Hope is eternal, so with that, I had to try Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, the final game in the franchise. I can say right off the bat that it’s better than Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. However, most of my complaints remain, as little have been made to improve the stealth. I understand that the series had never been known for its stealth, but why even include the ability of skulking around if you are not going to do anything with that? The whole thing feels baffling to me. I had no issues running it on the PlayStation 2 emulator PCSX2. Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow actually supports native widescreen in the options, so that might be the only thing you have to change in the settings, depending on what kind of options you run with.
Under siege
This time around, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow starts with a U.S. military ship getting hijacked by the Syrian terrorist organization al-Jamil. Gabe, and his team, known for killing terrorists in the masses, are sent in to clean up the mess. Things are never easy. Soon it turns out there is more to this than just a simple hijacking. Another powerful and secret weapon has once again been stolen. That’s not all, the government group Gabe works for is in trouble, and has been deemed unreliable. Something is up. Could it be a state-side conspiracy in the making? Those that avoid the polonium will see.
The plot is a lot more engaging, seeing as it makes more sense context-wise to what is happening on screen. Gabe and his team are also personally involved, more so than last time. It seems one of their agents have gone rogue, and are being hunted by the Chinese communist state. There is also a link to Red Section, the bad guys of the former game. And those guys were nuts, so nothing of this can be good! It’s a fairly exciting chase over different locations, in a cheesy agent kind of way, and I enjoyed it for what it was. It’s a clear improvement over Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, which I found mostly silly.
One thing that makes it better, is the setup of the areas where you will be shooting dudes. You will be visiting fewer places, but the areas you go to are more involved, and have several segments to them. For example, the ship the game starts with goes belly up and sinks to the bottom of the sea eventually. Then the next mission has you searching out that ship underwater, having you go full OceanGate, but hopefully with a better outcome. It’s pretty nifty, and adds a lot of detail to the locations, instead of swiftly flying from one country to the next to spend a whole five minutes in each place.
Ending spoilers
I’m going to talk about the ending now, since I just need to mention it. Skip to the next part, if you don’t want to get spoiled. The ending is something else, alright. Instead of ending on a happy note, as there is a romantic element to the story too, the franchise ends with Gabe suddenly getting assassinated by a Chinese agent. He does manage to kill the agent before succumbing to his wounds, but talk about a downer ending! It’s an ending that also spelled final finito for the whole series, seeing as this is the last game. Beyond that, it did feel a little cheap, considering Gabe survives freaking everything. He dodges assassins like this for dinner otherwise, but somehow this chump got the drop on the legendary super CIA agent Gabe and ended his life. Sure, okay.
Gabe needs to kill
When it comes to gameplay, I might as well copy my impressions from the Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror article. It’s exactly the same except for the underwater segments. Those are pretty cool, and look fantastic, but they end up in the same way. Random mooks will constantly attack you between completed objectives. It’s entirely predictable, as the whole game is structured in the same way, except a few happy moments of sneaking and throat slitting.
One thing they decided to change is the melee system. In the former game, you can knock people around if they come close, which added a comedic and useful effect to the game. This is now changed to a mild stun, that the enemy recovers from within two seconds. Kinda disappointing, yet, they added a special environmental stealth kill to balance it out. Sadly, these are rare. So rare, they might as well not exist. These kills are kinda fun when they happen, since occasionally a companion will comment on the cruelty done by you/Gabe. It gave me a good psychopathic chuckle when that happened.
A good alteration they made is to tone down the amount of bad guys that attack you between objectives. You are no longer attacked by millions, now it’s a mere few thousands. It helps the pacing, to not talk about the plausibility of the events. During the campaign, you will also fight a few bosses that all think they are hot stuff. What I found extremely hilarious, and it goes for almost all the bosses, is they can be killed by one grenade shot with the special sniper rifle. These bosses strut in like they own the place, with a mouth filled with smack talk, just for Gabe to end their little show with one well-aimed explosive shot. I loved this, as bosses can be a pain in the ass at the best of times.
Otherwise, outside of this, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow plays exactly the same. For both good and bad, but in combination with the better story, the more involved locations, and the toned down hordes of enemies, it’s a better and somewhat enjoyable experience.
The agent look
The visuals remain the same with the addition of native widescreen supports. This is a pleasant surprise, since you will get to see more of the world, instead of the cramped 4:3 square box. Some areas, like the underwater sections, look great, and are very atmospheric. It’s a bit underused, in favor of boring blown-to-bits towns where everything is in different shades of brown, which feels like a bad trade. Sound, and music also remain the same. The good old voice actors also come back to do their roles once again. A truly pleasant surprise. There is nothing to complain about here, the world looks good, and very Metal Gear Solid-like; the whole mundane modern military mixed up with sci-fi -style.
Conclusion
While they did improve on the formula, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow is more of the same. I can say that going in with the correct expectations, it sat a lot better with me now. I wouldn’t say it’s a must-play in any way still. If you must play one game in the series, you might as well try out this one (out of the two, I played). It’s rather enjoyable in a strange, somewhat awkward way. It wasn’t the hidden stealth gem I was looking for, but I’m glad that I got to experience Syphon Filter regardless.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
| System: | PC with PCSX2 (PS2 emulator) |
| Played with: | PS4 controller |
| Mods/fixes: | None |
| Enjoyment rating: |  |
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