Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror

"The PS2 port was worth waiting for!"

Quick + & -

Good:
- Controls are easy to get used to;
- Gabe Logan and Lian Xing never looked better;
- Good graphics and very detailed FMV's;
- Great levels;
- You can choose to use stealth or just bust your way in;
- Good voice acting;
- Good ally AI, you can also give them commands;
- Awesome action music;
- Fast load times.


Bad:
- No online mode;
- Not as deep as the previous Syphon Filters;
- You can't use dodge roll anymore;
- A lot of strong language;
- A lot of characters from the previous Syphon Filters are no mentioned;
- No Zeus Files;
- The price is high for a ported game;
- The game is too easy.


Rent or Buy:
Buy: for Syphon Filter fans who just love to play missions over and over and over. This game is an another nice addition to the Syphon Filter saga for fans who love to play all Syphon Filter games in a row. The longer the entire story the better!

Rent: for the people who like to play through a nice action/stealth game and then move on the the next game. This game is about 7 hours long and there isn't much reason to play this game again if you aren't a Syphon Filter fan. The price of this game is a little steep for a short game which was a PSP port.

I loved the PSP version, should I buy the PS2 version?
Since I don't have the PSP version I cannot answer this question but I want to say a few things:
The PS2 version has easier controls and better graphics. But besides that and playing on a bigger screen, there isn't much reason to buy this game if you already played it on the PSP. This is a "pure" port with no additions. Blood is remove from the game.

Controls and gameplay:
The controls are really good, the PS2 version uses Dual Analogue (Left stick is used for moving, the right stick is used for aiming and steering). Switching weapons is really easy. Hold the Right and select the weapon you want to choose. It's very quick compared to the previous Syphon Filters where it was quite a hassle to browse through your weapons.

Pressing the right button will change the ammo type of your standard sniper rifle. You can use electrifying, exploding and gas darts. For other weapons you can select how many bullets are fired by holding the Fire Button. There is choice for 1 bullet, 3 bullets or no restriction (Keep firing by holding the Fire Button). This can be handy for automated guns to prevent you from wasting too many bullets.

Other Gadgets such as the IR Goggles are put on by holding the left button and select the Gadget you want to use. Pressing the left button will enable or disable the selected gadget. Also a large improvement compared to the past Syphon Filters.

There is automatic aim anymore so you have to rely on your own aiming skills. Don't worry, the PS2 aiming is not hard. The most priced addition is the ability to snap against the walls to peek, aim then fire and quickly take cover again. Most of the classic moves remains, but some can be done manually.

For example in the previous Syphon Filter you could "Peek-A-Leek" behind a walls, fences, crates etc. by pressing L1 to aim and L2 to move a little left to shoot and take cover again. This feature is remove but it still can be done by just standing behind a wall and move left a little to peek, shoot and move right back for cover.

Unfortunately you cannot use dodge roll anymore, but the enemies can still dodge roll and dive. I do not understand this because the O button is unused!

It's your choice to use stealth or just run and gun your way in! There are a lot of different ways you can approach your situation. There are quite a number of bosses where you need to exploit their weakness to defeat them.

Options and settings:
You can adjust aim sensitivity which is a big plus! You also have quite some other options you can turn on and off. Such as whether you want the scope remember your previous scope zoom in/out setting or not, invert aim, vibration, autosave, the volume of sound effects, voices and music can be adjusted. You can choose brightness and turn on Widescreen for video settings.

And you can choose between Standard and Advanced controls. The difference is that the analogue buttons are switched. So the left stick is for aiming and the right stick is for moving at Advanced setting. The Classic setting is removed from the PS2 version.

Story:
You do not need to play the previous Syphon Filter games to understand this game!

The story is great, however it is less deep compared to the previous Syphon Filters. One reason is because the Syphon Filter conspiracy has ended and the new danger is solved through one game. The game goes back to it's root, as you will be playing Gabe Logan for the biggest part of the game. The story does add more character depth on Gabe Logan. This game misses the Zeus Files. What are these?

Zeus Files are letters between the president/senators and Logan or other members of Logan's Agency. Thank you letters from people you have saved. News papers about what happened during a mission. Detailed mission data about the missions other agent have completed, so you don't feel like you're the only one doing something. Communication between agency members. And explanations about events that were not explained from the previous Syphon Filters. The Zeus Files made you feel like a real agent in Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain.

Modes:
You have Training Mode where you can adept to the new controls. In Story Mode you will play through all missions except the bonus missions. Mission Mode allows you to replay the missions you have beaten and you can play the bonus missions. You can also select your unlocked weapons before a mission which you can't in Story Mode. In both Story and Mission mode you can unlock bonus materials such as new missions, weapons and scenes. There isn't anything else you can do than playing missions.

Graphics, sound and voice acting
The graphics have improved and the transfer from a small PSP screen to a TV didn't hurt. Levels and your surroundings are well built. The FMV's have improved a lot compared to Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain or the PSP version of Dark Mirror! They come really close to Metal Gear Solid 3!

The gun sounds have improved again after a dumb down in Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain. But I do prefer the old classic gun sounds, I do not understand why they were changed in The Omega Strain. The voice acting is good, not the best but you can hear there a lot of effort put in it. The music is really great again, but sometimes it just stops playing for no reason. However that doesn't happen a lot fortunately.

Difficulty:
You have a choice between Easy, Normal and Hard Mode. On Easy Mode the enemy will always be on your radar, on Normal Mode only the enemies that are on your screen will appear on the radar. Besides enemies your mission target will also appear on the radar. Hard Mode has no radar so you have to find the enemy yourself.

In my opinion this game is really easy and I'm not very experienced with shooter games. One of the reasons is because aiming is easier with a PS2 controller. They should have adjusted the difficulty on that, or have added a harder difficulty. The AI is pretty good, they use most features Dark Mirror has to offer, plus they can dodge roll and dive...

Strong Language:
Something I don't like is the strong language which are used quite frequently (F- and B-Words). Even Gabe starts swearing, this makes him less cool compared to the previous series.


Summary and rating:
The game is a bit small but what's in it is really good. Personally I play games for the story and missions so the limited options do not bother me. For me this game isn't any smaller than the Syphon Filter 1, 2, 3 and The Omega Strain or the PSP version of Dark Mirror. I always play the Syphon Filter series in order, so I welcome this new episode!

My rating as a Syphon Filter fan: 9.2
However I understand that there are people who care for a VS or 2Player Mode, Challenges and Online Modes.

My critical rating will be 7.2

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/26/07

Game Release: Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (EU, 11/02/07)