REVIEW: Synapse is the game you’ll use to show off the PSVR2

Rory Cashin

Imagine playing as Darth Vader through Inception, and you’re on the road to understanding the coolness of Synapse.

If you have friends over, Synapse will be the game you put on to show off the capabilities of the PSVR2. While the latest PlayStation virtual reality system already feels like it came from 20 years in the future, some of the most fun games – Tetris Effect, Rez – have basically been reskins of older games.

That isn’t the case with Synapse, which feels like a mix of Inception, Doom, Returnal and a power fantasy of playing as a peak powers Darth Vader.

The plot of the game sees you as a secret agent who has been hooked up to a machine that allows you to enter the mind of a Very Bad Man (voiced by gaming legend David Hayter), and it is up to you to infiltrate his mind and stop his Very Bad Plans.

What that basically means is rushing around monochromatic arenas, shooting and destroying manifestations that have been placed to attack any intruders. It all pops off in a hail of fire and neon, and is at times so beautiful to look at that you’ll be distracted from the enemy booting their way towards you with a triggered bomb around their neck.

But there is more to it than that too, as beyond the usual shooting mechanics, you’re all gifted with telekinetic abilities, which allow you to interact with the environment and the enemies as you build up your powers.

The more missions you complete, the more points you get, which you can use to upgrade your abilities. So before long, you’re picking up enemies with your telekinesis, flinging them into the air and juggling them with bullets before they hit the ground, then quickly turning around, picking up an explosive barrel from the other side of the room, flinging it towards an entrenched group on the opposite side of the arena, and blowing it up with a clench of your fist.

It is, to put it mildly, an absolute fucking blast.

As far as downsides go, the game requires you to essentially finish it multiple times in order to get the actual ending, with each time ramping up the difficulty and changing the spawn points of the enemies, giving a repetitive rogue-like feel to proceedings. So you’ll have 100% completed it in well under 10 hours, but you’ll hardly care.

Those hours are incredibly fun, and there will be so much replay value simply by getting your friends over to try it out and lose their minds with glee as they embark on a magical killing spree.

Synapse is available exclusively on the PSVR2 from Tuesday, 4 July.