Once again we are back talking about hidden gems. There’s a lot of games out there that are called hidden gems, but we feel most of them aren’t. Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow is the first Sony game we’ll call a hidden gem. I have never played a Syphon Filter game. I know they used to be loved on PS1, then people hated Omega Strain. Omega Strain was suppose to be one of the first online only GaaS games, but Sony made them make a single player. Then the rest of the series went to PSP and these were ported to PS2 later.

We’re playing the PS2 version of Logan’s Shadow which doesn’t have the multiplayer. This is a weird one as I played it about a year ago and thought it was ok. I then tried it the other day, and increased the sensitivity up and it felt good.

The first thing is this game has a very unique atmosphere. It feels like a 90s action movie that the story is meh but it’s still entertaining. Visually it holds up well I didn’t have to install a texture pack.

The controls are great, just switch the shoulder and trigger controls. One of the best covers systems of any 6th gen game, even better than KillSwitch. The climbing over cover and stealth feel solid, plus uou’r able to sneak up and knife people. You have a flashlight , night vision, thermal and red vision to see hidden stuff in the level.

The gunplay is good too.. Each gun feels different, some can shoot different ammo types. You can change fire modes for the SMGs and ARs.

The mission structure is linear but the maps are diverse. You have snowy mountain ranges, cities, a ship, forests, high rises and a dam. There’s a few escort and working with NPC segments, where have to protect them or help them do something. These are actually pretty interesting. There some sniping ones, where you tell them when to move. There’s one where you use your thermals to follow an agent through the walls, and shoot enemies from around her. There’s another one where you are fighting a helicopter and you have to get its attention and tell the other agent when to fire rockets at it. I was thinking these would bore me, but I was wrong these were fun.

The boss fights can be pretty creative too. There’s one where your in a room with a nuclear reactor sitting behind glass. The boss is shooting at you from in front of it. You have to be accurate with your shots because if you hit the glass too many times you’ll break it and die of radiation. It was hard because he moves fast and can hit you easily

The story is Gabriel Logan chasing down a terrorist named Bitar. Bitar and his organization have stolen a radioactive weapon. Fellow Agent Xing disappeared and has come back looking for Bitar too. It’s pretty bare bones, but it does the job.

I have a few criticisms about Logan’s Shadow. The score is good in this, but gets played during certain custscenes and can drown out the audio. Certain conversations in the game appear to be lower quality than others. The last thing is the stealth. It’s good, but there’s a bunch of forced combat sections where I wish you had a choice.

Give this one a shot, sitting online and talking about remasters is lame. I think they added it on PS Plus, but I think it’s the PSP version. I know they have the earlier game Dark Mirror on PS Plus. This game is a letdown, it feels similar, but it’s generic and has a lot of cutscenes. You can’t even knife people.