Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Review

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is like a delicious casserole crafted from the finest ingredients every game in the series up to this point has to offer while at the same time trimming the excess, unhealthy fat from the product. The end result is arguably the most polished Metal Gear game to date.

While the Metal Gear series was never particularly bad, there were always a few nagging issues that kept each game from being as good as they could be, particularly in the area of control schematic. Metal Gear Solid 4 completely revamped the play control style to reflect contemporary action games and the game play felt far more natural as a result. Unfortunately for Metal Gear Solid 4, the game still had that “interactive movie” feel that most of its critics site as a reason for why they don’t like it. The first PSP outing, Portable Ops had the right mindset in theory; less talk, more action, however it failed to execute as most of the gameplay concepts just didn’t work as intended. Peace Walker manages to mend the problem plaguing both games. The camera is much more user friendly. Enemy recruitment is much less cumbersome. Instead of dragging them to the truck, simply attach a Fulton balloon and they're on their way. Gone are the lengthy cutscenes. Instead of one long mission, Peace Walker is instead broken up into short, mini missions, while radio conversations and cutscenes are mercifully kept to a minimum during the mission so the player can focus on the gameplay. For those who don’t mind hearing a lot of backstory and enjoy the rich world of Metal Gear, there are briefing files before each mission that discuss the plot in detail, or reveal a bit more backstory regarding the characters and events taking place. Like Portable Ops, cutscenes are handled via comic book style visuals by Ashley Wood and they look much like the Digital Graphic Novels of the series. Most of them have interactive moments that involve the player to press the right button or make the right decision at the proper time. Such interactivity is not only welcomed, but adds a bit to replayability as sometimes failing at a juncture can produce slightly different changes in the storyline. Metal Gear Solid as a series has often been praised for well developed and intriguing plots and Peace Walker is no exception. The game further serves to bridge the gap between the original Metal Gear and its prequel, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. For all intents and purposes, the game is a direct sequel set ten years after the events of Snake Eater, ignoring most of what took place in the first sequel starring Big Boss, Portable Ops. As with most games in the franchise, playing the previous Metal Gear installments are not particularly required for enjoyment of the plot, but it is much preferred as it helps to have a background on some of what has happened prior to the events of the game. Peace Walker makes no effort to catch new players up to speed on what’s taken place in the Metal Gear universe. This game was written with already established fans in mind.



The gameplay was designed with already established fans in mind as well. Players new to the series, or even players who played the previous games on easier modes will be in for a rude awakening with Peace Walker. There are no difficulty settings and this game features some of the toughest boss battles in the series history. While this may seem a bit off putting, this game provides more options and tactical approaches than any game that has come before it. Literally every weapon and item from past games makes an appearance here, plus a few more. Different camouflage designs and set ups can be utilized. Choose camo that has an all around percentage of blending in, or one that is well suited to a specific area? Choose an indoor suit designed for optimum stealth or one designed for battle and protection? Literally the levels are designed in such a way that players who favor run and gun tactics over traditional stealth can enjoy equals amount of success. That’s not to say emphasis is not placed on stealth. Peace Walker is brilliant in that while it doesn’t punish run and gun tactics and being discovered as much as previous games, it does however reward stealth much more than previous games. Given all of the new stealth options at the player's disposal, it's honestly more fun to use non lethal ways to dispatch. CQC has been improved to allow players to take out multiple enemies at once provided they are in proximity. Attacks can be stringed together to take out at least three at once and soldiers can now be thrown into objects or against other enemies. Many times taking out a group of enemies with CQC is faster than simply gunning them down. Not being seen and dispatching enemies non lethally not only raises your score at the end of each mission but enemy recruitment is a vital part of success. Dispatching enemies using lethal means not only runs you the risk of killing them, but most captures will display hostility towards your crew and not join automatically. So be a nice guy, it helps.



Capturing soldiers is not only fun, but vital to the management of your home base. Snake is not the only one who is available to take on missions. Often times, the soldiers recruited will have to take up the call to arms and in many missions Snake isn’t even available. Almost RPG like in it’s management; your home base has a variety of areas to which your recruits can be assigned. Each soldier has a variety of statistics that show which areas he/she excels. They can be assigned to a duty they must perform to help the base grow. Helping the base grow in turn increases productivity and your base can provide items and new forms of weaponry for use in the field. Other soldiers can be deployed to various regions around the world to gain battle experience in strategic engagements. How many soldiers that are captured and how well they are utilized can make the game significantly easier to complete. New to the Metal Gear franchise, missions can now be played with a buddy at your side. While most boss battles when played solo represent an enormous challenge, most of them can be played with up to 3 other players. Should an ally fall in battle simply charging over to the body and spending a few seconds to revive them basically ensures that no one will fail at any juncture and almost makes boss battles too easy. Most missions can be played with at least one other person, but they aren’t all that particularly challenging to begin with, and most veteran Metal Gear players might get more challenge out of simply just going it solo. While fun, Co-op gameplay is wholly unnecessary and it’s just as well; the game doesn’t support infrastructure and instead utilizes Ad-Hoc. So unless you own a PS3 and Ad-Hoc Party you may not be getting a whole lot of multiplayer in at all.



Multiplayer issues aside, this represents not just arguably the best Metal Gear game to date, but one of the best PSP games to date, if not the best. This is definitely a must have for any Metal Gear fan or fan of action games in general. If this is the final Metal Gear Hideo Kojima plans to personally produce, this then is quite the swan song.