This was posted 3 years 4 months 24 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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[PC, MAC] Free: Ultima Underworld 1+2, Syndicate Plus & Syndicate Wars (Was US$18) @ GOG

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[PC, MAC] Free: Ultima Underworld 1+2, Syndicate Plus & Syndicate Wars (Was US$18) @ GOG
Go to Deal
buddysayshi on 07/08/2021 - 04:57 gog.com (2444 clicks)
Last edited 07/08/2021 - 18:30 by 2 other users

Available to claim till 3rd September.

Individual links:

Syndicate Plus™: https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate

Syndicate Wars™: https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate_wars

Ultima™ Underworld 1+2: https://www.gog.com/game/ultima_underworld_1_2
——————————————————
Syndicate is also available for free on Origin Store (until 3rd September, possibly Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 will be available here later as stated in the bottom text): https://www.origin.com/irl/en-us/store/deals/augustclassics

Direct link: https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/syndicate/syndicate-1…

Check out all the latest and upcoming Free Games.
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closed Comments

  • Kritter2069 on 07/08/2021 - 07:11
    +25

    I have such fond memories of Syndicate Wars, what a great game it was.

    • TEER3X on 07/08/2021 - 07:13
      +3

      Same here, wasted a lifetime playing.

    • dsp26 on 07/08/2021 - 07:48
      +12

      Greatest cheat code ever… "pooslice"

    • Ostrich on 07/08/2021 - 07:55
      +1

      Same here, such an incredible game.

    • neonlight on 07/08/2021 - 08:50

      Yeah I loved the original syndicate and wars must get?!

    • sardines on 07/08/2021 - 09:55
      +1

      I remember syndicate on the Amiga and as it started to stutter on the last level as hordes of enemies came on the screen..Good memories and never knew it made it onto the PC — Time to try the sequels!

  • dbell on 07/08/2021 - 07:33

    Thanks!

  • Batapotamus on 07/08/2021 - 07:39

    Thanks for the memories! Ultima 3 was my go-to back in the days.

  • slipkord on 07/08/2021 - 08:34
    +33

    I have fond memories of playing Syndicate as a kid - and funnily enough, I used to work alongside a guy who made significant coding contributions to this free, cross-platform, open-source reimplementation of the game

    Freesynd (hosted on SourceForge)

    Instead of having to configure and launch the DosBox emulator every time you want to play Syndicate, freesynd allows you to launch and play your installed copy of the Syndicate game, natively, from your Windows or Linux or Mac OS X computer.

    If folks want to try out using freesynd with GOG's Syndicate Plus game bundle (Syndicate base game, with the 'American Revolt' add-on), you will have to follow PCGamingWiki's instructions on using an unofficial patch to prevent freesynd from crashing when using the data files from a Syndicate Plus game installation. Unfortunately, the unofficial patch readme does warn that even with it applied, freesynd will not be able to actually play the add-on missions, but the base game missions are playable.

    In fact, it took me a few minutes to download the latest version of freesynd (v0.7.5) from SourceForge, (re)install my purchased GOG copy of Syndicate Plus, apply the unofficial patch, and then launched freesynd. Works pretty well on my laptop … a good nostalgia hit on a Saturday morning :-)

    • The Captain on 07/08/2021 - 09:53

      Had to login to OB just to upvote your comment. Thanks for the useful info!

  • g12345567 on 07/08/2021 - 08:36
    +1

    Syndicate Plus (GOG) or Syndicate (Origin)?

    Syndicate Plus™ · Includes Syndicate and the American Revolt expansion. No mention the Origin version includes the expansion.

    • slipkord on 07/08/2021 - 09:03
      +1

      According to PCGamingWiki, the Origin store listing is Syndicate Plus, also pre-packaged with DosBox, just like the GOG store

  • neonlight on 07/08/2021 - 08:53
    +2

    Syndicate that game got me mind blown back then with cyber stuff and psychotic devices persuading random ppl in public

    Was actually very intense game brilliant music too

  • chyawala on 07/08/2021 - 09:14

    Have other pricey items in cart which I cannot seem to remove, so can't check out.

    • Jdrizzle on 07/08/2021 - 12:43
      +1

      On mobile? Try hitting the cart button up the top, then when it drops down swipe the item you don't want from right to left, it should give you a remove option.

  • nephilim on 07/08/2021 - 09:27

    One of my best mates had Syndicate on snes, never really understood the game until years later when I replayed it as a rom and got addicted.

  • bennobee on 07/08/2021 - 09:28

    Brilliant thanks OP

  • colblair on 07/08/2021 - 10:00

    So many good memories with the Ultima series, particularly UU2. Thanks.

  • FabMan on 07/08/2021 - 10:48
    +2

    Dated, but the ideas behind these games were fantastic. I already own all three of these on GoG and I had them back in the day too, but I sent these to friends.

    I still find Syndicate Wars playable today, graphics are crap but the interface is still usable, the AI is okay and the physics were impressive, making it enjoyable today. Just discovered a site that tries to make Syndicate Wars more playable today too:

    http://syndicate.lubiki.pl/swars/html/swars_patches.php

    • MushaConvoy on 08/08/2021 - 03:59
      +2

      The site is great, but the native Windows installer needs the CD or at very least an ISO mounted to a drive letter, and GoG doesn't supply this. Unlikely there will be a way around this given the last update it received.

      May be able to get around this by compiling from source, but my interest ran out………..

    • slipkord on 08/08/2021 - 13:47
      +1

      @Fabman - I visited that fan website a few years ago, thanks for linking to it, brought back memories of when I was digging around the Internet for various mods, patches to various older games I wanted to play on newer computers

      @MushaConvoy - I looked at the installer script for the swars-0.3.exe installer file, its a bit antiquated, probably predating the release of Syndicate Wars on GOG.com (e.g. it tries to be fancy and attempts to encode an original Syndicate Wars CD-ROM disc's music tracks to .ogg format). I basically avoided that CD-ROM check by simply extracting the installer file's contents to a temporary folder and then copying over the relevant files to the Syndicate Wars\SWARS directory. The .ogg music tracks would have to be manually and separately created though.

      I read through a couple of online forums that had people posting various solutions, and I found two fairly modern/recent patch files (both have source code, on GitHub), and I tried both patches separately on my laptop's installed (GOG version) of Syndicate Wars. As far as I can tell, they're working well, no crashes as yet…

      I've consolidated all of the above onto a post I wrote just earlier

      P.S. If you have the know-how, it'd be interesting if you (or anyone else who has the enthusiasm) could manage to compile with mefistotelis swars GitHub repo (latest commit on Nov 2020)…

  • Garagesale on 07/08/2021 - 12:39
    +1

    Ultima 4 is free too.
    Grab it while u r there

  • AshleyLiang on 07/08/2021 - 19:07
    +1

    Will never forget the summer in 1994…Playing Syndicate on my first PC - a 386DX-40. It didn't even have a sound card in it so the gaming was silent…but the 640x480 graphic was so stunning! I spent nearly the whole vacation on it with my cousin even though we didn't really get it. Didn't play Syndicate Wars much though, even though I persuaded my father to buy the disc once I spot it in a mall…such sweet and nostalgic memories.

  • moo on 07/08/2021 - 23:34
    +3

    I still have the original Syndicate CD, got it with my Creative Sound Blaster 16 kit!

  • slipkord on 08/08/2021 - 12:52
    +5

    Guide for using the Syndicate Wars source port with GOG's Syndicate Wars (instead of DOSBox)

    If folks are interested in using something that isn't the DOSBox emulator in order to configure and run GOG's Syndicate Wars on modern operating systems, and:

    • are happy with playing the single player missions only
    • don't care about playing networked multiplayer games
    • don't care about having joystick support

    they could give this fan-made source port program a try:

    vexillium's Syndicate Wars Port

    For Windows users, there is a downloadable installer (swars-0.3.exe), however it requires the Syndicate Wars CD-ROM to be present in a CD-ROM drive(!) … so the installer is not friendly to those who don't possess the physical game disc

    I figured out how to 'bypass' the installer program's CD-ROM check, you just have to read on …

    SWARS Port installer workaround

    Download the swars-0.3.exe installer file, use 7-Zip to extract that installer file's contents into a temporary folder. From this folder, copy only the SWARS Port executable and shared DLL files (swars.exe, SDL.dll, openal32.dll, libpng3.dll, wrap_oal.dll, zlib1.dll) and place them into the Syndicate Wars\SWARS directory folder.
    NOTE: I don't think you need need to copy over the unistall.exe, any of the other files in the $PLUGINSDIR folder

    Music files workaround - the lazy method

    Someone already ripped the music files and converted them to the high-quality Ogg Vorbis format (which is what the swars port utilizes) and posted them on here (Mega.nz filehost) for anyone to download

    Music files workaround - DIY method
    1. Navigate to the GOG installed copy of Syndicate Wars, specifically the Syndicate Wars\SWARS folder - there should be two files, game.gog and game.ins
    2. Rename game.gog to Syndicate Wars.bin and also rename game.ins to Syndicate Wars.cue
    3. Use Notepad or your preferred text editor to open and edit the Syndicate Wars.cue file, such that

    The first line

    FILE "game.gog" BINARY

    should be changed to

    FILE "Syndicate Wars.bin" BINARY

    Use a CD audio extractor software (e.g. CDMage) to open Syndicate Wars.cue and extract the three (3) audio tracks and save them into .WAV format. Then use an audio conversion tool (e.g. fre:ac, oggdropXPd) to convert these .WAV tracks to .OGG format

    Copy the music tracks

    You should now have three Syndicate Wars CD music tracks, rename them to: track_1.ogg, track_2.ogg, track_3.ogg

    Create a new folder in the Syndicate Wars\SWARS directory called MUSIC, and place those three .ogg files inside that new folder

    Launching SWARS Port (v0.3)

    Double-click on swars.exe

    Or, launch a new Command Prompt, so that you run the swars.exe with command line arguments that you desire (optionally, make a batch file for convenience).

    Usage: swars.exe [OPTIONS]

  Available options:
    --windowed    -w    Run in windowed mode
    --no-stretch  -S    Don't display 320x200 graphics stretched to 640x480
    --help        -h    Display the help message
    Modern patches for SWARS Port

    However, that's NOT quite the end of it, as swars.exe (v0.3 dates back from Jan 2010) has a couple of bugs that have been reported by several folks (GOG forum thread, Google Groups discussions), that even the Syndicate Wars page on PCGamingWiki doesn't mention

    After 'installing' swars v0.3 (as per the Installer workaround steps I wrote above), you can optionally choose between one of these two custom-built patch files that have been mentioned in the above online forums - both are freely downloadable from GitHub. Extract the patch ZIP file's contents into the Syndicate Wars\SWARS folder - overwriting any previously installed swars v0.3 files in the process, e.g. swars.exe, SDL.dll, zlib1.dll, libpng3.dll, openal32.dll

    NOTE: you can't install and combine both patches - each patch's set of files will overwrite the other patch's set of files, when extracted onto the Syndicate Wars\SWARS folder. So you have to pick one that suits you best

    mefistotelis patch
    • includes speed bug fix
    • includes fixes relating to "targeting missiles from tanks causing game crash when tank gets damage, or when exiting tank, or when two tanks fight each other"
    • latest GitHub release ZIP v0.3.1.16 (Oct 2020)
    Launching SWARS Port (mefistotelis' patch v0.3.1.16)

    See what I wrote above for Launching SWARS Port (v0.3)

    leonsodhi patch
    • includes speed bug fix
    • adds fullscreen borderless windowed mode
    • adds resolution switch for windowed mode
    • mouse lock fix to keep the mouse inside the window
    • monitor switch for multi-monitor setups
    • fixed mouse stickiness issue when running in windowed mode
    • latest GitHub pre-release ZIP v0.3.3 (May 2017)
    Launching SWARS Port (leonsodhi's patch v0.3.3)

    Double-click on swars.exe, or use Command Prompt to launch with desired command line arguments as below

    Usage: swars.exe [OPTIONS]

Available options:
  --windowed=WxH Run in windowed mode at specified resolution. Default is 640x480
  --fullwindow   Run in fullscreen borderless window mode
  --monitor=X    Display on monitor X
  --help         Display the help message
  • Epyc on 08/08/2021 - 17:04

    Syndicate Plus and Syndicate Wars… two of my all time favourite games! Thank you OP :)

  • [Deactivated] on 08/08/2021 - 21:56

    Origin has Ultima Underworld 1+2 too, but you need a US VPN. Windscribe's free server worked for me. Once they're added to your account, you can play without VPN.

  • MelbBoy on 08/08/2021 - 22:51

    Oh wow thanks. Ultima Underworld was a game changer in PC gaming, and consistently voted one of the greatest RPG games ever.

  • AusGeno on 09/08/2021 - 13:57

    Fond memories of minigun drive-by shootings in Syndicate, I might check it out for a nostalgia hit.

  • slipkord on 18/08/2021 - 08:28

    For anyone curious to know more about why Syndicate Plus, Syndicate Wars, Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2 were delisted from the GOG storefront around early July, the games publisher Electronic Arts explained:

    … the delisting came from a breakdown in the publisher's process for managing the digital titles it has on sale, and has since changed this procedure to avoid similar situations in future"

    (GamesIndustry.biz article)

    By way of apology, EA had them relisted four weeks later in early August, and these titles are being given away for free as a month-long promotion on GOG.com (until September 3rd)

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