didn't know that.
It's not, actually. Most of the people who are in the Syndicate are busy with ME3 now. I blame the Syndicate autosave bug for this sad state of affairs. Anyway, I'll bo on tomorrow and I'll be more than happy to play some Syndicate co-op with peeps. ;p
It's not, actually. Most of the people who are in the Syndicate are busy with ME3 now. I blame the Syndicate autosave bug for this sad state of affairs. Anyway, I'll bo on tomorrow and I'll be more than happy to play some Syndicate co-op with peeps. ;p
Cool, thanks! My biggest complaint with Syndicate is just the way EA handled it. The servers for multiplayer is pretty bad, but it's so good that I don't care.
It's not, actually. Most of the people who are in the Syndicate are busy with ME3 now. I blame the Syndicate autosave bug for this sad state of affairs. Anyway, I'll bo on tomorrow and I'll be more than happy to play some Syndicate co-op with peeps. ;p
That's certainly why I stopped; the combination of mass effect and the fact that the game freezes for 5 seconds dozens of times per match has kept me away. I want to get back to it if i hear they fixed the freeze bug.
That's certainly why I stopped; the combination of mass effect and the fact that the game freezes for 5 seconds dozens of times per match has kept me away. I want to get back to it if i hear they fixed the freeze bug.
I am desperately hoping for a patch, but yeah what you say is probably right. It's so annoying that EA basically shat out this game to die. It deserved better.
I am desperately hoping for a patch, but yeah what you say is probably right. It's so annoying that EA basically shat out this game to die. It deserved better.
This is true, but I have a feeling the community who is playing it will be playing for a fair time, it is that good a game, no matter of EA's support, but the 360 Voice bug and this PS3 autosave issue should be patched.
Began the single player romp on hard last night and reached Tatsuo. Man that guy is a pain in the balls. Fight was lasting quite awhile and after a few deaths I had to shut it off.
The game is definitley cool and I love the look and sound of the weapons. The lighting effects are also some of the best I've seen. I'm finding myself being overly aggressive and mostly just running up to guys and executing them when I can. Im digging the DART overlay and to me it's somewhat reminiscent of F.E.A.R. the way you slow down. pop a few baddies and then normalize.
Also, thumbs up to Starbreeze for making yet another, cool, stylish UI. They always know how to create really slick and unique looking menu systems.
I'm hoping for a patch too, I got hit with the freeze bug right after I joined a syndicate. I erased all my data because I could no longer connect to ea's servers after I froze (tried 2 days in a row multiple times, not sure if that's part of the bug). I really do love this game though, just been busy catching up on my backlog this past week and haven't really been playing lately.
Just wanted to let anyone know that's been waiting for a price drop, Target in my area has this game on temporary sale for $40. I'm just not sure if all Targets have the same sales.
Damn, I didn't even realize this was released. It looked awesome, but sounds like the MP is a ghosttown, the campaign is mediocre, and EA isn't supporting it. Sounds like this year's Brink.
Any "super omg amazing" reasons to give this a shot?
Damn, I didn't even realize this was released. It looked awesome, but sounds like the MP is a ghosttown, the campaign is mediocre, and EA isn't supporting it. Sounds like this year's Brink.
Any "super omg amazing" reasons to give this a shot?
The co-op is great. I don't know if it's accurate to say that mp is a ghosttown. I find games pretty regularly on ps3 just not at the expert difficulty.
Damn, I didn't even realize this was released. It looked awesome, but sounds like the MP is a ghosttown, the campaign is mediocre, and EA isn't supporting it. Sounds like this year's Brink.
Any "super omg amazing" reasons to give this a shot?
The co-op is great. I don't know if it's accurate to say that mp is a ghosttown. I find games pretty regularly on ps3 just not at the expert difficulty.
It gives you gold skinned guns in the mp part of the game so if you're not going online you'll see no benefit from using it. Infact even if you did play online would you want a gold gun?
It gives you gold skinned guns in the mp part of the game so if you're not going online you'll see no benefit from using it. Infact even if you did play online would you want a gold gun?
