Syndrome on PC – The DVDfever Review

The game is powered by Unity 5, hence why it is available on all systems outside Windows PCs, like Mac & Linux. It makes the developer’s job considerably easier to develop cross-platform. The overhead is considerably less than something like Frostbite or Unreal Engine, so it scales well and will run on virtually every system which is great for a wider audience. The different areas of the ship all look different – cryosleep area at the start is different to crew quarters, engine room is a lot different to the medical bay etc., and the lighting is excellent if a bit static, in places. The texture work is nice on all models and the environment. The only issues that I have really encountered, is that everything is locked into its place; chairs don’t move when bumped into, and corpses look static and placed rather than a crew member slumping to death somewhere. The lighting, while really good at times, is overly dark and you can easily miss the torch. Fair enough, something has gone terrible wrong on this ship, but why does everywhere have to be so dark absolutely everywhere on the ship?? Playing Alien Isolation, not everything is extremely dark: tension is built from being hunted, which is what the crew are doing with you on Syndrome. There are some great effects, such as when you get close to death, the screen goes blurry and pulsates, and there are jump scares in places where the screen will distort, while an unnerving aspect for me is seeing the glowing red eyes of an enemy – it really gives you the chills!

The sound direction is excellent. Radio chatter is fully voiced, but I cannot find anything about the voice actors, unfortunately. Sounds like the swing of your weapon and gunshots all sound as they should. Mind you, the growls and loud grunts of the crew are really creepy and heighten your sense of dread. I won’t lie, I was playing late with lights off, with just the TV on in the background on quiet. There is a scene in the medical bay that startled me, and then on the way back out, hearing some loud growling, I had to turn it off for the night, and I normally do horror and have a laugh at the likes of Insidious and Annabel!

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Syndrome – Trailer (Gamescom 2016) – XboxViewTV Game Trailers

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All in all, Syndrome is a good game. It is creepy and atmospheric. There has been a lot of work put into logs etc., building up and piecing together just what has happened. I don’t like having to go and do fetch-quests though. I just knew I was going to have to get into the detention centre at some point, and it meant heading to a lower deck a second time, after just being there retrieving the vent tool. It becomes a little tedious having to do what is more commonly considered as fetch-quests.

The only issues I encountered, were using a controller when activating the power near the start, you can’t select anything on the screen in-game and I was having to alt/tab out and ‘end task’. Once playing with mouse and keyboard, though, things work fine. However, this may be an issue with my wired Rock Candy Xbox One controller, as I had issues with I am Setsuna and this same controller. Maybe it has something to do with Unity. The other issue is the game sets to the same as (1600×900, due to small text on net etc.), I can up the resolution within the game, but there is no ‘apply’ button, so it literally does nothing. Literally, if I want to run at 1920×1080 I have to change my desktop first, and then in-game it will be set to 1080p.

Thanks to those Youtube channels featured for the gaming footage.

Syndrome is out now on and Steam, Mac and Linux, all as downloads, with Xbox One and PS4 due in 2017.

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Syndrome – 13 Minutes of Official Gameplay – GameSpot

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Important info:

• Developers: Camel 101 and Bigmoon Entertainmenty

• Publisher: Camel 101
• Players: Single player

GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	7 8.5 7.5 7
OVERALL	7.5