Leveling Down

Big Boss sneaks his way through the jungles of Costa Rica in the best Metal Gear Solid yet.

It’s been a pretty long time since I picked up the Big Boss PSP bundle back in June. What happened to it? With all of my articles devoted to Starcraft 2 as of late, some of you may be wondering if I had even played it yet. The answer is most definitely yes. I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on my hour long commute home from work every day now for the past month, and I’ve actually already gotten the credits to roll but the game has so much post-game that I suspect that I will eventually hit 100 hours in this game. Hit the jump to read the review on what I now consider my favorite Metal Gear Solid game of the franchise.

Solid Snake, Old Snake, Naked Snake, and Big Boss…who?
The Metal Gear Solid games have never had the most straightforward storyline and characters. Jumping right into Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (which was originally titled Metal Gear Solid 5), can confuse even fans of the Metal Gear Solid games with all of the jumps in time and protagonists throughout the Metal Gear Solid series. Those that have not really kept up with the series may not be aware that Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Peace Walker all revolve around Naked Snake, aka Big Boss, while Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 4, all revolve around Naked Snake’s cloned son, Solid Snake (who then ages a lot in Metal Gear Solid 4 and gets the nickname Old Snake).

In a way, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops, because it continues the tale of Naked Snake/Big Boss. Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops doesn’t really add much to the storyline and can be skipped without much repercussion. If you want to enjoy Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker’s storyline thoroughly, the only other Metal Gear Solid game you need to have played is Metal Gear Solid 3. Don’t worry about Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 4, Portable Ops or the Acid games.

If you’re in the unfortunate position of not having played Metal Gear Solid 3 (my previous favorite Metal Gear Solid game in the series) and are interested in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, you should wait until you’ve played Metal Gear Solid 3 first. I want to recommend playing through the PS2 version of the game before starting Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is being remade for the new Nintendo 3DS system so it may be worth it to simply wait for that and then dive into Peace Walker afterward. But, if you want to just get cracking on Peace Walker (which can still be enjoyed a great deal) without having played Metal Gear Solid 3, I will provide a quick spoiler-filled summary of Metal Gear Solid 3.

SPOILER WARNING: I may not do a great job since the Metal Gear Solid storylines are pretty convoluted, but here goes. Naked Snake’s mentor, The Boss, is secretly commanded by the US Government to defect to the Soviet Union back in the early 1960s. She is given nukes to bring to the Soviet Union, and to maintain the United States’ innocence, they send Naked Snake to kill The Boss to prove the United States’ innocence in the matter. The Boss is aware of everything, and in a way, helps Naked Snake up to the final point in the game when the two battle. Naked Snake kills The Boss, and inherits the nickname Big Boss as a result. Of course, Naked Snake can’t believe what happened to his mentor, and is not happy with the way The Boss was basically sold out by the United States. From there, both Portable Ops and Peace Walker continue the tale of Big Boss after The Boss’s death as he creates his own military force, called the Militaires sans Frontieres (Soldiers without Borders) and Outer Heaven (Big Boss’s base that is referenced in the first Metal Gear Solid game).

While I didn’t find Peace Walker’s storyline to be as deep or interesting as Metal Gear Solid 3, it was still a much better effort than Portable Ops and Peace Walker gets to hold the prize of having the most phenomenal gameplay in the entire series.

The Best Aspects of the Metal Gear Solid Games
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is in the unfortunate situation to be on the PSP – an aging handheld console that most gamers have already forgotten. That means that many gamers and fans of Metal Gear Solid that don’t own PSPs will never get to experience Peace Walker’s culmination of the best gameplay aspects of the Metal Gear Solid games. It takes several of the new base management and army management features introduced in Portable Ops, but refine them to such a level of enjoyment and convenience that the game becomes very addicting while providing interesting missions and enjoyable gameplay of the older Metal Gear Solid games.

The game is broken up into missions comprised of core storyline missions and extra operations. Both mission types can take place in one zone or across several zones as you make your way further into the jungles of Costa Rica. One of the best parts of the mission structure of Peace Walker is the ability to replay any of them to get better rankings, which sometimes unlock new special equipment when you S-rank them. Mission rankings are based on how fast you are, how often you get detected, and how many troops you had to kill. Earning S ranks on missions often require going through the mission quickly without being detected or having to kill anyone. Being able to choose which of the dozens and dozens of missions to replay for a better rank, more gear, more soldiers, and more secrets provide for easy portability and shoot the replay through  the roof.

One of the primary complaints about Portable Ops was that the controls were difficult to use. The PSP’s control system is pretty awkward due to the fact that there is no right analog stick. This makes the traditional 3D game difficult to play since several PSP games (Portable Ops included) force the player to move with the left analog stick and control the camera with the d-pad. Therefore, it is impossible to move and control the camera at the same time since your left thumb can only handle the analog stick or the d-pad at one time. Peace Walker changes things up, so you move with the left analog stick and control the camera with the right face buttons (square, circle, triangle, and x). Aiming and firing is regulated to the left and right triggers, and the menus are accessed with the left d-pad. It feels weird at first, but it’s definitely a better way to play this 3D-based game. For those that did enjoy the Portable Ops control system, it is still an option to use for Peace Walker if you wish.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All
The Pokemon aspect of soldier collecting in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops returns in Peace Walker, but it has been redone to be far more enjoyable. Any soldier you knock out in a mission can be recruited into Big Boss’s army, and unlike the tedious process of dragging a knocked out soldier back to the team’s truck or a teammate, you can simple make use of a new tool called the Fulton Recovery System. All you need to do is go up to the unconscious soldier and use the Fulton – which will deploy a hot air balloon and lift the unconscious soldier back to your base (who will then get convinced until he joins your army). You can even find P.O.W.s out on various levels to recruit as well. As Big Boss’s fame increases over the course of the game, you even have new soldiers showing up at the base who simply want to join because they Big Boss’s fame continues to grow.

What makes the game so Pokemon-like is that every soldier and P.O.W. in the game has a different personality and skills. You can only have a finite number of soldiers at your base devoted to the different departments: combat, R&D, medical, etc. The higher the soldier’s skill level, the higher the level of your department, which often allows for new items and weapons to be designed and unlocked, etc. Some items in the game can only be unlocked if you recruit specific individuals. What makes the game feel so Pokemon-like (besides the deploying the parachute on the unconscious soldier to capture him for your own army) is that your soldiers level up, can be used for missions, and can even be traded with other players. In the game, you can use a tool to analyze the skill level of a soldier out in the field to decide whether to capture him or not, so there’s a lot of fun just going around and finding soldiers that would increase your R&D level so that you can upgrade your gear. It’s almost like a big Easter egg hunt and the army management aspect of the game works very well.

Monster Hunter in my Metal Gear Solid?
I haven’t played too much Monster Hunter (it’s in my PSP backlog pile), but I believe that the core mechanics of what made Monster Hunter so popular in Japan find their way into Metal Gear: Peace Walker. There are some obvious gameplay designs that are a little more Monster Hunter than traditional Metal Gear Solid fare, but there are even actual Monster Hunter missions through a collaboration between Konami and Capcom. The gameplay design that feels like Monster Hunter and adds more replayability to the game is the ability to replay missions over and over, most notably the ones that let you take on bosses such as mechs and tanks. Mechs randomly drop equipment parts and AI pieces, allowing you to construct your own customizable Metal Gear, and smaller sub-bosses like tanks and attack helicopters can be captured for you to deploy in non-playable missions. On top of this, your combat soldiers level up when you take on combat missions, and you level up your skill with weapons whenever you use them. In short, while Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is an action game, it is loaded with RPG-elements and army management elements that make the game last well beyond its 20 hour main storyline.

Final Thoughts
I haven’t written a review in a long time, so I apologize if this one seems all over the place. I feel almost like I haven’t even covered all of Peace Walker’s gameplay features (such as its adversarial and co-op multiplayer), but from everything I’ve gotten to play, this is a Metal Gear Solid fan’s dream come true. It’s unfortunate that this game was made for the PSP instead of the PS3, but as a new PSP owner because of this game, I can certainly say that the game delivered far more than I would have ever expected and I must say that it is worth buying a PSP for any major Metal Gear Solid fan (like myself).

Peace Walker may be tough to get into for those new to Metal Gear Solid, but the enjoyable storyline and meticulously designed gameplay elements more than make the game worth checking out for current PSP owners. Worth buying a PSP for though? Probably not. But as a Metal Gear Solid fan, I don’t know how this game could have been made any better (except maybe better load times) and I plan to continue playing it for dozens more hours to come. The game just keeps on giving. I don’t know how the next Metal Gear Solid can top this.

Grade: A

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