Syndicate was one of those games that defined a genre, one of shadowy corporations, corruption, intrigue and big brother conformity, Cyberpunk at its best. Satellite Reign has that potential realized in its rainy neon soaked streets. A beautiful massive city to explore at your convenience. It’s pretty well polished, has a few minor A.I issues, but nothing to ruin the atmosphere most of the time
.
Gameplay
The main thing i like about this game is that you can go stealth or loud. If you fail at the escape part of stealth it doesn’t matter too much as long as you get your people moving out quickly. If you are spotted, it is not the end of the world (something i enjoy allot), kill all the witnesses and you won’t have a problem.
Loud is a different story, it is harder than stealth and therefore not recommended but still fun to do. It is not a deathwish and i love that, firing a bullet wont send an army after you. As long as you stop them calling reinforcements (not too much of a problem if you are paying attention) you can survive the encounter without a sweat. Beware of nearby enemies though, if you shoot near a lot of bad guys you will pay for it. What you can do is create a bubble of silence, allowing you to kill in the area without a worry of other people noticing.
A thing that needs to be added is an overwatch ability, sometimes when stealthing into a base I will leave my teammates, what I would like is that they don’t just stand there and die. AI is a large problem in the game, one of the things that really breaks the fun. That said I am not having much of a problem with it. If your troops aren’t positioned right and cant have a LOS on the target you want them to shoot they will sometimes just shoot at a wall, wasting their bullets. Ammo is not a real problem in this game, I have never had a time where my units are all out of bullets and you have a slot for secondaries that has an infinite pool.
There is a way to slow time but it slows camera movement as well. Micromanagement is something you will have to learn if you want to play this game. Although the micro management is not particularly hard.
Whilst death feels like a failure the game doesn’t punish you much for it, something I enjoy allot. There is a minor loss of xp or money (your choice) but it is not the end of the world if your badasses get shot to bits on the field
This game is STUNNING, love the graphics, Nuff said.
In conclusion, the AI and lack of quality of life improvements are the only thing that I have a problem with in this game. This will not be for everybody though, I had to give it time at the start, little options at the start make it a bad intro to the game, this changes dramatically later with your characters gaining an individual skill type and role. I would recommend this to anyone who likes RTS and cyberpunk. If you can ignore the games sins you will find a fun and rewarding experience. A solid 4 out of 5 for me.
