The controls of Syndicate is quite easy to pick up. Though, you'll find yourself pressing the Action Button more often than you would holding down the trigger. Along with laying down some lead, there's some pretty decent melee executions, but nothing to really get excited about. There's about two good ones and they don't show up that often. You'll notice that Kilo is very fast and pretty strong for his scrawny self, having to bust through and kick open paths to get to your objective. He's also got a nifty slide...that you probably won't use that much through the game.

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Since Syndicate is a Cyberpunk style game, hacking is a definite tool used through the game. Called "Breaching", those of the different syndicates all have a chip planted within their brain; time for a little mind hacking. Of course, just entering the chip in the guys head isn't all Syndicate has to offer. The player has a choice to either make the hopeless fool commit "Suicide", "Persuade" the victim, or forget hacking the guy's head and hack his weapon to "Backfire" and make him look like an idiot in front of all his buddies. Suicide is literally what it is, the victim pulls out a grenade and activates it in his hand, waiting helplessly for it to blow him and whoever else in the immediate vicinity to bits. Persuade "convinces" the victim to turn coat and kill all his allies in the room. If he accomplishes this feat, he realizes the errors of his ways and takes himself out. Finally, Backfire is probably the most helpful as it knocks the victim down and lowers their defense for you to unload your little gun on.

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Speaking of guns! While playing Syndicate, there's a decent amount of guns the game has to offer. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to come across through the length of the game. At the same time, most guns of the game have an alternate fire mode that can be switched on the fly. A very interesting feature which is perfect for this style of the game is the method to obtain frag grenades. BREACH THEM! Hacking an enemy grenade to use against them never felt so good.

RPG elements are also within Syndicate. As you go through the game, you'll encounter special characters that have high class chips you must extract from their brain to access more of your own ability. Nasty, but effective I suppose. Each chip lets you activate a new ability of your choice from more health, to being much more effective in battle, to even getting a shield for better defense.

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One thing that I found great within Syndicate were the boss battles. It wasn't just run and gun, pop out of cover. No, no, each boss fight had a twist that made you think outside of your normal FPS mode style of thinking. A big plus because doing the same thing just gets boring over time.

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Co-op mode in Syndicate isn't playing the story with a buddy. No, that's Kilo's story, stay away. Co-op mode is up to four players online completing separate missions different from the story. This is almost entirely different from the story as you're not kilo, but one of four member of the syndicate. Choose between two guys and two girls and level them up by doing missions together, fighting your way from the beginning of the stage to the end. Playing co-op, you have to work for everything that was basically given to you in the Story. The weapons do not start off with their alternate fire and you have to earn blueprints and upgrade points to bring them up to par and then some. Good news is, there's more hacking options than just Persuade, Suicide, and Backfire.

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Let's recap. Syndicate is a first person shooter that offers a style of play we've all seen before with a cherry on top, maybe some sprinkles. Between the story and the online multiplayer co-op, there's more fun to be had playing online and with others than going through the story of ole Kilo. This game had a lot of potential, but obviously barely came close to what it really could have been.

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Blac Tape TV gives this shooter a 6.5 out of 10. Great to play online, but it's not wowing anybody.