Syndicate is the first game on the list that I would love to make a film of. Yes, yes, I know - films of games are shite but as I always witter on to anyone who’s listening, they don’t have to be. A film of Syndicate could be utter shit, of course, but only if they tried to make it like the game rathe than use it as inspiration.

Syndicate is yet another controversial game in large part to the graphic displays of violence that, for the most part, you initiate. Okay, so that’s nothing new but in most games, violence is normally enacted on very obvious baddies - in Syndicate, anyone is fair game: enemy agents, police or random civilians wandering around the cityscape. What’s more, you don’t get penalized for it: it’s collateral damage, unfortunate but acceptable, regrettable but necessary. As the man said, you can’t make an omlette without cracking a few eggs and if you don’t have what it takes, you’ll never make it to the top.

So what background could possibly be used to justify these wanton acts of destruction? The Syndicate of the future is not an organised crime syndicate nor a lottery syndicate but is actually a business, a corporation that you run. It’s the future and the countries as we know them now have been divided up into territories that are now governed and managed by large conglomerates. The companies keep control by the means of cybernetically enhanced agents that either maintain the peace in existing territories or will effect an extremely hostile takeover elsewhere. Territory control introduces a mini-game of resource management: more territories means more revenue, more revenue means more research and more research means better cybernetics and bigger guns.

The main part of the game requires you to take control of your four agents and enter a city zone to complete a mission, whether it be corporate sabotage, assassination, stealing trade secrets or general population control. You get a variety of weapons to do this with, from standard shotguns to miniguns and flamethrowers. Alternatively, you can subdue civilians, police and enemy agents by using “Persuadertron” which brainwashes your victi… er.. future shareholders and they will follow you willingly, acting either as a meatshield or arming themselves and becoming a mini assault force. Persuading people also meant that you could take on new agents that you could enhance between missions and build a reserve force in case any of your agents took early retirement.

It wasn’t just the violence that provoked controversy though (although generally speaking, using a flamethrower on a target and watching them run around on fire before falling to the floor as a charred skeleton, does tend to put MPs into a tizzy). You could enhance the performance of your agents during any mission by a controlled application of drugs which would make them stronger, faster and more aggressive. The more you did this, however, the more the agents tolerance would increase and the shorter the effect. On the other hand, they didn’t have any come-downs.

Syndicate was great - not that you’d expect less from a “god” game developed by Bullfrog, the makers of Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park. You could play the game as you saw fit, whether it was sneaking your agents in to a heavily fortified base ninja-style or, if all hell broke less, levelling the place with extreme predujice and big, motherfucking guns. Granted, there was little to no story in the game but I have always felt that the setting and the concept could be turned into an entertaining action movie: a cybernetic Godfather, Blade Runner meets Miller’s Crossing, Bonnie and Clyde meet The Terminator. It would be a blast.