Join me as I explore the life and times of an under appreciated, oddly visionary, and thoroughly flawed third-person shooter for the Playstation 2.
Gears of War 4 was released recently. You may not have heard; it's a pretty small indie game, after all. Gears 4 features one of my all-time favorite modes in any game: Horde. It's basically the cooperative mode in modern shooters. Love it or hate it, there's no denying that it has contributed greatly to the rise of online co-op over the last decade or so.
Believe it or not though, there was a time when the idea of teaming up with a squad of fellow players against AI bots was fairly uncommon, particularly on consoles. There was also a time when the name Gabriel Logan was more than a footnote in gaming history.
To find that time, we must go back to 2004; May 4th, to be exact. Not a major date in the grand scheme of things, but one that saw the release of Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain for the Playstation 2. For those of you who weren't around, Syphon Filter was a reasonably successful series of semi-stealth-focused shooters in the same vein as Metal Gear Solid. The series' run on the original Playstation was notable for two things: protagonist Gabe Logan's goofy running animation and the ability to set dudes ablaze by tasing them. By 2004, however, the series had lost a good deal of its thunder, thanks in large part to contemporary shooters.
Omega Strain is perhaps the most easily forgotten entry in the franchise, but it marked a huge shift for Syphon Filter. Rather than directly follow Gabe Logan in his ongoing battle against the Syphon Filter virus, as had been the case up to that point, players took up arms as a fresh recruit in Gabe's government-sponsored spec ops army. This in and of itself was a genuinely awesome concept, and one rarely seen in shooters at the time. Climbing the ranks in Gabe's army as your own personalized soldier, unlocking gear and weapons along the way, set the game apart from pretty much anything out at the time. But what really earned Omega Strain a cult following was its online co-op.
Originally designed as an online-only game, it wasn't until Sony intervened in its development that Bend Studio threw in a single-player mode. This is fairly evident in Omega Strain's dialogue and map design. Team-specific side objectives are littered throughout, and sadly now remain forever-incomplete with the game's servers offline. There are a few odd workarounds for those in the know, which offers its own bizarre brand of satisfaction, but Omega Strain is undoubtedly a lesser game without its once-thriving little community.
Missions could be tackled in teams of up to four players, with objectives often requiring teams to coordinate and multitask. Omega Strain was strict about completion times, and if you didn't know what to do, you had to learn through trial and error or by grouping up with more experienced players. I suppose a decent parallel would be as miniature Destiny raids, only without the step-by-step YouTube guides. As a new player, I recall jumping into the early Carthage missions and learning the ropes with high-ranking players. Not only did it make the game more enjoyable, but you also got a taste of the awesome guns and gear that awaited you at the mountaintop.
Omega Strain was very much a game ahead of its time in some respects. It had a lot of really interesting ideas during a time when there wasn't great deal of standardization in shooter conventions the way there is today. However, it's execution on a lot of those ideas left a lot to be desired. Chief among Omega Strain's issues were its controls. It used a lock-on system, à la The Legend of Zelda's Z-targeting, rather than a centrally located reticle. Targeting enemies while navigating the game's oft-cramped environments required olympic-level finger gymnastics at times, and the game had a general swimminess to it that was thoroughly off-putting. Add in a fairly disjointed story and a variety of bugs, and it's easy to understand why Omega Strain had the lukewarm reception that it did. Despite it's flaws though, Omega Strain will always remain one of my personal favorite games from the PS2 era.
I guess what I'm trying to say, Syphon Filter: Omega Strain, is that I can't bring myself forget you. You were clunky, buggy, and yeah, you weren't the prettiest game in the world. But I just can't forget you.
You had dreams of being a beautiful butterfly. You went into your development cocoon, but you emerged too early. You tried to spread your wings. Oh, how you tried. But you emerged from that cocoon as a malformed moth. Beautiful in your own way, to be sure, but many a gamer gazed upon your poor, misunderstood visage and wept. But I'll always see the beauty within your heart, my sweet ugly duckling.
You may never receive the credit you deserve for bringing gamers together to fight for a common goal, but just know that your memory will live on. It will live on in the hearts and minds of those you touched in your own special way. You may be gone, Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, but you are not forgotten.
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