Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker – Review – PSP

From crawling through an enemy base naked to creeping around looking for frogs that make funny noises when you shoot them to watching endless hours of cut-scenes brilliantly designed by Hideo Kojima, the master storyteller, the Metal Gear series seems to get more creative with each new game.

Story: Thus far, each of the games revolve around a couple of characters, Solid Snake, Naked Snake, The Boss, Otacon, and Raiden.  In the timeline of the series, the game comes between MGS3 and MGS4.  Set in 1974, 10 years after MGS3, you are contacted by Kaz Miller, the Otacon of the game, person who briefs you during missions etc.  He tells you that a friend that you had killed in MGS3, has mysteriously turned up in Costa Rica, and its your job to find them, before they starts World War 3.

Gameplay: The game is a Third Person Shooter.You are supposed to be stealthy throughout the missions. Among the tools that you have at your disposal are stun rods, tranquilizer guns, and boxes, all staples of the series. You have the choice of doing missions as Naked Snake, or one of his team members.   Some missions require you to be someone other then the main character.  There are 3 different stances you can be in: Standing, Crouched, and prone.  In standing and crouched, you can move around but unlike in the other games, you cannot move in prone. How hard you press on the thumb stick determines the speed of your character.  There are 3 control schemes. Each allow you to choose what type of game you want to play. One allows you to have the camera buttons on the left side, the other 2 are on the right.  There are even some Quick-Time Events.

Sound/graphics: Alot of the old characters and voice actors reprise their roles. David Hayter (Naked Snake), Grant Albrecht (the End) and Lori Alan (The Boss), Steven Blum also joins the cast as Huey. Cut-scenes are divided equally between comic book like graphics, complete with word bubbles and old Batman words like BAM and BOOM, these come usually at the end of the mission and last a long period of time.  The other one is just a regular moving cutscene, they usually come at the beginning of the missions.  The loading screens seem to take a moderate amount of time. You are given the option when you start the game for the first time to download a small  or larger package of game sounds for calls, wasnt able to  check out the large one, but it helps hearing the voice instead of reading the calls.

Multiplayer: You are allowed to play Co-op with people around you if available though I do not know anyone around me with the game. Most missions seem to be either single or co-op enabled.  You are allowed to use Go Orders like any team based games.

Overall: If you are a fan of the series, this game should continue to fill in the gaps that were left out in previous games.  No more Solid Snake games, but now they have Naked Snake and Raiden to go through which should be quite interesting.  Stay tuned!

Pros:

• Great story
• Answers questions left unanswered
• multiplayer

Cons:

• Controls are kind of messed up
• long cutscenes
• sneaking get kind of boring after awhile

Score: 8 out of 10

A copy of this game was provided to the reviewer for reviewing purposes from the publisher

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