Cyberpunk Tactical RPG - Satellite Reign (Syndicate Wars Successor).
Tactical role-playing games are something of a rarity these days, especially ones where you must command several agents in real-time. One great example of the genre, and of cyberpunk gaming as a whole was the beloved Syndicate series. Though dated and rough around the edges now, some of the original creators came back decades later to make a spiritual successor, and named the game after one of the original's user abilities.
Does 'Satellite Reign' live up to its esteemed inspirations, and better yet stand on its own legs as a good game? Let's find out in this episode of Cyberpunk Curated. Syndicate and Syndicate Wars from Bullfrog were two of its most popular works, and stand out as some of the best cyberpunk games to this day.
When Syndicate Wars veteran Mike Diskett announced a spiritual successor to the original games, I jumped in excitement, and waited eagerly to see how well his team pulled it off. One thing I knew right away though, the majestic Blade Runner-esque night cityscape with textured synth soundtracks and malevolent corporate warfare couldn't come quicker...
The first and most praisable thing you'll see in this game is the fantastically realized cyberpunk world. Every inch of the gorgeous gamespace is dripping with rain, soaked in darkness or drenched in loud, colorful neon lighting. This is cyberpunk to a T.
Satellite Reign deserves praise for featuring a world you want to explore and look into every nook and cranny of. In stark contrast to the amazing visuals, the storyline is introduced vaguely through edited clips of fictional news broadcasts, with short and fairly uninspiring text and voice updates between story missions.
This isn't a dealbreaker but is fairly disappointing to story lovers and fans of the original games who enjoyed reading about EuroCorp and the other organizations' motivations and arcs. Disappointingly, the game runs at an inconsistent framerate no matter what video settings I choose, even on my high-end gaming PC -- suggesting that it is under-optimized.
The electronic soundtrack hits all the right notes, alternating from futuristic ambience to upbeat techno tracks when the action starts. The sound design though is a mixed bag: on one hand, the ambient soundscapes are incredible at times. I noticed the buzz of working power generators as I neared them, and a distinct hum when running past neon lighting.
Some of the action sound effects however, are lower quality. The gunshot sample on many weapons is incredibly annoying, and no effort was done to minimize its repetitiousness. Many sound effects seem like public domain content, rather than the creation of a dedicated sound engineer.
The user interface is pretty bland and unintuitive, with little customization or quality of life features that could have come in handy. There is minimal in-game speech, which disappointed me considering there were plenty of thematic in-game vocal barks in Syndicate Wars, such as citizens screaming in fear, or policemen telling you to "move along".
Occasional voiceovers for mission briefings and police status updates are pretty much all you get. After a brief intro, you are tossed into the world of Satellite Reign with either a basic tutorial, with little to no guidance or purpose. The hollow-feeling structure of the game was noticeable to me, and contrasted with the extreme amount of polish that was put into the visuals.
The game features an open world, rather than its map-per-mission predecessors, allowing freedom of movement all over the city without zoning, loading screens or the like. This helps make the experience more seamless and immersive. The problems that arise from the open-world though is the large amount of backtracking and foot travel involved, which in the smaller scale mission areas of the games that inspired it, was mitigated by the use of cars and airships.
Vehicles, as well as many of the buildings and structures are non-interactive in this game, making them feel more like window dressing rather than anything you have to look out for, destroy or interact with like in Syndicate Wars in which highways were murder zones for unwary pedestrians.
Each of your agents have their own class and role: Soldier, Support, Hacker and Infiltrator -- which determine their upgradable skills and active abilities. The Soldier is likely going to be your primary DPS and/or tank with aggro-generating abilities to direct enemy fire or to suppress it, and the ability to hardwire doors or cut power to security cameras.
The Support is a sort of a hybrid of scout, buffer and healer. With skills like team healing, area scanning for security circuits or enemies, slowing time for more control in the heat of battle, marking targets and other buffs. The Hacker is your go-to for disabling security and as a gadgeteer.
They can hack doors open, temporarily disable security cameras, hijack and use attack drones and even the neural implants of people in the city, which you can use as fodder or to infiltrate enemy bases without being suspected, similar to the Persuadertron in the Syndicate series, only more limited.
The Infiltrator is your stealth class, who can cloak and sneak into restricted areas undetected, use sniper rifles more effectively, raid facilities for cash, use ziplines with more success, and deal massive damage with melee weapons. All of this sounds excellent on paper, but in reality I had some frustrations.
Due to the sometimes unresponsive controls and AI issues. Unlike its predecessors, you must order your agents to attack and wait for them to respond, shoot, reload, repeat, rather than hold down an attack button. Sometimes my agents would stop in place rather than walk if they could no longer run due to the incredibly quickly-depleting stamina bar.
The stamina limitation is evident when you are a fugitive in the GTA-style wanted level system. Often what should be an intense shootout or run for your life ends up being a slow stride away from the enemy, which breaks the tension. Sometimes agents would not attack or perform the ordered action, or just engage combat when idle or in hiding.
And occasionally enemy AI would be very hawkish and see me over cover, or too listless and I could run past them without reacting. There are many fun and addictive methods of acquiring credits. The hacker can siphon money over time with compromised ATMs, the infiltrator can get lump sums from breaking into facilities, and you get a reward for completing missions, which help in acquiring equipment, cybernetics and buying advantages to make future missions easier.
The Research system allows you to unlock new items over time, which is also governed by resources such as researchers, research-boosting currencies, et cetera. One thing the game does well is that it provides many ways to approach each mission. Each complex or scenario often has a few different entrances: a hackable backdoor, a security hole, or a zipline you could use to get an advantage in a shootout with, or to sneak in undetected.
This rewards different playstyles and imaginative solutions, which I am a strong proponent for. There is a setting called "Realtime with pause" I'd strongly recommend to new players starting out, which fully decks out one skill of the Support class from the get-go, allowing you to slow time to a crawl when you need time to plan out actions simultaneously or during combat a la Baldur's Gate.
The multiplayer mode plays identically to the singleplayer, only with players controlling each agent exclusively. This eases many of the more annoying AI and control-related issues I ran into and can be a game changer if you get to play with a group of friends.
In closing, I feel that Satellite Reign falls just short of greatness. All the components are there, a large urban world drenched in cyberpunk flair, a competent RPG system with upgrades, loadouts and nonlinear mission and map design. But the unpredictable agent AI, at-times unresponsive controls, rough UI and the lack of interactivity with many buildings, vehicles and citizens disappoints.
But all in all, Satellite Reign features a gorgeous cyberpunk sandbox world with plenty to do in it. There really is no other game quite like it released in the past two decades that ticks all these marks. Although shooting for less lofty goals than perhaps I wished it to, it is still a very solid game, just a bit hollower than I personally would have liked.
