Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Sony

Price: £24.99 Players: 1 plus online Widescreen: Yes Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror was the first of this series of games that I've played on the Sony PSP. To get the basics out of the way, there are 23 single player missions, 5 multi-purpose online maps and a training mode to help you get into it. Once again you play Gabe Logan and you're working for a Black Ops agency that doesn't exist (is it the Urban Spaceman?). The object is to recover the Project Dark Mirror, getting you into hot water with some of the world's most secret of Secret Services, taking in countries such as Finland, Alaska and Peru, starting off by confronting one of your arch-enemies, Bitar.

As you make your way through the levels, though, the gameplay was problematic and while the audio/visual side of it was okay, there was nothing particularly outstanding in this title. Taking these things in turn, at first, the only two options I found for the controls were that I couldn't use the analog stick to turn left/right when aiming and also using it to move forward back, so this required a combination of that and the square and circle. Alternatively, you can toggle this option but then you've got the same problem in reverse which is just as much of a pain. Why do this? However, after much gnashing of teeth (well, not really, but once I looked into it more deeply, I saw it also includes a 'Classic' mode which places Strafe on the left-shoulder button and gives the analog stick as moving forward and back as well as turning left/right. Sorted!

The control of Logan comes across as quite stilted as you walk about, making it seem odd when you rush into combat and have to deal with the baddies coming towards you. In fact, getting about it sometimes feels like like a Krypton Factor puzzle working out how to even climb the netting at the side of a boat (and why do the baddies have that when it's just to let you on and kill them?) Environments outside of the main location are sparse, so I guess it's just as well that you're miles away from civilisation in the plot. You can grapple with and try to snap the neck of a baddie, but most of the time it's easier just to fill them with bullets. You're not often going to run out and grenades can also be picked up.

It can be confusing to work out where you need to go, and as such overall doesn't really make for a fun experience compared to other third-person shooters with an element of stealth. The AI's not always great, either. On occasions, I've had a baddie continue to hide behind a shield, then I went up to him as he didn't come up so I thought he was dead, he let me stand there and fire a couple of shots into him, then gave me a moment to reload, and one more shot finished him off(!) Multiplayer is available for those who enjoy that sort of thing, but I'm a single-player kinda guy. Overall, This kind of game will pass a couple of hours as a rental, but it's a bit of a pain in its execution and there are better stealth games out there to play.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.