Syndicate Wars (DOS)/Japanese Version

This is a sub-page of Syndicate Wars (DOS).

The Japanese Windows conversion was carried out by Electronic Arts Victor, following their work on Magic Carpet DX. It's not clear if this new Windows code is entirely Victor's work, or a continuation of an unreleased port already started by Bullfrog, as project lead Mike Diskett wrote about working on a Windows 95 edition of the game in the GamesMaster making of series. This version of the game includes a full Japanese localisation as expected, but also includes language and installer options for French and English, again suggesting this may have been a reworking of a version intended for a wider international audience originally.

As with Magic Carpet DX, the game has a new Windows launcher (see right).

Build Date

The main executable SYNWARSW.exe has a build time stamp at position 00129278:

Jun 11 1997 03:08:52

Main Changes

• Commandline arguments no longer work. Therefore it's not possible to use the level select (-m) anymore.

• The intro FMV has the Syndicate themed Bullfrog Productions logo removed. Instead it now starts with a generic Electronic Arts logo instead. This is the case for all 3 language versions of the intro included on the disc.

• The end sequence now no longer shows the Bullfrog logo submerged in water, with the screen simply now black with only the end credits visible. Along with the above change to the intro, this seems to be a deliberate change to downplay Bullfrog as an entity and promote the EA branding of the game.

• The entire multiplayer mode has now been removed.

• The in-game billboards have nearly all been altered to remove the licenced properties present in the original release. As such the adverts for 2000 AD and Ghost in the Shell are now gone, as are the corresponding voice overs in SOUND.DAT (note this is the case for all language versions, including the original English). Instead new crude slideshows of still images consisting of adverts for the 1997 CD-ROM release of Mafuyu Hiroki's art book Louise replace them, which is why the artist is thanked in the credits (the Japanese releases' new box art is also by Mafuyu Hiroki, and was reproduced in his 2000 book Etiquette Of Violence). However the new ads are very poorly done. They have clearly been pasted over the original videos, and indeed the original content can still be seen on the edge of some of the new ads, and also through the transparent pixels wrongly used in some of the new art. The only video ad that persists from the original version of the game is the one for Creation - a game that had been cancelled for some time at this point...

• As with the original release of the game, the .fli billboard videos use the contents of TEX04.DAT (some of the in-game vehicle and building textures) as padding to make them 256 x 256 pixels in size. This padding is never seen in-game, but loading the .Fli file into a paint program reveals this extra data. In the Japanese game, the .fli videos use a different version of the texture file to what was actually shipped with the game, with the Manga Entertainment and 2000 AD logos replaced with other images. It's strange then that the actual textures used are identical to the original release.

Used	Unused

• The game's extensive joystick support has been removed. The joystick options are now totally missing from the Interface menu.

DOS	Windows

Sound Changes

• The audio menu has been changed, and now allows turning off the CD and MIDI music entirely.

DOS	Windows

• As a result of the above change, the game now defaults to playing no CD music at all, and has to be manually set to do so.
• Tension music no longer seems to function correctly. In the original game, the entire point of it was to begin playing when the player's units are in danger, i.e. under attack. In the Windows version it does not play at all by default as it now defaults to off in the audio menu. Selecting one of the two tracks in the menu does not make the game behave as the DOS original, instead it makes the tension music play constantly throughout gameplay regardless of context.

The SOUND.DAT file has extensive changes. Most of this is simply removing sounds to do with the billboards that are no longer present, there are several sounds that have been changed, and even a new one. These new sounds were actually first included in the German release of the game, but were carried on here and span all three included languages:

New Sample	Old Sample	New Filename	Old Filename	File comments	Notes
		LECWPNX.WAV	LECMACE2.WAV	"HB03 60 x with US04 13 01..with..WB04 77 01 down 4 semitones..This version (27) has HB03 55 02 mixed in with it (some of) to give more electricel feel (old one too hissy I thought). THIS version (99) has been vol. boosted then compressed, cos I thought it was too messy. and vers. X has been chorused and had itself (dry) mixed in, and the VERY end pitch bent down about 6 semitones"	New Sound effect for the Electron Mace weapon
		MAILP3.WAV	MAILP2.WAV	"Mail pulse v. 3. 2019 21 pitched down alot (!)"	Altered new mail sound
		NONRGY2.WAV	NONRGY.WAV	"No wpn energy left. 1024 17 01"	New energy drained sound
	N/A	MECH.WAV	N/A	"Mech angry. HB02 somewhere pitched down. Created: 1996-08-10"	New sound effect randomly played by the purple mech when boarded. The creation data suggests this was missed from the original game

Above comments come from the files themselves and were written by Syndicate Wars audio engineer Adrian Moore. The inclusion of the new mech sound is baffling - the purple mech has not been changed since the DOS release and is still inaccessible here. If the player does cheat their way onboard it now randomly growls.

Text Changes

Text.Dat

TEXT.DAT contains the game's menu/interface text and some other things, such as agent names. Oddly the Japanese version of the file is still in English, and contains changes made only to the Japanese agent names from the original game:

Original Name	Japanese Version
AKASHI	OYOYO
FURUSAWA	MIYAZAKI
NAKASHIMA	GUSHIMA
SAKURA	MIKAMI
YAMAGATA	SUDOU
IRIOKA	HORIE
YASUKAWA	IKEDA
IKEMOTO	ISHIGE
SATO	HONDA

There's a change to the multiplayer options to now read RANDOM STARTS instead of just RANDOM START. This seems reasonable, but the entire multiplayer mode has been cut, meaning this will never be seen.

All of the above text changes are only made to the TEXT.DAT file in the Japanese version directory, the English version included is identical to that of the original release of the game.

PEOPLE.TXT

PEOPLE.TXT contains the text for the end of game credits. As with Magic Carpet DX, the EA Victor staff have been added to the list:

#41
[]
[MANY THANKS TO CAROL AGGETT, MATT EYRE, IAIN HANCOCK, JULIO VALLADARES, MICHAEL GIEVERS, NICLAS NORDLANDER, GIUSEPPE D'AMARO, FRANCK BADIN AND EVERYONE WHO HAD THE TOUGH TASK OF DEALING WITH TRANSLATION ISSUES!]

#42
[TAKAGI SHINICHIRO]
[PRODUCER, TRANSLATOR, AND EXPENSE SPECIALIST WAGING WAR AGAINST JAPANESE RED TAPE.]

#43
[GUSHIMA KAI]
[ASISTANT PRODUCER. I NEVER GIVE UP ON SHIPPING THE PRODUCT ON TIME THOUGH MY GIRLFRIEND GAVE UP ON ME THREE MONTH AGO.]

#44
[IKEDA HITOSHI]
[PROGRAMMER. HE WANTS TO RUNAWAY AND SLEEP LIKE A COTTON. NEVER HAPPENS.]

#45
[KIMURA SATOKO]
[MANUAL. SHE IS A SCHEDULE KEEPER. AND ALSO MEGURO SPECIALIST.]

#46
[MITANI SEIICHI]
[PACKAGE. THE PACMAN.]

#47
[IMOTO MASAYA]
[KING OF SOUND ENGINEER IN JAPAN. KARATE-MAN?]

#48
[OKANO TAKAFUMI]
[KNIGHT OF SOUND ENGINEER IN JAPAN. REMINDS US OF THE GUY IN TAMORI CLUB. NICE GUY REALLY.]

#49
[OOSHIMA KAORI]
[QUEEN OF SOUND ENGINEER IN JAPAN. KAORI-CHAN]

#50
[HIROKI MAFUYU]
[VERY FAMOUS VISUAL ARTIST. SPECIAL THANKS TO HIS ART WORKS.]

#51
[IGARASHI KENICHI]
[PRIVATE MANAGER? NO JUST A DEGARASHI-SAN. OOOPS. MY LIPS!]

#52
[UTO TAKASI]
[MARKETING. TAKUSAN TAKUSAN UTTE CHOUDAI.]

#53
[MIYAZAKI YASUNORI]
[QA LEADER. WITHOUT HIM, SYNDICATE WARS WIN 95 WOULD HAVE BEEN BUG RICH PRODUCT.]

#54
[MIKAMI KEN]
[QA TESTER.]

#55
[SUDOU HITOSHI]
[QA TESTER]

#56
[HORIE NOBUAKI]
[QA TESTER]

#57
[ISHIGE TOMOYUKI]
[QA TESTER]

#58
[TSUJI HIDENORI]
[TECHNICAL QA. HIS FIGHT AGAINST NON-PC COMPATIBLE MACHINES CONTINUES.]

#59
[WATANABE AYUMU]
[TECHNICAL QA]

#60
[OOTSU MASAYUKI]
[TECHNICAL QA]

#61
[ONODERA TOSHIYUKI]
[TECHNICAL QA]

#62
[OGASAWARA TOSHIMICHI]
[TECHNICAL QA]

#63
[BULLFROG]
[SPECIAL THANKS TO BENJAMIN DEAN, MARK ADAMI, MIKE MANN, ADRIAN MOOR AND ALL OF BULLFLOG]

#64
[E A V]
[ELECTRONIC ARTS VICTOR INC]

#65
[YAMANAKA YOSHIO]
[QA TESTER]

#66
[AKIMOTO YOSUKE]
[]

#67
[ASAOKA NATSUMI]
[]

#68
[SEKIGUCHI EIJI]
[]


#11

[JAPANESE LOCALISATION]
[64,42,43,44,47,48,49]

#12
[JAPANESE VOICE CAST]
[66,67,68]

#13

[WINDOWS PROGRAMMER]
[44]

#14

[WINDOWS TESTING]
[53,54,55,56,57,65]

#15

[WINDOWS TESTING]
[58,59,60,61,62]


#16

[THANKS TO]
[50,45,46,51,52,63]"

(Source: Mefistotelis])