Syndicate

Syndicate puts you in charge of a corporate empire in a cyberpunk future where megacorporations, not governments, run the world. You direct a four-agent squad through fifty isometric city missions across a globe you conquer territory by territory, assassinating rival executives, stealing technology, kidnapping scientists and putting down insurrections.

Your agents are cyborgs, and you build them yourself. Between missions you buy and fit legs, arms, eyes, chests and brains, arm them with everything from pistols and miniguns to the Gauss gun and the Persuadertron, and pour research money into new weapons and body parts - funded entirely by the tax you levy on the territories you already control. Tax too hard and the population revolts.

In the field, three drug sliders govern each agent's intelligence, perception and adrenaline. Push them and your agents move and shoot faster; push them too long and they build a tolerance, so you have to ease off. The Persuadertron converts civilians on the spot, and a large enough crowd of converts can turn police officers and even enemy agents to your side.

The city is fully populated and fully destructible in the ways that matter: civilians flee, police respond, cars can be commandeered, and nothing stops you from levelling a crowd to reach a target. An expansion, Syndicate: American Revolt, followed in the same year with harder missions, and the two were repackaged in 1996 as Syndicate Plus.