My Top 100: #25 – Syphon Filter

 

At a time when the Nintendo 64 seemed content with releasing lots of colourful platformers (that were mostly still awesome, by the way), Sony’s PlayStation was targeting older gamers with lots of action games.  Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dino Crisis, Silent Hill, along with a couple Grand Theft Auto games, helped pad their reputation for delivering solid mature titles.  Not that the N64 didn’t have a few good action games here and there – it just wasn’t their bread and butter!

Though Syphon Filter got lots of press in EGM and great reviews across the board, it doesn’t come up very often in “oh man that game was awesome” conversations – unless I’m among those in the conversation, of course.  By today’s standards, it was a run-of-the-mill third person shooter with lock-on targeting and plenty of weapons and gadgets.  Some levels required stealth, while others depended on shooting and sniping skills.

The plot had government conspiracies, double-crossing federal agents, a deadly virus, rockets being launched by those pesky communists, along with other spy movie clichés…  and it was all up to you as Gabe Logan to stop it!  Because it was all over the board, the game had you travelling from New York City to Kazakhstan, as well as a few places in between.

I’m not sure how to put this into words, exactly.  The architecture of some of the buildings is quite unique, and you truly feel like you’re in Europe somewhere.  One of the last levels has you running from rooftop to rooftop, through an old church, down into a maze of catacombs…  it’s old, it has character, and it looked fantastic for back in the day!

 

 

This game reminds me of the house my sister used to live in Moncton.  It was the first time I had ever been in a duplex, and it was quite snazzy compared to the places she had lived in beforehand.  Not that they were all bad before that, just not brand spankin’ new like this place.  It really did feel quite cozy whenever we went for a visit.

The fall of ’99 was the first year they lived there, and it was quite chilly on the weekend we went.  I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere with anybody, so I brought my PS1 along for the trip.  The TV in the room I stayed in was older than I was, but that didn’t matter.  I had an RF switch for my PlayStation, and I was going to beat that damn catacombs level (the one mentioned above) before my weekend was over!

The idea was to trail a scientist until the end of a complicated set of halls and stairways, all without being detected by wandering guards in the area.  Not only that, but you could easily get lost if you strayed too far from the guy you’re supposed to follow…

Anyway, one night during that trip, I had followed him further than I ever had before.  My palms were sweaty as I rounded every corner, and I had to pee like crazy – there was no way I could pause the game now, I was so close to the end…  finally, I did it!  I passed through the doors at the end of the level and watched a cutscene that changed the course of the story – DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN…  your partner isn’t actually dead!  Crazy.

So, I had to pee like crazy at that point.  As I zoomed to the bathroom, I passed the room my mom was staying in.  She was in the dark with a little light clipped to the top of the book she was reading, and there was a strong burning smell coming from the room.  It was cold, and I had experienced the smell that came with turning on a heater for the first time in the fall, so I didn’t think much of it.

By the time I came out of the bathroom, my sister’s boyfriend had come upstairs to see where the smell was coming from.  As he flipped on the bedroom light, my mom was in the midst of a smoky haze, and had been completely oblivious to it!  Through fits of uncontrollable laughter, we were opening windows, fanning towels, pillows, or whatever we could wave around to get the smell out of the room.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just the first time they had turned on the heat that spring;  it was the first time the heat had ever been turned on in that room, period, and whatever building material dust was on the heater was the culprit.  We weren’t necessarily in danger of burning the house down, but it was a moment that was definitely somewhere between hilarious and scary…  moreso the former than the latter, though.