Because of the release of Cyberpunk 2077, most players who have never experienced this genre have come to know this slightly rebellious cyberpunk world. In fact, there have been many cyberpunk games before this, but for various reasons they are not well known.
Violent Syndicate is a 2012 sci-fi first-person shooter developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by EA. However, the first work of the "Violent Syndicate" was released in 1993 as a real-time strategy game, which finally launched a new work after nearly a decade, and reappeared in a first-person shooting posture, presenting the typical cyberpunk world under "Violent Syndicate" from different perspectives.
EA smashed the eponymous reboot, and asked a number of well-known music studios to customize the theme soundtrack, such as Skrillex, Nero, Flux Pavilion, and Digitalism, to reinterpret the main theme of 1993 in the form of electronic mixing, which was evident in the huge momentum of that year.
However, the sales and evaluation of the game itself are not as eye-catching as the theme song of these four remixes, in fact, the game itself is not bad, but it is not particularly prominent. "Violent Syndicate" contains a single-player campaign and multiplayer co-op part, the length of the single player is not long, about 6 hours or so. Surprisingly, the multiplayer co-op design is quite careful, and many players think that it is much more outstanding than the single-player campaign, but the game has been launched for more than 8 years, and basically can't find other online players, which is a pity.
This work is set in the future of 2069, multinational enterprises have been too big to have any sanctions force to balance, governments have been dissolved, enterprise groups have dominated the entire world, major enterprises in order to compete for profits, do everything to the extreme, each enterprise is self-respecting, but also trained a group of high-tech transformation of the "agent" to carry out the task, blatantly seize important intelligence, destroy the interests of opponents, etc., the death or death of ordinary people does not matter at all, the rule of law society is gone, The price of scientific and technological progress is the loss of human ethics.
Under the progress of science and technology, people implant high-tech chips in the brain, in addition to strengthening the brain ability, can also be directly connected to others and the world, mobile phones have become a historical term, and people who can not afford chips have been beaten into the poor class, forgotten by the people of the upper class, and the social division has made the gap between the ethnic groups deeper. High technology, corporate domination, social estrangement, and loss of human value are typical of cyberpunk.
The player will play as an agent of the multinational enterprise Eurocorp, implant the latest chip Dart 6, strengthen the reflex nerve through adrenaline, launch the ability to fire bullet time, or easily hack into the enemy's brain chip, interfere with the enemy's combat ability, and the powerful combat effectiveness makes the protagonist become eurocorp's rising star. Carry out various tasks for the benefit of the enterprise, assassinate important targets, infiltrate hostile enterprises, etc., and sometimes even negotiate with enemy agents.
Sci-fi gunfights, a battle between cutting-edge technologies
In the battlefield of 2069, it is natural to rely on high technology to win the opponent, the protagonist as a pioneer in receiving the latest technology, has the combat ability to surpass the average soldier, the latest brain chip allows the protagonist to temporarily strengthen the reflex nerve, launch bullet time and strengthen the visual ability, see is to be good at the whole time one by one headshot or quickly withdraw from the dangerous occasion, but also to interfere with the enemy gun to make it backfire and injure themselves, or hack into the enemy's brain chip, transform the enemy to make it fight for you, Or make him self-injure his accomplice. Multiple abilities can be used in a more mixed way, improving tacticality.
And the enemy is not a lamb to be slaughtered, in the face of a powerful protagonist, the other side will also send a stronger enemy, the later it is more and more difficult, such as the shield soldiers that are difficult to break in the front, the jammers who use the obstruction ability, the elite soldiers wearing invincible shields, the heavily armored soldiers with chain cannons, and the mixed squads of multiple arms are very tricky, and they must make good use of the chip ability to win. In addition to the regular guard soldiers, there is also a chance to negotiate with enemy agents who are also armed with eighteen martial arts.
Unfortunately, the weapon is not so creative, in the science fiction world, the weapon performance is mostly decent, in addition to the conventional pistols, rifles, snipers, shotguns, only one tracking gun is more gimmicky, and the other electric paralyzing bullet can only be used in cooperative mode. In terms of heavy weapons, chain guns, flamethrowers, and cluster missiles are not new things, and it is a pity that they do not make full use of science fiction themes to create novel scientific and technological weapons.
A science fiction shootout that falls short
The design of the special ability adds a lot of fun to the bunker gun battle of this game, when facing a large number of enemy troops, you can first transform an enemy to disperse the firepower, when the enemies are clustered together, trigger the enemy to explode to kill multiple enemies, the backfire can paralyze 2-3 enemies at the same time, the paralysis time is short but can be compensated by bullet time, the most common bullet time can be used at any time, and the accompanying visual enhancement allows the player to hack the enemy hiding behind the bunker. The enemy side also introduces special enemies to increase the challenge, and does not make the protagonist too powerful.
However, the biggest drawback is the design of the battle site, which fully reflects the most common disadvantage of the linear campaign level: the battle site is too narrow, that is, many players often criticize the "walkway shooting game", the player is often limited to a very narrow combat space, such as a walkway or indoor, and the limited field usually has only a few bunkers to hide, usually there is no back road to retreat, there is also a small detour to reorganize the space, and the tactics are quite limited. And AI is good to die is "can't see the player will be forced over" mode, for players who are often suppressed by the enemy behind the bunker, the enemy will continue to come close to the pressure, there is no room for breathing back blood, sometimes there is only one bunker to hide, the enemy has been throwing grenades, often creating a negative experience.
Another disadvantage is that the lens is very shaky, this work added the action visual simulation design, where running, jumping and even changing weapons and other various actions will cause the lens to shake a lot, this simulation of real action caused by the field of vision shaking usually only appears in the simulation of the game, I don't know why a few years ago many developers like to engage in this design, in addition to causing the visual experience is not smooth, it is also easy to cause some players 3D halo, every game that joins this design is the bloody head of the dog approved by the player, As a result, it has not been seen in recent games.
summary
"Violent Syndicate" as a cyberpunk style first-person shooter game, there are advantages and disadvantages, although the world view of the portrayal is not sloppy, but the presentation is not very good, unless the player is willing to collect and read the text in the game, otherwise it is difficult to understand some delicate design. The part of the sci-fi gunfight varies from person to person, and players who like to face each other head-on and are good at using their abilities should be able to enjoy the fun of gunplay, but for players who play conservatively and like guerrillas, they will not play very well because of the limited combat field.
Other shortcomings, such as too shaky shots, less playable, bland plot, and stiff action, also detract from the value of this game, which is also the reason why the evaluation of this game is more polar. Whether it's fun or not, just judge it according to your own intuition.