Syphon Filter on the PSP is a must have game. Buy it now!
You play the part of Gabe Logan and occasionally his colleague Lian Xing. Your mission is to infiltrate enemy bases, kill bad guys, search for hidden information, rescue other people… the usual. But this is the PSP. Shoot-em-ups are usually rubbish on the PSP (S.O.C.O.M. excluded). Well not this one. This is, without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable espionage type games I have played on any system.
For a start it looks stunning. The level of detail is amazing and does not suffer from any slow down at all. There are loads of little touches that make the game look more realistic. They've all been done before on other systems, but not to this level of detail on the PSP. Weather effects, seeing Gabe's breath in the cold, reflections on polished floors, decent looking explosions, characters heads that don't look flat or box like… they all help to make the game feel a whole lot more interesting. Even the views through various goggles seem to be better than in other games.
But, there's no point in having a stunning looking game if it plays like a guitar with missing strings. Have no fear though, because the controls are actually pretty good. The analogue stick is used for moving forwards, backwards and strafing left and right, whilst the square, circle, triangle and X buttons are used for looking / aiming. The left shoulder button activates the scope on scoped weapons and target lock on others, whilst the right shoulder button is your trigger button. Up makes Gabe climb and zooms the scope; Down make him crouch and zoom the scope; Left opens up the goggles screen; Right opens up the weapons screen. Aiming using the allocated buttons can be adjusted to move faster / slower and accelerate faster / slower. Once you've found the setting that's right for you it works extremely well. The only bit that was slightly awkward was using the scope around a corner. Pressing left or right on the stick, the left shoulder button, and up / down before aiming and firing when you've got big hands is not an easy task. But, it's not that big a problem.
The game play is excellent, requiring you to use both stealth and brute force depending on the situation. Some areas require a bit of sneaking around to avoid detection whilst in other areas you may need to charge through blasting bad guys as you run because a timer on a bomb is counting down very rapidly. Your choice of weapon plays quite a large part in game-play as well. If you use a gas dart you may be able to take one guard out without attracting another's attention. If you use an explosive dart you could fire it into a group of guards and then detonate it killing them all in one go. Firing rates on automatic weapons can also changed to suit the situation. You do need to think before you act quite a lot in this game, but not to a point where it makes the game too tricky.
There are several game modes. Story mode has you working your way through all the levels. Completed levels can then be replayed Mission mode. Here you try to improve various stats in an attempt to gain extra weapons and equipment. Completing levels using different tactics gain you more points in different areas. The extras that you gain by doing this can then be used throughout the game. This becomes extremely helpful in Multi-player mode. Both ad-hoc and infrastructure are supported, but the more weapons you have to choose from before you start, the better chance you have of winning. The infrastructure mode did run smoothly for me apart from occasionally pausing, waiting for the host or something, and then continuing. This didn't happen very often but was annoying when it did. It's just as much fun as multi-player in SOCOM-Fire Team Bravo, but better looking.
The sound is also extremely good. Speech is clear, music is atmospheric, gunfire is pretty good, and explosions sound fairly explosive. It is better with headphones or some decent speakers but still sounds good with the PSP's dinky built in speakers.
The cut scenes show off the graphics and sound better than any other PSP game tha I have played to date. They are brilliant and actually fun to watch instead of just being good looking but a bit boring as in some other games.
To finish off then… BUY THIS GAME NOW !!
It is quite simply SUPERB !
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