Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
Gabe Logan is back, and we couldn't be happier.
Published: May 17, 2006
As well it should; this isn't a terribly complex game, but what it does, it does so well it's amazing that the concept wasn't pulled off before. Again, though, maybe the limitations of the PSP hardware made for a slightly less ambitious effort that was pulled off more completely. Whatever the reason, once you've gotten down the controls, you'll find yourself shimmying around ledges and popping terrorist heads from afar in no time. Even ordering people you're escorting around has been done with care. Though the options are usually limited to "do this for me" or "find cover", that's really the kind of basic commands that you'd want. Simple, effective and the AI handles the rest so you don't have to babysit.
It also opens up the game to some of the better scripted sequences available. While you'll usually protect the partner AI, they can do some pretty cool stuff. Boss battles can be coordinated so that one person distracts while the other moves in for the kill, or covering fire can be laid down while the other moved from cover to cover. In one sequence, you have to kick on your thermal goggles to see what an AI partner is doing up in the ceiling. It's all pulled off so naturally that you don't realize half the time that you're working with AI.
Then again, just about everything in the game is seamless, including hopping online to play in 8-player Infrastructure matches. The online lobby is arguably the best the PSP has ever seen; clans, message boards, private messages, and leaderboards are all here in addition to the voice-enabled 8-way matches. We never once ran into a situation where there wasn't a game to play, nor was there ever any lag, which is damned impressive.
Three of the four online game types are typical free-for-all or team deathmatch modes, which is fine (and they work great), but judging by the kinds of games we had around the office, the Objective mode matches were really where it's at. It's not terribly complex stuff; both teams are given a set of capture points or items to collect and return, but most times the teams are doing this at the same time, with the return points in the most heavily trafficked parts of the level. This means major teamwork is in order, which also means it's a good idea to buy or bust out the USB headset so you can collaborate. Trust me, it makes the matches infinitely more fun when you're working together.
Online or off, the game performs remarkably well, framerate-wise. If it were a fairly ugly game, this wouldn't be surprising, but Dark Mirror is one of the best looking PSP games yet released. It doesn't quite have the sheer scale that something like Daxter sports, but the animation is fairly solid (no running-with-a-load-of-crap-in-his-pants cycles for Gabe this time out), the game deals with extreme light and dark quite nicely.
Some of the ragdoll effects on enemies are nice, but they're a little too stiff at times, looking like they're stricken instantly with hardcore rigor-mortis the second your rifle butt meets their face. Like nitpicking about the game having a dithered color palette, it's a minor gripe, really, but it's there.
The audio is similarly impressive. Good, solid voice acting (though I can't help but feel like Gabe Logan, in the wake of Solid Snake and especially Sam Fisher's gravelly baritone, just comes off as a little too wussy), punchy, clean sound effects work and some genuinely moving music all come together quite nicely. That the game doesn't shy away from tons of voice work is a testament to how dedicated the development team was to giving players a console-level experience on the PSP, and the audio is perhaps the most cleanly delivered part of that experience.
Dark Mirror is what Sony always said PSP games could be: a real, honest-to-goodness portable version of a home console game. It doesn't cut corners (in fact it excels in areas where the previous games have failed), it doesn't drag on too long, doesn't try to pull off bits of gameplay that it can't accomplish perfectly, works seamlessly and perfectly online, offers a great camera, and a slightly clichéd and forced storyline is laid over the whole thing. It's not a perfect game, but it is good enough to justify the purchase of a PSP, and as I said with Daxter, if this is what we can expect from future PSP games, Sony has built themselves one hell of a portable.
