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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: Robert17 on May 13, 2004, 07:15:12 PM

Title: Syndicate
Post by: Robert17 on May 13, 2004, 07:15:12 PM
Hi everyone, just got myself a copy of Syndicate by EA Games from Ebay, great game but anyway does anybody play it on an expanded amiga? The Scrolling is kinda slow on my stock A1200 and I was wondering how much of a difference an upgrade would make!

Cheers

Robert
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: NightShade737 on May 13, 2004, 07:20:27 PM
The game tends to go a little too fast if you upgrade it and don't use WHDLoad with the NOCACHES option, but I don't remember having a problem with the scrolling...
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Robert17 on May 13, 2004, 07:43:19 PM
It's not so much a problem I just thought it'd be nice if it could be a bit more smooth, it's still perfectly playable though.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: sir_inferno on May 13, 2004, 08:26:27 PM
hmmm, on my version it simply pauses while it scrolls, and scrolls smoothly

(stock 1200)
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Karlos on May 13, 2004, 08:33:52 PM
Depends on how busy it gets.

I don't think it was designed properly scalable - a lot of animations seem to just run as fast as they can. You *have* to see it on an 060 for full comedy effect ;-)
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: itix on May 13, 2004, 09:54:03 PM
Nice thing in Bullfrog games are that they seem to multitask... If I'm not mistaken I recall I could speed up Theme Park AGA with ChangeTaskpri 1 command in the shell before starting...
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Abou27 on May 13, 2004, 10:38:49 PM
@Karlos

You mention animations.  I have the 2 disk AGA version and have always been frustrated by the 'Sorry, animations unavailable' message.  I always wondered if there was a full version but you seemed to have answered this question.  Are they any good/worth it?
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: that_punk_guy on May 13, 2004, 10:41:39 PM
Quote
itix wrote:
Nice thing in Bullfrog games are that they seem to multitask...


Shame they invalidated my HD whenever I saved the game, though... That happened with Syndicate and Theme Park every time.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Abou27 on May 13, 2004, 10:49:05 PM
@tpg

Ouch!

How many times this happen before you stop saving/playing?!
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Karlos on May 14, 2004, 02:01:12 AM
Quote

Abou27 wrote:
@Karlos

You mention animations.  I have the 2 disk AGA version and have always been frustrated by the 'Sorry, animations unavailable' message.  I always wondered if there was a full version but you seemed to have answered this question.  Are they any good/worth it?


I meant the in-game animation frames. People walking, billboards etc., not the actual cut scenes.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: StevenJGore on May 14, 2004, 08:22:25 AM
Quote
I have the 2 disk AGA version


There isn't an AGA version of Syndicate.

There is only the OCS/ECS A500 version which is four disks, and the CD32 version which is just the A500 version on a CD (no extras!)

Or where you referring to Theme Park?

Steve.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Methuselas on May 14, 2004, 08:39:45 AM
I LOVED Syndicate. The PC intro was better, IMO, 'cos it had sound. (Unless, I just never got the sound working on my 500, 2000's or 3000.)


I'd be happy if EA would ressurrect this game. The multiplayer aspects of the internet could make a 3d incarnation quite amazing. Imagine hooking up with your mates on line, using a single agent that YOU play exclusively. Just don't make it a shooter or it would be just another shooter. I'm so sick and tired of 3D shooters. :-?


Well, I'm off for some UT2k3 :roll:
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: NightShade737 on May 14, 2004, 10:12:14 AM
Er, the Amiga intro had music and sound effects...
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Brian Hoskins on May 14, 2004, 10:14:23 AM
The Syndicate introduction DID have sound on my Amiga and I always thought it was very cool ;-)

With regards to speed, yes an expanded Amiga DOES make a difference.  I don't know if anyone ever tried playing the final level which was that oil rig thing in the Atlantic? Enemy Agents come from absolutely EVERYWHERE, there are simply hundreds of them ALL shooting at you.  And it's not like the films where the enemy all attempt to mow you down with machine guns but the bullets bounce around near your feet and you're able to turn around with a pistol and shoot them all in the head - oh no.  The enemy agents here are very good aims.

It's a very thrilling and frustrating level to complete, but unless you've got an expanded Amiga it's also impossible to complete in my opinion.  There's so much going on that you can press fire, but by the time your agent reacts to your request, 50 million bullets from enemy agents have pounded your armory and you're nothing but a dead rag on the floor.
After I got my 68060 I tried again and it was completely wicked - hardly any slow down at all.  But still an intensely difficult level to complete!

Brian
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: MAD on May 14, 2004, 10:39:46 AM
Hoya!

Boy, you are NOT lying for sure!!!

I ALMOST completed the damn level once!
Actually, if I am not wrong, I still had ONE foe to shoot down!
the problem was I ran out of ammo and just had the BASIC pistol to kill the guy... Who wore a full body armour and had a machine gun, of course...

So, I was a bit frustrated I must admit.

I admit it is quite fun to see the characters walking under 060! ;-)
I have just one small complain. The colours were not that pretty, I do not really like those brownish hues... Too bad there was no AGA version of this killer game for it would have been a MASSIVE hit!

And yes, the intro features sound. ;-)

Be funky

M A D

PS: if you like Bullfrog, try Flood! :-D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: NightShade737 on May 14, 2004, 11:47:29 AM
The 'Atlantic Accellerator'.

Yeah, that mission was insane, I remember playing/completing it on both my A600 and A500+ and I remember it slowed down but was still playable. The only times I remember major slowdowns were times when Agents self destructed and as they did it the game sort of stopped, and then did about 0.3fps, added more to the intensity of the moment though.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Karlos on May 14, 2004, 12:09:43 PM
I bought syndicate as soon as it was released and played it to death. I was so addicted.

You learn a massive amounr about how the enemy AI works and how to take advantage of it.

Some tips:

1) Enemy teams never develop attack weapons beyond the Uzi/long range by default. If you develop heavy assault weapons, in time so will they. It's much more fun to divert your funds into body upgrades and rely on stealing heavy weapons. Use the persuadertron to get a full cryo chamber early on, you can use the agents therein to store weapons. The first new weapon you find is always given to your R&D team so make sure you use it first. Subsequent finds are yours to keep, you just can't reload them. Considering this, make sure you punish territories that have a military bias so you are forced to redo them occasionally. Consider it a smash and grab raid for the hardware ;-)

2) Enemy agents will always hunt your least armed agent first or if equally equipped, hunt them in numerical order.

3) Enemy agents don't appear duly concerned seeing any other of your agents whilst you first / least armed is still alive. They will only react to another agent of yours if you shoot first.

4) Enemy agents occupy zero volume and have little concept of height :-D. If you put your first / least armed agent somewhere fairly inaccessible, but with a space underneath, all the activated enemy agents will congregate en-masse on the point beneath.

5) Where (4) is impossible to acheive, you can ensure all your guys carry sheilds. The enemy will pile onto your guys position after pointlessly shooting for a bit. You can then send #2 in to roast them. Strangely, your flamer (or indeed any weapon other than explosives) will never hurt your own guys.

6) The flamer is incapable of injuring an enemy. It is always 100% lethal. Coupling the above observation, you can wait for the enemy to pile up underneath your first / least armed agent, then send number 2 in and give them a lick of flame. As long as you hit them, they will all die, none of them will be able retaliate. Use of any other weapon is not recommended for this trick. 15 aggrivated enemy agents simultaneously firing on your man with shotguns at exactly the same time will kill you unless you have a sheild activated.

7) For many normal missions, a squad of 4 v3 agents, armed with 8 long range rifles apiece will wipe the floor with the enemy, still relying on shotguns/uzis. They will never even get within a screens distance of you :-)

Recently I played it to see how quickly I can complete it.


The atlantic Accelerator is an exception to the weaponry rules. They all come equipped with minuguns aplenty. However if you make note of points (2)-(6) you will see a way to do it without a single casualty on your own team.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Vincent on May 14, 2004, 01:01:47 PM
Quote

Karlos wrote:
Use the persuadertron to get a full cryo chamber early on, you can use the agents therein to store weapons.

On one of the early missions (I can't remember where) where you have to persuade a guy in it (west of the start, the start is near a long tunnel going north) I have this tendancy to equip everyone with a persuadatron and take a long walk round to the guy saying hello to everyone on the level :-D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: itix on May 14, 2004, 01:08:25 PM
Atlantic accelerator was quite easy. I completed the last level many times on my standard A500. It was very easy to kill everyone with few Gauss Guns. Just go to the cross road and shoot Gauss Gun to every four direction and you surely hit agents before they get close. One or two members must carry miniguns for close combat if you miss some of them.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: MAD on May 14, 2004, 01:17:42 PM
Hoya!

@iti

Yes, I tried this but then something screwed up and I died! :-D

BTW, I guess you are aware of the Expansion Disk called American Revolt.
I got it from the web in ADF form and have NEVER been able to use it...
For those who suceeded, how does it look like? Are they the same lanscapes or new cities to explore?

Sigh... I WANT to play it again!!! I NEED my Amiga!!!!!!!

Syndicate rulez!

Be funky

M A D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: kevh100 on May 14, 2004, 01:24:28 PM
Quote

NightShade737 wrote:
... game sort of stopped, and then did about 0.3fps, added more to the intensity of the moment though.


perhaps it was an attempt at bullet time :) I can remember seeing the missile from the gauss gun moving slowly through the air. I'd still try and aviod it even though i knew it would hit me :(

Great game though. The add-on levels (american expansion??? cant remember the name) thing was even harder to complete!

Kev
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Abou27 on May 14, 2004, 01:27:38 PM
@StevenJGore

Yeah, I know no AGA Syndicate!  My fuzzy memory thinking of "A1200 Compatable" sticker on box.

Always though it was a great game but have never felt the urge to go back to it.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Vincent on May 14, 2004, 03:00:47 PM
Quote

kevh100 wrote:
perhaps it was an attempt at bullet time :)

:lol: So that's where the Wachowski's nicked the idea from :-P
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Robert17 on May 15, 2004, 01:12:32 PM
Well I saw it on ebay one day and it was kinda an impulse buy after quickly reading the review and bagging it at £2.99 lol bargain eh! I'm now spending more game time on my stock A1200 that on my 2.2ghz pc lol
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: odin on May 15, 2004, 01:20:05 PM
The mission disk was released on a coverdisk of CU or AF. It was sortof half finished released IIRC. Required you to do a bit of tinkering to get it working.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: MAD on May 15, 2004, 02:32:51 PM
Hoya!

Aaaah, I see!

And how do you install it then?

Be funky

M A D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: B00tDisk on May 15, 2004, 03:09:49 PM
Atlantic Accellerator was easy to beat - once you knew how and weren't afraid to use this method.  Firstly, it's damned hard to do with an unexpanded system because of the low framerate.

Once you've overcome the real world hurdle, here's how you beat it.

Send in four heavily armored agents with nothing but medkits.  That's right, nothing but medkits.

Patiently wait for the bad guys to mob you - let 'em get close.

Then blow up your agents.  That's right, self destruct them.  By this point in the game you should be able to produce agents that can juuuuuust survive their own self-destruct mechanism.  However the bomb is powerful enough to kill enemy agents that are too close, which is what you've gotta do.  Get up close, then kill your agent.

Once done, start with the medpacks immediately.

Then grab all of the guns dropped by the enemy agents and go to town on the remainder of the bad guys!
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: that_punk_guy on May 15, 2004, 03:14:04 PM
Quote
Abou27 wrote:
Ouch!

How many times this happen before you stop saving/playing?!


Twice, I think. Shame, 'cause they were good games. :-(
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Karlos on May 15, 2004, 03:42:19 PM
No no no! :-D

The best way to beat the Atlantic Accelerator is as follows.

1) Equip all four of your fully v3 agents with 4 energy sheilds, 2 flamers and 2 gauss guns a piece.

2) Take the squad in, enter team mode immediately, drop IPA levels and enable sheilds.

3) Exit team mode and move agents 2-3 away from the pad, leaving agent #1 alone. The first enemy will swarm onto him, but can't harm him. As long as your other guys are out of the firing line, disable their sheilds. The enemy wont take a blind bit of notice as long as your #1 is ok. A second wave will arrive shortly afterwards. Ensure your #1 guy is cycling his sheilds, whatever you do don't let him get vulnerable.

4) Wait for the commotion to stop. There are about 16 agents actually stood on #1's position. Calmly take another agent within flamer distance and give your #1 position a liberal lick of napalm. All the enemy agents will die. This is quite a spectacle ;-)

5) You can now take your other agents further out, leaving #1 right where he is ;-). You will find active enemy agents running in a loop, trying to get to #1's position but never quite managing it. Find a few nice corners where you can position your guys out of sight of the gun towers and let them use their flamers. When an enemy runs past, he'll get torched and as I said earlier cannot possibly survive.

6) After a while you've cleaned out all the agents apart from 2 inside some buildings and the guard towers. Gauss the guard towers to get rid of the latter. You don't want lasers slashing at your men.

7) Take another agent (never #1) and stand him in the doorways of the buildings where the last 2 agents are running in circles. Let him flame them automatically with higher IPA. Failing that, stand outside and gauss the corner of the building as the guy inside passes it.

All done. All enemy agents killed, no losses sustained. More than likely nobody ever even opened fire on your agents (other than #1).

:-D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: B00tDisk on May 15, 2004, 08:20:49 PM
Meh.  My way is simpler! :)
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: MAD on May 15, 2004, 10:30:27 PM
Hoya!

I thought about this more or less... But for some reason, it just did not work...
Gotta try it again I guess...

Be funky

M A D

PS: is American Revolt REALLY different?
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: jahc on May 16, 2004, 12:40:52 AM
I used to like walking around a whole city with a persuadatron, have a massive crowd following me, and then get into a car, and watch half the city get in with me.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: rayt on May 16, 2004, 12:35:23 PM
@ MAD
Quote

BTW, I guess you are aware of the Expansion Disk called American Revolt.
I got it from the web in ADF form and have NEVER been able to use it...


Afaik the Expansion Disk was only released for MsDos.. So maybe some stupid person made an adf containing the msdos version and put it on the web or something..
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: odin on May 16, 2004, 12:38:19 PM
No, AF or CU Amiga released the expansion disk 'as-is'. Think TFX here.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: rayt on May 16, 2004, 01:25:24 PM
@odin
Quote


No, AF or CU Amiga released the expansion disk 'as-is'. Think TFX here.


Really? Thats great! I didn't know that. I have Tfx on a cu amiga cd, but it didn't work on my A1200 afair.

Does anyone know (MAD?) where I can download the expansion disk?
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Karlos on May 16, 2004, 01:59:57 PM
Quote

MAD wrote:
Hoya!

I thought about this more or less... But for some reason, it just did not work...
Gotta try it again I guess...


Hmm. I wonder if there were version differences? I got my syndicate the day it became available in Future Zone (or was it Game? I forgot what it was called first!).

The strategy I presented just then for the Atlantic Accelerator relies on all the observations about gaps in the enemy AI I made earlier. Perhaps this was fixed later, I don't know.

You can easily test the assertations in other levels. There are plenty of them were you can leave your least equipped / numerically lowest agent somewhere the enemy cant get to.

Man I need to play again now! Must find another keyboard for the 1200 so I can play throught the PC's tv card ;-)
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: B00tDisk on May 17, 2004, 02:41:57 AM
Quote

jahc wrote:
I used to like walking around a whole city with a persuadatron, have a massive crowd following me, and then get into a car, and watch half the city get in with me.


Did you ever hop out and then hit the car with a Gauss rifle round?  Heh, the screams never stop!  
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: iamaboringperson on May 17, 2004, 04:31:07 AM
A brand new RTG/Pegasos version of Syndicate would be cool.

There currently don't seem to be any games on the market that are like that.

hmmm...

I feel like getting on with an isometric 3D graphics engine, all of a sudden...
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: jj on May 17, 2004, 11:08:16 AM
afaikr u can get american revolt from Back2Roots (http://www.back2roots.org)

as to an update, from what ove read, mafia on the Pee cee is very similar to syndicate but with the added bonus of being able to rotate camera so  u can see your men at all time, plus with some extra strategy elements
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Hyperspeed on June 27, 2004, 07:36:06 PM
Syndicate went bonkers on '030 let alone an '060!

The Jaguar/Macintosh versions had more colour but I think the A500 one
played fine and you didn't notice too much.

You think getting everyone into a car was fun? Try persuadertron the
whole Ural City into the train and then self destruct. The explosion
is cataclysmic and people fly(/fry) everywhere.

Who else took a perverse pleasure in taking a flamer to those nicely
pruned shrubs, or blowing up bins with the shotgun? I also liked the
timebombs when they could be placed near a parked police car.

:-D

Syndicate Wars was available for PC & Playstation. It featured a
network option so you could build bases with laser-traps and weapons
included plasma miniguns, nuclear grenades and satellite cannon. You
could detonate a mine next to powerplant cooling towers and watch
these gigantic structures collapse onto your foes, not to mention
commandeer 3D polygon hovercabs and gas people.

Players took the role of a cyborg or a levitating preacher in robes
and it had Bladerunner style voices chanting in the background. Find
it on eBay!

:-) :-o :-)
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: The_Power_of_the_Ginger on June 27, 2004, 08:10:53 PM
So, overall, a much harder last part of the game than Vice City then?

In fact, who needs GTA when 4 sinister agents can blow up half a town's population in one fell swoop?

What a game. :-D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: MAD on June 28, 2004, 12:28:48 AM
Hoya!

LOL! Exactly! ;-)

Too bad Bullfrog didn't make a sequel... :-(

Be funky

M A D
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: minator on June 28, 2004, 02:57:09 AM
Funny, my friends used to come down to my house to play this game, actually I lived in the centre of town so they did that a lot.

Anyway, I actually once figured out how to actually build a guasse gun, it'd be a really nasty weapon but yes, you could build something that has that effect.
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Hyperspeed on July 04, 2004, 04:18:41 AM
Did you figure this out in a vein attempt to keep your friends from
calling?

:-D :-D :-D

I can't remember if Syndicate Wars had the Gauss Guns but I do
remember it being an extremely sadistic game with neon lit towers that
you could pan around in 3D to see behind buildings.

Can you imagine a mouse controlled realtime strategy game based on
Syndicate where you could take charge of armies in a 3D environment,
but with large sprites that looked almost 3rd person?

Syndicate is too good a franchise to let go, and there's plenty of
room for a clone on AmigaOne I think!

;-)

How is AmigaOne for 3D anyway, are there tools being developed to take
advantage of the ATi/GeForce's 3D capabilities and filtering etc.?
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Robert17 on July 04, 2004, 09:01:32 AM
Hmms I tried it on my 50mhz '030 and it flies along, too fast in fact, does the whdload installer fix speed issues?
Title: Re: Syndicate
Post by: Hyperspeed on July 05, 2004, 08:37:41 PM
Someone mentioned WHDLoad could switch off CPU caches, but on a
typical 50Mhz '030 that still leaves you with 7 or 8 MIPs which will
make things run quite erratic.

The best bet if you plan to have a long game of Syndicate is to hold
down "2" if you have a Blizzard and switch the '030 off completely.

:-)