Back when I was sitting my GCSEs I spent a lot of time playing Syndicate Wars (instead of revising). These were the heady days of the late '90s. 'A Design for Life' was on every radio station, Father Ted was being quoted by every kid in the playground and PC Zone still had Charlie Brooker. Ahhh, happier days. Syndicate Wars saw you take control of four terrorists attempting to bring down some mega corporation. It was atmospheric and difficult with some unique systems: mind controlling people, turning them into human bombs, then shooting your way out of trouble with miniguns... Ahhh, as I say, happier days. It's on GOG, btw, and still great. Satellite Reign is heralded as a spiritual successor to the Syndicate series. Apparently. Everyone has to say this. What this means is it looks like Bladerunner, plays like Commandos and sounds like Vangelis' 'China'. Got it? Good. You control a squad of four terrorist super-soldiers attempting to bring down 'the man'. You do this in an open world in real-time. In-game you have two main interfaces. The first is the isometric cityscape in which you maneuver your soldiers and complete missions. The second is a text-based menu which allows you to read about and select missions, equip your soldiers and conduct basic research. A typical experience might involve breaking into a facility, looting some prototype weaponry, escaping, then logging into your research facility to get your boffins to produce the weapon en masse so you can equip your soldiers with it. The game has also borrowed some elements from Watch Dogs, making it feel like a 2015 open world game - there are 'beacons' to activate (akin to Ubisoft's towers), ATMS to hack and new researchers to find and bribe. So it is a great game, but flawed. The save system is a hassle - but it does discourage save-scumming; enemy line-of-sight is inconsistent; there are plenty of minor bugs; and it can feel a little repetitive. Still, this is a welcome update for the Syndicate series
Cut from a similar cloth to Diablo, this game is well worth a look for fans of isometric RPGs. While there is a lot of action in the game, the difficulty and the variety of enemies mean that in places you are going to have to strategise to overcome the various monsters hell-bent on killing you. The combat is complex and varied - no one weapon, no one suit of armour will do the job and inventory management is much more complex than 'what's my strongest weapon?' Each of the main classes has a different play-style and their early missions all differ enough to keep you hooked and replaying the campaign. If I'd compare it to any game of recent memory, I'd actually probably say Dark Souls - there's the same sense that every enemy poses a risk to your health and that each battle is a rewarding victory. Just don't forget to keep your equipment repaired otherwise it will crumble to dust half-way through a dungeon and you'll be left fighting a vampire in your undies.
