{"id":2240,"date":"2013-02-01T14:27:54","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T14:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2013-02-01T14:37:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T14:37:27","slug":"my-top-100-25-syphon-filter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2240","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #25 &#8211; Syphon Filter"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2250\" style=\"width: 344px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/syphonfilterbox.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2250\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2250\" alt=\"1999 - 989 Studios (PlayStation, PlayStation Network)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/syphonfilterbox.jpg\" width=\"334\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/syphonfilterbox.jpg 334w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/syphonfilterbox-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2250\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1999 &#8211; 989 Studios (PlayStation, PlayStation Network)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At a time when\u00a0the Nintendo 64 seemed content with releasing lots of colourful platformers (that were mostly still awesome, by the way),\u00a0Sony&#8217;s PlayStation was targeting\u00a0older gamers with\u00a0lots of action games.\u00a0 <em>Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dino Crisis, Silent Hill<\/em>, along with a couple <em>Grand Theft Auto<\/em> games, helped pad their reputation for delivering solid mature titles.\u00a0 Not that the N64 didn&#8217;t have a few good action\u00a0games here and there &#8211;\u00a0it just wasn&#8217;t their bread and butter!<\/p>\n<p>Though <em>Syphon Filter<\/em> got lots of press in <em>EGM<\/em> and great reviews across the board, it doesn&#8217;t come up very often in &#8220;oh man that game was awesome&#8221; conversations &#8211; unless I&#8217;m among those in the conversation, of course.\u00a0 By today&#8217;s standards, it was a run-of-the-mill third person shooter with lock-on targeting and plenty of weapons and gadgets.\u00a0 Some levels required stealth, while others depended on shooting and sniping skills.<\/p>\n<p>The plot\u00a0had government conspiracies, double-crossing\u00a0federal agents, a deadly virus,\u00a0rockets being launched\u00a0by those pesky communists,\u00a0along with other\u00a0spy movie clich\u00e9s&#8230;\u00a0 and it was all up to you as Gabe Logan to stop it!\u00a0 Because\u00a0it was all over the board,\u00a0the game\u00a0had you travelling\u00a0from New York City to Kazakhstan, as well as a few places in between.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure how to put\u00a0this into words, exactly.\u00a0 The architecture of some of the buildings\u00a0is quite\u00a0unique, and you truly feel like you&#8217;re in Europe somewhere.\u00a0 One of the last levels\u00a0has you running from rooftop to rooftop, through an old church, down into a maze of\u00a0catacombs&#8230;\u00a0 it&#8217;s old, it has character, and it\u00a0looked fantastic for back in the day!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cjjR5CyLQuQ\" height=\"360\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This game reminds me of the house\u00a0my sister used to live in Moncton.\u00a0 It was the first time I had ever been in a duplex, and it was quite snazzy compared to the\u00a0places\u00a0she had lived\u00a0in beforehand.\u00a0 Not that they were all\u00a0bad before that, just not brand spankin&#8217; new\u00a0like this place.\u00a0 It really did feel quite cozy whenever we went for a visit.<\/p>\n<p>The fall of &#8217;99 was\u00a0the first year they lived\u00a0there, and it was quite chilly on the weekend we went.\u00a0 I wasn&#8217;t really planning on going anywhere with anybody, so I brought my PS1 along for the\u00a0trip.\u00a0\u00a0The TV in the room\u00a0I stayed in was older than I was, but that didn&#8217;t matter.\u00a0 I had an\u00a0RF switch for my PlayStation, and\u00a0I was going to beat that damn catacombs level (the one mentioned above) before my weekend was over!<\/p>\n<p>The idea\u00a0was\u00a0to trail a scientist until the end of a complicated set of halls and stairways,\u00a0all\u00a0without being detected by wandering guards in the area.\u00a0 Not only that, but you could easily get lost if you strayed too far from the guy you&#8217;re supposed to follow&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, one night during that trip, I had followed him further than I\u00a0ever\u00a0had before.\u00a0 My palms were sweaty as I rounded every corner, and I had to pee like crazy &#8211; there was no way I could pause the game now, I was so close to the end&#8230;\u00a0\u00a0finally,\u00a0I did it!\u00a0 I passed through the doors at the end of the level and watched a cutscene that changed the course of the story &#8211; DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN&#8230;\u00a0 your partner isn&#8217;t actually dead!\u00a0 Crazy.<\/p>\n<p>So, I had to pee like crazy at that point.\u00a0 As I zoomed to the bathroom, I passed the room my mom was staying in.\u00a0 She was in the dark with a little light clipped to the top of\u00a0the book she was reading, and there was a strong burning smell coming from the room.\u00a0 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&#8217;t think much of it.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I came out of the bathroom, my sister&#8217;s boyfriend had come upstairs to see where the smell was coming from.\u00a0 As he flipped on the bedroom light, my mom was in the midst of a smoky haze, and had been completely oblivious to it!\u00a0 Through fits of uncontrollable laughter, we were opening windows, fanning towels, pillows, or whatever we could\u00a0wave around\u00a0to get the smell out of the room.<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, it wasn&#8217;t just the first time they had turned on the heat that spring; \u00a0it was the first time\u00a0the heat had\u00a0ever been turned on in that room, period, and whatever building material dust was on the heater was the culprit.\u00a0 We weren&#8217;t necessarily in danger of burning the house down, but it was a moment that was definitely somewhere between hilarious and scary&#8230;\u00a0 moreso the former than the latter, though.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2251\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/taser.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2251\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2251\" alt=\"Using the taser never gets old!\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/taser.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/taser.jpg 640w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/taser-300x194.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2251\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using the taser in this game\u00a0never gets old!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; At a time when\u00a0the Nintendo 64 seemed content with releasing lots of colourful platformers (that were mostly still awesome, by the way),\u00a0Sony&#8217;s PlayStation was targeting\u00a0older gamers with\u00a0lots of action games.\u00a0 Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dino Crisis,&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2240\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,87,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-playstation","category-syphon-filter","category-top-100"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}