In a, ‘my dad’s harder than your dad’ throw-down where the dads have been replaced with the stars of PlayStation stealth-’em-ups, we’re pretty certain that most would bet against Syphon Filter hero Gabe Logan emerging victorious. Aside from his games not quite making it into the ‘classic’ bracket, he comes across as a pretty ordinary guy. Sure he sounds like an 80-year-old who has smoked 40-a-day for his whole life, but apart from the obligatory gruff-voice, he lacks any of the other timeless heroic qualities: Solid Snake sports a mullet that would do the redneck population of the United States proud, and Sam Fisher has an armoury of gadgetry high-tech enough to turn a certain super-spy green with envy. With the release of Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, however, any doubts about Mr Logan and his credentials should be firmly laid to rest; and he didn’t even need to invest in a deck of cards.

The most notable thing about Dark Mirror is that Sony Bend hasn’t made any compromises to what makes a Syphon Filter game a Syphon Filter game, but still manages to make it feel right at home on the PSP. In effect, Dark Mirror treads the middle-ground between the approaches employed by Ubisoft and Konami with their respective games, neither changing its core values to create a totally different experience – as with the superb Metal Gear Ac!d series – or sticking so steadfastly to its principles that it severely restricts the gameplay experience – as with Splinter Cell Essentials. A perfect balance has been struck with Dark Mirror, with every aspect of the game specifically tailored to the nuances of Sony’s handheld.

Foremost are the controls, which for once didn’t have us ready to hurl our PSP at the wall due to the lack of a second analogue stick. There are three control methods on offer, but the default setting is so intuitive that you quickly feel comfortable enough to stick with it for the entire game. Using the analogue nub to control Gabe’s movement and the face buttons to adjust his aim works so well – even if at first it feels a bit cumbersome – that you’ll soon be sticking knives into terrorists’ necks with the minimum of fuss. Even when you’re forced to engage the enemy in frenetic gun battles, it’s easy to aim quickly and accurately, with moments of disorientation thankfully as infrequent as Gary Glitter’s visits to the UK.

Dark Mirror isn’t just about riddling terrorists with bullets though, and Gabe comes fully equipped for a successful stealth mission, should you choose to take the softlysoftly approach. His repertoire of moves isn’t as diverse as either Solid Snake’s or Sam Fisher’s, but he does have a robust assortment of weapons and gadgets to help him put a stop to the terrorists’ nefarious schemes. As with Metal Gear and Splinter Cell, Gabe has a collection of vision-enhancing goggles to help him outwit his adversaries, such as classic green night-vision, IR (thermal) vision and the unique EDSU goggles that you can use to find interactive items throughout the levels, including traps.

The choice between taking the stealthy route or going in all guns blazing is, for the most part, left entirely up to you, and there is enough of both in Dark Mirror to engage you, whether you prefer to hide in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to pop out and snap the neck of an unsuspecting victim, or go in gung-ho. The game rewards the cautious, however, with fewer enemies to overcome and the occasional alternate route thanks to intel gleaned from terrorists who otherwise might be suffering a violent death in pools of their own blood. Luckily Gabe is just as proficient with an assault rifle as he is with a bowie knife, so if you want to do it Rambostyle, there’s nothing to stop you. Except the hordes of extra bad guys trying to stop you.

As well as giving you a pretty loose leash when it comes to how you tackle Gabe’s campaign, Dark Mirror also offers a good variety in missions and their objectives, so with each new level you should be doing something at least a little different from the last. The only downside we could think of with Dark Mirror is that the main adventure can be finished in seven or eight hours, so it’s a lot shorter than we would have liked, but at least that means it never outstays its welcome. To say Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror has come as a bit of a surprise to us is an understatement, as it has literally come out of nowhere and proved to us that third-person action games can be done on the PSP just as well as they can on the handheld’s older brother. Aside from the adventure being shorter than we would have liked, everything about Dark Mirror is simply outstanding, every element coming together to create one of the best games on the PSP, and the standout game for the system so far this year.

Jude Salmon