| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 3 | 9.10 |
| Overall | 9.10 |
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Thankfully I waited a few years so that I may play Kojima's full fledged portable sequel to MGS3 on a TV, in HD with a controller. I will say that the transfer is amazing, honestly it looks better than most Wii games. All models and environments look crisp, clear and everything moves smoothly. The controls are taken straight from MGS4 so its easy to run and gun as well as do all your normal stealth moves. Its got full online support as well. This is the version to get. Now about the game itself, its different, don't go expecting your usual story driven linear MGS game. Instead imagine what would happen if all those VR missions and side stories from MGS2 Subsistance were somehow incorporated into the main game through a menu based base management system. Clearly the game was made for quick bursts of play as the whole game is broken into missions, usually 20 minutes max, which can be chosen through a menu at any time. There are two kinds, main missions (following Big Boss and has the main story) and Extra Ops which are a 120 side missions. The main missions act like a normal MGS game, full of cutscenes and taking you through another exciting action story. At the menu screen you may see briefings for each mission which allow you to interact with your crew, this basically replaces the codec which is only used as quick hints during gameplay. There is a ton to listen to in the briefings, all optional but they flesh out the characters a ton and of course many are hilarious. The games cutscenes are presented in comic book form with full voice acting, it works well enough. The main story is like 6-8 hours long with cutscenes. You travel across various areas doing your usual stealth stuff and of course fighting bosses. The gameplay is almost totally intact but something feels very different from the console games. Each area is pretty small and for some reason the guards once again cant see 10 feet in front of them which makes shooting them from afar an absolute breeze. The game heavily emphasizes non killing as its the only way to get good ranks for every mission, plus at the start your tranq gun is the only silenced weapon you got so of course that is what you use. Well that is all you need the entire game, that gun is unstoppable, capable of knocking everyone out in a few shots. Or you simply walk behind a dude and hold him up with the gun instantly taking them out of the equation, the hold up acts like a stun meaning you can hold up and move to the next guy in under a second, no need to stand there and actually keep the enemy in your sights. Stuns are further encouraged cause of the fulton recovery system which allows you to collect enemies like Pokemon. These enemies will be sent to your base where they can join your ranks. Harder enemies have higher stats, of course you want to stun the best leveled enemies so they can join you. I always want to kill everyone in these games but in this one its pointless. After a while you will get a suit that makes your running silent which might as well turn you invisible. Since these enemies can't see anything it is super easy to just maneuver around the area and get behind everyone, and if one blocks your way just shoot him from a big distance, don't worry he wont see you even if you are in front of him. Its like the AI went back to the MGS1 days but they kept the shooting of MGS4 which creates a big unbalance. Of course you can still play it like Rambo and actually use the million weapons and items they give you. Sadly the game penalizes you when you do this as you get a bad rank and even lose stats at times. So why give you all this stuff, this game literally has more weapons and items than any MGS game before it. Plus every weapon is upgradeable through research and exp. 60 + hours in and I am not even close to unlocking all the weapons in the game, the only ones of any real value are rocket launchers as they are needed for high level play. Also every once and a while you get a crazy gun that has a special power or one that allows fulton recovery through gun fire which is huge for S ranks. Its that drive for some crazy alien gun (for example) that keeps the weapon upgrade system so compelling. It kind of feels like a PSO game where you keep playing to get a rare, except here its all pre-programed into the missions you complete and the rank you get. Wow what a wrote is pretty negative, so why do I love this game, why couldn't I put it down for so long... it's addicting. Well first let me say that the story is thrilling, exciting and every bit as awesome as any other MGS game. Those looking for more MGS3 and less MGS4 kind of story will love this one. The story is still over the top but as always it has a message to it, it has many layers philosophy, in this case about peace and nuclear deterrence. In Kojima fashion this interesting discussion is told through what can be equated to a Saturday morning cartoon anime. The missions have some cool moments that break from the norm as well as a bunch of bosses but these are not the normal bosses of MGS games. Don't expect any human bosses, no thrilling unique bosses that have item weaknesses or an interesting pattern to beat. All bosses are vehicles, some bigger than others. All are beat by simply pumping rockets into them for 10 minutes until they go down. It feels a lot more like a PSO boss battle where its about how much life an enemy has than the strategy you use. The game is designed this way for co-op, so that 4 players can take down a super tough enemy, still I wish they weren't so straight forward. I was hoping for more Kojimaish moments to the bosses, where you find a random item have a cool impact on the battle. The worst part of it all is how many bosses there are, so many and all beaten by running and shooting rockets. It can be thrilling the first time but the extra ops will have you fight them a million times, many require far more power weapons which you must find... which again sounds like something out of a PSO like game. I love PSO, I love MGS, maybe that is why I find this mix strangely compelling. I honestly spend hours doing the same actions over and over to S-rank the hundred of extra ops missions there are. Why do I keep doing it, to see what I get next, maybe the next item I find will be the one I need to beat that damn super Metal Gear I can't beat yet. S-ranking every single mission is a huge undertaking, its not difficult in the sense of gaming skills, its more in the time it will take to build up to those missions. The extra ops missions have a ton of types, all repeat at least 4 or 5 times in increasing difficulty to pad the list out. The categories are stuff like dont get seen, to hold everyone up, to fight ghosts, take pictures, shooting galleries and far more zany stuff. But the majority of missions are the vehicle missions, at least 40 of them, again all using the same strategy to beat. Repetition, get ready for it. In addition to the missions you have a base to maintain, that base being Outer Heaven. Here you can manage all your soldiers into different categories depending on what skills they posses. There is a research crew, a mess hall crew, intel crew and med hall. As you supply these department with quality crew they level up, as they level up new items or options open up. The soldiers you recruit can be sent out into mini missions that are like the missions in Assassin's Creed Revelations where you sent your assassins on missions. The difference is in MGS you get to watch the battle play out like an old school turn based RPG which you can't control sadly. I got so addicted to this and hated everytime one of my best men got killed. I found the base system to work extremely well and it kept me wanting to fulton more and more enemies so that I can keep making more and more weapons. Nearly every mission in the game can be played online with up to four others. I have not played many stealth missions like this but I have done the bosses which again is a bunch of people shooting rockets at a machine. There are loads of exclusive co-op items that I am dying to use like a cardboard box tank and a stealth mat. I doubt these are needed cause the game is so easy to stealth but it should be fun to try out. There is also a versus mode which is like MGS3s online mode only more hectic. Its a sloppy mess and I dont see any of the really cool modes that made the MGO experience interesting. Peace Walker is packed to the brim with content, so much that I assume only a tiny few will ever see most of it. By the time you find the Monster Hunter missions you will be well into 40 hours of play. There are loads and loads of secrets, I would say there is no shame in looking at a guide cause I have no clue how you would figure this out on your own. It does bring back memories of games long past where random secrets brought cool rewards, Kojima packed the game with it. It's such a strange game cause I know the core gameplay is lacking when compared to the other games but all the new features and content created this fever in me to keep playing and keep collecting. It has all the quirkiness of an MGS game with the addictive quality of a loot game. I would say the game is well worth playing just for the main mission alone. You can go through it mostly ignoring all the extra stuff if that is your wish but I would say you are missing out on everything that makes the game special. I can also see those that don't like it having a great argument, repetition is everywhere in this game. I loved it but it really will come down to personal taste on how far you will go with this title. |
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Posted by Dvader Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:24:28
The concept for this game was too good for a portable title though....they should have saved the story for a console game.