The resounding success of Super Mario 64 in 1996 and many of the Nintendo 64 games that followed convinced publishers that 3D was not only the future of video games, it was the present. The PlayStation and Sega Saturn’s hardware weren’t as proficient as the 64’s when it came to 3D graphics but the pressure was on to produce 3D games. Both systems did go on to have some very good 3D games while 2D was seen as passé and games in that style dropped off significantly.
The other trend relevant to Syphon Filter was that of the stealth action genre. While 1997’s Goldeneye – the N64’s massively successful movie-based first person shooter – offered plenty of action and moments where the player must take on waves of enemies as is customary for the genre, the spy aspect did squeeze in a little sneaking around. It was to the player’s benefit to take out enemies quickly and quietly before the alarm was raised bringing reinforcements. The use of silencers was key as was good accuracy; often you only had one chance to silently take out an enemy and if you missed the heat would be on.
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| Metal Gear Solid: Often imitated, never duplicated. |
Which brings us back to Syphon Filter. Possibly you forgot that’s what this article is about. You are forgiven.
Developed by the little-known Eidetic, whose only game to that point was one of the absolute worst of the aforementioned wave of fully 3D games, Bubsy 3D, Syphon Filter is no Metal Gear Solid clone, but it’s definitely strongly influenced by the Konami title. The player finds himself in control of a covert agent Gabriel Logan engaged in a series of missions. The agency is tracking terrorist Erich Rhoemer, who has acquired a deadly biological weapon called Syphon Filter (which, yes, is similar to Metal Gear Solid’s FOXDIE) and has just launched an attack on Washington, DC. Just like Goldeneye and most spy movies, Logan’s quest brings him to a variety of locations throughout the world. The story is fairly standard and it’s not necessary to relate it here. Logan himself is a fairly bland character and his voice actor makes him sound approximately seventy years old.
The gameplay takes place in third person with Logan going through 3D environments and the player can rotate the camera as needed. While the camera isn’t perfect and you can sometimes end up with some inconvenient angles, it’s usually not enough to truly hamper you. It’s not a platformer requiring precise jumps like Super Mario 64 after all.
That isn’t to say precision isn’t required, though. Aiming certain weapons shifts the perspective to first person and it can be tricky if you’re under pressure from enemies. While the game favours a stealthy approach, Gabe is still going to see plenty of combat as enemies sometimes come at him in waves. But the real challenge lies in entering new rooms or areas where enemies have already taken up firing positions. Cover isn’t always available and even when it is, it’s tenuous.
I haven’t watched videos of people playing Syphon Filter so I only really know how I chose to play it. My main strategy involves almost constant movement once I’m in a gun battle. This frantic style of play enables you to dodge bullets but makes aiming difficult and weapons do run out of ammo. So in some of the later levels it can take several attempts to figure out the best way to navigate a prolonged battle. A few years later, I’d apply a similar strategy to the Max Payne games but it was easier there because of that game’s feature of being able to slow down time.
While Syphon Filter falls well short of the standard set by Metal Gear Solid in terms of gameplay, story, voice acting and music, it still does add a few neat wrinkles of its own. For instance, in taking advantage of the game’s decent lighting effects, some areas are dark enough to require you to use a flashlight. In certain instances this can be a calculated risk as light can alert nearby enemies when you’re trying to sneak past them.
Syphon Filter was well received and spawned two sequels in quick succession. I’m fairly certain I’ve played both; I know for sure I did play Syphon Filter 2 but can’t really remember much about it beyond it playing exactly like the original game. Beyond that trilogy there came several more I never played: Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain in 2004, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror in 2006 and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow in 2007. The latter three were all for the PlayStation 2 and were mostly lost in the shuffle during those years. But playing once more through the original has made me curious about them.
Syphon Filter may have been the byproduct of trends but it’s still a solid game that’s fairly fun to play and takes some skill to complete. I was even driven to frustration at some parts but I wouldn’t call the difficulty cheap or unforgiving. One just has to make the proper adjustments. In the end, Gabriel Logan never joined the upper echelon of classic video game characters but he sits somewhere comfortably in the middle as the protagonist of a pretty good series. That’s more than can be said for many others.
cole d'arc