Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror - Sony PSP (Jewel case)

Although I am stuck at the moment, I really enjoy this game. Delivered fast and on time.

Ive always liked the Syphon Filter series but this game really revived my excitement for playing these games again. This one had good graphics and was easy to get used to the controls.

Ive been a huge fan of Syphon Filter ever since Syphon FIlter came out for PS1. 1 was a classic, 2 a bit lacking in the graphics but great storyline, and 3 man, what a game! Omega Strain I didnt like too much. BUT, Dark Mirror is the absolute BEST to date. Amazing storyline, the graphics are unbelievable for a hand held game! While the controls took a bit of gettng used to, the training levels take care of that in no time. This is a MUST HAVE PSP game. If you dont believe me, try for yourself you wont regret it.

I had to get use to the game play, but other wise nice game and good story. Nice way to kill a little time on the clock.

Great game and super easy controls. Have all games in the sypon filter world and plus 100 hours of game play. Can redo missions for extra weapon fun. Some mission very challenging for a shooter gamer of my caliber but a must have for the system. Has a great preview for some up and coming version still not out in the USA yet. Need to own this.

This Game is My boyfriends game. I guess he likes it he said he did when he got it in the mail. I had it sent to his place.

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror is the best PSP game!! Its far better than the PS2 game Omega Strain. The controls are very easy and the weapons rock! The story is great! I would have to give this game 100.0

excellent packaging and prompt delivery, very good, my son likes

Before I get to the meat of my review of this game, I have to fill in a little info about my video game playing history. I promise its all relevant to my review of Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, so please bear with me. In May of 2007, I was thinking about a Wii, and I asked about them at a video game store that happened to have them in stock, but I realized that what I really wanted was a handheld video game system, one I could use in airports and on long international flights. Even though the employees at the game store seemed to really like the Nintendo DS, when I mentioned that what I most wanted was to play soccer and baseball video games, they told me Id be better off with a PSP. Additionally, I found the demo games for the DS to be targeted more at little kids. I felt like I was playing a Hello Kitty game or something. Also, the DS felt flimsy to me, and I was more comfortable with the feel of the PSP and the demo PSP games in the store. I bought the PSP with a soccer game, a baseball game, and on a whim, a shooter. That shooter was Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which I enjoyed quite a bit, even when the story heavily taxed my willing suspension of disbelief. I wondered if there was a shooter game with all the good things about MGS:PO, but without the plot elements (and bosses) that reminded me of things I might see if I were to turn on the TV at 4 in the afternoon. I loved the intrigue, the missions, the spying and stealth, the different weapons and tools for different situations, and the way I was immersed in the game, but I didnt like the giant battle robots (no, I didnt know before that Metal Gear refers to giant battle bots) and other elements that felt like things out of TV shows for 9-11 year old boys. From the reviews on Amazon, it looked like Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror might be the answer to my prayers, so I put it on my wishlist. My father got it as one of my birthday presents, and it turned out to be everything I wanted in a shooter. First, a bit about my history with video games. When I was a kid, my family had a 4-in-1 game from Atari that included Pong. Later, we had an Atari 2600 (my record on Space Invaders was 43,830 and no, I dont know why I remember that more than 25 years later). After that, I played a couple of games (Tetris and The Ancient Art of War) on Macs, played some Super Mario Bros. on a friends Nintendo during my first year in college (and later, a baseball game on the same system), co-owned a Sega Saturn with a roommate, and played a couple of Playstation games with friends on one or two occasions each. Ive got a long history of at least casual interest in video games, but Im not what you would call a hard-core gamer. I therefore have virtually no experience with games that use two analog joysticks, so I didnt really know what I was missing. However, when a friend who is a pretty serious gamer (the same guy who owned the Nintendo on which I played some games in college) explained to me that normally in shooter games, one analog stick is used for movement and the other for changing the camera angle, I knew I really was missing something with the PSPs single stick and started to understand why gamers complain so much about the PSP only having one analog stick. The most annoying thing to me about MGS:PO was the way the camera would sometimes automatically shift to a really inconvenient angle, effectively blinding me and leading to my character being hurt or even killed just because I couldnt see important elements of the action. Why did I take that detour into my gaming history in a review of SF:DM? Well, even though Im sure the PSP was and is the right system for me, I now join the legions of gamers who wish Sony had just included a second analog stick on the PSP. But having said that, I must say that the programmers of Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror did an absolutely great job of setting up the games controls to minimize the effect of not having a second analog stick. It took me a little while to get used to the controls after having played some MGS:PO, but once I was off the steep part of the learning curve, I came to love the way the controls in SF:DM work. I believe that the programmers of SF:DM have found the absolute best way to maintain the feel of a shooter while living with the limitation of a single analog stick and minimizing the potentially annoying effects of bad camera angles. The game is a joy to play, and the controls, once I learned them, were natural enough that I just plain forgot about them while playing and was able to enjoy the story and the action. Story and action are two other areas in which SF:DM excels, at least from the point of view of this non-hardcore gamer. The story is interesting, like the best stories from the first couple of seasons of the TV show 24, with a little bit of 007 and maybe a 1980s Schwarzenegger flick thrown in. The game does a great job of immersing the player in the story and the action. I felt like I was actually living some kind of international intrigue/espionage/action thriller. I found myself looking forward to playing when I was doing other things, and thinking about the story, the missions, and sometimes some of the stickier challenges. I was completely intrigued by the plot, and trying to figure out, along with the characters in the game, what was happening. As I was playing, I felt as if I were really in the game, and instead of feeling just that my video game characters life being at risk (and restorable immediately afterward), I felt as if I myself were really in that risky situation. At many points, especially in some of the timed missions, I could feel my heart beating faster, and that feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach. That was a lot of fun, in much the same way that a roller coaster is. The action is well done, and has a great mix of different types of challenges. There are some challenges that require a little bit of reasoning and problem solving. Some require you to use the right tool or weapon from your arsenal. Some situations require stealth and care, while others require a guns blazing frontal assault. Unlike some games, where you learn by doing in normal play, including some extra-easy missions at the beginning designed to get you used to the controls and the weapons and tools at your disposal, SF:DM has some separate training missions to teach you the basics of the controls and movement and how to use your tools and weapons before you get into the story. The sniper rifle, with its scope, long range, and bullets and special rounds (single silent kill via electric shock, area silent kill via gas, and explosive), is really cool, and has its own dedicated training mission to teach you to use it. Having said all that, though, I should mention that the difficulty of the missions definitely increases as the game goes on. The game is so much fun that I went back to replay a lot of the missions after having succesfully completed the game in story mode. The game offers some bonuses if you complete missions without dying, or if you find all the hidden evidence in a given mission, or if you complete other tasks within the missions. Since I had not done all these things when going through the game the first time, I have been going back and replaying missions after having finished the story. When I first started to do that, I was struck by how easy the early missions seemed after some of the late ones, which got pretty hairy at times. Disclaimer: as I have stated, I am NOT a hard-core gamer, so as always, your mileage may vary. Some gamers may find the whole game easy, but I found it just right in terms of offering some entertaining challenges and not being TOO easy, but also not being impossible for somebody like me to finish. I found the graphics to be surprisingly detailed and just plain good, and not just for a handheld video game. The rag doll effect when a slain enemy slumps over an object or is thrown by an explosion and ends up draped over some object, is pretty impressive. The graphics were another thing that helped immerse me in the game and feel like I was living an action adventure instead of just playing a video game on a handheld system. SF:DM is easily the best game Ive seen for the PSP. I have already put its sequel (Syphon Filter: Logans Shadow) on my wishlist, and I look forward to playing it. Also, as I stated above, Im still replaying some of the missions, and Im hoping to get into some multiplayer stuff soon, once I feel my skillz are developed enough to be able to contribute or compete, depending on what kind of multiplayer missions I end up playing. This game gets my highest recommendation. I hope the makers of other shooters for the PSP will copy the control scheme from SF:DM, because I truly believe the programmers of SF:DM have found the best way to get around the limitations of a single analog stick in a shooter.