In the early days of the PS1 (or PSX, for those old enough to remember it being called that) there were many promising games. Syphon Filter was one of those games and it helped make the Sony brand what it is now. After the success of the first Syphon Filter there was quick response to make sequels. The other games were marginal and did not capture the critical acclaim like the first one but a fan base still grew. After the admittedly tarnished series came out with a PSP announcement, hopes for a fantastic title were cautiously optimistic. Those fears were completely and utterly unfounded as Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror blows the doors off the PSP and sets THE standard for 3rd person stealth action games for portables and will change the way people think about console games of the same sort.
Story
At risk of gamers sending massive amounts of hate mail for rattling off spoilers, many details of the story will be left out. To generalize the story: you play as Gabe Logan, a secret spy so secret that no data is kept about him or is operations. In Dark Mirror you are sent to investigate a biochem outpost in Alaska and that is where things start to get interesting. The enemy is “Red Section†and they are after something so important that people will die for it. Gabe’s job is to find out what Red Section wants. To answer a question in advanced, yes, there are many plot twists.
However, the plot is what you would expect from any of these kinds of games. Nothing real revolutionary. The story is, however, told in a fantastic manner that will immerse players into the world of Dark Mirror. The story can get too complex at times but nothing so outlandish that makes you believe you aren’t in that world.
Sound
The musical score is beautiful and fits the espionage theme with perfection. The voice acting is spoken with feeling and intensity, something you would expect from a guy named Gabe Logan and other super secret spys. The gadgets have cool sound effects but the guns fall short and sound a little bit like fake guns. It isn’t that big of a deal seeing that most of the sound production quality is through the roof but it was disappointing that the total package was not flawless.
When chatting in an online game, voice communication sound pretty clear but only to a certain degree. Voices sound they come like a walkie talkie, not a high tech headset. At any rate, the compressed voice is just fine because of the virtually no lag in online modes.
This is in game footage
Control
To put it nicely, Dark Mirror does the best with the PSP’s controls as possible. While controlling Gabe around areas is easy, aiming is a chore to do with the face buttons. That is the only stumbling block for controls, the aiming. Everything else is handeled with grace and ease. Changing weapons is effortless and changing dart tips is just a flick of the d-pad. The controls are quite intuitive when it comes to the scope of moves you can preform. Peaking around corners and seeing who’s on patrol is fluid and easy. To sum the control scheme up, the aiming is not ideal but it works and can be forgiven seeing that it is a PSP technical limitation. Overall, controls like a dream.
Graphics
One look at the graphics and prepare to be immersed into the world of Dark Mirror. The cut scenes are down right gorgeous and look like anything the PS2 could do. As the same with the graphics. Sharp textures, diverse environments, superb animations, and great character models are all included in Dark Mirror. However, there were a few spots of slow down when multiple things are happening on screen at once (ex: guys rushing in a room, guns blazing only to be topped off by a huge explosion). The menus are clear and make it easy to navigate to what mode you want to play.
For the online part of the game, the main lobby looks cluttered but finding a game to play in the menus isn’t all that hard to do. Then again, why bother with the menus when you can voice chat.
Gameplay
Gabe Logan IS a bad ass in the best possible meaning of the term. He has no problem settling the score if something or someone has been wronged. The gameplay reflects that. For starters, the mission mode is fantastic fun. You take Gabe Logan through a series of mission to uncover what Red Section is doing what they are doing. You can either sneak around or go guns blazing but, of course, a mixture of those two is the perfect way to make the levels manageable. There are quick save features and many check points so picking up and setting down the game is easy to do. After you beat a level, you can go back and play your favorite one as many times as you want without going through the other levels. The cinemas aren’t too long and give a nice setup to the mission. The PSP screen really makes these cut scenes shine and look as good as they would on any console title.
The guns have different properties that lend themselves to specific situations. The highly advanced sniper rifle that Gabe always carries around is the swiss army knife of all kinds of death. There are poison darts, exploding darts, shock darts, and 9mm rounds. The darts are cool because they stick to guys without them knowing it. After you place a dart, it then is set for detonation by clicking the shoot button again. There are also a range of goggles that Gabe wears to find mission objectives and enemies. There are the standard IR and Nightvision goggles plus “EDSU†goggles that makes everything red but what you can interact with turns radioactive yellow. Switching between all these goggles isn’t out of the question and each one gets equal opportunity to track down Red Section. Heck, there is even a part where you need to use the flashlight in an different and interesting way.
Online is where the real bonus is. There is an extremely extensive online component to Dark Mirror that isn’t essential to enjoy the game but it makes it even more enjoyable than it already is. For starters, you can hop right into an objective or deathmatch style game. There are tools for managing friends lists, getting and sending psp-mails, and clan management (known as “cells†in the game). On top of all that, there is voice chat. The entire online experience even matches that of SOCOM and even bests it in a few spots.
As a plus, if access to Wi-Fi is out of the question, you can still have plenty of fun with Dark Mirror. It is in no way dependent on the online modes to carry the weight of the game. The single player mode holds the water with ease. That is part of what makes Dark Mirror so appealing, it has a solid foundation only to be added to by insanely nice extra features that still would get the praise if half of those features made it to final printing. The polish added to the game is astounding. The gameplay is top notch even for a console game.
Good thing Gabe was there to “catch” him
Verdict
Believe it or not, this was a hard game to review. Not, because the game was bad, I knew that the game was stellar, but the game is so good that I found it really hard to put down. I have not played a handheld game that immersed me like Dark Mirror has in its world. I would play this game during my lunch, I would play it before I went to bed, and I have played while I was typing this review. There is no reason for someone not to buy this game. Not even if this isn’t your favorite kind of genre because the production value is so high, it will captivate even the sharpest critics of 3rd person stealth titles. I was blown away by how solid the gameplay was then to add the solid online mode was input overload. The polish at every corner of the game was spellbinding and the problems are not worth the time to pick apart. Mark my words, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror will be a significant contender of PSP game of the year in 2006. After being a somewhat tarnished series after a string of mediocre games, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror wipes all the dirt away and sets the standard for portable games to come.
