Satellite Reign

 PC
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 141 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 96 out of 141
  2. Mixed: 30 out of 141
  3. Negative: 15 out of 141

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  1. agurczuk
    Jun 20, 2017
    7
    A game praying on nostalgia to deliver a Syndicate like experience that turns out to be not a bad game - although with what i felt a lot of potential wasted somewhere between the lines.

    First of - I remember somewhat the original Syndicate Wars - enough to feel nostalgic about it but not enough to draw a direct comparison between the two. Might be for the better or worse for a game    A game praying on nostalgia to deliver a Syndicate like experience that turns out to be not a bad game - although with what i felt a lot of potential wasted somewhere between the lines.

    First of - I remember somewhat the original Syndicate Wars - enough to feel nostalgic about it but not enough to draw a direct comparison between the two. Might be for the better or worse for a game review but this is how it is.

    Satellite Reign is a real time squad based game set in a cyberpunk world of the future. The giant companies control the world and it's up to you and your squad to take the worst offender down. The story is simple and doesn't get much more complicated throughout the game. Most of the text is presented in writing and it's easier to just skim the text for important bits regarding the mission rather than trying to understand the story which seems a bit generic.

    Mechanically this is a squad based real time strategy game. You control four members of your squad in a pretty standard set up - soldier/heavy, support/medic, hacker and infiltrator/sniper. Each of those come with a special set of skills you can upgrade with experience gained. Those are pretty cool and useful - some more than other - but generally you do feel like you're making a choice by selecting what to upgrade and it does impact the way you play later on.

    Apart from the standard upgradeable skills you get to manage your squad load-out meaning guns, gear and implants. All of these feel pretty varied and provide an impact on the way you take on a mission. Some loud-outs are in fact better suited for certain missions than other - all depending on the mission type and facilities you're breaching, and your preffered game play. The amount of customisation here was pretty cool.

    There is also a cloning layer - a place where you take people and by assigning them to your squad members you enhance their abilities - but I found it pretty much useless - didn't understand the concept to well and ignored it entirely. It felt wonky and combined with often dying and loosing the bonuses felt like just too much work for little gain.

    Visually it's quite nice. The cyberbpunk atmosphere is there and looks really good. Although seems to be very power hungry. Sure, you can zoom in pretty close and it still lookes good but it's unplayable while zoomed in. So I was completly zoomed out the entire time. The camera for whatever artistic reason is constantly bobbing slightly left and right - didn't make me feel nauseous but I imagine it could make some people. Overall it felt like totally unnecessary thing with no way of turning it off. The graphic in general was looking good - very neon like - and fitting the setting.

    The game has a bit strange paste to it. It's slow at first - you're always under equiped with low tier guns, and no money. The enemies are also a bit hard at first in comparison to your setup. This leads to tackling the first mission very stealthy - luckily the game allows for such approach and you still get experience from doing things without causing mayhem. It gets better over time and things start balancing out and stealth stops being the only viable option.

    I'm glad I've stuck through the beginning part as the game picked up somewhere along mid-game and starts getting interesting. The mid and end game is far more interesting as you're much better equipped and have a lot more room for taking different approaches to each mission.

    The thing this begs for is an active pause though. It would change the game significantly and i feel for the better. As things stand right now there is no other way than just move your squad as a whole. There is just to little time for any flanking or other clever maneuvering. The slow-down time ability is there for the hacker but it has almost no meaningful impact on the game play.

    Overall in the end I found the game to be enjoyable despite a bit repetitive and not giving a lot of control of the action when things get spicy. I have a feeling that making small changes to the game play would make the game much more enjoyable than it is but as it stands it's still worth picking up and trying out yourself.    … Expand
  2. rd1349
    Sep 2, 2015
    7
    Ah satellite reign, I spent a lot of time with this game in all its' brilliance...and its failures.
    To get started satellite reign is a cyberpunk indie game that gets everything that is cyberpunk right, very right. From what I've heard it's supposed to be a spiritual successor to the first Syndicate game (not the botched sequel) As times have changed and technology has improved it is    Ah satellite reign, I spent a lot of time with this game in all its' brilliance...and its failures.
    To get started satellite reign is a cyberpunk indie game that gets everything that is cyberpunk right, very right. From what I've heard it's supposed to be a spiritual successor to the first Syndicate game (not the botched sequel) As times have changed and technology has improved it is fairly easy to say that it is a very good improvement on its source material.

    The graphics are at a level I never expected of a non-triple-A cashcow and the districts of the game are all done beautifully. However performance leaves a lot to be desired and even with a very good PC you probably won't be able to run it at a smooth FPS.

    Story is not the games strong point and while it is there it seems to be almost wholly made up of the genres cliches, as if they wrote down a list and filled in all the ticks. The few surprises it does throw at you are almost comical, one such is the ending but I won't spoil that for you.

    Gameplay is probably the games strongest feature as it gives you an amazing amount of ways to tackle the obstacles in your way. It's hard to describe them all here as every facility you break into is different but suffice to say that everything from full on one man stealth to using an army of your own enslaved cybernetic enemies to to break down the door. This combined with the open world of the game (funny enough I've never seen a true open world strategy game before this) make for many diverse playstyles. The mission goal though remain strangely the same and although this actually doesn't bother due to the superb facility layouts it can be seen as slightly repetitive. The only time the game tries to break off from its' formula at the final boss (which is the only boss if you don't count the odd mech or two who are a real challenge to take down) it screws it up by making you kill him three times before you actually win.

    The bad;
    The AI is... more than a little inconsistent. At times you'll watch it pull of amazing feats of tactical ingenuity and other times you'll see it run searching for you in the opposite direction of your gunshots. This and it's amazing ability to summon zerg rushes out of nowhere can be rather frustrating because then once you've died you realize you'll have to do most if not all of the facility you were breaching again as there are no checkpoints while in enemy territory. Your squads AI too is susceptible to the inconsistencies as once I watched one of my man sprinting into another of my men without a clue that her could just walk around him.

    So final Verdict! :7/10
    As hard as this game was to get into at first I truly enjoyed myself playing it however I can't ignore the flaws, for all its polish and finesse the games bad AI and optimization issues coupled with it's lack of mission variety bring it down from what would have been a stellar 9.5 to a better than average 7. If you're the kind of person that can ignore these issues and is craving some cyberpunk then this is your cup of tea. If you a masochist who squee'd whenever they died in dark souls then this game is also for you.    … Expand
  3. Big_Bear
    Oct 9, 2015
    6
    Bitterly disappointed with this. When I discovered the game touted as a modern Syndicate Wars, I was very excited as Wars is one of my favorite games of all time but this is not the game I wanted it to be.

    Good - the core gameplay is good and the graphics look great. The game does manage to retain the cyberpunk atmosphere of Syndicate Wars. Bad - by far the biggest problem is lack    Bitterly disappointed with this. When I discovered the game touted as a modern Syndicate Wars, I was very excited as Wars is one of my favorite games of all time but this is not the game I wanted it to be.

    Good - the core gameplay is good and the graphics look great. The game does manage to retain the cyberpunk atmosphere of Syndicate Wars.

    Bad - by far the biggest problem is lack of customization for your team; I thought I would be able to design each of my agents from scratch and then gear them up before each mission. But no, each agent is predetermined and gear NEVER changes in appearance. All you can do is 'clone' random npc's but all that changes is the head and hairstyle, so disappointing. You don't even get the freedom to deploy your team; instead you are forced to field each of the 4 classes instead of the classes you want to field.

    The devs really, really should have allowed the player full freedom of customization for the agents. Having a 'base' would have worked better than always being in the game map.

    Verdict - Ironically, the games from 90's that inspired this actually do a lot of things better than this, like the Cryovat chamber where you applied mods to each cyborg and a clear mission briefing. If they brought out an update that allowed me to fully create each agent and then gear them with different looking clothes then this game would jump to an 8. But as is, with no customization at all, its a hugely disappointing 6/10.    … Expand
  4. Thilus
    Mar 8, 2016
    7
    Okay, I am forced to change my opinion about this game. Soon after the release I picked it up and wass hugely disappoined. I gave the game a lowly 4/10 and pointed out that the game was full of bugs and poorly optimized. Just last week I saw that Satellite Reign received a series of updates that fixed some of the problems that annoyed me from the begining and I decided to give it anotherOkay, I am forced to change my opinion about this game. Soon after the release I picked it up and wass hugely disappoined. I gave the game a lowly 4/10 and pointed out that the game was full of bugs and poorly optimized. Just last week I saw that Satellite Reign received a series of updates that fixed some of the problems that annoyed me from the begining and I decided to give it another try. And even though the game is still flawed in many ways, it has been fixed enough to be playable and enjoyable. At this time, if you're looking for a cyberpunk treat, you might want to give this one a try. It is still full of questionable solutions when it comes to gameplay and story, but at least it is enough of a decent game to try it out.… Expand
  5. Flashback92
    Jan 27, 2019
    7
    This game is good, but i can't give more than 7 points because, the graphics and performance is too bad.
    Music essence: Very good
    Sounds quality; medium
    Graphics quality: medium
    Performance: slow (Single thread support)
    Control: medium (Because camera can't rotate just a little bit)

Awards & Rankings

83
#83 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 36 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 36
  3. Negative: 0 out of 36
  1. Brash Games
    Mar 6, 2016
    80
    But for all it’s faults, Satellite Reign might still be worth exploring as a mechanical experience if you can handle some rough edges and make your own narrative.
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  2. CD-Action
    Dec 16, 2015
    55
    It could’ve been a really good game, but the developers stumbled on the basics. Terrible interface, awful beginning of the campaign and mediocre AI take most of the fun out of Satellite Reign. [12/2015, p.46]
  3. games(TM)
    Oct 25, 2015
    80
    A perfectly executed heist offers an incredible sense of achievement. [Issue#166, p.95]
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