Buying Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker

If you were hoping for some more gameplay a la MGS 4, you are right in for a treat, specially because now you can take the gameplay EVERYWHERE. In fact, I could even recommend it for those who just want to play something in the PSP. But if you are an MGS enthusiast, you might be disappointed, they keyword here is MIGHT.

Peace Walker, as a standalone, works if it spawns a series. Because you can forgive it, if the second game fixes a lot of my problems with PW (Peace Walker). But as it stands now, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is a nice try, but doesn't quite cut it.

For starters, PW takes a very different approach to the series than PO (Portable OPS) in that, while PO grabbed heavily from Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater in gameplay standards. (Still talking about PO) You can run, you can aim in 1st Person or lock on to targets, you can even go Prone. (PO) Uses an engine that provides heavy model rendering, which gives a lot of detail to characters but in turns provides with blocky environments. PW does the opposite, opting for a more "wide" experience where the camera pans out too far, the environments look detailed and curvy, but in the end characters models are small and not too detailed. What this turns out is a much more "Portable" feel to the experience, that helps the CO-OP a lot in terms of gameplay.

Gameplay wise, a lot has changed. Gone is the ability to go prone, instead the game lets you crouch (first introduced in MGS 4), aim over the shoulder (MGS 4), use extensive CQC abilities with ease (first introduced in MGS 3, refined here to make it more superficial) and the likes. Enemies are not as clever as in PO, making for an easier experience. For once, their view is VERY limited, and you can often times prevent going into Alert Phase even if the enemy has already shouted that you are there.

The campaign by itself is short, a lot. It doesn't help that most of the campaign's missions are repeated. For example, one mission may ask you to go from point A to point B, the next one will pin you in a Boss Fight, and the next one will ask you to turn back and go from point B to point A.

But in case the campaign feels short, you can always play Extra Ops (rehashed maps with different objectives, often times too short), Outer Ops (superficial briefings in which you dispatch part of your army to a mission, and watch the results after) or simply replay missions.

Which brings us to the last point, your Army. Just as in PO, you have the option of recruiting soldiers, which in turn gives you a lot of benefits, But when PO presented you with a fair challenge (having to drag the soldiers to a truck while avoiding other soldiers) that felt satisfying when you would end up in an empty map, PW decided that it shouldn't be too tedious. To recruit soldiers, you simply make them lay down (either by tranquilizing, or by holding up) and use the Fulton Recovery system, which feels cheap and not too rewarding.

In that sense, the game is a lot less of what you expect. The controls are a fine emulation of MGS 4 mechanics, the graphics are nice and feel a lot more portable than PO's, the sound effects are nice (although I found the soundtrack to be lacking in a lot of departments) and the Co-op works fine. Still, the campaign is too short, the story takes itself a lot less seriously than in other games (up to the point where there are TOO MANY CHARACTERS and NONE OF THEM HAVE ENOUGH TIME IN THE STORY, with some characters only appearing once and briefly talking to you at some points), the bosses are machines that, while big in scale, feel like they were a lot easier to program than PO's character bosses, and the overall package is not worth the full retail price.

Even with all of this said, the game is a nice addition to your collection, specially if you loved MGS 4's gameplay and wished for more. Here's hoping that they make a sequel, and make a game that truly feels likes a Metal Gear Solid experience.Get more detail about Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.