Customer Reviews

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Imagine PS2 graphics, tons of unlockables, customization, stealth, tense action, explosions, and one guy with a gruff action who just sounds like he could crack your neck.

Congratulations! You have one of the best titles on the PSP: Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow. This was my first Syphon Filter title, and I fully enjoyed it.

Graphics:
PS2. Yup, great graphics, its smooth, the animations are great, and also the cinematics are smooth and make you blink a few times and make sure that your holding a PSP. Everything is as good as you can get on the PSP.

Controls:
Great. Although, when you have your back on a surface, and you peer around the corner, it'll shift oddly occasionally, but this is usually only on four foot surfaces. The controls feel natural, as well as you are able to act in cut-scenes, I remember one time, I wasn't expecting anything to happen, and I got my throat slit. Even when your in a cut-scene, keep your eyes open, and your hand ready. It's always tense.

Load Times:
Not bad for the PSP. Having the slim probably helps though. ;) Never slows down in the game, which is nice, because that occasionally happens in some games.

Gameplay:
Yup. Let's go over some basics. You can either be stealthy with a knife and a silenced pencil, or strategical with darts and tazers. With the ability to use the environment, you can kill three people with a misplaced bomb. Not to mention you can take out an AK - 47 and run in their like a hooligan, blasting away people like no tomorrow. Also it introduces new underwater missions, as well as more interaction with vehicles.

Depth:
Re-playable missions, unlockable weapons for customizing, training missions, hidden files, basically, everything that you would need in a shooting game.

Overall:
If you have a PSP, get this game, it's as simple as that.

I've been a fan of the Syphon Filter series since the very first game on the original playstation. If you like third person shooters no other game beats the Syphon Filter series. Unlike the Metal Gear Series, there is more shooting and less of the stealthy sneaking around. That's what makes the Syphon Filter series fun. It's pure action. I agree with one of the earlier reviewers in that Dark Mirror was more fun but I think that was because it was the first PSP version and everything was new. If you are familiar with the controls from Dark Mirror, then you will have very little difficulty in playing Logan's Shadow. In some way that made it less compelling because there was no real learning curve this time. But I still say the Syphon Filter series is the best game for a third person shooter fan on PSP or any console for that matter.

Logan's Shadow 1up's last year's excellent Dark Mirror in every way. Better graphics. Better gameplay. Better story. Stop reading this review and BUY THIS GAME.

Still reading? OK this game got a 95/100 from IGN and "Handheld Game of the Month". 90/100 from GameDaily. 85/100 from GameSpot. Gaming Age gave it 100/100: "Hell, you're lucky to find a console game so well put together overall."

One of the things that I've always loved about Sony systems as well as those from Nintendo is that there was always these games that received barely any attention or press or even much sales yet you're like "hey, this looks intriguing" and you check it out and sure enough it's quite a fun play. After buying a PSP, I checked out some opinions of top games and frequent "games to get for PSP" lists and though I wasn't a huge fan of Splinter Cell, I thought I'd give it a shot anyway and actually found quite a fun game. Though storyline-wise and character-wise I'm completely lost and don't know anybody, it was still a fun experience.

Story: You play as special operative Gabe Logan who's sent to a ship in the Indian Ocean to retrieve a new dangerous piece of technology in the hands of terrorists. But the more he digs and the more he realizes things don't fit, he finds himself finding old enemies and allies as well as possibly the idea that one enemy was on his side. I don't want to spoil too much since it's hard to bring down but it's also quite intriguing so it's best to just play it.

Graphics: The PSP, despite being small, can crank out some pretty surprising graphics, as evidenced by God of War and Crisis Core. Logan's Shadow is pretty much the same thing since it's so sharp, heavily detailed, characters are well animated, the cutscenes are quite gorgeous (though the eyes...freaky looking) and the different visors like night and heat vision look quite splendid as well.

Sound/Music: The music's quite fantastic actually and while I was getting a bit tired of those wailing vocals in films like 300 and Gladiator to show off that "epic" atmosphere, here the music helps and keeps you on your toes with ambience or straight ahead action tunes for the bigger stuff. The voice acting is also quite stellar and with different accents and dialects along with Logan (doing his best Eastwood impression I guess), it's a joy to watch as well as hear.

Gameplay: The PSP of course doesn't have the more numerous buttons that the Dual Shock controllers have though the PSP makes do and it's actually pretty well handled. Controlling Gabe is through the nub and the D-pad is for interaction like holding left for visors, right for weapons, down for crouching and up for interaction like opening doors, climbing or accessing different mission keypads and such. At first it took awhile to get used to, even with training modes to guide you in. But playing through the main story modes, it was easy to figure out and pretty soon swimming and going through the levels were pretty soon, though I weirdly couldn't get used to weapon changing.

Combat is more frequent and instead of Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell having an emphasis on stealth than action, this game will have you frequently running into enemies. There's still stealth kills to be had, sure, but the rarity of them happening and being spotted was quite numerous. Taking cover, Gabe has the ability to peek and fire and also blind firing over his shoulder or head, forcing the enemy to find cover. The AI is well-handled though it's easy to play the waiting game and just keep your crosshairs on the spot the enemy will show up then when he turns, blammo. One complaint was the ones that bomb in and it was hard to turn the camera and hit them though the difficulty never really got brutally difficult and with a handy radar for enemy positions, it wasn't too frustrating to deal with.

I'd very much recommend playing Logan's Shadow as its one of the top games for the handheld...though if this is your first one, you'll probably be like me and wonder "who's Lian? or Teresa? or him or him?"

I start out by saying it's the best stealth action title on the PSP despite being a big fan of MGS and it's PSP iteration, Portable Ops. From he graphics to the storyline to the action, Logan's shadow is simply packed with goodies. Like the game before it (Dark Mirror), Logan's Shadow has a short campaign mode but a satisfying one with a good story. It is divided into mission, each with multiple check points, which is perfect for small chunks of play on a train, a doctor's waiting room, etc. Mission mode allows you to play the game all over as much as you want to increase your rank - each stage has a number of head shots, stealth kills, hidden messages, etc to get. So, replay value is quite high. I don't enjoy to much online play on my PSP but this one pack it in and does it right. I haven't spent a lot of time with the online but it ran smooth the few times I played a game. If you are a fan of stealth action or just need action on your PSP this game should be on your list.

One of the best games for the PSP. A very good sequel to Dark Mirror. Controls differ slightly from Dark Mirror, but still quite easy to manuever. Has the same plot twists just like Dark Mirror. Highly recommend adding this game to your PSP collection.

I am a adult and not a kid and I can tell ya, to give this game a bad review because of "online" play seems a childish. First, if I want to play online, I want to do it from a desktop and not from a portable game. If you guys want online play, throw the psp in the trash, purchase a computer and play Online!

I rate this game above the all the socom games ( not that they are bad), your missions are not boring, graphics are great, etc. The controls are easy to learn and have a practice mode. I have beat this game once, and I am playing it again!

Pro's:
Excellent control system
Good story

Con's:
New features are little more than gimmicks
Numerous "boss" battles are far to easy

Logan's Shadow is another in a long line of Syphon Filter games, two of which stand out in the PSP's game line-up. However, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (the predecessor to Logan's Shadow) was a more enjoyable game. Logan's Shadow sought to take all the things that Dark Mirror did right, and add a few new tricks... the tricks failed. The sysem now allows for grappling, a feature that is not only unneccessary but often ineffective. They have also added underwater combat, which feels more like a break in game style and loses many of the advantages of their control system. Lastly, the game's "bosses" can be exceedingly easy to beat. In many cases, I smart player could (and I actually have) take out a boss with a single shot.

Logan's Shadow would easily have earned a 4 star rating... if it were not for the fact that Dark Mirror was a better and more enjoyable game.

Before I bought my PSP, I did a research to see what I could do with that PSP. Then, I was hooked... now I can read books, play emulators and other stuff, and I wanted to buy a good game with the system. It was Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. I loved it, then when this one (Logan's Shadow came up; I loved it too. If you liked Metal Gear Portable Ops... maybe you might like this one better since you don't have to read that much, or recruit like Metal Gear. I love Metal Gear though. Get this one and for less than [...]!!

Logan's Shadow has incredible graphics and game play. I have been at it for about three hours so far, and I am VERY glad that I bought it. Also like the amount of control you have. It saves game play automatically, so if you do get yourself killed, you don't have to do a bunch of stuff over again !!
I HATE it when you have to repeat over and over if something goes wrong. But not in this one !!