This Week In Retro: Syphon Filter (Patreon)

February 16, 1999: she syphon' me 'til I filter

by Diamond Feit

After decades of Cold War paranoia cast the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" across the breadth of American pop culture, the 1990s brought about a period of narrative turmoil. With our traditional enemies now looking friendlier than ever, who could Hollywood turn to take up the mantle of top heel? For a spell it looked like the War on Drugs might suffice as a Cold War substitute, as James Bond and Harrison Ford faced off against thinly-veiled caricatures of actual narcotics kingpins. Yet power-hungry dealers with private armies just cannot offer the same level of looming danger as a single superpower supposedly plotting to destroy our entire way of life.

In view of this imbalance, a pattern emerged as post-Cold War action movies turned the crumbling USSR into a breeding ground for dozens of smaller, less-predictable enemies. This new approach had its advantages, as the lack of an opposing nation state removed the threat of mutually-assured destruction. In most scenarios, we could always assume our Russian counterparts would have misgivings about actually firing nuclear weapons, since our counterattack would surely kill them right after their missiles killed us. But a rogue, decentralized cabal armed with a single surplus Soviet warhead could attack the United States without fear of triggering a nuclear apocalypse.

Hence the mid-90s milked the concept for all its worth. James Cameron directed True Lies, a story of Middle Eastern terrorists smuggling Soviet nuclear arms into the United States. Crimson Tide and GoldenEye—both 1995—had Western agents struggle with hijacked Cold War weapons wielded by traitorous Russians. The very first film released by DreamWorks Pictures was The Peacemaker, a 1997 political thriller about George Clooney and Nicole Kidman chasing a nuke swiped by a corrupt Russian General. Even comedies followed this trend, as Dr. Evil in Austin Powers threatens to cover the Earth in liquid hot magma thanks to a bomb he got from the breakaway republic Kreplachistan.

With atomic weapons for sale to the highest bidder across the cinematic landscape, it makes perfect sense that in 1998, Hideo Kojima would pepper the script of Metal Gear Solid with speech after speech about the state of modern warfare. Yet mere months after Konami's Tactical Stealth Action blockbuster launched on PlayStation, another post-Cold War video game would arrive on the console, this one published by Sony's own 989 Studios. Reviewers at the time couldn't help but compare Syphon Filter unfavorably to Kojima's magnum opus, but the debut of agent Gabriel Logan deserves more credit than that.

To tell the tale of Syphon Filter, we should start with its unusual title. In a 2012 interview with PlayStation Blog, developer Eidetic's John Garvin says the name came directly from a producer at 989 Studios "who had written a one page synopsis that he called 'Syphon Filter' which had zero meaning." According to Garvin, "we were making it up as we went. We knew we wanted a third-person action game, and we knew we wanted to deliver on the fantasy of being a super spy."

For an idea of just how much change the project went through, Garvin says "the story for Syphon Filter when I was brought on board was all about a group of scientists who had been kidnapped and taken to a huge underground complex where they were being forced to build a time machine by an evil scientist/government." While many of the stories mentioned above could qualify as science-fiction, none of them dabble in anything as far-fetched as time travel. The finished Syphon Filter script remains firmly set in the year 1999, albeit one where biologists can create a "programmable" virus which can target specific groups or even individuals.

In a whirlwind opening cinematic, we see Gabe Logan rushing around the globe in pursuit of terrorists, eventually returning to Washington D.C. where gunmen open fire on the streets of our nation's capital. Right away, Syphon Filter shows one major difference between Gabe and Metal Gear's Solid Snake, as Gabe has plenty of backup; this includes specialists who storm onto the scene to disarm any explosives he might find. Indeed, protecting colleagues while they devote their attention to crucial tasks is a regular feature of Gabe's to-do list.

Levels in Syphon Filter vary in size from multiple city blocks to a single enclosed arena, but they invariably challenge Gabe to accomplish specific objectives before moving on to his next destination. The order and timeline in which he takes care of business generally remains up to the player, with the game only saving progress after Gabe meets periodic checkpoints along the way. Often an incoming transmission from his comrade Lian will inform him of a new undertaking; Gabe has no choice but to accept these additional parameters and failure is never an option.

This flexibility works in Syphon Filter's favor, giving players a great deal of leeway to explore every level and discover multiple approaches to solving Gabe's problems. In that very first encounter with terrorists in Washington, Gabe begins with an active firefight to his left and an empty alley to his right. The game does not herd him in either direction for he will find urgent matters to attend to however he proceeds.

As you might imagine given Gabe's line of work, much of Syphon Filter revolves around combat, although this too has its share of open-endedness. On each stage, Gabe arrives with a variety of armaments at the ready; this includes infinitely reusable tools like a taser or a flashlight. Regardless of what Gabe brings to the fight, each level has lockers throughout where he can find extra weapons or body armor. Eliminating terrorists also nets Gabe more resources, as anyone killed in action leaves their gun behind for the taking.

Since players spend so much time in Syphon Filter mowing down bad guys, its wide assortment of firearms grants players an impressive amount of freedom. Silenced pistols don't offer much power but also don't make much noise, enabling Gabe to whittle down the opposition without raising any alarms. Machine guns hit hard and fire fast but at the cost of accuracy. Gabe's taser allows him to kill without worrying about ammunition, with the caveat that it requires several seconds to do its job and can only target one person at a time. That person does shimmy and shake before going up in flames, making the taser easily the most entertaining weapon of all.

Syphon Filter also keeps combat fun through a system that lets players attack aggressively or approach with caution. Whenever Gabe takes or opens fire, two meters appear on-screen: Danger and Target. The red Danger bar increases as threats close in, but Gabe won't take any damage until it maxes out; running, dodge rolling, or taking cover will reduce his Danger level. Target reflects Gabe's level of concentration on his opponents, which he can increase by standing still, crouching, and taking careful aim. However, charging into battle and holding down the trigger button is also perfectly valid so long as Gabe's got enough armor to weather the storm.

All these factors combine to make each level of Syphon Filter a miniature playground rife with hazards but also offering ample room for experimentation. The enemies never stop coming—these terrorists must provide extremely competitive wages given how well-staffed they are—but that means Gabe never runs out of ammo. Many areas also contain a fair amount of physical exploration as well, with ledges to climb, windows to smash, and a few environmental threats like exploding barrels and giant chandeliers that Gabe can use to his advantage.

Attentive readers may have connected the dots by now, but let's state the obvious just in case: Eidetic never envisioned Syphon Filter as a take on Metal Gear Solid. In his aforementioned PlayStation Blog interview, John Garvin says "We had been in development for quite a while before we had even heard of it." Rather, Syphon Filter's objective-driven progression and "super spy" concept came straight from Rare's 1997 hit GoldenEye 007, which Garvin called "probably the closest you could come to finding a game like Syphon in those days."

To hear Garvin describe the Syphon Filter development process, it's a miracle the game ever made it to stores. Garvin says most of his team had "zero experience" with an action title like this, as Eidetic's only previous console work had been the infamous Bubsy 3D. With multiple rewrites, wholesale changes to Syphon Filter's fundamentals, and more than one missed deadline, Garvin believes 989 Studios contemplated canceling the entire project. Ultimately, he says that it took an extraordinary amount of faith from their bosses and a year of crunch time to complete Syphon Filter and release it in February of 1999.

Sony's gamble paid off, as Syphon Filter moved over a million copies and turned into a new franchise for the company. Eidetic would churn out five sequels over the following eight years, all PlayStation exclusives. The series fell silent after Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, which seemingly showed Gabe's demise in a cliffhanger finale. As far as video game characters go, he might as well be dead since he's gone missing ever since, not even turning up for so much as a cameo in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

For their part, Eidetic remains a first-party Sony developer, having rebranded as Bend Studio and creating Until Dawn. Despite a decade of no new releases, the Syphon Filter series remains playable on PlayStation 4 and 5 with five games included in the Classics Catalog. That's more than Solid Snake can lay claim to, so chalk that up as a win for Gabe Logan. He may be deceased, but his legend lives on.

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.