Syphon Filter 3
Screenshots
Summary
Syphon Filter 3 is a third-person shooting game created by Bend Studio and released by Sony Computer Entertainment. It hit the PlayStation in November 2001 and serves as the third entry in the Syphon Filter series. The story follows covert operatives Gabe Logan and Lian Xing as they face questioning from a Senate panel regarding their past operations. The plot is revealed through flashbacks, showcasing their confrontations with global conspiracies and bioterrorist threats.
Storyline
Gabriel Logan, Lawrence Mujari, and Lian Xing stand at Teresa Lipan’s grave. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Vincent Hadden halts a mission to apprehend the main characters, revealing he has a different purpose for Logan—intending to pin blame on him during upcoming Congressional hearings. In the first flashback, two weeks before the hearing, Logan is dropped off by Xing at the Hotel Fukushima in Tokyo, Japan, to stop renegade Chinese General Shi Hao from interrogating a JRA member. JRA operatives storm the hotel and take the daughter of the Chinese Ambassador hostage. Logan fights through the chaos and saves the hostage. He also learns that Congressional hearings are set to begin. Logan recounts his 1999 mission with Xing and Benton in Costa Rica, prior to the D.C. incident (as seen in the first game’s opening). They were to meet up with Ellis, but find him already dead. Logan secures plant samples and destroys Rhoemer’s helicopter while Xing investigates what Rhoemer’s group is cultivating. Logan chases Rhoemer, ignoring Benton’s order to regroup. He commandeers a jeep and tracks Rhoemer to his aircraft. Logan boards the plane but refrains from killing the pilot to keep it in the air; he shoots Rhoemer (wearing the same armor as Jason Chance), causing him to fall from the cargo hold, though Rhoemer eventually escapes with a parachute. Mujari’s testimony follows. He recounts his first encounter with the Agency and the Syphon Filter virus. In 1984, he was working with the African National Council in Mpumalanga, South Africa, to free African slaves under apartheid. Mujari enters a mining tunnel, only to discover all the slaves are dead. He keeps the South African samples; Lipan, an Agency operative, visits his lab, sees the samples, and convinces Mujari to work on the virus for Pharcom. When it’s Xing’s turn to speak, she describes her experiences in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Soviet conflict in 1987 and her perspective on the Costa Rican mission. In the first flashback, she is an MSS agent gathering intel on Soviet troop movements led by Uri Gregorov. She is ambushed by the Soviets but saved by Logan, a U.S. Army Ranger. Logan briefs Xing on his mission to supply weapons to local rebels, and she agrees to create a distraction. In the second flashback, Xing learns that Rhoemer has kidnapped numerous scientists and medical experts to work in his labs. Benton orders Lian to rescue the scientists to uncover the purpose of the plants. She is also tasked with collecting a virus sample, retrieving data disks, and destroying computers holding the information. During the mission, it is revealed that Elsa Weissinger is one of Rhoemer’s lab technicians. It is also discovered that the plants are essential in creating the Syphon Filter virus. As others give their accounts, Logan, with an MI-6 team led by Margeret Powers, tracks a final shipment of the Syphon Filter virus to Dublin, Ireland. Logan places explosives on the S.S. Lorelei ship and retrieves the shipping manifest. They are attacked by the IRA, who have uncovered the Agency’s plan to deliver the virus. It is revealed that the virus had already been offloaded in several truckloads while the bombs were being planted on the ship. Logan and the team stop the trucks from leaving and eliminate a traitor. After his mission in Ireland, Logan testifies about his role in Afghanistan in 1987, revealing how he and Ellis were recruited by the Agency. Logan, Ellis, and Benton are the only survivors of a destroyed supply convoy. Upon entering Kabul, Xing’s diversion briefly leaves the convoy route unguarded, aside from a tank in the town square. Gabe destroys the tank with C-4 and tells Hadden that Benton’s contact is not an Afghan rebel but a Soviet spy. Benton is not with the CIA but the Agency, which is secretly supplying weapons to the Soviets. However, Benton kills the Soviet agent and orders the protagonists to leave the weapons for the rebels. Logan’s intelligence leads Xing and Powers to the Tanami desert in Australia, where Weissenger is overseeing the medical operations. Xing plans to abduct Weissenger, gather photographic evidence of genocide, sabotage the terrorist group, and rescue the Aborigines scheduled for execution. After the kidnapping, Xing forces Weissenger to create a vaccine. Before heading to save the villagers, Weissenger gives Xing information about Mara Aramov as a contingency in case Aramov betrayed her. Weissenger departs when Xing returns to the helicopter. Hadden accuses Logan of killing Lipan, but Teresa herself appears and admits she faked her death. She testifies about her first day as an ATF agent in Western Montana, Paradise Ridge, during the early 1990s. She receives a call from two FBI agents requesting backup to take down a militia sniper. Teresa provides support but becomes entangled in a conspiracy. A militia survivalist named Earl Oakton, captured by the agents, is executed. The supposed FBI agents are actually corrupt NSA operatives trying to eliminate the Oakton family to obtain satellite data. Logan, posing as one of the agents, captures and then rescues Lipan from execution. Logan is focused on retrieving the data, while Lipan works to save the militia and her fellow ATF agents from the NSA. She eventually joins the Oakton family (what remains of them), recovers the satellite data, and evacuates them with Logan. At the end of her testimony, Lipan reveals she had been following Hadden all along and discovered that Aramov is his accomplice. Logan arrives with federal agents and a warrant to arrest Hadden. Aramov bursts in and opens fire, but Logan and Lipan escape. Logan chases Aramov, rescuing captured federal agents along the way. He also searches for codes to disarm the bombs. Logan eventually boards a Washington Metro train, on the same route where he confronted Aramov in 1999, and shoots her. With Aramov captured, Gabe becomes the head of the Agency, later renamed the IPCA. However, Aramov escapes from prison. A post-credit scene shows Aramov recovering a shipment of the Syphon Filter virus from the wreckage of the S.S. Lorelei.
