Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror

Paul's looking at the man in the mirror

Considering how much the PSP is moaned at for being nothing more than a home for ropy PS2 ports, it's interesting to see things aren't much improved when you try and send a game the other way. You'd have thought taking the PSP's excellent Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror and porting it to a console with a more suitable control scheme, a bit more technological oomph and a naturally much bigger display would, if anything, improve an already good game without any real effort. You'd have been wrong.

While the series is almost as old as the PlayStation brand itself Syphon Filter has never really made it into the triple A big leagues that rivals like the MGS series play in. Despite an impressive debut way back in 1999 the subsequent sequels never set the world alight again until the series found its way onto the PSP last year. Dark Mirror on the PSP impressed the hell out of everyone with an engaging and fun single player campaign that was coupled alongside a fantastically implemented multiplayer mode. For the uninitiated, Syphon Filter games are probably best described as third-person shooters combining fast paced run and gun action with more tactical shooting and a wee hint of stealth at times, too. Think MGS or Splinter Cell with less emphasis on the creeping around.

The plot of Dark Mirror sees series hero Gabe Logan on the trail of a paramilitary group called Red Section who've gone and got their hands on a new secret weapon (you'd think these things didn't have locks on them the amount that seem to get stolen by game villains). While the plot may not be exactly cutting edge stuff it's well told, taking advantage of some nice flashbacks and all round decent voice acting. It also acts as a decent framework for the action, which is handy as that's the game's strong point.

While Dark Mirror doesn't do anything new when it comes to third-person action games, it does what it does suitably well, feeling slick and polished just like it did on the PSP. Central to the combat is the use of cover, from there you're able to aim at bad guys safe in the knowledge you're out of harms way. This combined with the fact it often only takes the one bullet to the brain to down your foe means it's not long before you're clearing rooms with ease. Thankfully the action manages to stay the right side of the enjoyably fun/boringly easy line for the most part although the decidedly poor enemy AI does make you feel a bit like a Commando era Arnie at times, as they stand out in the open almost waiting to be shot.

This entertaining if a tad basic combat makes the journey from the PSP intact and remains as enjoyable as it did there, however not everything has been so lucky. It appears some of the gorier moments have been cut along with edits to remove other scenes of violence and nudity. If this watering down of the experience seems strange then the removal of the taser from the PSP version is even stranger. The taser was one of the more novel of Gabe Logan's weapons, enabling him to either stun enemies with a short burst or set them ablaze with a more prolonged attack so to see it cut like this is a real disappointment.

Throughout the game other little things keep cropping up to show the apparent lack of care taken with the port. For example, on the PSP the forgiving nature of the targeting system worked well as it meant you were never left cursing the slightly cack handed controls, but now it just feel like a sloppy waste of the precision offered by the two analogue sticks.

Graphically things aren't all rosy either, however here the problems come more from the fact that the content is directly drawn from the PSP version. While Dark Mirror looked beautiful on the lovely PSP screen those same graphics take on a distinctly crude look when blown up onto a big TV. The fact that nothing has been re-textured or re-modelled serves to make the game look out of date when compared to other PS2 games of recent times.

Not only does the main single player end of things not live up to its PSP father, it's also missing a huge feature, one that helped make the PSP version into the success it has been. Multiplayer. We all know the PS2 doesn't have the greatest online service in the world, but since the brilliant multiplayer in Dark Mirror PSP was one of its biggest selling points, to see it removed completely on the PS2 is as baffling as it is damaging.

It's not that Dark Mirror is a bad game; it's not. It's just that it's not as good as the PSP version that's been sitting on shelves for over a year now, which begs the question: why bother bringing it to the PS2 at all? The whole thing has a real air of pointlessness about it, almost like Sony needed to release a new Syphon Filter game and realised it was much easier to port Dark Mirror over, missing out the bits that would have taken any real work, than it was to sit down and design a new game from scratch. If you've not got a PSP and you're a Syphon Filter fan then by all means pick it up, the chances are you won't be disappointed at all. But for the rest of us there's very little here to make you care enough to buy it ahead of pretty much anything else similar out there.

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By Paul Newcombe