[athcnv]

Actually, I quite liked Syndicate Wars. The atmosphere of high tech and black/dark urban decay, and the improved graphics. Also, in one of the original Syndicate (S1) missions, once shooting started every flipping enemy agent on the map started running at me (don't know if this was scripted, or a bug with the enemy AI)

Also, on the second mission, you have to be careful when going to the extraction point - it's near a sewer. I went inside the sewer, and 2 of my agents died immediately, so I had to restart the mission! Not sure if you are not supposed to go in it, or if it was a bug, and I was supposed to go in there....

As for the Genesis version, I think you could only control one agent at a time....er....but I wasn't really paying attention.

A major problem with Syndicate Wars (SW) was the manual - (actually, 2 manuals), which had quite a lot of errors and important stuff missing. Like how to get out of the game from a mission that you had failed....press escape, not spacebar (the latter just restarted the mission-so you could end up trapped-especially if your agents couldn't be self destructed!).

In addition, unlike in S1, you don't seem to receive cash as time elapses (since I think this meant people would leave their computers running all night to accumulate cash - why the game designers didn't have it so that cash only accumulated during the time taken for game missions I don't know (although, you could get round that by completing the mission, then waiting before getting to the extraction point).

Even worse, the manual says that Eurocorp Syndicate departments are supposed to pay each other for services rendered - though who pays you is not clear. It seemed that the only way to get funds was to;
1: Take weaponry off dead enemies and sell it
2: Rob banks (BUT again, the game doesn't state which buildings are banks! (And they don't have a big "BANK" sign on them either!) Luckily, I figured out which were the buildings - and how to rob them (er....you have to blow up the bank, by putting explosives either near a wall on the INSIDE of the building, or near a door on the inside of the building).

Oh yeah, weaponry works differently in this game - no solid state ammo - each agent has a "Microfusion reactor" powerpack, which constantly generates power for a battery. Each weapon in the game depletes this battery (faster than it is generated). When out of power, you have to run and hope you stay alive long enough for the reactor to get enough juice so you can fire your weapon again. Because of this, each agent CANNOT have more than one copy of each weapon or item (not even medkits, although you can equip a medkit and an auto-medkit).

Luckily, it turns out that miniguns, despite being the 2nd weapon you get (the basic firearm for this game is the uzi!), are actually better than the more advanced (and expensive) pulse laser and electron (er....electric?) gun - so no problems with selling those!

Another problem was that the game engine could be unstable - probably due to the fact that the game allowed 360 rotation, zooming in and out, and (I think) view angle changing, as well as "deep radar" (buildings which were in the way would turn into semi-transparent purple blocks, so you could see everything). Probably too experimental or beyond current technology or something. Sometimes, I got white lines going everywhere along the pavements.

Then, finally, the key for the radar in the manual - which wasn't completely accurate. What it failed to mention was that in many levels, you would have to kill people whose termination weren't strictly mission objectives (i.e.: not highlighted by that red moving circle thingy). It also failed to mention that there were quite a few agents and combat operatives who were NOT on your side.