Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror

April 11,2007 - Since its inception on the original PlayStation, the Syphon Filter series has seemingly fallen off the gaming landscape. After a slight misstep on the PS2, SCEA Bend is looking to return the series to greatness with Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror for the PSP. Besides the usual online multiplayer and a reformatting of the game for a portable system, what works very well for Dark Mirror is the control scheme that’s unlike what most PSP games tend to employ.

Dark Mirror begins with hero Gabe Logan and his partner Lian Xing being called to investigate an Alaskan refinery that has been taken over by a terrorist organization called Red Section. The story very much resembles what could be expected from a political-thriller film mixed with action, so expect double crosses, high stakes situations, and an appearance by someone from Gabe’s past with cheesy lines along the way. It’s a good story for what it is, but not nearly enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. The cutscenes for each episode of gameplay, however, are well executed and do a great job of getting you in the mood to start playing.

The big twist to the gameplay of this portable Syphon Filter really has nothing to do with anything in the game itself. The control scheme that the developers came up with for Dark Mirror mimics the dual analog stick scheme that most gamers would expect to use for this type of game, but obviously the PSP lacks dual analog sticks. Instead, players will use the analog nub for strafing and moving forwards and backwards while using the face buttons for aiming and camera control. The d-pad is then used for inventory (weapons and goggles) management along with some context-sensitive controls for the various actions that need to be used in the game. It may sound like a strange way to play at first, but with the help of the included tutorial missions, it quickly grows on you and works really well.

The game itself plays a lot like an action film in terms of being a stealth action game, as playing with stealth doesn’t really reward you with much of anything. Every bad guy you come upon has to be killed for you to move on, besides the occasional air grate that you can crawl through. Most of the stealth actions that you can perform are leaning up against walls, crates, or whatever else you find and being able to shoot around the edge, but once you’re spotted, it’s a run and gun game. It’s definitely an enjoyable game, but there’s not a ton of variety to the game compared to its long-time rival, Metal Gear Solid.

The story mode is broken up into seven episodes with anywhere from two to five chapters per episode. Each chapter has about five to twenty minutes of gameplay within it, depending on how thorough you are in moving through each level. This will last you roughly eight hours, which works well enough for the portable platform. Unfortunately, you cannot save during chapters despite the checkpoints you do run into, so it’s not the most portable friendly game around. As you beat chapters, you unlock them for the mission mode to play through again and perfect them for the Career Rating mode, which tracks how you play the game in various attributes and rewards you with new items and weapons. Multiplayer looks to extend the game’s lifespan, but the lack of variety in modes and maps along with a rather bad community really hurts any potential fun that could have been had while online. Expect AIM-level chatting, many blatant spawn campers, and such little enjoyment that the single-player looks even better by comparison.

Dark Mirror is definitely amongst the best-looking games that the PSP has. There’s a surprising amount of detail to Gabe’s model and the environments themselves are well detailed. The levels are designed with care to keep from being bland and repetitive. The goggle effects, for night, heat, and electricity vision, are really nice and are used frequently in dark environments or environments with traps that aren’t visible to the naked eye. The story cutscenes that introduce each level look fantastic and are really well-done, though in-game cutscenes that interrupt gameplay will not be as pretty. Load times are a bit on the long side, but are offset by the mission objectives being revealed while you wait.

Audio is another big part of the great presentation as Lian Xing is constantly communicating with you while you navigate levels and find new items that further the story to provide for a great atmosphere for the game. Music is what you’d expect for a spy/action movie, and it sets the mood rather nicely. When you head online, there is the option to use the PSP microphone to chat to your fellow players, but that will probably not be an attractive option for the miserable online mode.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is definitely a return to form for the series that hasn’t been all that relevant for several years. The presentation is very well-done and more in line with what you’d expect on the PlayStation 2 rather than the PSP. The new control scheme is great and needs to be implemented for more third-person action games that seem to feel hindered by whatever control scheme they think they should use. The main story mode is very much enjoyable, though the stealth part of the gameplay is closer to Gears of Wars than Metal Gear Solid, and is more reminiscent of the “stealth” you’d see in an action movie. Just don’t think about heading online, as it’s more of a headache than it’s worth.

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