Back To Reviews
Rating: Average When I first started playing Syphon Filter, I thought that it absolutely sucked, but it eventually turned into a decent game. The intro isn't exactly of the highest cinematic quality, and the game's main character, Gabe Logan, appears to be nothing more than a clone of Solid Snake. The only major differences between Gabe and Solid Snake are that Gabe he runs like he's got something stuck up his butt, and is portrayed by a poor voice actor. The voice acting for Gabe's female partner Lian Xing is even worse than Gabe's, ruining any remaining chance that the game would have decent production values. Also, the story line is pretty generic and never put me on the edge of my seat. The Resident Evil-like movement (using left, right, and down on the d-pad to rotate and up to move forward) works fine in Resident Evil, but it doesn't work very well in fast action games like Syphon Filter, and on more than one occasion the control posed more of a challenge to me than the enemies did. The game has plenty of mission objectives, but many of them are of the unimaginative "find this guy, kill him" variety. Also, many of the puzzles are illogical, and it can be maddening to search a level for hours, only to find that the item you needed to find was buried in a dark and obscure corner somewhere. While my first impression of Syphon Filter was very negative, I kept playing. For a while there, I was actually having a lot of fun blowing away enemies left and right. Syphon Filter has a lot of stealth to offer if you're interested in it, but it's an action game at heart and I (usually) had no problem walking into crowded rooms and killing several enemies while taking little or no damage. It's not very realistic, but I found it a lot more fun than the "avoid detection or die" gameplay formula in another major PlayStation game which shall remain nameless... Elsewhere, the graphics have a rough, unpolished look to them. The second level in the entire game revolves around the idea that you're in an exploded subway surrounded by fire and must find a way to get out alive. This could have been very exciting if done right, but the pixelated fire isn't very convincing. Also, there's not much music to speak of, and the beeping sound effects every time you pause the game become annoying. This game isn't a complete waste of time, but it never hooked me enough to keep me coming back for more. As you're playing through the game, there's no sense of wonder to keep you playing just to see what's around the next corner, and when you eventually beat it, there's nothing to make you want to go back and play it again. Syphon Filter might make for a nice weekend rental, but buying it would be a waste of money.
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com