Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker (PSP)

Another great installation in a fantastic series! Makes good use of the PSP's more limited controls and makes for a dynamic, engaging playing experience.

I'm a big MGS fan, who owns every MGS game there is, so I knew what to expect from MGS: Peace Walker, and I must say I'm absolutely thrilled with this game. Japanese Director, Hideo Kojima and his team have went all out to make MGSPW just as good, and as deep as the console MGS games with the amazing story, amazing gameplay, great graphics, the humour and the replay value. This is something which very much disappointed me in the previous MGS game on the PSP; Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops which Kojima didn't direct. MGSPO had a flat storyline, absolutely no replay value and awkward controls/camera. However, you'll be happy to know that Peace Walker has learned and improved from Portable Ops!

Storyline & Characters: 9/10
Anyway, MGSPW is set in Costa Rica in the year 1974. Ten years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3, and four years after the events of Portable Ops. Big Boss a.k.a. Naked Snake has established a small private army named 'Militaires Sans Frontières" or just simply MSF, which is based in Colombia who intervene in random conflicts throughout Latin America. A university professor called Galvez and a young girl called Paz approach Big Boss and his second-in-command - Kaz Miller - to help them free Costa Rica from a strange armed group which has been present in Costa Rica which has no military to defend itself. The girl also is posession of a tape which has The Boss talking to a British woman. Is The Boss still alive? Big Boss and his army set out to find the truth. As with all MGS games, things are never what they seem.. people are never what they seem, and there is of course sideswitching and revelations to be made. Admittedly, one such twist is rather unsurprising.. but the last phone call in the game is very surprising and unexpected. I won't spoil much on the storyline and characters but I think they deserve a nice 8.5/10. There isn't as much noticible character development in MGSPW, but in the characters that are developed, the Briefing Files provide some rather interesting conversations, which really bring the Mother Base to life.

Gameplay: 10/10
In Peace Walker there is a hell-of-a lot to do. The game has a mission-by-mission design, which I don't like, but it's bearable. However, the missions are very beautifully designed for a PSP game, while in some missions you don't have many objectives, others are rather long. The boss fights in MGSPW are VERY challenging, and there is a scene where you have to do some intense button-mashing.. so if you're crap at it like me.. have your pen/spoon/whatever ready! A feature which returns from Portable Ops is the recruitment system, which is made easier in Peace Walker with the Fulton Recovery System. You recruit enemy soldiers into MSF, and they can be used for a range of things depending on their skillset. You could have them on the frontline fighting in the Combat Unit, developing new weapons and equipment in the Research and Development (R&D) Team, healing the sick and injured in the Medical Team, and keeping morale up and keeping everyone fed in the Mess Hall Team.

The R&D Team can develope hundreds of different kinds of weapons/items and at different ranks, which include handguns, machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, radars, goggles, and of course.. the legendary cardboard box! Yes! Now the R&D team can create a Cardboard TANK!! Lols. I'm reviewing the single-player version of the campaign, however, you could also get a friend with Peace Walker and play the campaign in CO-OP mode, which is supposed to be fun. Gameplay: 10/10

Graphics: 9/10
This game pushes the PSP to its limits, and I must say the PSP at its limits is capable of some very beautiful games. Hell, MGSPW is actually better looking than 80% of PS2 games. The character models are very fluid, and the environments (which includes jungle) are very beautiful. Unfortunately MGSPW uses a lot of comic cutscenes (a returned feature from Portable Ops), so the game doesn't completely utilise those graphics, which they could have certainly done. The beach parts of the game look beautiful too. The sand and water are very much lifelike. There's also a good draw distance, and NO popup.

Music & Sound: 8/10
The sound-effects in Peace Walker are great, and the footsteps are quite realistic and so are the gunshot sounds. The background music in most areas is also really good, and the game offers a great soundtrack, including a great theme song (Heavens Divide). Not quite as good as the console games of course, but it's still flippin epic! Another improvement from PO is the dialogue. There is a LOT more of it in PW than PO. Rather than the mute Codec conversations, there's actually full voice-acting in this game. Unfortunately, when you interrogate an enemy soldier, they don't speak.. text just comes up. But overall, it's good.

I reccomend MGSPW to ALL MGS fans, even those who were disappointed with Portable Ops. I also reccomend the game to ANY PSP owner looking for a great game for their console. It's WELL WORTH the price. On an additional note, there is rumours of a sequel to Peace Walker coming out on the PlayStation 3.. so MGS fans should definitely play this game or at least watch the story on YouTube if they have no access to a PSP. It's important to the series.

Toodle pip!

*DECEMBER 2012 EDIT*

There is indeed a direct Peace Walker sequel on its way. It is called Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and will be coming out for PS3 and X360 sometime in 2013 or 2014.

This latest MGS for PSP is a fantastic title with the a story on par with the rest of the series. The production values are massive and no MGS fan nor any PSP owner should miss it. That being said, I am disappointed concerning some flaws the game and its system itself. First of all, the game is very hard. Period. Then, to achieve proper team strength and actually progress in the game you have to replay the past missions over and over. While this can be accepted as a strategic device, what really annoyed me is the structure of many additional missions later in the game, which are almost imposible to beat without several human co-players. I never have played online and I never will. While this is my problem, I fail to see why the solo part of a game requires co-op support from a certain point on to actually be completed. I don't get why Kojima structured the game this way. Any MGS title should stand on its own without this kind of major flaw. Furthermore, most of the bonus missions (extra ops) rehash the same battles. For example, during the main game, the player encounters about 2 armored vehicle/Tank battles and 2 helicopter battles. In extra ops, this is repeated for another 40 times with ever stronger opposition in the same locations! What is that about? Sadly, these missions need to be completed to actually unlock more missions. So, many times you find yourself totally stuck trying to beat one particular mission for hours and hours to unlock more missions exactly like it. But without this tactic, many items and weapons as well as character developments cannot be accessed within the game. While I have played the main storyline and most extra missions, I will probably never fully complete this game, which I find quite sad. To make a long story short: Kojima has created a great MGS for the PSP that easily beats MGS-Portable OPS (another great game!), but tends to frustrate the player with its convoluted structure as well as its insane difficulty and constant rehashing. In his next effort, I would like to see a more linear and thus cinematic approach, as most of the MGS series is. Nonetheless, this game is top notch!