Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain is one game with two personalities – one online
and one single-player, one not too bad and one not so good. What makes for good
cooperative multiplayer missions can make for an overly difficult and
frustrating single player game. Syphon Filter plays like it was designed with
the multiplayer game in mind, so if you don’t have a broadband connection and
plan on taking the game online you may want to give some thought as to whether
or not Syphon Filter would be a game that you’d enjoy before going out and
buying it. How will you know if it’s for you? That’s what I’m here for so please
read on…
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| An IPCA agent in the field. |
In Syphon Filter you are a newly recruited agent of a secret agency known as the
IPCA. A mysterious new virus, the Omega Strain, has been unleashed by an unknown
terrorist group and it is up to you to stop the outbreak and find its source. To
do so you’ll need to travel the world beginning from Carthage, Michigan where
you first encounter the outbreak. There are 17 missions in all which is
certainly a lot, but when you take into account the facts that each mission will
present you with additional objectives as you play and that each level is quite
large in size and you end up with plenty to keep you busy for quite a while.
This gameplay is further extended by the fact that the game is pretty difficult.
First of all some of the objectives can be confusing or nebulous, so it will
take some trial and error and backtracking before you’re even sure what you’re
supposed to be doing. Next we have the random deaths that will get you when you
don’t know they are coming, like in the game’s first level where terrorist
bombers can kill you instantly if you make the mistake of walking in front of a
storefront packed with C4 that they’re detonating. The next factor making life
difficult for players is the enemies’ nasty habit of endlessly respawning - it’s
hard to save Carthage, Michigan when the enemy sends in more terrorists than the
population of Detroit. Lastly there is a problem with the decided lack of
ammunition. Once you locate all of the very limited ammo caches in a level
you’ll have to rely on dead terrorists for your supplies. Since you need to kill
those terrorists to get the supplies, you’ll be in a constant deficit ammunition
situation. Basically expect to get killed many times before completing a level –
at least you don’t have to restart from the beginning each time.
Syphon Filter is played from a third person perspective. You’re not able to
jump, but you can use the buttons to strafe, roll, and crawl as you are moving
around. These maneuvers are actually pretty critical as moving and rolling
around is vital to avoiding being shot. Since you are often out of ammo and
can’t fire back, expect to do a lot of dodging and rolling as your enemies
respawn with full ammo clips. When shooting back you have the option of
switching to a first person view to aim or using a target lock button. The first
person view will allow you to save ammo by lining up head shots, but the control
is not entirely smooth or precise. The target lock works better, but you’ll burn
through your precious ammo a lot faster. Interacting with objects, searching
corpses, and similar actions is done by pressing the triangle button when
directly in front of the object. The hotspots are all a little too touchy
though, so you’ll have to line yourself up just right to enable the action.
Overall the control is slightly off and unresponsive, so you won’t always move
up to the spot you’re aiming for anyway.
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