Synapse Review – Neuron my mind

Imagine this scenario: You’re on a beach, you’re surrounded by hostile enemies, and you’re being fired on from all angles. Sure, you’ve got a sidearm of your own, but what you need is some real firepower. And that’s when you unlock the power of your mind to telekinetically hurl crates at faceless soldiers, squeeze conveniently placed fuel drums until they explode, and unleash your inner Jedi by flinging these goons into the upper atmosphere.

Synapse from developer nDreams may have rogue-lite elements in its DNA, but once you start evolving and growing powerful, the game is a bigger rush of power than Darth Vader’s infamous stroll down a Rebel Alliance cruiser at the end of Rogue One. If PlayStation VR2 was looking for its killer app, Synapse is the game that’ll put this virtual reality hardware on the map.

It’s not too surprising that nDreams has cracked the code for a great VR experience, as the developer has proven itself to be a dab hand at crafting quality VR adventures. In Synapse, you’re a special agent who begins to plumb the depths of a rogue army colonel – voiced by Solid Snake himself, David Hayter – while your handler on the other end of the mental line (voiced by Jennifer Hale) guides you as you venture further into the man’s subconscious.

It’s a decent story, but one that falls to the periphery as you get sucked into a monochromatic world and you start unleashing telekinetic tactics. As a roguelike, you don’t quite have a hefty arsenal of psychic powers at first, and death is naturally a given as you find yourself overwhelmed by the mental militia guarding the innermost thoughts of your target. But every death gives you that little bit of extra experience needed to grow a little bit stronger, and once you’ve unlocked a few permanent upgrades, the game truly kicks into top gear as you begin to experiment with dual-wielding psychic powers and one of four weapons.

For example, crates–or mental blocks–and fuel drums litter every environment. When you find yourself outnumbered, you can use these environmental hazards to your advantage, crushing enemies with the blocks or throwing drums at them for explosive results. Accomplish a few objectives, and you’ll unlock the power to telekinetically grab enemies, turning them into ragdolls that you can easily annihilate with physics or bullets.

Like any good game in its genre, Synapse also has a currency that you can collect from enemies, and you can spend these petals of cash on upgrades, new guns, and handy buffs. An end of level choice between one of two upgrades helps add to your power, eventually resulting in an arcade-style gauntlet of shootouts where you earn your power along the way.

Synapse is incredibly adept at making you feel like a black ops psychic warrior, but it’s the small touches that really hammer home this sensation. Take reloading for example, as your standard pistol can belch out 12 rounds of hot lead before you need to slam in a fresh supply of ammo. Press a button on your controller, ram in a fresh clip with your hand, and you’re good to go. It’s such a cool mechanic that adds a flair for action to the experience, and it gets even better thanks to the way in which Synapse uses the PlayStation VR2 hardware to its advantage.

Thanks to the excellent eye-tracking, the headset always knows exactly which item you want to grab with your telekinesis, and the Sense controllers use the resistance triggers beautifully to help you feel what you’re grabbing. The game can be played easily whether you’re sitting or standing up, and when you do decide to get into the flow of things, it can be a workout! Just ask my sweaty armpits after a particularly grueling run of the game.

Synapse isn’t a perfect game, but the small annoyances here are greatly outweighed by the positives. I’m not a fan of using the right analog stick to quickly flick between viewpoints – a feature that’s common in many VR games – the cover system can be temperamental; and the levels, which aren’t procedurally generated, can be a bit monotonous with every run.

But at the same time, Synapse brilliantly uses its roguelike structure to condense itself into a series of fun and impactful runs of psychically-powered shootouts. It’s a short game, and you’ll probably complete it in around 8-10 hours, but it’s a very replayable experience as you explore each of the arenas and discover the best path across them over time. I’m a huge fan of power fantasies, and having a VR game that allows you to unlock those powers until you become a god-like being who treats an army of enforcers like the annoying insects that they are, is just a ton of fun.

Ultimately, Synapse is a showcase of what you want to play on PlayStation VR2.