Gabe now has grapple moves that can help with stealth situations such as a
neck break or throat slash much like in Omega Strain. He can also performs melee
attacks on enemies from up close, so while advancing toward an enemy - say, when
Gabe is out of bullets and needs to reload - he can hit the enemy with the back
of his gun, reload, then shoot the grounded enemy before that enemy recovers.
Along with all the extra weapons and combat techniques, Gabe has thermal
goggles, EDSU goggles, and the familiar night vision goggles. EDSU goggles allow
you to see objects that can be interacted with in the environments. These really
help out quite a bunch when you're stuck in a level. All of the headgear is used
quite a bit throughout the game. I used the thermal goggles for almost all
shootouts since the enemies were usually far away and this helped to make them
much more visible.
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As already mentioned, the PS2 version offers minor enhancements for the
overall environments and character models. All character models and overall
environments are sharper and cleaner than the PSP version. The textures for the
characters aren't quite up to par with more recent PS2 games, most notably in
the faces - this is just about the only area that helps to reveal the fact that
this was a PSP game. The controlled character still has that strange lean when
he/she runs that is shown in all Syphon Filter games, but it seems much more
realistic than the leaning in Omega Strain or previous games in the series.
The environments are rendered very well for a PS2 game and remain solid
without any glitching or breaking of polygons. The lighting effects look
realistic in the environments, but the flashlight that Gabe can use could have
much better lighting effects overall. Instead of lighting up a wall it only
seems to project a massive white circle and provides little lighting for the
object it is pointed at. The flashlight looked normal in the PSP version and
offered actual lighting effects that would light up a dark room, but in the PS2
version the flashlight is rather useless.
The PSP version had a "Mature Audience" rating and the PS2 version has a
"Teen" rating. The blood and taser fire (fire resulting from prolonged taser
shock) have been removed from the PS2 version in favor of a lower rating. The
missing
blood is barely even noticeable from a neck slice or from gunfire
since there wasn't that much in the PSP version to begin with, but the taser
fire is a bit of a let down. At times, enemies would actually run toward Gabe
while on fire after a tasering overload in the PSP version, but they only spasm
and fall at all times in the PS2 version. For all other burnings, the bodies
simply turn black and smoke a bit.
The sound has many techno tracks and epic scores that help to boost
excitement during shootouts or boss fights. Voices seem to fit all the
characters rather well. Gabe remains fairly emotionless throughout most of the
cutscenes - basically the way his character is almost always portrayed in other
Syphon Filters and the way you would expect him to sound.
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