Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker First Impressions

So I’ve logged about roughly 5 hours into Peace Walker and so far I haven’t enjoyed a Metal Gear this much since Snake Eater, in fact this game seems to ignore the oft maligned (and rightly so) Portable Ops and picks up right where Snake Eater left off in terms of story. This time they got the play control down right. At first it seemed a tad bit confusing but now things seem second nature and within about 30 minutes I was sneaking around like a pro. Thankfully Kojima and his team seem to have taken a few lessons they learned from the new play control schematic in MGS4 and applied to Peace Walker, while at the same time addressing some of the more annoying points from that game. Seriously, who ever thought being forced to shoot a ton of Bob-Ombs in Chapter 4 for the whole damn level would be fun should be kicked in the nuts.
However, thanks to the PSPs simplified controller, you can’t do as much in terms of moves and stealth options but the game more than makes up for it with it’s almost RPG like item management component. Assigning members to various positions and outfitting them with various weaponry and gear and training them so they gain experience in target practice modes is extraordinarily fun. Essentially, this is the first real game to capture the Metal Gear experience on the go and its perfect for on the go play as the story is divided up into short, but plentiful missions while the story provides just enough for those who don’t want to get wrapped up in lengthy 30 minute long conversations, but still extensive enough to provide lots of background info for those who want to learn a bit more about the game’s world and characters in the form of briefing files that can be played at any time before the mission. There’s something for everyone here and so far its quickly becoming my favorite PSP game ever.




In other unrelated news, any action movie fan should definitely check out From Paris With Love, I was pleasantly surprised; it’s a good decent action flick that doesn’t try to dazzle with special effects or show copious amounts of blood/sex to get attention. It’s a nice throwback to action films of old with solid pacing and a decent cast. One of Travolta’s better films in a while.