As for Up and Down, they enable Gabe to "snap" along a wall and crouch respectively, which means that you and I are being strong armed to use the analog stick for movement, and while Sony's managed to include three different control schemes, each one is a varying degree of awkward, so it's really a matter of figuring out which scheme angers me the least. Standard (free aim), which is the default controls lets me move with the analog stick while aiming with the face buttons. It's all right, but it's not nearly as comfortable as Advanced (free aim), which basically reverses things so I'm moving forward, backward, left, and right with the face buttons while aiming with the analog. That's by far the best way to play Dark Mirror, especially in lieu of the Classic configuration which maps just about everything to the analog stick and is most unpleasant to use. But I'm not blaming the developers for the awkward controls, especially after playing Coded Arms, King Kong, and Ape Escape. This is really more of a PSP design issue, and given the system's button layout (and the absence of another analog stick), it's always going to be difficult playing games like Syphon Filter.

Thankfully, the game's controls aren't damned by a steep learning curve. Like I mentioned, the three setups aren't perfect, but I just found one that I liked, learned its intricacies and pushed onward, and after completing the demo, I'm happy to report that Dark Mirror is actually pretty good. There's definitely some things that bother me (mostly AI related and not worth mentioning since the game isn't finished yet), but by and large this is the game that's going to tide you over until Konami gets its ass in gear and cranks out a Metal Gear Solid adventure that doesn't involve cards. You basically run (or sneak) around Alaska blowing bad guys' brains out, but you can also shoot locks, hit exploding barrels, take out the enemy with a melee attack, or chill out in a tower and snipe people in the head as Lian Xing performs various tasks on the ground. And it all looks very impressive. It's not like I'm leaping atop a soap box and proclaiming it to be the best looking PSP title ever made (what a foolish thing that would be), but it's still pretty damn good looking. The character models are decent, the blood splatter whenever a head shot is scored is very nice, and the explosions are spot on. In fact, I was running across what appeared to be a quiet industrial area and a giant tractor trailer exploded, so if anything, unexpected events like that will keep things unpredictable.

In addition to the single player campaign there's a multiplayer mode and it's not just some throwaway collection of crappy games. With support for six players via ad hoc and up to eight in infrastructure, you can kill opponents in deathmatch, team deathmatch, Objective, and Rogue Agent, and while I wish I could tell you more about those last two, Sony hasn't supplied me with the necessary information, at least not yet. But what a representative did tell me was that while you're playing with a team, the player with the highest ranking is Gabe and he or she will get to lead a team of agents. But that's not the only honor of being the best ranked player in a match, because this person can also unlock and use weapons the others can't.

Unfortunately, and as I mentioned, the demo is too brief for me to tell you to rush out and preorder Syphon Filter, especially since I'm not too thrilled about the controls. Advanced works best but it's still hard to snipe people and I'm not exactly pleased with pressing Up on the d-pad to zoom because it forces me to remove my thumb from the analog stick. But thus far it looks like a decent action adventure game and a nice addition to the PSP library, but don't purchase Dark Mirror until we post the exclusive GameDaily review when it's released on March 7.