Syphon Filter Retrospective: A Look Back Ten Years Later

How Does the Cult Classic Hold Up Today?
By Chris Vavra - February 22, 2009
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This month Syphon Filter, a minor classic and cult favorite with action nuts (myself included) turns ten. For me, that’s hard to believe. Ten years ago, in February 1999, I was twelve and in the middle of sixth grade at the time. I didn’t even own a Playstation yet. I do remember, with great fondness, playing the original Syphon Filter demo at my local Target and enjoying the game a great deal. There were many reasons not to like it. Archaic visuals (even then), odd, herky-jerky controls, and some weird gameplay fundamentals. And yet, ten years later, the game continues to endure and it has remained (until recently) a fixture on my top 100 list. Inertia may have thrown it off, but the game’s basic fundamentals remain strong and haven’t aged, even though most of the rest of the game has.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Syphon Filter is a game that deals with operative Gabe Logan, a member of a secret black-box group called The Agency. They are tasked with finding Erich Rhoemer, an international terrorist who is unleashing biological warfare on the world with a virus known as Syphon Filter. Syphon Filter is a weapon that can target specific demographics, ethnicities, and all sorts of people with some subtle reprogramming. When a raid against the terrorists nearly goes awry in D.C., Gabe and his partner Lian Xing think The Agency might be compromised. And so begins a major round-the-world tour that goes from D.C. to New York to Kazakhstan to the Ukraine and back to Kazakhstan again for a final battle. Some accused the game of being a Metal Gear knock-off (MGS had been released a few months before Syphon) but that isn’t the case. The series has always been closer to James Bond than Solid Snake. True, the game does favor stealth ahead of action at times, but the main goal of the game is to blast your way through as many terrorists as you can. Actually, come to think of it, he’s closer to Rambo than James Bond.

Gabe Logan isn’t much of a hero at first glance. The comparisons, again, to Solid Snake are there. He’s a fairly vulnerable guy who kills the bad guy, has a touch of dry wit, and will do whatever it takes in the name of good. The characters’ personalities are quite different and Gabe has a strange sort of cheesiness that makes him so enduring. Some of his lines are outright laughable. The best: Syphon Filter 3 where he comments that “A hero’s work is never done.” That line alone belongs in the annals of bad video game dialogue. Right up there with some of the moldy cheese dropped in Resident Evil (the PS-X version). It is that very cheesiness that makes him so cool in an odd sort of way. Solid Snake’s humor tends to be fourth wall stuff. Gabe keeps it within the context of the story.

His relationship with Lian is one of the oddest around. We know there’s something between them—and this has been played on for the six games thus far in the series—and they seem to know, but no one ever says anything. The first hints come about midway through the game when Lian is imperiled. All of it is in broad strokes and little of it is brought to the surface, but we feel it. John Chacon’s stellar voice works makes it possible.

For a game that prides itself so much on story, the amazing part is how little of the game really makes sense if you really think about the game from a detached perspective. All the double-and-triple crossing going on seems to be thrown in for the sake of shocking the gamer. The second game makes it even more confusing because everything established in the first game is pretty much turned on its head to little or no effect. The third game, which provides some backstory, tries to clear some of the mess up but the relationships remain muddled and we never get a clear sense of what the first game was really about. Some bad guys want to destroy the world. I get that, but did we need all the betrayals going on? I mean, really… The potential for the narrative is there, but the storytelling never really got straightened out until we reached the PSP games. The narratives had a better, more linear focus.

As for the gameplay, well, few games put the PS-X controller through as much work as Syphon Filter. Eidetic, the developer, put together a unique control scheme that has the added bonus of being customizable. The control scheme doesn’t work for me because I’m left-handed. I always favored moving the aim button to R1, crouch to L1, and the target button to X. I did it then and I still do it now. Muscle memory, I suppose. The lack of a custom control setup for Omega Strain for the PS2 cost the game dearly. That, and sloppy game design, but one thing at a time here. The controls do have a learning curve, but there is a training video to help you learn the moves. Believe me, you use all of them throughout the game and little of it feels arbitrary or forced. I think every button was used on the PS-X controller and I think every single button gets a real workout. No small feat if you think about it.

Two interesting features the game provided are a threat and target meter. The threat meter indicates how close you are to being shot. You have ways of lowering that meter like rolling or strafing. The target meter allows you to get an automatic fix on a target. Pretty handy if you’re dealing with three or four sentries at different spots. Again, nice little wrinkles that enhance the gaming experience.

The missions themselves haven’t dated much either. Most do well enough. The boss fights are kinda lame. The shootout against Mara Aramov, a recurring antagonist throughout the series, might be the best because it forces you (unless you’re a crack shot) to negotiate between her shooting and trains running at you in both directions. Never mind that separate trains would not come at you that frequently. It just works well because of the constant juggling. The other fights involve a madman with a flamethrower, a helicopter, and then the final battle, which is just anti-climactic to the extreme. Syphon Filter was never known for its boss fights, alas. Not until the PSP games, at least.

That leaves sixteen other missions and they are, by and large, quite good. My particular favorites are the Washington Park level, the cathedral missions, and the Warehouse missions. I like them because they require a wide variety of skills in order to complete them along with a sharp eye and fast reflexes. The museum missions are fun too and it ends with a clever way of ending a hostage situation. Not all of them are winners. The third cathedral mission can be trying with 1999 ally-AI sometimes working against you, but the missions don’t play the same old theme and they do offer enough variety to keep you on your toes.

The music is also noteworthy. The original theme remains as catchy as ever. The music during the missions has a minimalist approach that works surprisingly well. I suppose the low-budget approach inspired the musicians because they deliver some very impressive themes. The museum themes and the cathedral themes are among the strongest. The boss theme also brings a strange ominous tone that makes very good use of vocals in contrast with the music and the resulting theme is quite good. The vocals are hit-and-miss. Mara Aramov went through many voices; her voice in this game is my favorite. Markinson isn’t bad. He has a strange bureaucratic tone that fits his character. Lian got better as the series went on. She’s too monotone here. Rhoemer isn’t in enough scenes to have any impact. Phagan, well… he’s just irritating. How did he become a CEO again?

My bias for spy and action games notwithstanding, I still find Syphon Filter to be an engrossing and engaging experience all these years later in spite of (or maybe because of) its faults. From start to finish, the game still works and the gameplay remains strong in spite of its age. The series continues to live on today. The two PS-X follow-ups were good; 2 had near-brutal difficulty at times and 3 was a tad too easy, but still fun. Omega Strain was bleh. Dark Mirror and Logan’s Shadow were a nice return to form with strong plots and a stronger focus on characters. I hope they bring the series back to the PS3 before too long. The recent titles suggests a bright future, but it all comes back to the original, which was one of the best low-budget titles the PS-X delivered and one of the best titles of 1999.



 






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