Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow review (PSP)

Ever feel like tactical action game yarns are leaning little on the, well, heavy side? There’s just something about the spy/assassin protagonist that screams ‘fraught’- probably in a high, descending note, abruptly choked off- though the notion of an alternative ‘dark’ ego, that favourite bolt hole of the stagnating franchise, probably has a lot to do with it. Metal Gear Solid has always been a byword for histrionics, but who’d have thought Splinter Cell's sturdily straightforward Sam Fisher would come over all emo in the impending Conviction? He’s even wearing a hoodie, for pity’s sake.

Thank the Lord then for Gabe Logan. Solid Snake's (slightly) younger brother is a bastion of hardboiled schlock in a genre increasingly overrun with tragic characterisations and strident moralising. Eight years after his debut on the PS1, the man is still as cheesy as a dairyman's armpit. If Snake's antics are the videogame equivalent of watching JFK while knocking back some expensive brand of gin, Syphon Filter is a Steven Seagal flick enjoyed over a pint of kitchen lager. There are scores to settle, conspiracies to unearth, and favours to be called in from old comrades with names like Blade Jones or Kurt D. Bomb. Bad guys are resolutely bad (and have greasy foreign accents to prove it). Stolen doomsday weapons are ten-a-penny.

Shadow of the Colossus

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror was one of the finest games of 2006 on any platform, old skool third-person blasting retrofitted for the Dualshock generation with a flair which put every other PSP shooter to shame, making impressive use of the handheld’s oft-neglected online capabilities in the bargain. The absolute worst which can be said of the sequel is that it is little more than an expansion pack, a fresh slab of campaign action dusted with new moves, modes and maps.

As with its predecessor the game’s standout attribute is the control scheme, which manages to pack huge variety into the limited PSP interface without reducing it to molten slag. Clever, compressive design elements abound: if you hold right on the D-pad, for instance, you'll call up the weapon selection screen, but if you merely tap it you'll cycle firing modes on the weapon currently equipped. By default, movement is assigned to the analogue nub while aiming and turning fall to the face buttons. Right trigger fires weapons or melee-attacks, and the remaining D-pad directions handle equipment selection, crouching and environmental interaction. Locking on is no longer a feature as left trigger now pulls the camera in close for precision shooting, which makes a steady thumb an essential prerequisite for online matches. As before, the control layout and sensitivity can be altered to suit your needs.

Analogue Boomstick

While the training missions do their best to make everything feel thoroughly boring, the single player campaign is a joy to play, enlivened by spirited AI and some tightly considered (albeit linear) level design. A typical mission (of which there are 22, split across six chapters) will see you scurrying from coverpoint to coverpoint, pressing your back against walls with a push of the nub and leaning around corners to trade fire with respectably competent goons, who will take cover in turn and try to flank your position, or bum-rush you in an excess of bravado, cue much frantic swearing as you fumble for a headshot. It's gunplay straight from the Bungie mould of thirty-second-fun and none the worse for its age, with the odd on-rails shootout, escort mission or simplistic environmental puzzle thrown in for light relief.

All three alternative vision modes- night, EDSU and infrared- make a return, as do the RTL (a chasm-crossing gadget which never quite transcends gimmick status), smokin’ tazer-pistol and Gabe's Swiss Army knife of a sniper rifle with its plethora of different ammo types. A grenade indicator has been added to the HUD, and health now recharges after a few seconds, which makes finding cover under a fusillade preferable to simply pulling a Rambo in the hope of stumbling upon a medical pack (replacement flak jackets still have to be obtained from supply crates, however). On a less positive note, it is my sad duty to inform you that Sony Bend has contracted the QTE virus. It’s a fairly inoffensive strain for the most part, rearing its ugly head maybe once or twice a mission, and racing an adversary to input a button sequence during grapples is actually- dare I say it- fun.

Old Dog: New Tricks

Other new additions to Mr Logan's CV include the ability to scuba-dive, seize unsuspecting opponents for use as human shields, and blind-fire round corners. The last of these feels more like a concession to the popularity of Gears of Wars than a meaningful design choice; the second is seldom possible to put into practice given the AI’s unnaturally sharp hearing. Swimming, on the other hand, is well if not very inventively implemented, and submarine combat makes for a refreshing change of pace. While many of your landlubber weapons also function underwater the bullets they fire travel much, much slower due to the greater resistance, making it necessary to lead moving targets (aquatic firearms like the speargun don’t have this problem). With judicious use of the infrared goggles, you can also blow holes in surface-level grunts as they cool their heels on the waterfront, or sneak up Lake-Placid-style and drag them into the depths.

At first glance the oddly metallic, rippling water is the only thing to differentiate Logan’s Shadow visually from the original game, but after a couple of missions you’ll begin to appreciate the slightly higher texture detail and extended lighting effects. On the whole, though, expect more of the same souped-up PS1 trappings ticking along at a crisp, consistent frame rate.

Do you prefer your water filtered?

Once you get sick of automatons you can always jack into the stupidly well-endowed infrastructure multiplayer, taking on up to eight other players in five modes across seven maps, some of which are part-flooded or readjusted versions of those from Dark Mirror. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Rogue Agent modes make a return alongside two new entries: Sabotage, which appears in lieu of the old Objective mode, has two four-man teams racing to carry out a particular action like obtaining and inputting the arming codes for a nuclear warhead, while Retrieval is essentially Capture The Flag. Spawn campers are easier to dodge this time round thanks to an option to rotate spawn points, and the community features are more comprehensive than ever. You can set up clans and keep a friends list, filter matches according to type or player rank, and even play with an online headset e.g. in order to intimidate your clan buddies by shrieking “Ah know Jesus loves YOU” whenever you get fragged.

To reiterate, then, the only reason not to like Logan’s Shadow (other than because you prefer your tactical action polemical and sizzling with angst) is that it does little the previous game doesn’t, and divine implementation notwithstanding the previous game did little that hadn’t been done on home formats. No substitute for the Orange Box, in short, but without peer on the PSP. And there’s that free Combat Ops multiplayer demo, of course…