Syndicate
Rejected for: No character development
United Kingdom
Bullfrog Productions (developer); Electronic Arts (publisher)
Released 1993 for DOS and Amiga; 1994 for FM Towns, PC-98, and Macintosh; 1995 for 3DO, Amiga CD32, and Atari JaguarWhat a depressing backstory. Syndicate proposes a future in which mega-corporations have taken over the world and implanted most of the population with computer chips that control their behavior. You control one of these corporations, EuroCorp, which has decided to eliminate all rivals and take over the world. When I read this, I thought, "Surely, there's some option to play this game subversively; to take down EuroCorp from the inside." But the Wikipedia article seems to suggest otherwise. You literally spend dozens of hours playing one of the vilest "characters" in game history. I was briefly excited to see that there's an expansion pack subtitled American Revolt, but no, it's about putting down the revolt.
A very nice-looking opening cinematic shows agents of EuroCorp abducting random citizens off the street, forcing them into a "Leonardo Device," attaching cybernetics to their bodies, and sending them off to fight the corporation's wars.
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| This cinematic has better graphics than almost anything we've seen through 1993. |
[Three times already, I've accidentally typed "EvilCorp" instead of "EuroCorp." This is no doubt the influence of Mr. Robot, a television show that I suppose deals with some of the same themes. I watched the first season recently, was perhaps more blown away by the final two episodes than any previous two episodes of television, and then couldn't force myself to keep watching Season 2. The show is amazing but grim. I need at least optimism, if not outright happiness, in my media.]
I guess EuroCorp is the canonical name of the company, but you can choose your own when you start a new game. You then set your company's logo from options that include a frog (the default), a fist, an eagle, a hammer, something that looks like "SS bolts" except there are three of them, a helmet, an 8 ball, and--in the ultimate bit of (perhaps intentional) irony--an ankh cross. You can also set the background color for your symbol.
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| Setting up the evil company. |
You start the game by clicking "Begin Mission," at which point the game transitions to a world map divided into multiple colors, I guess indicating the different factions at work. As time passes, the areas of the world change color as (I guess) the various factions conquer them, although I don't know if that has any effect on the plot. You only get one choice for the first mission, the assassination of a western European army colonel who has been stealing weapons from EuroCorp--or, in my case, ChetCorp. During the briefing phase, you can spend money for additional intelligence, hints, and more details on the mission map.
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| The mission brief for the second mission. |
Before the mission, you choose a team. You start with eight characters; each mission uses four of them. During this phase, you can spend money on "research" to build better weapons and other items, purchase cybernetic modifications for team members, and buy items of equipment for your team. The members start with pistols and nothing else. I found that the $30,000 that I started the game with went pretty far.
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| Upgrading a team member to cybernetic legs. |
The missions are the heart of the game. They take place in an axonometric view and in real time. Your squad members are numbered (the numbers float above their heads), and they can be controlled individually or as a group. Most actions are done with the mouse, like clicking where you want the characters to move, which is mostly fine with this sort of interface. There are keyboard backups for a few things, such as scrolling the map and selecting individual characters. A combination of clicks and right-clicks select specific weapons and target enemies. You can also put the characters into "Panic" mode in which they just automatically blast the nearest enemy with the best weapon for the job.
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| The first mission begins. |
It's the kind of combat system that takes a while to get used to, and fortunately the game eases you into it with an extremely easy opening mission, which has just a few enemies. The only real danger is that the colonel will run away before you kill him, but that's somewhat easily mitigated with "Panic" mode.
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| We killed the colonel just as he was getting into his car. |
The second mission, in Scandinavia, requires you to use a device called a "Persuader" to convince a couple of scientist characters (most maps have civilians as well as enemies) to join your corporation. The third, in Central Europe, asks you to eliminate a rebel group in a small town ("This will leave the town open for our marketing boys"). A successful mission is rewarded with a brief cinematic of a parade and fireworks. A failure is amusingly rewarded with a cinematic of the CEO (you, I guess) sitting in a chair and throwing a lamp through the holographic projection screen that informs him of the outcome.
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| Mission success . . . |
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| . . . and failure. |
Various miscellaneous items about the missions:
- You're supposed to target enemies by right-clicking on them. I found it nearly impossible to do this while they were moving, and my characters wasted a lot of rounds on the pavement where enemies used to be standing. I was only successful fighting in "Panic" mode.
- Meters track health, perception, intelligence, and adrenaline. The latter three decrease as the mission drags on (particularly as you over-use "Panic" mode) but can be boosted with drugs.
- A scanner in the lower left corner depicts enemies, civilians, and mission targets. You can buy a separate scanner device, but I'm not sure what it does that you don't get by default.
- There are a lot of buildings, but you can't really "enter" them, or at least not in the missions that I played. You can open the door and sort-of go in, but the roof never disappears to show you what's inside. My understanding is that if a target is inside a building, opening the door will cause him to exit.
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| I opt for a frontal assault on a guarded building. |
- The pathfinding isn't great around corners.
- I didn't really get how the "persuader" works, and the second mission therefore took me a few tries.
- If there are vehicles on the map, you can enter them and drive them around. The third mission starts with the characters in a vehicle, and you have to drive it through the gates before you can exit and start massacring the town.
- Each weapon gets a limited amount of ammo, and there's no way to reload during a mission. You have to manually reload (a "reload everything" button would be nice) in between missions. Thus, you want to bring a couple weapons per character. There are the usual weapon considerations; rifles are best at long range, shotguns at close range, and so forth.
- You can pick up weapons from slain enemies during the mission. Some of them are better than what you already have, and thus become part of your armory for future missions. During the first mission, for instance, I found an Uzi. It's hard to believe that a corporation of this amount of wealth and power didn't already have access to Uzis, but there it is.
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| I pick up the Uzi of a guard I killed. |
- I guess if you want to get additional agents, you have to use the "persuader" device to get them to come with you during a mission.
- There are a couple of unfortunate keyboard shortcuts, neither of which asks for a confirmation. ESC has you abort the mission. It's an easy one to hit if you're used to playing other games in which it serves other functions. The "D" key has you detonate an explosive device, killing all characters and any enemies in the area. I guess it's a last-ditch option if you're going to die anyway.
You get rewarded financially for successful missions. Among the first three missions, the rewards were generous enough that I'm not sure why you wouldn't always buy the extra intelligence during a mission briefing, or upgrade all your characters with all cybernetic upgrades. That still hardly puts a dent in what you have available. You effectively control areas after successful missions (though the manual suggests they can rebel, requiring you to replay the mission), and you can set a tax rate that continues to pour money into your coffers. Maybe I needed to invest more in "research."
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| A mission debriefing. The 13 hours is game time. |
Alas, the one thing that you don't get from missions is experience or leveling. The only way to improve characters is to buy them equipment upgrades. I know some people don't see much of a distinction, but you have to recognize that if equipment boosts count as character boosts, almost every action game becomes an RPG.
It's possible I could have made friends with the combat system, but I didn't really like it for the first few missions, even as I appreciated some of its elements. Generally, if a game has multiple characters, I want the combat to be turn-based like the Gold Box games or Ultima IV-V (or Enchantasy for that matter). If the game wants to offer real-time combat with multiple characters, I prefer that I can set some defaults and only have to worry about the lead character, as in Ultima VII. There are some exceptions, like Dungeon Master, but even there the "cool down" system meant that you mostly had to worry about only one character at a time.
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| I'm not surprised that Western Europeans are "very happy" with a tax rate of only 50%. "I thought this game was supposed to be dystopian," confused European players must have said. |
The first three Syndicate missions weren't too bad, as the party could mostly act as a unit. I suspect they'll get more complex and require characters to peel off to different parts of the map, and it's here that I think I'll start to find the system too cumbersome. I'd almost rather control a single character on these missions.
Since I'm rejecting Syndicate as an RPG, I can skip right to the end. A YouTuber named "aulddragon" has a 22-episode "let's play" on the game. (I don't think I've ever encountered him before, but he has a very pleasant and clear narration.) He catalogs a variety of assassination, persuasion, sweep, reconnaissance, hostage-rescue, destruction, equipment-retrieval, and escort missions. There are apparently around 50 total missions, but I was surprised to see that even towards the end, they tended to be short; even late in the game, some of them require no more than a few minutes.
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| I clear out a city. I'm not sure who blew up the car. |
The final mission takes place on the "Atlantic Accelerator." The mission notes that the Atlantic Ocean "has become one of the most polluted seas of the world." "One of the most" made me chuckle, as if there are so many more on the list. The mission takes place on a complex in the middle of the ocean, which somehow has a population of over 43 million. Scientists working on the Accelerator are on the verge of some discoveries that may "save the planet." You have to eliminate all resistance on the platform, which comprises teams from all other syndicates, making a last-ditch effort to save themselves.
By this point in the game, both the characters and enemies have massive automatic weapons, lasers, and explosives, so the battle does seem appropriately epic. It took aulddragon a couple of tries.
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| A shot of the final battle from aulddragon's LP. |
If I had played this game and won, I would have been annoyed at the ending--or lack thereof. You just get the normal "success" cinematic that you get at the end of every mission, followed by the game's credits.
Wikipedia's article on the game says that it was "critically acclaimed upon release, with particular praise for the realistic presentation, writing, and violence of the gameplay." The article's own "reception" section, though, suggests that reviews were far more mixed. A similar contradiction is found in Computer Gaming World's coverage: In the September 1993 issue, Wyatt Lee gave it a lukewarm review. He didn't like the repetitive missions, the confusing "research" system, and many of the research elements, though he did like the graphics and concluded that it was a "polished and significant effort." A lot of reviews talk about the graphics and their violent nature. Yes, when you blast enemies, they go flying backwards and there's some blood, but is this really all that notable in 1993? I also think the graphics are too small to be really, well, "graphic."
Anyway, the magazine thought better of the game by November 1996 and included it on their list of "150 Best Games of All Time," down at #67. Let's have a direct quote from the sociopathic reviewer, with my own emphasis: "After a hard day, it was just fun to mow down civilians in this strategic action game of futuristic gang warfare." Those last three words make me think that the reviewer is thinking of another game, too.
I'm still stuck on why the story has to be so grim. I don't mind grim settings, even post-apocalyptic ones, but I like my mission in such games to make the world better. I guess this was par for the course for the Surrey-based Bullfrog, though: their previous games include 1989's Populous (you're a wrathful god seizing control of the world from other gods) and 1990's Power Monger (you're a megalomaniacal warlord conquering the world). We shouldn't encounter them again; none of their other games are tagged as RPGs by any source. Digital Antiquarian Jimmy Maher has a couple of good articles on the studio, starting with its founding and continuing with the years that include Syndicate. Bullfrog was bought by Electronic Arts in 1995 and dissolved by 2001. Co-founder Peter Molyneux went on to form Lionhead Studios, famous for the Black & White (continuing the "god game" genre started in Populous) and Fable series.
Syndicate had a 1997 sequel called Syndicate Wars and a 2012 first-person shooter reboot called Syndicate, the latter developed by Starbreeze Studios for Electronic Arts.
Everywhere I look these days (although, admittedly, I mostly look on Reddit), I see warnings about the influence of megacorporations and particularly the data that they collect. But I have to admit that my own life has been massively enriched by the stability that Microsoft brought to file formats (I can still open a document I created 30 years ago!), the convenience that Amazon brought to shopping, and the wealth of data that Google brought in dozens of different areas. It still boggles my mind that Google Maps isn't a paid service; how did anyone get anywhere before it?! I'm no fan of Elon Musk, but I had to admit that both Tesla and SpaceX are pioneering technologies that we'll desperately need in the future. Neither am I much of a fan of Walmart, but I recognize that its cheap clothing, food, appliances, and housewares are literal lifesavers to impoverished people in rural areas. So in many ways, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. What's your take on the warning offered by Syndicate?
This is one of those that I played and replayed back in the mid-90s.
ReplyDeleteIt perfectly captured--and still captures--a cyberpunk vibe that has always landed with me and had its moment in those days. Think Stallone's Judge Dredd or Johnny Mnemonic. It all culminated for me in Deus Ex, still perhaps the game I consider the most perfect RPG.
I always thought of myself as a liberator, like the America of the corporate future, bringing freedom to the enslaved. I was young then.
The research was my favorite part and is 100% the driver for upgrades and advancement in the game. Your budget seems generous because research is a voracious budget monster, and you weren't researching. Cost grows exponentially based on what you're researching and how fast you want it. The cybernetic augmentations were always my favorite, and absolutely game changing.
Whether it could qualify as an RPG with more attention to research I don't know. I do know that I role played it. I was no civilian blaster. I played conscientiously to the mission objectives and avoided unnecessary collateral damage wherever possible.
I'll comment with a bit less hostility and moralising than Anonymous, especially in answering about 'the other shoe to drop.' You're not wrong that much of Western society benefits from things provided by megacorporations! But to borrow William Gibson's phrase: 'the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed.'
ReplyDeleteYou are probably in a situation where you are feeling most of the benefits but not necessarily all of the constraints. You might know some folks who are feeling them, though. Is there anyone in your life who, through no fault of their own efforts, can't afford decent housing or food, at least compared to something like 30 years ago? A lot of that is due to what we now call megacorps. (I would put energy companies in that category as well.) It is worth noting too that much of what they produce relies at some point on labour that is being paid far below what a Western citizen would consider 'fair' or even 'livable.'
The various shoes that are in various precarious possibilities of dropping:
Supply chains: A lot of what makes that system work is an invisible system of shipping, and it doesn't take much for it to get thrown off. Remember the ship that got stuck in the canal? It was a transport ship full of shipping containers. There could be a war, or a resource shortage, or a disruptive technological change, or a pandemic, that would drastically change the availability of what the west has come to assume should just be readily available. In my city, we had toilet paper shortages, not even because of an actual supply chain problem but at the hint of one. At the height of this, I watched a youtube video suggesting that we use plastic shopping bags as toilet paper and then bleach/wash them, and I felt the brushings of a cyberpunk dystopia around me.
Unacknowledged externalities: This is kind of connected to supply chains but it's also about how we don't have solid plans for recycling a lot of our waste, and, frankly, climate change. Things that are part of 'just doing business' that you never see. Google Maps makes you the product by tracking your searches (and your movement), aggregating and selling that data to advertisers and such. But also: your phone isn't the thing actively pinging satellites; it's just talking to a Google Server somewhere, and that server is doing that for thousands of others at the same time... that is a LOT of energy. Though they're not acknowledged, they tend to crop up later in the form of pollution or lack of access to resources... or in the case of people, riots and strikes as the populace becomes more and more frustrated.
Stock market bubbles: There's a lot here, and it's complicated, but in broad strokes... much of the entire western economy sits on top of valuations, not concrete value. And the things receiving those valuations are debt companies, and tech companies presuming the value of the data they've collected. If all of the sudden a significant chunk of people stop paying debt, or if that data proves to be not as valuable as advertised, we could see something akin to the 2008 mortgage crash. Added to this: companies make moves that promote the illusion of profitability (firing employees so as to lower the HR spending just before a report) to boost their stock valuation, but most of these moves actually hamper the long-term sustainability of that company.
Those are just some of the elements that give the perceived success of megacorps a bit more of a tenuous footing than it may appear.
This is a very good answer and it takes the discussion far beyond the point that I am ready to engage, so I probably shouldn't have introduced it with such a flippant final paragraph.
DeleteI agree with you that some things have become awfully expensive but at the same time that other things have become remarkably cheap. If you were to graph the things that are causing people the most trouble paying bills (housing, education, medical care) and those that are almost trivially inexpensive (Internet access, communications, entertainment), I think you'd find that megacorporations provide most of the latter and most of the former are provided by a large group of smaller companies operating on thin profit margins.
If Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. are influencing the costs of housing or education, I may be naive, but I need someone to draw me a line.
Finally, while I get your comments on supply chains, I actually thought that what happened during COVID showed a surprising amount of resiliency in our supply chains. Some people were impacted for a brief period by lack of availability of some products--during a global pandemic. I thought it honestly showed more about how whiny we've become at the smallest disruption in our lives and less about actual supply chain issues.
Fair point abuot housing and education; however medical care really appears to be in the hands of megacorps (i.e. pharma and insurances).
DeletePharmaceutical companies, I grant you, at least in the United States. I'm not sure the average person is affected much by the high cost of drugs, but certainly people with certain conditions are.
DeleteAs for insurance companies, are they really responsible for the high cost of health care, or are they just making money on its fringes? This is one of those areas in which I feel there are a lot of providers (e.g., hospitals, ambulance services, physicians) all independently charging absurd amounts of money.
Indeed, any discussion on U.S. healthcare and the corporations/entities involved would be incomplete without mentioning the providers. There are some hospital systems that have become absolutely huge, with billions of dollars in revenue. They're not making that kind of money thanks to their low cost services.
DeleteA good example of why your products are still not prohibitively expensive is that they keep finding ways to reduce labour costs. It would be nice to think that this is due to automation, but more often it's due to finding ways to more or less bring slave labour back.
DeleteOften this is overseas, but agriculture in the western world is based on despicable forms of exploitation and human trafficking that's only gotten worse in the last 20 years. And in most countries it's either legal (because the laws are written by the interest groups that benefit from this exploitation) or the laws aren't enforced (because the interest groups pressure the government to underfund the watchdogs and regulatory agencies).
Costs are rising anyway though, and eventually even these practices aren't going to be enough. Citizens in first-world nations flip out when they see bare shelves in the supermarket so politicians will do anything to delay that inevitable day.
Pharmaceutical companies get a bit of a bad rep. Developing a pharmaceutical takes a very long time, is very complex (not just the science but all the legal stuff), and there is a high risk that it produces no return. The medication that you can buy must cover these costs, plus investors will expect a higher return on a risky investment.
DeleteI'm not saying there's no profit-making based on people's suffering going on, just that it's not that simple.
What's more worrying is that all the production has been outsourced to countries with low environmental standards, leading to lots of pharmaceutical waste being dumped into the environment. That must be like an ISIS boot camp for bacteria.
...except that usually, medication is developed by _universities_, and then if it works, the pharma company buys the patent. So the university takes the risk, and pharma gets the returns.
DeleteThe idea that pharma companies spend a lot of money and risk on developing medication is largely a myth spread by... pharma companies.
I know enough people working for pharma companies to know that this is not a myth. Yes, universities contribute a lot to research. Some of that with funding from pharma companies. It's still a long way from research to an approved medical product.
DeleteI played this back in the day. Loved it, but my reflexes are too poor to get far with real-time games.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether your last paragraph on corporations is sarcastic or not. Yes, corporations have made many things cheaper and more convenient - at the cost of exploitation (often abroad so we don't care), pollution, erosion of social security etc. Because ultimately, these organizations care about nothing outside their profit margin. Personally, I'd rather have a game where I play a bad character/organisation, than one where I'm noble but it's all a lie.
"These organizations care about nothing outside their profit margin." First of all, I've never subscribed to such a belief because corporations are made up of individuals, and most individuals manifestly DO care about things other than profit margin, and there have been some corporations that have done amazing things for charities and communities, likely via the influence of such individuals.
DeleteBut to the extent that I do agree with the statement--so what? Sure, businesses exist to make money. That's nothing new or revelatory. As long as they do it within the law, then any net negative impacts on society or the environment or whatever are a failure of the law, not of the corporation.
"Personally, I'd rather have a game where I play a bad character/organisation, than one where I'm noble but it's all a lie."
DeleteI feel the same way. Heroic narratives in a modern/near-future setting conveniently keep us from questioning the institutions that benefit from the status quo.
I see the point of your second paragraph. But to me, "every behavior is equal unless against the law" is a) highly impractical in everyday life b) morally questionable.
DeleteSocial and cultural norms (such as "don't exploit your workers too much") exist because at the everyday level, relying only on the law to govern social relations is extremely cumbersome and often impossible. And, of course, heavily influenced by power relations. As an unskilled worker, am I really going to sue my future employer for some minor liberties they took in setting up my work contract - and risk not having an employment at all?
Corporations, on the other hand, have basically only one norm, which is "gain maximum profit". (I'm of course talking of the organisation, its rules, guidelines etc. here, not of the inviduals. Who far more often than not assume their organisation's rules rather than their own in their employee role). To see such entities, who really would do anything within the law (and, if not caught, also outside the law), gain such massive power is disturbing to me.
The general point of megacorps is that they can break the law with impunity because they can afford better lawyers than you can.
DeleteSure, that's _also_ a failure of the legal system; but that doesn't absolve the megacorps from their part in it.
They break the law all the time, but the penalty is often a fine so small it does nothing to stop their illegal practices.
DeleteFirstly, let's acknowledge that there are still countries where the "law" is enforced largely on the basis of who can or cannot afford to pay people to look the other way.
DeleteSecondly, money translates into access and influence anywhere in the world, law or not. If Elon Musk wants ten minutes on the phone with someone powerful, his odds of getting that promptly are considerably higher than mine (which I would estimate as near zero as one can get). Research in the US seems uncertain about whether that translates into how laws are made. But corporations and the megarich have the resources to influence what laws get passed.
Additionally, if I'm operating a local business, I don't get to pick and choose the law. A megacorp has a lot more options: where are they headquartered, for example. But more to the point, they can simply shield themselves through subcontracting. If it saves enough money, shift all your manufacturing to a country with laws you prefer. Or just outsource risk while retaining profit.
Big Tobacco spent--and still spends--big money on philanthropic causes. That has historically been one of the arguments the industry uses to fight against any attempts at regulation. It was human beings, generous and loving, who made the machinery of the Holocaust operate: everything wonderful and awful about humanity was accomplished by people, by definition, so megacorps being made up of people says nothing more or less about their function than the worst or best of human institutions.
On balance, Chet, would you rather that your doctor or your insurance company get the final word about your medical care? Would you rather regulators and government make decisions about safe levels of local pollutants, or big corporations?
I think the word "care" is a stumbling block here, because it's not really about emotional states but about policy and priorities. The question is never how we feel, but about what we do and are obligated to do.
DeleteTake the typical university, which these days will take an explicit moral stance on many issues. But will it sacrifice its own fiduciary interests to do so? Generally speaking, no, because the survival of the university (expressed in terms of fiscal health) is its unspoken, highest priority. If it appears to be making a sacrifice, it's because it expects a return tenfold in terms of PR, enrollment, etc.
We can only sense the institution's true priorities if its survival is at risk -- if, for example, a failing university were offered a huge cash infusion in return for espousing a set of principles contrary to its core mission or the beliefs it affirms. Until you hold to a principle in the face of tremendous sacrifice, or even existential threat, it's not really a principle -- just a thing you like to tell people you believe because it makes you look good.
Similarly, a company might appear to "care" about something, but the fiduciary duty of the corporate board to its shareholders is paramount. Doing the right thing exposes the board to litigation if the right thing means losing tons of money or bankrupting the company. Yes, there's debate on this point, and I'm aware of precedents like the business judgment rule. But the relationship between a corporation and the general public is, by its nature, adversarial. Their job is to maximize shareholder value by any means necessary that doesn't expose them to legal liability, and literally nothing else.
The Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court -- for those who don't know, many US corporations are headquartered in Delaware -- wrote this in 2015: "A clear-eyed look at the law of corporations in Delaware reveals that, within the limits of their discretion, directors must make stockholder welfare their sole end, and that other interests may be taken into consideration only as a means of promoting stockholder welfare."
I'm not sure how much clearer it could be that, in terms of policy, "caring" is not just irrelevant, but specifically enjoined.
Besides factors others have mentioned above, I think another aspect to consider in this context is the current state of globalization. Unless you'd have a world government with enforcing powers for globally applicable rules (not probable to happen because/and not desirable for many), there will always be places where laws and regulations designed to avoid negative impacts on society or the environment or at least to keep them within reasonable boundaries are either too weak or not enforced.
DeleteAnd there will always be corporations who make use of this and then sell the resulting products or services elsewhere / worldwide, even if those other places would not have permitted doing the same in their jurisdiction.
Excellent point, Busca! Globalization is, inherently, a de facto power and wealth transfer, thereby weakening affluent states with strong protection for workers and the environment, and theoretically benefiting less-affluent states with weak protection for workers and the environment, with corporations profiting thereby. The claim has always been that the standard of living would improve in the latter states because "a rising tide lifts all boats", but while there's some truth to that, it doesn't really account for externalities like the multigenerational consequences of environmental destruction. People are wrecking their own countries, irrevocably, for short-term survival and/or profit, turning the world into Nauru one site at a time. And most of the wealth that's drained from the affluent states (through job loss, decrease in exports, etc.) doesn't go into the pockets of the common people in poorer states, it goes into the pockets of the corporations and the dictatorships with whom they ally.
DeleteUltimately all systems will be gamed for short-term advantage unless force is used to prevent it. We all depend on rivers (metaphorical and literal) and the claim that if everyone acts in their own self-interest, everything will somehow work out, is demonstrably false when you consider how one person upstream can affect a million downstream, resulting in a small net gain for the one but a huge net loss for the million. The water conflicts in places like Ethiopia/Sudan/Egypt are, sadly, just a small taste of what's to come.
I've read that art tends towards dystopian themes in good economic times, and hopeful themes in bad times. Perhaps Bullfrog and Syndicate are "a product of their time" as they say?
ReplyDeleteI think the scanner shows you a larger section of the map in the minimap. You might have to switch/activate it. Taxes degrade the happyness stat with time, so the population won't be very happy with that tax rate for too long.
ReplyDeleteI think this game is like a lot of Bullfrog games - more style than substance and a lot of repetition. The strategy part is mostly broken - tax money and research just progress while you do nothing with no penalty, research will be finished 1/5 into the game even if you don't exploit this, and the other corporations acting on the map is entirely meaningless. The missions are the core of the game and they are good, but there's too many of them and they lack variety. Too often, all agents on the map just swarm to you. A stealth approach is pretty much impossible.
It was a pretty cool game for 1993 but I don't get its inclusion on a lot of best of lists.
Small nitpick: Google Maps isn't free for commercial purposes. I'll leave the Windows thing uncommented ;)
I think that "more style than substance" doesn't apply. Bullfrog developed a string of games that were very innovative and complex.
DeletePopulous (1989), Syndicate (1993), Magic Carpet (1994), Theme Park (1994), Dungeon Keeper (1997) - that's an incredible run.
Making a boundary-pushing game requires exploring game mechanics that work within the given concept, instead of having a clear role model to emulate. It's remarkable that they achieved this again and again.
But they didn't put enough work into level design / campaign design and making the challenges progressively more complex. The levels don't really require the players to change their approach. For example, in Syndicate, IIRC you can play a lot of missions by basically triggering the enemies to run towards your characters. Earlier games like Populous I and II or Powermonger had hundreds of procedurally generated levels. It's unclear if they even expected people to play through them.
All of Populous 1 and 2 and Powermonger have an ending sequence.
DeletePowermonger gives the ending after 81 levels. Both Populous games play it after 1000 levels, BUT you skip 5-10 levels ahead whenever you win, so in practice it's more like 130 levels. For a teenager with not a lot of other games available, that sounds very reachable.
But yeah, they're procedurally generated. Then again, so is Nethack.
Say more style than substance, say they did experiment with gameplay with uneven results as most of the software houses back then (hi Silmarils, Cryo, etc)
DeleteI love cyberpunk, have played some of the Syndicate successors more than I would like to admit (like Gender Wars) but this game never clicked for me. Wonderful use of the hi res VGA mode and wonderful mood, but it always felt clunky.
@Bitmap I don't think we necessarily disagree. I'm judging the games from a modern perspective, and I'd say all the games you mention have similar problems - they are very cool, both graphically and in concept, but are not necessarily the best games. Theme park is probably the best of the bunch (I've never played Populus), but it gets bogged down in micromanagement and repetition eventually, too. I think Jimmy Maher's article on Bullfrog was pretty spot on.
DeleteI find judging them in their historical context difficult. I know I had a high opinion of Bullfrog back then. And I guess in 1993 there hadn't been that many squad tactics games out yet, especially with that level of violence. But I still wonder, while the games were original and innovative, did they really push the boundaries that much regarding game mechanics? XCOM wasn't released much later and did a much better job integrating the strategy and tactics layer. Magic Carpet was more or less (didn't we have a game where you fly a dragon on this blog?) an arcade flight simulator. Theme Park was a standard management simulation with an innovative theme.
I finished Populous 2 (beat Level 1000). As Dalinar says, you skip ahead several levels when you win.
DeleteI loved that game (obviously). The original Populous didn't have enough variety to keep me playing to the end.
I also disagree that style over substance wasn't a problem with Bullfrog. Populous was basically creating a genre from scratch and then throwing in a random mission generator disguised as a campaign. Even if there was an ending, they obviously didn't expect people to play most levels. Games like Theme Park and Theme Hospital (IIRC) were both just management games that have the same problem that most do, if you're a casual player you're not going to find the higher end of things fun.
DeleteIn Populous, you can reshape the terrain to your will (provided you have enough mana)... which means it doesn't matter what the initial terrain layout is; you're just doing the same thing on every stage. I got bored of it after only a few stages.
DeleteAnd then I thought to myself, "Wow. Even back then, Peter Molyneux was overpromising and underdelivering."
I only ever played a few missions of syndicate. It was fun trying to hypnotoad the entire map.
ReplyDelete"What's your take on the warning offered by Syndicate?"
My sense of the issue is this:
Most people have a set of personal guidelines concerning fairness and responsibility. We sometimes refer to those guidelines as 'basic decency'.
Most corporations spend a great deal in their attempt to avoid practicing such basic decency.
Thus, the saying: "Anyone who loves the law or sausages should never watch either being made" probably applies to most things.
To me, the warnings - if not the specifics - offered by Syndicate, and cyberpunk generally, seem historically grounded, rather than theoretical. There have been [are] plenty of times and places where corruption/exploitation was [is] the only game in town. Cyberpunk asks: 'What might the next Gilded Age look like?'
I don't see how Populous can be considered bleak. It doesn't have much of a story, but frames itself as a classic good-vs-evil battle, and you have the exact same abilities as the CPU opponent. You do end up killing a lot of evil guys, but then that's also what you do in most RPGs.
ReplyDeleteyeah, the matter is how, not what.
DeleteFair enough. I didn't play it. I just based that comment on descriptions of it.
DeleteDystopian world-building has its fans. Sometimes I even think that living in a Blade Runner world might be strangely pleasant. There are quite a few anarcho-capitalists who genuinely want a dystopian world because these worlds follow the logic they subscribe to.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, big corporations are good, IF: they cant prevent new actors from entering the market, AND there's a strong separation between company assets and private assets, i.e. you don't want Elon Musk to personally possess all the assets of Tesla, et al. You have to avoid that a company cam become it's own state, a fiefdom.
So in a way, it's a good thing that you occasionally have geniuses (if not in technology, then at least in marketing, like Musk and Jobs) who disrupt the markets and are being rewarded with billions of dollars in return.
If there's a technologically stagnant industry, with the same few actors accumulating assets, it's a problem. I think that something like that is happening in the housing sector, globally.
Anyway, the game: I think I found a game-breaking strategy which is hiding behind walls and corners, letting the enemy come to you, and then burn them with a flame thrower.
It broke the game for me quickly and I finished the Atlantis mission far earlier than one should, easily on the first attempt.
If you reject this game, you might also reject the X-Com games and other games where you guide a roster but do not have a "player character". I think there's Jagged Alliance on your playlist, too. Heroes of Might and Magic, too? But I haven't played those.
XCOM Agents do get experience based on their actions and get better at doing things over time, though, as do the Jagged Alliance characters.
DeleteAh, Syndicate. The game that started my no-love-just-hate relationship with real-time party-based combat systems. I think I couldn't even win the first mission (or maybe second? Anyway, I couldn't get very far). I'm just not built for this: my brain needs time to think, and I much prefer when enemies politely wait while I execute my plan instead of running all around.
ReplyDeleteBut the idea of playing as evil entity's agent isn't so bad. I loved being the agent of fantasy secret police in Spiderweb Software's Avadon series, upholding tyrannic power of its head over the Empire against plucky rebels (you have an option to betray your employer in these games, though, even if I never took it).
My take on Evil Corporations: companies become "evil" when they can no longer expand, when the market is filled and divided. That's when they stop trying to provide better service for lower price, and start gouging customers, cutting corners, dumping waste in cheap places, use slave labor and going for regulatory capture to drive their competitors out of business or at least form an oligopoly and crush all new entrants to the field. As long as the market is still growing, corporations can be your friends. When it stops, well, everyone is going to suffer in a race to the bottom. If you think Walmart is bad now, think how much worse it could be if it drove out or bought out all competition and forced the government to enact a law forbidding anyone else to start a food-selling business. This is not impossible (though somewhat improbable, in this particular case).
I think you make a good point about expansion. Perhaps that's when the other shoe will drop, to use my metaphor, with some of the companies that I mentioned.
DeleteExpansion is definitely another shoe among the shoe closet I alluded to above!
DeleteCory Doctorow coined 'Enshittification' to describe the issue: "Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves."
We see this most with social media companies, but cases could be made that it's an issue with any company where they no longer have reasonable competition; they start optimising and squeezing everyone within their system, to the detriment of most.
Scott Alexander's excellent article "Meditations on Moloch" provides an in-depth discussion: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Delete@MaxEd: What makes you think companies would only resort to "dumping waste in cheap places, use slave labor" once they can no longer expand? I'd rather think to the contrary, if at all, they'd possibly come under more scrutiny in such matters once they are a bigger established player in the marketplace while using these means at least as much or more while still being a smaller upstart, aggressively trying to gain market share.
DeleteIn the dystopian year of 2024, evil corporations don't need to implant a computer chip to control you, they've long convinced you to carry one around all the time by choice (i.e your phone).
ReplyDeleteI mean, they didn't really have to do a lot of convincing. Smartphones are amazing, and from my perspective a lot cheaper than they ought to be given what they provide. I can read any book, watch any television show or film, access any information, communicate with any person, take photos, take videos, tether my computer, and play games on something that nestles in my pocket and costs me about $200 a month. (Don't tell my provider, but I'd gladly pay a lot more.) What am I honestly losing in this deal?
DeleteBringing this back to computer games, Christine Love's don't take it personally babe, it's not your story has an interesting meta take on surveillance. It's a visual novel where you play as a teacher snooping on your students' social media on behalf of a pretty callous school, and it is very clear about how creepy and manipulative it can get. At the very end, a minor character was mentioned who had my last name, and I was like, "Haha! Cool!" And then I read that if you played Love's previous game, Digital: A Love Story and entered a name, dtipbinsy grabbed the last name for this character. Which I should've realized, because nobody would ever use my last name for a character except to set up a specific joke. And then I realized that the game had done exactly the thing it was warning about, used my data to manipulate my feelings (but in a harmless way).
DeleteGrocery stores notoriously operate with very narrow profit margins. And yet, even now, the big chains perceive information and tracking individuals as so valuable they will offer you a discount on every purchase in exchange for linking those purchases with your phone number or other ID. They are quite literally offering you money in exchange for information. Do you have any idea how much money? Do you have any idea what the actual value of that information is to them? Are you cheating them by taking the loyalty card, or are they cheating you?
DeleteHow valuable is the information being collected from your smartphone use every day? Do you even know what information is actually collected? Do you know if it is being used, and if so, how? Could information collectable right now from your phone and ISP be misused by a state or private agent, and if so, how can you protect yourself if you don't even know what information is collected and stored?
You hate it when CRPGs hide information about their weapons, armor, and other items from you. I use an iDevice for hours every day and have no way of finding out what information might be stored or transmitted in association with that activity. Why is one more disturbing than the other? The CRPG is for fun; someone could blackmail or assassinate me with the information on my phone, if anyone cared enough to do that. Nobody has purchased a semi-automatic weapon and killed a member of my family, but that doesn't prove basic gun control measures are a bad idea.
I would just direct the comment section's attention to the ongoing history of Big Tobacco. Not only did they know, for decades, their product was killing their customers, they deliberately engineered it to be as addictive as possible while strategizing how to "replace losses" in their consumer base by hooking children. Anyone thinking they've now been broken by all that coming out and the subsequent lawsuits should consider that the industry has grown since 2000 (though more slowly than it otherwise might have).
Chet, it's just that I personally decided to live without that device, but use all these apps and services on my stationary computer - and this puts me in a different perspective, like some 'Black Mirror' episode or Carpenter's 'They live' where the ubiquity of smartphones and how people are absorbed by them becomes almost frightening.
Delete$200 a month for a mobile plan??! JFC, the amercan corps *are* evil!
Delete200$ a month for a phone ? That is shockingly expensive ! It is a typo, or you are happily throwing money out of the window !
DeleteFor all the services you listed, people pay around 10 € a month (yes: ten euros) here in France.
I don't belong to any loyalty programs out of worry for what they're doing with the data. I call it "paying the privacy tax."
DeleteSo my $200 technically covers service for two phones, and I think we're still paying off the phones themselves as part of the monthly fee. I don't know--what else do people pay in the U.S. for unlimited calling/Internet/texting on two lines?
DeleteWorrying what companies are going to do with my data is one of those things where I guess, as I said in the entry, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe I lack imagination, but I'm not really sure what they COULD do.
The past few years have certainly answered a lot of longstanding sci-fi fan questions about how a corporation could possibly pursue a business model that kills 100% of their customers in a way that is very public about their culpability, which doesn't make them any money and ends with their research lab exploding. (Resident Evil's saving throw is that around 3 or 4 games in, it becomes clear that Umbrella is in fact not any good at business and acts purely out of the fact that its leadership is insane. Again, it would be hard to understand how someone so obviously insane could be in charge of a multi-million-dollar company if one had not lived through the early 2020s)
Delete@Narsham Most people don't have a good understanding of the underlying issues to do with the protection of personal information. It helps that a lot of people have an intuitive sense that steers them to be leery even if they don't have a well-justified reason for why.
DeleteThe biggest issue is not that the companies that harvest your low-value data will do something nefarious with it, or even, really, that they will profit from it. That might be morally unsavory, but the bigger danger is actually that they WON'T care about it. If your data is an asset to them, they will protect it as such. But the data that they collect incidental to what they actually want is data they don't care about, and therefore it is data that they have absolutely no reason to spend money protecting. The supermarket wants to know my shopping habits. That information is valuable to them. So they will spend money to STOP their competitors from stealing it. But if they chose to make the system work by associating my shopping habits with my social security number, they don't care AT ALL about my SSN, so if hackers can peel my SSN out of their database (without also getting my purchase history), that's no big deal for THEM, but it's a HUGE deal for me. We protect information to the level of its importance. My shopping history is of little value to ME, but my SSN is. The situation for the store is exactly the opposite. So we're going to spend our security budget differently, and that is a big problem is they are housing MY data (Contrariwise, I probably should not be trusted to house THEIR valuable corporate data, but that wasn't ever on the table)
Probably the most famous example of a negative (or at least unintended) consequence of data collection and algorithmic tracking and targeting is this story, with the salacious headline: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did
Deletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
Chet, going back to the question of 'what they COULD do:' what this illustrates isn't even a 'what they could do' in an intentional sense, but the messy issue of all kinds of private data sloshing around creating possible interactions that no one can predict but no one wants.
The other thing is the maximal level of control with a minimal level of oversight... creating issues that the companies themselves aren't equipped to handle.
Last year, I was phished through Facebook while running ads for my theatre company. I'm pretty vigilant, but it was a busy day, I was on my way out the door, etc. etc. By the time I got home that night, my account had been 'permanently disabled,' based on the actions of the hackers after they had taken over my account. (Which involved pretending to be Meta to perform further phishing.)
There was no direct course of appeal; I ended up asking for my private data through a method that essentially made a real human look at my account, and it was reinstated without any explanation. That method was not documented: it took days of research to even discover the possibility.
Now, Facebook isn't *legally obligated* to provide me with an account, but it is also where now a significant portion of my family, network and professional community interact. For many, it's a primary method of communication and media. (For better or worse.) They have a significant portion of the human population inside their system. This essentially gives them the responsibilities and problems of the phone company without the oversight. (And they don't want that responsibility! They'd rather people just posted photos of cats and what they're having for dinner while being served ads.)
Facebook didn't WANT to cancel my account, but 21st century hacking and cybercrime mean that general users get hit the crossfire of phishers and companies every day.
Cory Doctorow shared a story on his podcast recently about a father who was sending photos of his infant son to his doctor. But they also got auto-uploaded to the Google Cloud, which then flagged them as illegally salacious, and nuked his entire account.
These are isolated anecdotes, but the main point is that the worry isn't just unethical business practices (and those definitely exist, look at AirBnB and Uber) it's that all kinds of unintentional but deeply negative black swan consequences are lurking out there.
I'm not familiar enough in detail with how these things work in the US, but I understand such accumulated data could - depending on what they reflect about a person - lead to negative consequences when it comes e.g. to insurance policies (eligibility, premiums, settlement of claims) or credit rating - which then itself might impact other aspects of life.
DeleteAnother example is pregnancy, mentioned by Jason above through the linked article. Without wanting to get into a discussion on abortion and the consequences of Roe vs Wade being overturned two years ago, for many women googling some subjects, visiting certain places or buying specific things, all of these to my understanding easily verifiable through data legally obtained, could now have very different and dire consequences if it is established or at least deducted with a high probability based on such data that they were pregnant, but did not have a delivery - or even outright that they had an abortion which was considered illegal under the applicable rules in the relevant place(s).
In general the whole field of health, anything related to medical aspects is sensitive, so compiling data relating to it is something that may bring unwanted consequences for the person concerned.
I wish more people would use cash, to make it more difficult for corporations, your bank and your government (and probably Google as well) to make a detailed list of everything you buy, instead of being loyal conzoombies.
DeleteIt is just me, but I always spent less than 200€ to buy a mobile phone. I am simply not interested in them. I cannot even imagine one whose price is so high that you have to pay it monthly.
DeleteI knew already that health care in the States is insanely expensive. Today I learned that their phones are similarly expensive.
Also, I cannot understand people who watch movies on a screen just slightly bigger than a stamp. What prevents them from reading blogs, instead ? ;-)
ABACOS
DeleteAw, come on, my iPhone screen is about the size of 18 stamps. Still, I agree in part. I only watch things I've already seen or shows that don't really offer much of a visual experience. Anything else, I save for the theater or a proper television.
But, yeah, an iPhone is like $1,000 US. Between spending that all at once or spending $30 a month for a few years (my carrier offers 0%) seems like a no-brainer to me. And I still feel that's cheap for what the device gives me.
JASON
That was a decent answer to my question. I still think that with all the data these corporations are supposedly collecting, such stories are awfully rare. Nonetheless, there are clearly some negative consequences for some people. I still don't see myself giving up the benefits of these services for fear of those consequences.
@po, corruption index says reliable banks and less cash is an indicator of less corruption, so i don´t think using cash is a solution.
Deletehttps://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023
Chet, thank you for engaging with me on this!
DeleteI'm not suggesting that you give up the benefits of the services (I'd be a hypocrite if I suggested that) and I do think there's a world where we can have a lot of these benefits, but with better safeguards around business behaviour. That can both be through regulation and long-term business planning.
My point isn't to say that we should reject these things, but that we should be aware of many of the externalities that most companies work hard to ignore or hide, like e-waste, for example.
As for the rarity of the stories, I'd gently push back on that. The nature of the issues are atomised and often incredibly specific to the situations of the people involved, but they are symptoms of common elements: unregulated control of user data, understaffed and under-resourced user assistance, lack of competition around the elements that can matter most to users, etc. etc. (Not to mention the issues I mentioned around sustainability, valuation bubbles, etc. etc.)
Because they're atomised, it's harder to see the overall situation as anything but a random assortment of anecdotes. And making some assumptions of your demographic... if it's anything close to mine, you're probably not directly feeling negative consequences since, as the primary target market, most of the benefits are being directly aimed at you.
But that doesn't mean it's rare. In fact, I'd guess that probably at least 60% of the western world has had a negative experience, at the very least a tottering of the shoe about to drop. It would be interesting to poll your readers: how many of them have been hacked/phished/scammed/etc, and how many know someone who has? In the 'non-west,' particularly the South Asian countries in which much of both cyber-crime and help-desks are located, that shoe has already dropped.
This is a subject I'm fascinated by, hence my extra activity on this post! I don't think there are easy answers... but being aware of the potential threats is a good start.
I generally buy previous-gen phones refurbed ($100-$200) and use a prepaid phone plan ($15/month). We're under $100 for service for the entire family, but we're a little unusual in that my wife and i both have jobs where we can't carry our phones at work, so we have somewhat lower data requirements than most. the main downside is that some places won't accept a prepaid phone number for identity verification purposes (Specifically, the IRS, my retirement fund, and Dunkin Donuts. But my retirement fund also won't accept a contract phone number that isn't in your own name, which seems like it would be a problem given how many people have family plans).
DeleteAs a coda perhaps to some of the unpredictable downstream negative externalities of megacorps, there was this recent story about Disney attempting to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit because the spouse signed up for Disney+...
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/14/disney-wrongful-death-lawsuit
I'm sure there's more to their argument then that, but it's a good example of how a corporation might someday leverage the rights of all of those 'terms and conditions' most of us just click through.
There is more to the argument that headlines have been leaving out: He agreed to the same terms of service when he bought the Disney World tickets. In light of that, the Disney + argument seems silly, but in the world of civil litigation, you don't leave any argument out that might persuade a judge, or you've lost the ability to make it in the future. If for some reason, the courts invalidate the terms of service that he agreed to when buying a ticket, well, the company still has the terms he agreed to when signing up for Disney +, as thin as they are.
DeleteDisney is arguing only that they need to go to an arbitrator, not that it has no liability in the case.
The arguments will almost certainly fail, and based on the facts of the case as reported, Disney will almost certainly end up paying millions of dollars even if they do go to an arbitrator. Nonetheless, that's the way the tort game is played, on both sides, and I don't begrudge anyone, massive company or single individual, from using all the legal resources at their disposal in a lawsuit. The question is whether the OUTCOMES are biased in favor of major corporations, and in this case, of course, we don't know the outcomes.
A pithier way to say this would have been: "Arguing that the civil justice system is broken by citing a corporation's legal argument is like arguing that the criminal justice system is broken just because some defendants plead not guilty."
(Apologies for the delay in engaging with this point, and I think in general a lot of great points have been made by many of us here re: what are the other 'shoes waiting to drop,' re: corporate influence on society. This is mostly a coda to the subject for me, though happy to continue if you have responses!)
DeleteMy point in raising that particular issue wasn't that the civil justice system is broken; I understand that a company is essentially obligated to use all legal resources available.
My point is specifically addressed to the two ideas that kicked off many of these debates: that many corporations seem to offer a lot of benefits to people, and that the negative externalities are unlikely to be dire. (In other words, what's the other shoe?)
The problem isn't that the argument was made (although Disney does appear to have dropped it due to the public backlash), it's more about the fact that Disney encompasses such a swath of interests that the argument was even possible. The problem is that some companies are getting big enough that we can't reasonably expect how our issues are going to intersect in the future.
If a text editor or zip-file opener somehow transmutes into the next Google over the next 10 years, and is in charge of maintaining the contact system of your apartment building, is it reasonable to be held to the terms back when all you wanted to do was edit a config file or open an old game? That is a hypothetical, and it might not happen to you, but it is acceptable if it happens to anyone?
As it relates to developments that are good for mostly everyone, an issue here is that it's predicated on the idea of a 'rational economic actor' but this tends to ignore the fact that marketing is predicated on slipping past your rationality. People incur a lot of debt for reasons that can range from capricious spending to scarcity-mindset marketing around necessary things like housing and food. (Not to mention the debt market itself, which convinces people to take on more than they can afford, using those same marketing tools.)
Although these issues might seem atomised and individual (people are making their own choices) there are still people involved, and so some level of ethics do enter into it. If there is a system that is causing harm to some, at what point do we intervene as a society or as individuals to reduce that harm?
These are the kinds of 'shoes' that myself and others see as possible out there, and why some stricter limits on monopoly and civic integration enhance safety for everyone.
I have heard about Syndicate but never played it. It reminds me (some elements) of Jagged Alliance series, so I'm curious about Chet playing it (it's not THAT far ahead, the first game). As I remember it, it does have a character development...
ReplyDeleteJagged alliance absolutely hits a lot of RPG elements. There’s an experience system in play, along with changing stats. There’s equipment, and an economy. Also being turn based I can see Chet probably enjoying it. I would class it as a very tactically focused RPG, albeit without dialogue. But there’s even side quests.
DeleteTechnically, it fits all requirements. Spiritually, it's more of a RPG, even the first one, than most RPGs. Few RPGs have as much thought put into their PCs as JA has with its mercs. Let's just say that without going into spoilers...
DeleteThis was easily one of my favorite games of the 90s. It's certainly not an RPG, but it does anticipate the Thief, Hitman, and Dishonored series in that each mission is set up as a dynamically unfolding puzzle. If you know the maps and think carefully about objectives, you can almost always complete your mission without killing a single citizen (intentionally or otherwise).
ReplyDeleteI think that makes the CGW comment even more disturbing.
DeleteYes. I don't know how serious you are, but I've long thought that something about games journalism attracts sociopaths.
DeleteIn pre-release versions of the game, the cities apparently also featured (in addition to the normal civilians) mothers with baby-carriages and dogs. Being able to kill those seems to have been a bridge too far for Bullfrog in the end (them being more worried about dogs than people here is something you could also discuss...).
DeleteThe blood was cut from the German version as well, making it at least a bit less gory. The CGW reviewer might have been disappointed.
@Chet: Regarding the cynical target (sic) of Syndicate and your wish to be able to subvert it, it's maybe interesting to know that in a later unreleased Bullfrog game, working title Creation, based in the same universe, the player would indeed have had a more morally positive aim (re-sic).
DeleteSet on an alien water world, a player-controlled submarine was to be tasked with looking after marine life (brought there from Earth's destroyed oceans) and defending it from the Syndicate, who run Earth and want to harvest a local fungus for sinister purposes.
Development went on for a couple of years for several platforms and a demo exists. More information can be found e.g. in its Wikipedia entry and on the 'Games That Weren't' website.
Maybe the reason that a corporation of your reach and evilness doesn't have access to an Uzi is that SomeOtherCorp has bought the company that manufactures Uzis and isn't selling them to Corps that are directly fighting it. (Probably this theory doesn't hold up because more than one opposing corp has Uzis.)
ReplyDeleteI think Uzis are available from the start and he just didn't buy one for his agents. Because AFAIK you can't use a weapon that you picked up if you haven't researched it yet. But that's from memory so I might be mistaken.
DeleteYeah, it's possible I missed something there. I didn't play the game that long.
DeleteUzis aren't available at the start (they are in the sequel, you might be thinking of that?). By bringing one back from a mission you get a head start on research for them.
DeleteI _think_ you can use it as soon as you pick it up, but it's been quite a while since I've played it too.
I probably just confused it with UFO: Enemy Unknown then, where you definately can't use unresearched weapons.
DeleteYou can use captured weapons, and keep them between missions, but you can't buy new instances of those weapons unless you've researched them. It's been a while since I've played, but I think you can't reload them until you've researched them too.
DeleteI introduced a touchy subject here, and it's fine if you want to comment on it, but it's brought out some anonymous trolls who hate me--I still don't understand why you people bother to read my blog at all--and so I'm going to be enforcing anonymous commenting rules on this one.
ReplyDeleteSome tips/answers:
ReplyDelete* The Persuadertron is a bit complicated to use. Basically, civilians can be persuaded easily, but they are weak and usually do not carry weapons. Security guards can only be persuaded once you've persuaded 4 civilians. Police are persuaded after 8 civilians, and Agents are persuaded after 32 civilians. Guards also count as 4 "civilians", and police as 8, and once you've got one Agent, you can persuade anything. Improved brain implants reduce the numbers required, and I think increases the range of the weapon.
* You can in fact persuade every character in a mission, which causes the game to slow down on the Amiga, as it struggles to animate so many on-screen sprites at once. You can resolve the issue temporarily by stuffing everyone into a car, like a bunch of murderous cyborg clowns.
* Research costs money and time, and the latter is measured in real time, so one way to game the system is research something, go into a mission and just wait.
* You can do the same sort of exploit with taxes. Higher rates risk rebellion, which means replaying the mission, but rebellions only happen between missions, so you can bash the tax rate up to 100% on one territory, go into a mission and wait, and collect shedloads of money, with the risk of only one rebellion.
* The grimness is at least partly tongue-in-cheek, I suspect, as it's a British game.
"The grimness is at least partly tongue-in-cheek, I suspect, as it's a British game."
DeleteMaking a game about putting down an American revolution also strikes me as rather British.
I don't think Brits really care that much about 1776, but yes, the selection of that title for the expansion disk was most likely chosen as a joke.
DeleteIt would be funny if the British were still as sore about the American Revolution as many southerners are about the Civil War.
DeleteGiven that it's as much British history as it is American, it's a surprise we don't get taught about it here, but perhaps we're just sore losers!
Delete@cRPG Addict: As I understand the Acadiens and Québecois are still sore about the French & Indian War, so I suppose it matters more if you "lose your independence" than if you "lose some colonies".
DeleteAs for the AIW in UK, I reckon that's just "old history" that's much less relevant to the history of UK ("some of our many colonies won a war and became independent a bit before the other ones") than it is obviously to the history of US. To take an even more recent example we barely teach the Indochina War in France, but in Viet Nam the process of independence from France takes the lion's share of the history program in high school (part of 11th grade and part of 12th grade, whereas the [US] Vietnam War only takes part of 12th grade.
We have the same principle here. The Netherlands used to be part of Spain (even though all of France is in between them) until we rebelled in the 16th century. This is a proud fact in all the Dutch history books, and largely irrelevant and unmentioned in Spanish history books.
DeleteVarious European nations and peoples have been at each other's throats for so many hundreds of years that it's honestly impressive that in the 20th Century, they were able to put aside their differences and create the EU. A lot of forgiving must have happened that other parts of the world could learn from.
DeleteThe court is still out over whether the creation of the EU represents "a lot of forgiving" or a short blip before getting back to the eternal project of hating each other.
DeleteOn another blog somebody left a comment that "Britain did not lose the 'Revolutionary War.' The then King (George III) continued to receive money from the Colonies but chose to end the military presence in them," so at least one Brit still appears to be sore about it. But nowhere near on the scale of sore loserdom about the Civil War, which I'm afraid isn't just restricted to Southerners (and is much rarer among black Southerners, for some reason).
DeleteSounds like he's trying to say that a large country can NEVER lose a war to a small country; it can only ever Opt Out Of Continuing The Military Operation. Which is a bit of a douchey way to describe it, but otoh, the time-honored strategy for being a small country fighting a war with a big country is "You do not 'defeat' the big country so much as you make too much of a nuisance of yourself for the big country to want to continue wasting resources on you".
DeleteTalking about the game's 'Britishness': Back when, I was somewhat confused by all the vehicles everywhere driving on the left side of the road which took a while to get used to for me, especially when it came to crossroads and turning.
DeleteNow I realize this is because it's a British game and they envisaged the whole world following their traffic rules in the future.
I'll allow that Britain did not "lose" the Revolutionary War as long as it's understood that America nonetheless "won."
DeleteBut honestly, I'm curious how George III "continued to receive money from the colonies." Anyone have any insight into what he was talking about?
I mean, the US, French, and Spanish all got concessions from Britain in the peace treaty that ended the war, so I'm not sure how you can say they didn't lose; it is the case that part of their theory of the peace was to try to normalize relations quickly, so that the UK could once again benefit from lucrative trade with the US and prevent us from replacing them as the main source of our imports, which I assume is the "continued money" mentioned above. The only other theory I can come up with is that we did agree to return or provide compensation for some seized Loyalist property, except 1) compensation went to private citizens, not the Crown, and 2) the states largely dragged their feet and didn't actually do much, despite the agreement.
Delete(Partially as a result of this and partially as a result of the unexpected weakness of the Confederation government, the UK then try to go back on some of their agreements, which led to the Jay Treaty in the early 1790s, which really was advantageous to them).
It's not really taught as part of our history (which I think is a mistake) but I've never encountered a Brit who knows about the war for independence but also thinks we didn't lose it.
DeleteYes, I was gobsmacked by that comment. I definitely don't think that that sentiment is widespread in Britain!
DeleteAlso, after the Haitian Revolution, France did eventually force Haiti to make massive payments to it (as compensation for the slaves that were freed). France still definitely lost that war.
@Ross: Sounds like he's trying to say that a large country can NEVER lose a war to a small country; it can only ever Opt Out Of Continuing The Military Operation.
DeleteThere's a school of thought that sees the survival of small countries in such conflicts is almost always an act of restraint on the part of the larger one, in that they could have gone all-in with a "Kill everyone" strategy and chose not to. This makes some sense in the nuclear era, I suppose, since any of the nuclear powers could turn a small country into glass and charcoal. In the pre-nuclear era, though, it's the kind of thing people say if they've spent too much time poring over stats and tactics, and not enough understanding politics and history.
There's a nice (but longish) video here on the making of the game, from one of the developers:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/zf94GyekoBM?si=1tTBr_UKIvSvXGx_
I think it's "persuadertron", not "persuader".
ReplyDeleteRegarding other Bullfrog games, I think Dungeon Keeper was marketed as an RTS/RPG hybrid at release. I think at least a somewhat plausible argument could be made for including it on this blog: apart from the general "dungeon crawl in reverse" concept, minions have stats and levels that increase with training and combat experience. You can also possess individual units and play as them in first-person.
ReplyDeleteI think it's useful to draw a distinction between the moral and economic aspects of corporations, even though the two may become intertwined at times. Specific to the kind of future that the game portrays, there is an underlying assumption that corporations are evil, and therefore, if the world was governed by corporation states instead of nation states, it would be a bleak existence. More plausibly, a world ruled by corporations would represent a mix of different outcomes. There would be some corporation states in which people would be better treated than others, and some in which certain beliefs would be more prominent. Framed in perhaps more light hearted terms, one might envision future debates over the relative freedoms enjoyed by inhabitants of prominent corporation states such as "Microsoft Land", "Costco Land", and "Volkswagen Land."
ReplyDeleteAt a very theoretical level, a corporation-run world can't be stable because a capitalist system works on the same principles as a heat engine: you need an "outside" for it to work. If everything is the corporation, there's no "outside" and you can't generate a temperature gradient to make the thing run. (You can, of course, fake it for a while, the thermodynamic equivalent of setting your engine on fire)
DeleteIn Populous you use an ankh to draw your people to a location, so that's probably why it's in here. (Not sure if that's what you meant by intentional irony--having one of the evil megacorps be Bullfrog itself.)
ReplyDelete(I don't know this firsthand, but your post and Bitmap's comment above inspired me to reread Jimmy Maher's articles on Bullfrog.)
My favorite memory of Syndicate is getting an entire town to follow me with the Persuadertron. The PSX could barely handle it. Hahaha
ReplyDeleteI played this so much, but I never managed to finish the escort missions. I probably missed some opportunity to block those suicidal guys somewhere. In Syndicate Wars, I didn't even manage to get that far, there was some really long mission where my guys always got oneshot.
ReplyDeleteGreat game with immersive athmosphere.
I was 13 when the game came out and played it for hours. The violence actually stuck with me, I don't recall many games from that time many games where people that get hit with a flamethrower (or an exploding car, or a rocket) run around while for a while before.collapsing, in real-time no less. Was there any game before that allowed you to blast a cop car with shotguns until it exploded and it's driver tumbled out in a smoking pillar of flame, in Real-Time no less?. I remember one particular mission where I was supposed to assassinate a target, but I had so gotten used to (and amused by) having horses of people following me around with the Persuadatron that I had forgotten to switch it off when I reached my target. That posed a problem, since you can't actually target or directly harm hit your allies, but since he was still alive that mission directive was not fulfilled yet. I ended up piling one agent with the Persuadatron (and most of my "followers" into a car and then blasting that car with my other agents until it exploded - the blast took out most of my "persuaded" followers and almost killed the agent in the car, but at least it also eliminated the target, so the mission could proceed. Writing this down like that... Yeah, the game was pretty gruesome for its time in places.
ReplyDeleteI also remember researching being completely broken - I had the game on the Amiga, and what I usually did was start the game, play 4-6 Missions, then instead of quitting I just left the game running over night - coming back the next day,, the research targets were done and tons of money had come in, so resource management became superfluous. And yeah, that final mission was an epic beast - if you didn't equip your agents with at least three Gauss Rifles and a couple of lasers and *immediately* went into panic mode when the mission started, you had no chance to succeed.
I also remember being let down by the game having no ending Cinematic, but I suppose that's because of its Amiga roots - there simply wasn't any more space for one.
Oh yeah, the taxation system was also broken, you could set the tax rate almost to maximum and have money pour in as long as you let the game running, with barely any consequences - wirst that could happen was that the country in question "revolted" after you finished the next mission, which just meant you had to okay that one again. Barely an inconvenience.
Delete*worst that* and *play that*, not *wirst* and *okay*; I really shouldn't write these comments on the phone.
DeleteEveryone else has said pretty much anything I'd want to say about Syndicate, so I wanted to chime in on "Mr. Robot." I, too, thought the first season was both amazingly good and amazingly bleak; I couldn't binge the show because it was just so relentlessly dark, and I loved the way the season ended.
ReplyDeleteI thought about watching the second season, then decided: Isn't it just better to consider that first season a perfectly self-contained short story? So, for me, they never made more "Mr. Robot." It was a grim but great one-off show.
I've watched the entire show twice (on my own and with my partner) and it's definitely worth sticking with it to the end as I think it finishes most things up really well. Admittedly the second season takes a little while to get momentum, but there's a good plot reason for that (for better or worse since it lost a LOT of viewers part way through). There's a reason why most of the episodes I'm the last season have high-9.x ratings on iMDB... But, like anything, if a show with deep dives into mental illness and drug addiction isn't what you need right now (if ever), then don't force yourself no matter how good people say it is. (Both those things are my line of work, and they got so, so many things right).
DeleteI think I watched the first ep of the next season and came to the same conclusion.
DeleteI've found most Bullfrog games to be more interesting in theory than in practice. The ideas sound neat on paper, but they often turn out to be shallow gimmicks rather anything transformative (you can slap your minions to make them work harder!), and the strategy is rarely as deep or as satisfying as it ought to be. Syndicate is one game I couldn't really get into - I like realtime strategy, but it felt twitchy, monotonous, and shallow.
ReplyDeleteThe corporate dystopian theme of Syndicate is nothing new; we've seen in explored in decades of literature, comics, and films, and is practically woven into the entire cyberpunk sub-genre that Syndicate riffs on. We just don't see many examples of it in video games (as of 1993). Syndicate is more interested in being a pastiche of the trope than it is in saying anything profound, but that doesn't mean the trope itself isn't based on a kernel of truth. Milton Friedman held to the effect that corporations are amoral and profit-driven, and we've seen repeatedly that unrestricted meritocracy leads to destructive competition followed by consolidation. Corporate dystopia as a genre seems to be these observations taken to their worst-case but still logical extremes.
I don't think there are many video games in or before 1993 that want to say anything profound, really. Outside of Ultima 4's virtue system and Wizardry 4's qabalah influences, I'd struggle to think of any example.
DeleteI'm not a big fan of Syndicate, but it seems hardly fair to judge it for being not profound when pretty much every video game of that age is not profound.
My second paragraph wasn't meant as criticism of Syndicate, just an observation brought on by Chet's last paragraph.
DeleteI don't have anything to add about Syndicate besides what I wrote in another thread on it on the blog a while ago and what others have said here, so I'll limit myself to engaging with the 'megacorp' discussion in some of the respective threads.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the cyberpunk genre (and I'm not super knowledgeable here), it's supposed to be bleak and grim dark (hence the punk). You sure can RP in this setting bringing a little light to it, but I think as soon as you're working for/acting as the corpos, no, you're the(a?) bad guy
ReplyDeleteAhhh this one brings back fond memories of being 10 again in 1994 and playing this at my friend's house. Going epic on the persuadatron and having the whole city follow you around it etched in the memory. We also played the sequel -Syndicate Wars - where you get the opportunity to play as an oppositional faction to the Syndicate - although they end up being religious fundamentalists who want to brainwash everyone as wlel, so little hope nor joy in the Syndicate universe!
ReplyDeleteIt is worth reading the manual. My memory is that it gives a history on how the geographical syndicates formed and is often quite hilarious, although a bit on the nose with the racial stereotypes. I believe it depicts the Oceana corp as a kind of mafia run by angry, vegemite chomping Australians who reverted back to their convict criminal roots. As an Australian myself, I'm allowed to find that funny.
Curious that the dystopian aesthetics in the 80s and 90s depicts a world in which it always seems cold, twilight and endlessly drizzly. That almost sounds better than the last summer we had in Western Australia, where we had no rain for 7 months and 100+ degrees every day (I'm even doing farenheit for you). Good old global warming. Would've given my left leg for a bit of old fashioned 90s dystopian weather trope, acid rain and all.
I'm suprised it came up on the list and although I was looking forward to you playing it, I'm not surprise it got BRIEFED. It is closer in feel to X-Com, I believe, than an RPG.
Have definitely a few counter arguments on the relative merits of corporate monopolies driven by endless growth neoliberalism on a finite planet, maybe another day...
I vaguely remember a Sierra (or was it?) game that was similar to Syndicate. It was futuristic (robots/mechs, not people with implants), isometric, mission based, but there were RPG elements, like the robotic soldiers would get level ups based on how many enemies they killed during a mission, etc.
ReplyDeleteI just can't remember the game's name
Crusader: No Remorse, maybe?
DeleteI think that "Crusader: No Remorse" was an Origin Systems game. Maybe the Sierra game was "Starsiege"?
DeleteDungeon Keeper is a pseudo-RPG in that your units level up, you can (and should) train them to level them up in various missions, and there's a bit of continuity in that you can transfer one or two units to the next mission if you find the item for it. Great game but probably not what you're looking to cover with this blog. If you do play it, do try the KeeperFX mod as well!
ReplyDeleteAhh Syndicate.
ReplyDeleteI did wonder why it was on this list, and thought perhaps I was confused but I wasn't. It isn't an RPG (as you rightly pointed out) but I always though Syndicate (for me, probably personally as well) marked something where computer games stopped being 'mostly rubbish' to being able to be 'mostly good' (if they wanted to be).
Better graphics, longer gameplay and more options becoming possible. I think it also marked the end of the Amiga as a modern gaming platform and when I shifted from the Amiga to PC gaming (and never looked back).
As to the 50% tax rate..... luxury! I wish I paid a rate as low as 50%. I think my marginal is about 72%.
Wow. I was kidding with that joke and was wondering why more people haven't commented on it.
DeleteWell, since you asked for it...
DeleteAges ago, I tried "Sim City". I started with a low tax rate, 20%, but soon people were leaving my city because of it. I concluded that the game was either bugged or ridicolously unrealistic, I uninstalled it and never went back to it.
In Italy, it is common that small entreprises go bankrupt simply because they paid all the taxes.
Still, I suppose that thanks to their high tax rates, European countries manage to get health systems that are about 100 times cheaper than in the States. No idea about phones, though. :-)
Not sure if this is a joke, but Sim City's taxes are municipal taxes, not national. Adding a 20% city tax on top of national and provincial taxes would be very high anywhere.
DeletePhones are not overly expensive. At least you can get away cheap if you want :). A cheap phone sets you back by 150 USD or so and a contract with a decent amount of data is somewhere between 10 and 15 USD per month. Of course there are offers where you get the latest shiny gadget and pay an arm and a leg for it, but you don't have to.
DeleteHmm, I don't know about enterprises, but average personal income tax in Denmark is about 30%. It can technically go up to 50%, but your income would have to be in the millions to have such effective rate.
DeleteGermany is weird in that the income tax is progressive and starts relatively low, while social security taxes are a flat percentage but are capped at a certain value. So for most mid to high incomes the effective rate would be 35-45%.
Actually, I probably shouldn't should I?
DeleteThe problem is the UK's difficult tax position, which starts for income with rates that progress from 0% to 20% to 40% to 45%; then adding on something called 'national insurance' which also starts at 0%, goes to 8% then down to 2% at marginal levels.
These rates start at different levels, and the UK system also adds in several complexities depending on if you're married, if you old, if you have kids, if you earn a lot but not too much. The effective marginal UK rates broadly run:
<£9k - 0% marginal
£9-£12k - 8% marginal
£12k to £45k (ish) - 28% marginal
After this, it gets complicated. Between £50k and £60k, if you have kids and IF you or your wife claim a benefit called 'child benefit', you are required to pay half that back via the tax system.
So I lose 40% to income tax, 2% to national insurance and 50% to the HICBC (Higher income child benefit charge) as my wife claims the benefit and I have to pay it back...
Oh.... 92%.... that's nice.
(Fun fact - in 1976 this rate reached 112% in the UK, so for every extra 1 pound sterling you earned, you lost £1.12 to the government).
Sorry, I don't quite understand why you're just adding the percentages? HICBC is a percentage of the benefit, not of your whole income.
DeleteGoodness, I'm an idiot (and this drifts well away from CRPGs! Bet Chet never anticipated a spirited discussion on the United Kingdom income tax system on his blog).
DeleteBut yes, it'll be 50% of the 40% marginal, so my effective marginal rate is 62%.
Phew - good job I'm not an accountant..... oh wait. I am.
I was mostly just needling my European readers. Like Shanghay down below, I generally believe in a modest tax rate in exchange for reasonable social services. His point about the degradation of those services is well-taken, but I've never understood Americans who shout, "Do you really want your HOSPITAL to be run with the same efficiency as the BMV?!" In my 51 years of life, I have never encountered a government bureaucracy as maddening, disorganized, and inefficient as every private health care system I've tried to interact with.
DeleteHaha yeah, I just had to arrange an urgent care visit while traveling* and when I called my insurance company they were explaining how to make sure I didn't get balance billed, which is a concept that probably would do 3d6 sanity damage to our European friends if I tried to explain it.
Delete*in Maine, hi Chet! Also it turned out to be nothing serious.
"So I lose 40% to income tax"
DeleteThough that should be noted it's only on the income earned in the higher bracket. So many people in the UK think it means they get 40% taxed from all their income once they go over into the higher bracket...
But the real problem is when you hit the 100k bracket. You see, you get a personal allowance of just over £12k which is tax free. However, when you hit 100k, for every £2 you go over, you lose £1 of that allowance. So in essence, you get taxed 40% of income in that bracket as normal, but then taxed 20% on top of that (since you're taxed 40% on the personal allowance you've lost). So 60% marginal up to 124k - then it's back to 40%. It ends up with people paying into their pensions instead when they go over 100k to avoid paying the tax, though that's then assuming they will live long enough to be able to draw it out.
Of course, we also have VAT which is a kind of sale tax, as well as taxes on selling houses (stamp duty). The real fun one is capital gains tax which the vast majority of people don't understand but just vaguely know rich people use it, and so argue it must be put higher. Except the point of it is to encourage investment and it being lower than income tax is kind of the point.
Really, the tax system in the UK is relatively straight forward, but we just don't have any proper education of it which leads to so many people misunderstanding it which is then used politically. So aggravating!
I played this one when it came out on the Amiga. It got great reviews back then and Bullfrog had a good reputation. I always though, and still think, the gameplay isn't as good as it was hyped up to be. But it was published in the advent of Cyberpunk and a book like Neuromancer (William Gibson) was a new hype. A good Amiga game but not close to a top ten spot for the Amiga console, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt's the general theme of Bullfrog. Games which have a great idea in them, but not fully thought through and developed. However, lots of superficial things which implies more depth than there really is.
DeletePart of it is due to the hardware at the time, but a big bit is Peter Molyneux's desire for things to show off to the press.
The whole drug system in this is really underbaked and the strategy side is really just a glorified mission select screen. UFO/XCom showed that you could do a lot better than this without sacrificing the tactical game.
At the time it was fun, but you quickly got bored of it. Same with all the Bullfrog games really.
It appears to be the general theme of most games created in the 1980s, really. I don't see Bullfrog as an outlier here.
DeleteAs far as I remember, the whole "mow down civilians" reference is correct, and there was some game mechanic that was tied to killing civilians (denial of income to the competition?).
ReplyDeleteAlso, Syndicate was definitely well known in the 90es and had a dedicated fan base. There were very few games at the time that would allow one to scratch that itch, and, as far as I remember, Syndicate genuinely allowed for more than one way to reach mission's objective.
I don't recall any game mechanic that was tied to killing civilians (outside of specific individuals being a mission objective). If you completed a mission, you thereby wrestled the respective territory from the former 'owner' / controlling rival syndicate and put it under your own, so if it had any impact you would in fact reducing your own tax income.
DeleteAs Arthegall mentioned in the first comment, you could perfectly well play (and as far as I recall, win) the game sticking to the objectives and without additional civilian casualties.
You could play Nascar 94 (or whatever year that was) without causing massive crashes on the track, but Papyrus physics engine ensured doing so was loads and loads of fun.
DeletePS. I'm officially mistaken on the killing citizen game mechanic; it wasn't there.
DeleteYou *do* get more cash from a mission if you Persuaded civilians, so maybe that's what you were thinking of.
DeleteRe: European tax rates, as a German they didn't use to bother me, I used to think "worth it", for the comprehensive social security net, public health system, good public transport etc.
ReplyDeleteBut with every year that passes, these public systems and institutions paid by our taxes get more dysfunctional. Roads are potholed and bridges crumble, there's fewer public hospitals with the remaining ones overcrowded, my state pension would set me up for old age poverty after I finally get to retire at 67 (!), and the trains don't run on time anymore, if they run at all (!!).
So these days, I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth anymore. I don't necessarily want to pay less taxes, but I do want public institutions to deliver decent service. If decent service is not a possibility, then yes, I would like to at least pay fewer taxes.
I actually discovered aulddragon after reading your early attempt to play War in Middle Earth and searching for WiME videos - he has a 12 video long playlist of that game. I consider him one of the best underrated LP-ers out there.
ReplyDeleteI feel measuring Syndicate as a RTS is what does it no favour. I think of it more as a somewhat tactical action game (not so much squad tactics as separating your group is mostly not very viable) with some light strategy elements added and better enjoyed as such.
ReplyDeleteSure, if all you care about is winning as quickly as possible you CAN solve a couple scenarios in similar ways (but by far not most / all as there is a number of different objectives and layouts), you CAN just let taxation run while extending a mission. However, the existence of shortcuts and exploits is something you could levy against quite a few games.
There are often multiple ways of adressing / solving a scenario, depending on the circumstances and your preferences in tactics (as well as how nimble your real-time maneuvering and shooting etc. is). This in a simulated city with people and vehicules going about their way, where cars stop for pedestrians and traffic, combined with the (admittedly limited) 'sandbox' aspects of a world that reacts to your presence and actions (guards and police attack you if you flash a weapon, while civilians flee, persuaded civilians pick up arms and fight alongside you, ...). You can play by the book or just create mayhem, you can use vehicles or destroy scenery.
I understand that's why it is sometimes referred to as a type of proto-GTA which came out four years prior to the first game of that series. All of it against the backdrop of the cyberpunk ambiance and aesthetics created an alluring mix for many. And this is even without a multiplayer option which was cut at the last moment due to technical issues and apparently was what some of the developers enjoyed most (it was integrated in the sequel).
That could be part of why Syndicate continues to be remembered well by quite a few people. The video linked by thekelvingreen above was published less than two months ago on YT and already has >100K views and close to 500 comments as I write this, most of which seem to wax nostalgically.
> But I have to admit that my own life has been massively enriched by the stability that Microsoft brought to file formats (I can still open a document I created 30 years ago!)
ReplyDeleteSo I suppose you've missed that part of their history:
"Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE),[1] also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used open standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and using the differences to strongly disadvantage its competitors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
It mentions office documents specifically later in the article as an example with quote from Gates himself no less. Any and all attempts at having open file formats were routinely squashed by MS in those years resulting in massively slow down of the whole process of standartization. Only later on after that antitrust case they've started to change their culture internally. The fact is that if you try to open any of their DOC files on anything other than specific Microsoft software in 2024 will highly likely result in a partial or complete failure.
First of all, the documents load in Google Docs just fine. Second, that Microsoft tried to make the formats proprietary hardly bothers me--businesses deserve to make money for such things. Word has never cost more than a pittance, so I don't feel like the company has been gouging the consumer.
DeleteYou may not have been around for the pre-Microsoft period when word processing software was offered by dozens of companies, none of them in business for more than a few years. You might create a document in 1986 that you couldn't open in 1987. Just for changing that, Microsoft deserves their billions.
Unfortunately, I spent years using Microsoft Works, which neither modern microsoft products nor modern open-source products can read.
Delete> First of all, the documents load in Google Docs just fine.
DeleteAnd the formatting is all correct, and the images and the tables and math formulas? Great, if so. That's what twenty years of reverse engineering (which is not always legal, btw) and billions of dollars get you. Except no, Googling for "google docs msword support" immediately brings results like "Are you guys aware of the poor compatibility of Google Docs with MS Word." and "When I open my MS Word document in Google Docs the formatting is lost. I have tried saving in docx and MS Work 97-2004 to no avail. Formatting always get messed up when opening in Google docs." from the past 12 months.
> Second, that Microsoft tried to make the formats proprietary hardly bothers me--businesses deserve to make money for such things.
So you don't see the contradiction between "stability that Microsoft brought to file formats" and "it's fine for MS to have proprietary formats", which is exactly what every company did and what produced the document format hell, audio codec hell and video codec hell?
The problem wasn't that they were proprietary. The problem was that they were closed and had to be painstakingly reverse-engineered by volunteers or competitiors which took years in some cases compounding the huge problem of the lack of interoperability. Each and every MS thing that "just works" now, was a huge pain for a Linux or Apple user just 20 years ago, like, for example, file sharing, IE-only websites with modified HTML, Javascript, Java, OpenGL, FAT filesystem, they've literally tried to conquer and control all of it at some point.
> Word has never cost more than a pittance, so I don't feel like the company has been gouging the consumer.
Cursory Googling results:
Microsoft Office 95 Standard (RTM) - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Schedule+, Binder Price $499 ($249 Upgrade)
Microsoft Office 95 Professional (RTM) - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Schedule+, Binder, Access, Bookshelf Price $599
So you had educational discounts or something?
> You may not have been around for the pre-Microsoft period when word processing software was offered by dozens of companies, none of them in business for more than a few years. You might create a document in 1986 that you couldn't open in 1987. Just for changing that, Microsoft deserves their billions.
1986 was when the competition was heavy even in the OS realm, a literal Wild West. I'm well aware that before Microsoft wiped a lot of software with shady anticompetitive practices (that are, again, very well documented) and later by virtue of dominating the landscape, there was an even worse hell. But they don't "deserve" anything. While they were small, they didn't anything to solve the problem and when they became the gorilla we know, it was by virtue of their software world domination. In fact, MS was the literal EvilCorp of software up until around 2010. It's just that since around 97-98 there were only two choices left to support up until the smartphone revolution so that made it all much more civilized.
For the past ~15 years I've used only OpenOffice/LibreOffice for all my documents*, presentations, and spreadsheets. I just opened up a talk I gave in 2009 (around when I made the switch) and the graphics, text, formatting, and animations are all still perfect. That's a stable file format -- and one free of the moral issues of Microsoft's oppressive, regressive, anticompetitive business strategy.
Delete(* Some documents also written in LaTeX.)
> MS was the literal EvilCorp of software up until around 2010.
Agreed that now MS is merely anEvilCorp -- one of several extant.
Microsoft was "the evilcorp of software" mostly in the minds of the Linux cult, who weren't representative of all computer users. The DOJ was somewhat concerned about their bundling practice, but only in a standard "this corporation is getting pretty market dominant" way rather than any specific MICROSOFT BAD! one.
DeleteThose that didn't worship at the altar of Open Source generally didn't have that hatred.
Well, a 1998 Simpsons episode depicts Bill Gates as "buying out" Homer's company by literally thrashing the place. Jokes like that don't come out of nowhere, so the idea that MS was the EvilCorp was apparently rather widespread.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE
It would have been a pretty harsh dystopia if Internet Explorer had become the dominant browser.
DeleteIn fact, I get the impression that web designers even more than open source enthusiasts saw Microsoft as EvilCorp--I remember a lot of complaints about how Internet Explorer led to broken web design in various ways.
It's basically a natural property of economics that in an industry where upfront costs are very high and marginal costs are effectively zero, no amount of good intent will stop a business from behaving evilly. I don't understand economics enough to explain it to other people, but I've seen it demonstrated by others that marginal cost is basically the main thing that gets in the way of "orphan mangler" being the optimal business strategy.
Delete> Microsoft was "the evilcorp of software" mostly in the minds of the Linux cult, who weren't representative of all computer users. The DOJ was somewhat concerned about their bundling practice, but only in a standard "this corporation is getting pretty market dominant" way rather than any specific MICROSOFT BAD! one.
Delete> Those that didn't worship at the altar of Open Source generally didn't have that hatred.
I see that all of my examples went past you without ringing any bells. Those that wanted some interoperability (including Apple, btw, the other large US provider of OS and software) had to jump through a lot of hoops or often were out of luck. That "cult" you speak about was instrumental in reverse-engineering all of the proprietary-specification-not-available garbage that MS shoved on everybody and their mother. The "cultists" spent the better part of the 90s and early 00s painstakingly debugging, documenting and reimplementing the crucial information on the protocols and file formats while building a loooot of backend software.
Let me give you another example. We're writing these messages on a blog which runs on a Google cloud server serving pages through the webserver software. The blog itself is written in Python, an open-source language, running in one of the open-source web servers (Google uses them all, it's that huge, Nginx, Apache, Lighttpd, and it has their own, I don't know which one runs Blogger) on Linux, an open-source OS, using open standards like HTML, CSS and Javascript. The webpage runs on your and mine browsers which are likely either a modern Chrome, or a modern Internet Explorer, or maybe Apple Safari. Which are all built on WebKit, an open-source web rendering engine. Even MS finally relented and thrown away their proprietary incompatible garbage you "fondly" remember from the IE 5.0 and 6.0 days. You prefer Mozilla or Opera? Open-source as well. Javascript also runs on the V8 open-source implementation if we're on Chrome. There's a high chance that some of the people that read that blog do that from their mobile devices which are dominated by Android ones. And guess what, Android IS Linux under the hood. Don't forget the images, they're either PNG or JPEGs, more open formats. And guess what, for the longest time, I shit you not, Microsoft Windows literally rendered PNGs incorrectly. Internet explorer Wikipedia page has a nifty list of problems that IE 4.0-8.0 had with PNG images. PNG transparency was plainly not supported until IE 7.0 which was released in 2006, NINE years after MS supposedly implemented PNG support in IE.
If Microsoft had their way, we'd have NONE of that. The server would be more expensive (because of the licenses) Windows server edition with ASP.NET/IIS garbage on top which would be incompatible with anything else, serving some incompatible versions of HTML/JS/CSS (one can only hope that it would be those formats and not some drek concocted in the depths of Redmond), that would only work correctly in Internet Explorer. The whole chain would be full of bugs, exploits and crash often just like early versions of all that did. And it would run on Windows, which was a virus hellhole before they've thrown away the garbage core of 95/98 and replaced it with XP based on NT. And even then XP had a lot of viruses if you weren't really careful with what you're installing and running. And you'd pay through the nose for all of that. To be honest, you should get on your knees before that very altar you speak about and thank the blessed Stallman with tears of joy in your eyes for what you have now for free and working amazingly well :) Open up Wikipedia page on any important piece of Windows software, or format, or protocol and you'll likely find how it took years to make MS do something properly.
@Infidel, I will worship at *your* altar anytime. Preach it.
Delete"Linux cult," indeed.
This was the first work by Demis Hassabis (co-founder of DeepMind, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, etc.). He worked on the level design while waiting for admission at Cambridge University. I wonder what was his take on Syndicate's message.
ReplyDeleteI played this back then, possibly finishing it. Like Chet, I found it difficult to manage a split party, so I kept the 4 agents together. I kind of wondered ever since what the developers were thinking. Randomly looking at aulddragon's videos, he also seems to keep his party together most of the time. Was there any reason to separate the party, has anyone played it like that? Or was this just an idea that looked good on paper, but did not work out in practice?
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