In the early days of the PS1 (or PSX, for those old enough to remember it being called that) there were many promising games. Syphon Filter was one of those games and it helped make the Sony brand what it is now. After the success of the first Syphon Filter there was quick response to make sequels. The other games were marginal and did not capture the critical acclaim like the first one but a fan base still grew. After the admittedly tarnished series came out with a PSP announcement, hopes for a fantastic title were cautiously optimistic. Those fears were completely and utterly unfounded as Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror blows the doors off the PSP and sets THE standard for 3rd person stealth action games for portables and will change the way people think about console games of the same sort.

Story
At risk of gamers sending massive amounts of hate mail for rattling off spoilers, many details of the story will be left out. To generalize the story: you play as Gabe Logan, a secret spy so secret that no data is kept about him or is operations. In Dark Mirror you are sent to investigate a biochem outpost in Alaska and that is where things start to get interesting. The enemy is “Red Section” and they are after something so important that people will die for it. Gabe's job is to find out what Red Section wants. To answer a question in advanced, yes, there are many plot twists.

However, the plot is what you would expect from any of these kinds of games. Nothing real revolutionary. The story is, however, told in a fantastic manner that will immerse players into the world of Dark Mirror. The story can get too complex at times but nothing so outlandish that makes you believe you aren't in that world.

Sound
The musical score is beautiful and fits the espionage theme with perfection. The voice acting is spoken with feeling and intensity, something you would expect from a guy named Gabe Logan and other super secret spys. The gadgets have cool sound effects but the guns fall short and sound a little bit like fake guns. It isn't that big of a deal seeing that most of the sound production quality is through the roof but it was disappointing that the total package was not flawless.

When chatting in an online game, voice communication sound pretty clear but only to a certain degree. Voices sound they come like a walkie talkie, not a high tech headset. At any rate, the compressed voice is just fine because of the virtually no lag in online modes.


This is in game footage

Control
To put it nicely, Dark Mirror does the best with the PSP's controls as possible. While controlling Gabe around areas is easy, aiming is a chore to do with the face buttons. That is the only stumbling block for controls, the aiming. Everything else is handeled with grace and ease. Changing weapons is effortless and changing dart tips is just a flick of the d-pad. The controls are quite intuitive when it comes to the scope of moves you can preform. Peaking around corners and seeing who's on patrol is fluid and easy. To sum the control scheme up, the aiming is not ideal but it works and can be forgiven seeing that it is a PSP technical limitation. Overall, controls like a dream.

Graphics
One look at the graphics and prepare to be immersed into the world of Dark Mirror. The cut scenes are down right gorgeous and look like anything the PS2 could do. As the same with the graphics. Sharp textures, diverse environments, superb animations, and great character models are all included in Dark Mirror. However, there were a few spots of slow down when multiple things are happening on screen at once (ex: guys rushing in a room, guns blazing only to be topped off by a huge explosion). The menus are clear and make it easy to navigate to what mode you want to play.

For the online part of the game, the main lobby looks cluttered but finding a game to play in the menus isn't all that hard to do. Then again, why bother with the menus when you can voice chat.