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Was the original Syphon Filter a better game than Metal Gear Solid 1 (PS1)?

mansoor1980

Member
No, it's a well constructed highly polished game I don't personally like. I have never been anywhere near arrogant enough to assume that I can the arbiter of other people's tastes.
no one is asking you to dictate to others , if in your opinion GOW is boring and meh then thats the way it is and your opinion should be respected , for example in my opinion the DEUS EX games are bad , a lot of people will get mad but its my opinion
 
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LastBattle

Member
Absolutely!




Not!

I remember playing Syphon Filter back in the day and also remember it reviewing well. It was a good game, but came nowhere near the heights of MGS. MGS was revolutionary, I had never played anything like it and was completely floored with its cinematic presentation, story and unique gameplay. It was a game changer in every sense of the word while syphon filer was simply a good game, a product of its time, but largely forgettable.
 

Aldynes

Member
Does it need to be compared to MGS to be considered good?
I think that it's completely counter-productive to do, MGS spawned a shift in the medium and a legacy that still holds up to this day, as much I love Syphon Filter (look at my profile pic) you can't just avoid to see the bigger picture here.

I've played both at release, and they are very different, someone pointed out that Tenchu existed too, Stealth / Action genre at his core revolves around the gameplay, it's legit to compare different games on this particular point, see their approach, new ideas, none got everything right between those 3.

The OST of the first SF is a banger, the danger bar system is cool, gameplay is fluid, the headshot indicator helps a lot, stealth section are good, weapons are varied characters are cool, hell everything is great to be honest, the main problem is making a comparaison with MGS.
 
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Since there are only, like 5 replies in total and a bunch of useless reactions, I´ll take them in turn.
It’s hilarious to see them spam those stupid reactions in order to invalidate your opinion, when actual dialogue is more productive. I’ll say it again, the original MGS isn’t a good a game as people make it out to be. Hell, it’s not even the best stealth game of 1998, I’d give that honour to Thief: The Dark Project.
 
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Kydd BlaZe

Member
Both are classics, but Syphon Filter isn’t even in the same ballpark as MGS. Love me some Syphon Filter though. Shame that the franchise just died off.
 
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trikster40

Member
tenor.gif
 
I'm the biggest MGS fan but this opinion is right.
As a simple game SF may be ahead, but it's such an underrated game! The running animation is an example, anyone who actually played the game during it's time noticed that it worked really well, made the character movement works better than in other games.
 

Mamofish

Member
They were each designed with different goals in mind and were successful on those goals.

Metal Gear the interactive movie and Syphon Filter the fluid action game.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Syphon Filter was a wonderful game, but MGS1 is a generational shift in how games are made, viewed. It was a very steep jump from games being for kids to games approaching and surpassing Hollywood.

If Syphon Filter, which I loved a lot, was the Moon, then MGS1 is the Sun.
 
It was every bit as fucking good. I remember chasing that enemy in the train station, or my first deaths to that amazing marksman in the park. It was a while before I realized that I had to shoot out the lights in the park. That shit blew my mind "Yoo, I can shoot out the lights!?"

The first Syphon Filter is a top tier game, up there with Metal Gear Solid on PS1.
 

Duchess

Member
You know, I'm actually certain that Syphon Filter was marketed at people who enjoyed Metal Gear Solid. I seem to remember seeing that on a big cutout display in Electronics Boutique* in the UK, in 1999.

(* - yes, that retailer. Get off my lawn, damn kids)
 
Gotta say, this is one of the most correct statements ive ever seen on such a console throughbreed forum. Usually you have people that grew up and only know consoles and are entirely removed from the space of home computers, where the real gaming revolution happened, where the actual best games were developed and were nearly all the gaming genres we play today were born.

On a console forum like this one, you have people thinking MGS invented stealth or that it was the first cinematic game and all the other games took influence from it. They ignore that Thief was the designer of the modern stealth genre from which every stealth game to this day takes its influence. They ignore that you had cinematic games on PC dating back to the 80s and there were giant AAA blockbusters like Wing Commander 3 and 4, with hollywood actors and hours of footage. And they ignore that there are practically zero games on the market that play like MGS 1.

So. hat's off to your correct statement again
The main claim to Splinter Cells superior gameplay by its fans, compared to MGS, are the mechanics it introduced that didn't exist on consoles before. It's fact that without MGS Splinter Cell wouldn't exist, right from the creators mouths, but Splinter Cell competed against MGS by introducing elements that weren't known by console players, which formed more of the franchises core gameplay mechanics than what it borrowed from Metal Gear.

Of course with all that said I knew from day 1 that I would be a minority when I started this thread, but I assumed there would be..... more depth in the discussion than what we ended up with.
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
Not sure why I'm even posting here since it's been said plenty of times already in this thread, but no... SF is a great game, but MGS1 was a masterpiece.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
No, but I will say the original Splinter Cell was better than MGS1. I'd say the first 3 Splinter Cell games were better than any MGS aside from maybe 5.
 

KellyM

Member
easy answer...NO way. Metal Gear is a classic. Play them both on the ps1 classic and you will see Metal Gear holds up,,Syphon Filter does not,
 

Varteras

Gold Member
No. Solid franchise, for sure. A great alternative if you were already done with MGS and wanted something like it while you waited for the sequel. But in no way better than MGS.
 

supernova8

Banned
It was definitely a good game at the time but looking back at videos for it, I can see it was actually quite generic. Good, but generic.

Metal Gear Solid is 1000000x better just from the Mantis section where the game literally gets you to turn off your console/remove the memory card.

I remember playing it with my brothers thinking "wait, what?"

I remember those moments because Metal Gear Solid really was that good, whereas I only have vague memories of Syphon Filter.
 
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yurinka

Member
I loved the first Syphon Filter back then but no.

MGS was way better, it may be one of the best games in gaming history, or at least from that generation. Something that can't be said for Syphon Filter.
 
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CamHostage

Member
Syphon Filter did have one of the most fair in-motion shooting mechanics in a lock-on system I ever played...

Syphon%20Filter-2.jpg


Your guns had a visible success rate on the targeting reticule that depended on how much you were moving or what stance you had taken as well as the angle of your aim and the visibility/obstruction of the enemy, and if you could take the time to settle and aim properly, you were lethal. You could always see where the enemy was and put some bullets down range, but if you just played like some video game hotshot, you'd be screwed after a good while. You could lock onto an enemy anywhere easily (which makes sense because knowing where an enemy is isn't the challenge of aiming usually... you shouldn't have to fight the camera to point it at the guy who's loudly shooting at you,) but you had to be smart when you took a shot even though you have locked on. And then once you get into close-combat range (and especially when you've got a big-assed shotgun), the math starts working in your favor and you barely need to aim because anything that's even near to the business end of your weapon is in severe danger when you pull a trigger.

...Not a better game than MGS, but I'd personally rather more games tried to clone Syphon Filter than rip off MGS. The PS1 SFs play like I want more gun games to play.
 
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sephiroth7x

Member
I am willing to give anyone a shot when it comes to explaining opinions to go against the grain but I can't get on board with any of these. Sorry.

The idea that a story being more grounded makes it better is a bit alarming too in honesty.

MGS is a better game. It is more innovative. Gameplay is far better. Graphically it suits its style perfectly. In a way, the game was designed around the graphical limitation which really highlights the gritty, mucky style of the environment.

None of this is to say Syphon Filter is a bad game. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but it is nowhere near the level of MGS.

Syphon Filter 2 on the other hand...
 
not but its fun

and to be honest

as a kid in the 90s, I played it more than MGS

i'd also disagree with the person above me who said it had better gameplay

that could be argued.

but MGS's story is what separated it from other games
 
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Azurro

Banned
Metal Gear Solid is one of those franchises that defined a few generations in gaming. It represented an enormous jump not just in visuals but also in storytelling and presentation.

There's a reason there are five main line Metal Gear games and multiple spin-offs, while Syphon Filter is already a forgotten franchise. SF1 was a good game that didn't leave much of a legacy, let alone be better than MGS.
 

TheKratos

Member
It was fantastic. The whole franchise is great. As an action game it was definitely better but MGS overall is simply a masterpiece.
 

Cyborg

Member
Back in the days I know I loved MGS (on PS1) and finished it 10 times. My best friend came to me and said, there is a similar game that you gonna love, Syphon Filter. I was super excited, bought it only to regret it :) So no its not even close based on facts and nostalgia.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
It's not, MGS is a work of art, but I enjoyed Syphon Filter more. I hated the controls in MGS, was always running in a direction I didn't intend to go in.

Syphon Filter is still an absolute classic though, actually booted it up the other night just to see the run animation and blast some fools. The 2nd game being 2 discs was so epic. Never played the 3rd.

The cinematic aspect of Syphon Filter still holds up, it really feels like you're on this epic adventure to save the country.
 
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StickyFox

Neo Member
Syphon filter is a fantastic game in its own right, but better than mgs? I don't think they compare at all. Mgs is stealth action oriented and syphon is secret agent with a heavy emphasis on action imo.
 

CamHostage

Member
I don't recall MGS having clones actually, or most stealth series for that matter.
Not "clones", true, I just mean that so many games after Metal Gear tried to rip off whatever they thought was great about Metal Gear (mostly the "Hollywood-quality storytelling", but also it's flavor of stealth and the in-game tutorial approach and extended storytelling with extra audio/text files and optional story triggers... some of this stuff was just exciting because 3D was new and you could do stuff readily that was hard with sprites, but the Metal Gear influence is far-spread.

Meanwhile, Syphon Filter did one thing I think better than any game of its type, the balanced lock-on system for aiming and ballistics, yet I don't see its influence in too many other games that have locks in combat. (Even the PSP Syphon Filter games didn't use it quite the same as the PS1 game.) I think partly, DualShock made it seem like lock-on was no good when second-stick aiming is possible, especially after PS1 when there were no more gamers using the original PS pad, but I think the intelligence that went into the lock-on system of Syphon Filter was a smart design for gunplay.

(In sniper play, however, SF could have used a Breath aspect to make it more challenging and realistic, that always felt like a cheat that I could snipe with a silenced pistol from halfway across the map and headshot because aiming had no unsteadiness. )
 
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