History Videogame / Syndicate

In a CyberPunk {{dystopia}}n future, the world is controlled by powerful [[TheSyndicate syndicates]] ruling it through the [[BadCopIncompetentCop police]] and [[CannonFodder military]]. The vast majority of the population just takes it because they spend much of their time on the cybernetic equivalent of [[MayContainEvil happy pills]]. You take the role of the evil overlord of one of these syndicates and control a team of cyborg killing machines, or as you call them agents, that follow your every command in a quest to achieve complete world dominance.

The second part is the tactical view where you actually do the mission by controlling your team of up to 4 agents. The tactical view sports an isometric view and some pretty impressive (for the time) environments: Cities, army bases, secret research facilities etc. that are convincingly "alive," busy streets have people and cars going about their business, trains that can be ridden, cars that can be driven, army bases have drilling soldiers and so on. These environments also react convincingly to your actions with civilians running away from your agents when they draw their weapons, police trying to stop them, and StuffBlowingUp when they shoot it.

But if you think you can go around just persuading people you are wrong. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis This! Is! Syndicate!]] And it is impossible to finish the game without killing, mayhem, and ruthless disregard for property!

Still the game lets you have quite a lot of freedom in how you actually accomplish your missions, for example if your mission is to assassinate someone you can:

* ThrowAwayGuns: You can't reload weapons in-mission. If you run out of ammo, you'll switch to a different weapon.

** To elaborate, Intelligence governs whether your agent will make a TacticalWithdrawal or fight with SuicidalOverconfidence; Perception determines whether they have HyperAwareness or [[FailedASpotCheck fail a spot check]]; and Adrenaline skews them towards either CaffeineBulletTime or [[HealingFactor faster regeneration]]. The drugs take time to replenish, so you need to judge when best to activate them.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Civilians will not react to open display of weapons, including miniguns and flamethrowers. Moreover, when the fighting ceases, they will gleefully stroll in the middle of the battlefield, not even bothering about burning cars and dozens of corpses lying around.

* MindControlDevice: The neural chips are as common as cellular phones -- anyone with the right chips and programs can "breach" another person's chip and jam its connection to their weapons, make them attack their allies, or even ''shoot themselves in the head.'' The PlayerCharacter and co-op characters are among the few people with this capability.

* FishingForMooks/HitAndRunTactics: A very effective way of eliminating groups of enemies is to shoot one or two with Long Range Rifles, then run away until they're reloaded, shoot again, and repeat as necessary.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In ''Syndicate Wars'', each type of person tracked on the radar appears as a different coloured dot; Eurocorp and ex-Eurocorp Agents as well as vehicles are red, Zealots are white, scientists are gold, [[{{Mooks}} Operatives]] are pink, police are blue, the Unguided are green and civilians are grey.

*** [[MurderInc The Independent Intelligence Agency]] - The {{CIA}} gone private. Being [[{{Eagleland}} American]], they [[UsefulNotes/PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower like big guns]] and their agents are chosen for being MightyGlacier[=s=].

* RevolversAreJustBetter: Two of the available sidearms are revolvers. They both do pretty good damage and have a fairly high ammo capacity. (Especially if the player buys the ammo upgrade.) One has ten rounds and is pretty decent... the other is a HandCannon, and when fully upgraded is a one-hit kill machine that can [[{{Gorn}} cut people]] [[LudicrousGibs in half at the waist]].

* WindowPain: Stray bullets and explosion overpressure will shatter building windows, which has no in-game effect but looks cool.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: You can use an anti-tank laser to vaporize people, or if you don't want to shoot anything you can run people over with an APC.

* {{Cyberpunk}}: The classic video game example. The world is run by a {{Mega Corp}}, hacking and {{Cyborgs}} in {{Badass Longcoat}}s are commonplace, the police are heavily militarised (though not to the same extent as the MegaCorp) and the soundtrack [[CyberpunkIsTechno is very much electronic]].

* ArtificialLimbs: Legs and arms made from metal, plastisteel, or cybermesh.

* ImmuneToMindControl: Downplayed. Some people are more difficult to persuade, particularly Agents and Zealots. In order to do so, the player must first persuade a large number of civilians and/or police/Operatives/Unguided (and it takes a number of persuaded civilians in order to persuade them).

** The [[{{BFG}} Graviton Gun]] costs ''[[CrackIsCheaper 6.5 million credits]]'' and is useless for [[EscortMission missions where persuading a target is the objective]] due to its tendrils of excessive energy taking out every person in the general vicinity. If you can afford this monster of a gun, though, it makes elimination missions a cakewalk, since you only have to get to within the general area of the target to hit them with it.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Averted in Syndicate Wars. [=EuroCorp=] agents and guards, as well as the Police, are universally male, barring one or two renegade female Eurocorp agents, but the Unguided and the Church of the New Epoch include plenty of female troops (Church Zealots all look the same, but when playing as the Church, some are revealed to have female names).

* FriendlyFireproof: Applies only to agents from the same company. Agents from two different companies (identified by a different colored beret) can still injure each other even if they're technically allied. Averted in the case of explosions, though - these will damage everyone.