User Reviews (1 - 11 of 33)

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I HAVE THE DEMO....IT SUCKS!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 23
Date: January 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

NO WONDER THEY KEEP DELAYING THIS PIECE OF CRAP,I LOVED ALL THE OTHER GAMES SO I AM DISAPPOINTED BIG TIME!!ITS SO BAD I DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO FINISH OUT THE LEVEL WHICH IS RARE? WANT A ROCKING GAME? TRY "XIII" I LOVED IT!!!

Confusing, annoying, NOT the "SF" you are used to

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

What a way to ruin a good franchise. First off you are given nague overgeneral briefings, and placed in the dark in a large locale with a useless and confusing at best map. With only the most general vague idea of what you're expected to do and where you are also on a timer. The real clincher though is the most shrill female voice ever constantly berating you- "hurry up" "you're running out of time", and on and on and on and on and on. constantly. An example- 2nd mission- find 3 terrorists and stop them from contaminating the water supply- in 5 minutes. Find them where? underground? the city? a building? what do they look like? how will you know them from all the others? are they together? get the point? It seems as though they expected you to buy a guide and left all the info you would normally get out so you could get it in the guide.

Big mistake in trying to emulate SOCOM

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: June 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I recently picked up the game and to my disappointment it has been completely changed. It seems the creators wanted to get a piece of the SOCOM market share; i.e. online capability, setting up your character and the overall mission briefings. Unlike SOCOM, Syphon Filter is more of a clandestine type of game that requires lots out of the box thinking. By deviating from the original three Syhphon Filters, they have done a great injustice to The Omega Strain. The Gabe Logan character should still have been an option for game play, the original character control movements should have not been changed, the new movements add no value at all. If I knew all this before hand I would have not wasted my money; I rather replay Syphon Filter I-III over an over.

PITYFUL!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: September 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ive never played these Syphon Filter games before, but the commercial on TV looked pretty good, so I bought it one evening when I couldnt really find anything else. Im a pretty good player and I usually adapt pretty quickly to little nuances in the controls and movement. Well, I couldnt even get out of the Training mode. It took me atleast 15 seconds to be able to aim at someone and fire. Needless to say, its retired from my world cause I gave it away tonight. I thought at first it was going to be cool, but its just a lesson in frustration trying to navigate or shoot. Some people might like a real challenge, but I thought it sucked. I like challenging games, but not any of this overbearing movement. I dont know who plays this crap. Unique people I suppose...............

Omega Stain - Gabe Has Left the Building

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I thought I wasted my time writing a review on this crap, but apparently not. I played it for about an hour and wanted to get rid of it the same day. Syphon Filter used to be a sure thing, but now it's up the creak without a paddle. The controls suck, the mission objectives are unclear, and the map is hard to read. I'd swear the developers that made the previous Syphon Filter editions enjoyable retired and passed on the torch to the makers of "No One Lives Forever." That game is as fun as having your your legs broken twice a year, every year, for 10 years straight. I'd give this game 1/2 star if it were possible.

a very disappointed fan :(

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: May 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm one of Syphon Filter's biggest fans--I even love Syphon Filter 3, which was generally panned by critics. But SF: Omega Strain is a total letdown. I'm glad I only rented it instead of buying it. The game just doesn't play like a real Syphon Filter. It plays like a Syphon Filter knock-off.

I knew something was wrong when the release date kept getting pushed back (it was supposed come out in Summer 2003, then October 2003, then February 2004 and finally May 2004---almost a year late). But still, I gave Omega Strain the benefit of the doubt---that is until I actually played it. I rented the Strain for five days, but I took it back after only two. I tried hard to like it, believe me I did. But its sh##. Step wide around this one, folks, and hold your nose.

a let down

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I just finished wasting too many hours on this first - FIRST! - mission of this game, and I have to say that I'm quite disppointed so far. First, the storyline is all but incomprehensible. Second, why is this game even called Syphon Filter? It's nearly identical to Splinter Cell, just with less fluid controls.

EDIT: This game is even worse than I originally thought. I think the dumbest thing they did was make the enemies respawn. I didn't bother to play past the second level.

What Happened, Gabe?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: May 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Omega Strain tries to please everyone, but it ends up pleasing no one. There are some good things here, like creating and customizing your own agent, but as far as I can see, that's the ONLY good thing and that's certainly not enough to redeem it. The game just has too many mistakes---STUPID ANNOYING MISTAKES---that should've been fixed back in the alpha stage. For example:

The missions are incredibly long and confusing and you never know exactly what you're doing. You'll see "objective completed" or "objective failed" suddenly appear on screen and you're saying, "What objective?" Then the missions suddenly end, just like that, and after all the running and crawling and shooting, you're not sure if you won or if you lost. You're just tired. (Also, you can't save during the missions, so God help you if the power browns out.)

The graphics are bland at best and the cut-scenes look like they were borrowed from Syphon Filter 3. (No game should look like this, not now, not after Splinter Cell).

The 3D maps are hard, if not impossible, to read.

The camera is too rubbery. Boing!

The aiming lock-on is screwed up. A bad guy drops down beside you. You press the R1 button to fix your sights on him, but instead you're locked-on to a guy fifty feet away who's not even shooting at you. That never happened in the other Syphon Filter games.

Gabe and Lian are AWOL for most of the action. Instead, you have to answer to some chick named Imani or something who's constantly berating you for not doing what you were told. Huh? Why not have Gabe on the radio? I could at least respect his opinions. Lian, too, for that matter. Or even Teresa Lipan. But who the hell's Imani?

The enemies never end. You kill three bad guys, leave the room, come back, and those same three bad guys are shooting at you again! DAMN IT! And it takes like 15 bullets just to put one of them down--at point-blank range. Maddening.

But this one takes the cake. The mother of all blunders. Drum roll, please:

To complete the missions 100% you have to play online. WTF? Online is fine as long as it keeps it's place, but it shouldn't be meddling in single-player business. The fact that it is is just plain wrong. The single-player missions should be your highest priority, Sony. That's where most of your players are. Make us happy, then worry about the online stuff. Don't force it on unwitting fans. And don't sacrifice single-player quality at its expense. But it's too late to say that now. The game is what it is---a two-star turkey. But if you're a fan of the series and you just want to add it to your Syphon Filter collection, then wait for a price drop, like under ten bucks. But even that might be paying too much.

A tremendous disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: May 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The original Syphon Filter was one of the ground-breaking action games for PS2 in recent memory. That was followed by a decent sequel and the execrable Syphon Filter 3. And now, the final chapter.

What's good about the game: the artwork is by and large beautiful, and there are some wonderful non-interactive sequences. And of course, how can you go wrong with burning terrorists alive with a taser?

That's where the good stuff ends. The storyline, never a strength of the series, is trite and hackneyed, the voice acting uninspired and the game itself offers a surprisingly boring single-player experience. For a game that was over three years in the making, I was amazed by the lack of originality and compelling gameplay. It's pretty clear the designers were rather uninspired here.

But what really ticked me off was the incredibly lame "multiplayer" option--yes, you can go online and play with your friends--but only as one side! You always play against enemy AIs! How fun would CounterStrike be if you could only play against 'bots? Well, buy this game and you can find out.

I wish the makers of this game had instead created a great single player game instead of wasting their (and my) time creating a multiplayer mode that will get little if any play.

If you are looking for a great single-player experience with a great cinematic element, I recommend 007: Everything or Nothing or Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. If you want online action, get SOCOM2. SF:TOS tries to have it's cake and eat it too, and fails miserably on both counts.

It's too bad this had to be the last in the Syphon Filter series, as it goes out not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Rent the game first

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: May 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is really hard. I haven't even gotten past the second level. You cant save during a mission which makes it hard to have fun when you need to play for 40 minutes to finish a mission. But if you can somehow reach the par times, then I guess it would be ok. The first mission's par time was 11 minutes. The first mission took me 45 minutes. I would rent it first, and decide if you like it. I really liked Syphon filter 1 and 2 but this is to hard. Maybe when you get further along and unlock more weapons, it gets more fun.

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