Game #959: Syphon Filter

 Before Nathan Drake, we had... Gabe Logan. 

 I remember Syphon Filter. I never actually played the game, but it had a pretty aggressive marketing campaign so it was impossible not to come across ads on the Xpert Gamer and GamePro magazines. Billed as a Metal Gear Solid killer, the game certainly had good press as it received two sequels on the original Playstation. As such, it's finally time to see what Syphon Filter was all about.

 Well, I'll tell you this, for a PS1 game, the third-person shooting works really well. L2 and R2 strafe, and you hold down R1 to aim at an enemy and shoot with the square button. It works well and it was... it was quite fun. You also get a roll with the circle button, and this game might've created the predecessor to regenerative shields and health, for y'see, there's a 'Danger' gauge that increases as enemies shoot at you, and your health will only go down after the Danger gauge is full. It's an interesting mechanic, and don't think for a minute that this makes the game easy because... oh boy.

 You also get first-person shooting if you hold down the L1 button, and it works relatively well... now, if only the game would SAVE my options so I wouldn't have to un-revert up-and-down aiming every time I loaded my game..... You can crouch down by holding down X, which also works as the walking button, and roll with the O button. Switching weapons is a bit more uncomfortable. Either tap select to change to the next weapon or hold down select and use R2 and L2 to navigate your inventory.

 The weaponry in the game is fun, shooting feels really nice, but I want to give credit to the taser. Thing is so strong if you hold down the fire button.... enemies will eventually catch on fire. Brutal. It has limitless ammo, however, you are rooted to the spot, so other enemies can shoot at you while you wait for this one enemy to fry.

 Sadly, the game falls apart everywhere else. For instance, there's a lot of PS1/N64-era logic when it comes to completing levels. Some buildings make no sense whatsoever, so you'll be climbing on top of anything and everything trying to figure out where to go. Did you know the final boss can only be defeated with a gas grenade? There's no hint, no nothing, no way to know or tell that that's how you are supposed to beat him. And he shoots grenades. Grenades can end you immediately.

 And what about the flashlight mechanic? I was stumped for like 20 minutes on the first level. Turns out I had a flashlight in my inventory and I had to use it to find a switch. This was not the last time I'd have to go into the inventory, unequip my gun and equip a flashlight to find a little something that is hidden inside the pitch-black Ps1 shadows. It's bullshit. Stages have multiple objectives, and if you get to the end without clearing every objective.... good luck, now you have to retrace your steps all the way to the very beginning. This can be particularly annoying on the cathedral stages. Man, the latter stages can be bullshit.

 But the worst part about the game were the stealth sections, because the game has no proper stealth mechanics. Sometimes you are supposed to kill enemies, but if you tase them from the wrong angle it'll count as being 'seen' so you have to restart the section. And Checkpoints are far and in between. I wasted so much time on these awful, AWFUL stealth stages that I just used the stage select cheat and never looked back.

 So... Syphon Filter... I'll tell you this, everything involving shooting down enemies is absolutely great, a bit tough, but fun. But everything else? Level design goes from decent to poor, the stealth sections are terrible and some of the mechanics, like the flashlight, haven't aged very well. In spite of that, I'm looking forward to the sequels, for whatever reason, I'm hopeful that they'll have removed the flashlight and either axed or tweaked the stealth sections. I hope.

 5.0