Syphon Filter's weak story doesn't hamper an amazing game.
Syphon Filter follows the exploits of super spy Gabe Logan, he works for a super secret agency, a super dangerous group has a super secret plan for blah blah blah, the story **** is contrived, clichéd, and uninteresting. On to the juicy bits.
The gameplay is amazing for a handheld. There are 6 categories for weapons, 2 for rifles, 1 for sub machine gun, 1 for pistols, 1 for grenades, and 1 for your melee bits. This works out incredibly well, as it forces you to make some decisions about your equipment that may sacrifice your fighting capability in some areas to benefit others. There isn’t a wrong or right combination, which makes the strategy of picking an arsenal intense. No matter which weapons you pick, you’ll definitely feel satisfied with the selection, variety, and power of these. From your silenced pistol to the sniper rifles, all the weapons feel powerful, sound powerful, and look powerful.
In addition to your weapons, you’ve got a number of nifty gadgets that help you see electronic gadgets, night vision, thermal vision, or a flashlight. There are plenty of areas where these all come in useful, and the graphics for these, especially the thermal vision, are all incredibly detailed.
The game presents you with a number of paths in most areas. In some cases you’ll have to shoot your way through, but for the most par the game offers you the choice of being stealthy, which is a lot of fun when used in conjunction with your silent items, such as your pistol, knife, or whatever you want to use to take people out.
The game offers a lock on button for people who don’t feel like using the controls to get their headshots. The trade off is that the accuracy is greatly reduced, but not enough to put people off of the system completely. Once you get your spy legs on so to speak, the controls offer a pretty accurate system of killing without the lock on. Using the knob stick below the d-pad to look, I found that my performance was increased to near par with other console fps games such as Halo. It will take some getting used to, but the effort is worth it.
The environments are pretty varied, depending on where the story takes you, but overall they were well put together. You’ll be running through secret facilities, or South America depending on what’s going on at the time.
The enemies are all pretty smart, and will adapt to your tactics accordingly. If you hide behind a barrel for cover, they will rush you, and if you fire at them, they will find cover. It’s pretty impressive, though not jaw dropping.
The campaign is pretty short, unfortunately, but there are a number of features that add to the replayability. The first is playing the game to improve your efficiency to unlock various weapons and items by being stealthier, getting headshots, etc. The second is the multiplayer, which while pretty generic, is still a blast to play.
The sounds are pretty good, with voiceovers for the characters in the game adding to the immersion of the game. These voiceovers are tolerable, as are the lines they speak, but it could have been a lot better.
The graphics are incredible for a hand held, nearly on par with the ps2 version of the game. There aren’t any noticeable slowdowns in the game, which is pretty impressive considering some of the scenes have your character wading through a bunch of enemies at one time.
The real problem with this game is the long loading times. While they aren’t crippling to the game, they are noticeable, and become very irritating very quickly.
Siphon Filter is an amazing accomplishment for the PSP, and hopefully will give confidence to game developers looking for a template on how to pursue shooter games on the platform in the future.