Someone To Drive You Home

Shout out to my Man Christopher McNeil for this fine recommendation but it was when I read this tweet by Anthony Burch of Destructoid fame that my ears really pricked up. Admittedly a bit of a annoying way to recommend playing something but Mr Burch uses hyperbole like it was going out of fashion. So with my two independent recommendations of a obscure title coming within mere days of each other I decided that I’d have to give Strange Adventures in Infinite Space atleast a shot.

I know what you’re thinking Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is one of the worst names for a game I’ve ever read too (it would be better if it abbreviated to something funny but nope just SAIS). The game was developed by Digital Eel which is a small Seattle based outfit. They have been developing niche games in the spirit that can only exist in the PC Independent scene since the early part of the 00’s (SAIS itself was developed in 2001). They have even picked up a few nominations from the IGF winning awards for Visual Art and Audio in some of the games released after SAIS. Cool right? That’s enough context for now I think.

So anyway after charging for this fine game from 2001 till 2009 the chaps at Digital Eel figure what the heck lets make it free! That sound you hear is my attention being got. At that price I’l try just about anything so I downloaded the game from shrapnel games website (they publish and distribute Digital Eels titles). The game is only just shy of 8MB, installed it fired her up and witness what can only be described as a visual mess.

Only slightly more decipherable than this

Turns out in 2001, when they made this game was developed, Dual screen setups where about as common as shooting bees out your hands so my first play through resembled that of a Jeff Minter game in visual style (the colors where all wrong). Its a simple fix just switch to one screen and it all works perfectly having run dual screens for a number of years its the first port of call to sort out screwy graphics in independent and triple A titles alike. Only reason I even mention it is incase you my lovely reader encounter the same problem.

Your 2D Map of the Stars

Oh yeah I was going to write about the game at some point too, well better late than never! So what’s it like? Well you know the fun of a roguelike game where every time you load the game it generates a new dungeon? Swap dungeon with smattering of galaxies and nebula and you’ve got it. You’re tasked with going out on a ten year mission to explore strange new worlds to seek out new lifeforms and stuff (yeah someone owes Gene Roddenberry a few bucks). The mechanics of space travel are basically clicking on any solar system will tell you how much of your precious ten years it will take to get there. So a few clicks and off you pop on a whirlwind tour of the a set of ten or so Solar systems in whatever order you like. Obstacles like black holes and nebula (which make your ship slow to a crawl with the standard engines) will mean that a small amount of route planning isn’t a bad idea. Once you arrive in a solar system your science team pick the most interest planet to investigate then its off to the next system.

Engaged in the gentlemanly art of Pew Pew

Initially you start off with a fairly slow propulsion system. Once you start exploring planets there is the chance of finding a faster drive or if you’re extremely lucky a hyperdrive which allows you to travel almost instantaneously,which sounds like a bit of a game ruining upgrade, well sure it does make it vastly easier to hit every solar system/planet, but if you warp to a galaxy where its star is going supernova the 14 days it takes to recharge your drive means you’ll die waiting for it to spool up(standard drives can outrun the blasts handily). This example is the crux of what makes SAIS such a fantastic game the way that every choice you make can go either way at the drop of a hat what was once a massive boon can leave you to face the business end of a supernova. When you travel to a planet that has a fleet stationed around it you’re given a rough estimation of the force composition as blips on a radar (pictured below) at which point you can choose to make contact , which may lead to combat or trade , or you can run away wasting the time you spent travelling to that solar system but saving you from a battle which could end you expedition prematurely.

Nice Race of Care Bears Or Lasery Flavored Death?

I could ramble on and on about how the mechanics of risk vs reward are so finely tuned in this game but I’m concious of spoiling too much. The fun is finding out all the interactions for yourself. You really need to try this out and if you play the game a good five to ten times in the one day( the average playtime from start to finish for myself is about 15 mins) and you’ve managed to get confidant enough to push all the difficulty sliders up to the maximum (another excellent design choice) .Then you should try some of the modifications that Digital Eel have graciously posted on their website. These fan made mods are some of the best I’ve seen outside of Half Life 2 they add extra content, new story elements & gameplay. Part of the reason they are so well done is that Digital Eel had the good sense to provide the tools to aid mod community which in turn helps there game become better. If I had to suggest the best two mods out the few ive tried it would be RED PLANET & Even Stranger Adventures in Infinite Space.

Red Planet adds alot of extra fun to SAIS

So hopefully I’ve managed to convinced a few of you to give this a shot and if you really enjoy it. There is a sequel called ”Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space” which I will have to try once I’m done messing around with SAIS. I would love to hear what the readers of SomeoneToDriveYouHome think of this so please have at it in the comments.

Mods For SAIS

Download The Full Game Here

Syndicate Wars is a atmospheric Squad based real time strategy game made by Bullfrog(Theme Hospital , Dungeon Keeper). Its cyberpunk slant is the aspect that really leaves a lasting impression while many games have harvested the Cyberpunk Aesthetic few have allowed it to manifest in gameplay. Syndicate Wars is to Cyberpunk games what Blade Runner is to Cyberpunk films.

Syndicate

Syndicate Wars  (1996) is simply put a classic many people believe that the original Syndicate (1993/1994) is better but personally Syndicate Wars(SW) hits with a art style that is overall more consistent (Environments, menu’s ) and is therefore more effective.

Syndicate Wars

The missions in the game are extremely straight forward Assassinate this guy , persuade this guy to join your faction and escort him to the exit, how you choose to achieve this is really up to yourself. The levels work like mini sandboxes with no Correct way to complete them. You can roll in and kill everybody or build a small army of pedestrians and use them as adhoc human shields. Will you blow up a bank while you are in the area and make off with the money incurring the wrath of the local police force? Do you fight your way in with your four man squad guns blazing to assassinate your target or do you add a expendable member to this squad and use him as a suicide bomber?

The idea that your squad are tools is reinforced at every level they are faceless, nameless, and as the game progresses scarcely human with cybernetics and enhancements rendering them more machine than flesh.

Your agents have been stripped of self awareness have zero personality and will wait diligently for your orders while being ripped to shreds by enemy fire. You can introduce psychotropic drugs to their nervous systems increasing their aggressiveness perception allowing them to return fire autonomously but there is a cool down period where they will default to bullet sponge mode.

This is one of the most fascinating facets of Syndicate wars that game developers said what would a faceless multinational corporation/religious fanatics do with mind control technology if they had wet work to do?Ethically is it better to have a person who has to carry around the memories of murder or a drone who makes no moral judgements during and has no recollection afterwards?

Eurocorp are one of the two playable factions in Syndicate Wars  and are responsible for deploying mind control chips on the general populous. After the events of the original syndicate are the replacement for government. They have the world in their Iron grip and will obliterate anyone who attempts to upset the status quo.

▶
YouTube - Watch this for a better idea of what its like to be a peon in the Syndicate Universe

The Church of the new Epoch are a religious group, the second playable faction, believe Eurocorp must be over thrown , led by nine scientists that where experimenting with mind expansion technology which ended up leaving them a bit queer. Their technology is theoretically better than Euro Corps owing to the mental capacity of their leadership but they lack the raw materials necessary to realise their potential.

The Unguided are the third faction which where originally meant to have a playable campaign. Their ranks are filled with citizens who have awoken from the mind control induced lie and boy are they pissed .In contrast to the other two Factions these guys value freewill and freedom rather that an Orwellian nightmare state (there’s just no pleasing some people). They are led by the tenth scientist in the mind expansion experiment who decided that he didn’t want to be part of the church or the corporations schemes. I have a feeling that owing to the nature of the unguided and their ethos the system setup for the other factions (they cant really be espousing free will and use mindless killing drones!) is a big part of why this campaign never materialised. Although I would be interested what ideas the developers had for it in a purely academic way.

I’ve purposefully been leaving the feature in Syndicate Wars that was/is most impressive. The Persuadertron. What’s a Persuadertron? God I’m glad you asked that, you understand that every one up and down the line of humanity has the mind control chips implanted in them right?

Well how about if you could use this to your advantage in a mission to say override whatever daily routine they’re on and make them body guard your agents? Cool right ? How about if you could even use it to capture enemy agents, scientists and law enforcers?! Really! awesome? Wont this make the game way too easy ? This is the genius part, with your Persuadertron equipped you will persuade anyone in its range to your cause, but only if you have enough followers so average civilian you get him for free, a law man you might need about 5 followers , enemy agents require a significant following mostly due to the number you will lose while getting close to a Agent. So with this mechanic you are harvesting the local populous and moving them into the firing line in order to achieve your goals sinister stuff and the game pretty much encourages it a health human shield wall can be the difference between Mission Complete and your untimely demise (Failure isn’t a option in Syndicate Universe). This of course takes the potential for collateral damage to dizzying new heights (Explosions will cull the flock almost instantly with only your cybernetic taskmasters left standing if you’re lucky).

Yeah I Roll about 50 Deep

There have been rumblings of a Syndicated Wars Sequel for a while now and most recently Peter Molyneux has said he would be interested in making a new game in the series but I honestly don’t see it happening. I’ve always been a fan of Cyberpunk culture and the idea of blurring the lines between man and machine are becoming more and more possible with Vat Grown Skin and stem cell based ocular modification being just two recent developments that spring to mind. Only thing that remains is for me to provide you with a  link to the wondrous Unofficial Syndicate Website. Feel Free to leave a comment!