When Synapse was announced, it grabbed my attention due to its trippy visuals and compelling plot that seemed ripped out of one of my favourite movies, Inception. While I'm usually on the fence when it comes to first-person shooter VR titles, there was something really attractive about the idea of jumping into someone's mind and using telekinesis to slam enemies around in virtual reality. For the most part, Synapse is a pretty good time but not one that will stick in your mind forever.




Coming off as a deft blend of The Matrix, Inception and any David Lynch movie, Synapse's story sees you diving into the mind of Peter Conrad, an enemy of the state suspected of planning a major terrorist attack. The premise is quite straight-forward: gather intel and find out as much as you can about the individual in order to prevent disaster.

The visuals are nothing short of spectacular and even through the game's lowest moments, I always felt compelled to push on just to see its visually creative ideas.

Synapse finds an incredibly unique way to tell its story despite being mostly derivative of the aforementioned cinematic inspirations. The mind-bending world is drenched in monochrome with bursts of colour through its action, enemies and important objects. As you journey through some really psychedelic levels, you must shoot your way through enemies from a first-person perspective and use your handy telekinesis abilities in both combat and some light, on-the-fly puzzle-solving and strategy. The visuals are nothing short of spectacular and even through the game's lowest moments, I always felt compelled to push on just to see its visually creative ideas.



Once you accrue enough ability points, you can spend them on various weapon and ability upgrades to help you through tough sections. Beneath the surface, Synapse plays out like a roguelike only the levels aren't procedurally generated. This thankfully alleviated some of the frustration as it meant I could repeat difficult areas without having to constantly change up my strategies, as simply memorising the intricacies of a level and pulling off a "perfect" run with precision was incredibly addictive (think Ghostrunner).

Your telekinesis powers are a godsend and soon become an integral part of Synapse's flashy and breakneck gameplay. Slamming enemies around the environment or hurling objects into oncoming fire and mobs as a distraction was engaging and very fun - at least the first few times. Synapse's biggest downside is how quickly the gameplay becomes repetitive. It's not a very long game as the main scenario only contains less than a dozen levels, but it felt much longer than it actually was due to a mixture of repetitious combat and the start-over nature of roguelikes.



In a game like Returnal, environments and zones are procedurally generated meaning every restart felt fresh and exciting, never allowing for tedium to really set in. I know I praised Synapse for not having procedural levels but it doesn't make a great counterpoint when all of its (very few) levels - and even enemies - tend to look, feel and play the same after a while. Returnal's alien levels at least packed much more variety in its designs and challenging enemies so you never really got tired of the deliberate repetition.

Synapse's biggest downside is how quickly the gameplay becomes repetitive.

That said, despite some of the heavy motion sickness I usually get when playing VR games for extended hours, Synapse was just exciting enough to keep me playing for lengthy periods of time. Admittedly, most of that time was spent repeating a certain area until I could nail the flow and timing of my performance but to its credit, while it repetition and tedium did eventually set in, I still felt engaged in the challenge enough to keep me coming back which is a good thing. It's just unfortunate that Synapse's potential isn't realised because players may very easily check out once things start feeling too familiar.



On a technical front, Synapse is very polished and runs smoothly on PS VR2. I occasionally picked up a few stutters which aren't very pleasant moments in virtual reality, let me tell you that, but overall it ran well. The sound design also deserves a special mention. It's swirling background audio, futuristic soundtrack and satisfying weapon and telekinesis effects were bliss to my ears.

Synapse also makes excellent use of the PS5's DualSense controller. Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are creatively used to gauge certian actions, like carefully picking up an explosive object or lifting a platform lightly as you feel the pressure of the trigger, where pressing it too hard will result in failure or a mishap. It has a few of these clever moments that I love to see still being utilised by developers for that extra bit of added immersion.



In the end, Synapse is a good game that falls short of being great. It works fantastically as a solid proof of concept with some of its inventive and inspired ideas. The trippy visuals and premise, fun telekinesis gameplay and solid sound design form a terrific experience on PS VR2. Unfortunately, it's also held back by its undercooked concepts and tedious nature. That said, developer nDreams has a lot of potential and might be able to make something truly remarkable next.

*PS5 Review code provided by nDreams