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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Canon Content with Nice Graphics, December 16, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
"Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops" for the Playstation Portable is the first PSP Metal Gear game that is actually a part of the story. In it, Big Boss must lead a unit of comrades against his former unit, the now-rogue FOX Unit.
Most of the gameplay is similar to Metal Gear Solid 3 and its stealth-based gameplay, with a few new weapons added. Some things are limited by the PSP's buttons and systems, but for the most part it plays and looks like Metal Gear Solid 3. The camera is taken from Metal Gear Online, included with MGS3: Subsistence, and can be alternately helpful and annoying. A new sonar has been added, which shows the sound that both you and those near you are making, and gives a rough estimate of their position. The camouflage system is gone, now replaced with the "blending system".
The main concept of the title is the "Comrade system", where you can acquire new allies to use in your fight against FOX. In early trailers, it seemed like Snake would be leading a squad (and thus multiple people would be active at once), but in truth, it is closer to other games of the series. Only one soldier can be active at a time (and thus player-controlled); the others wait in cardboard boxes hidden around the level. These soldiers can be switched to for the use of specific items (as each soldier has only four slots for weapons and items) or if the current soldier is hurt. Soldiers also have different "sense" levels, which is represented by a blue circle around their location. If an enemy moves into that circle the soldier will detect them and they will be marked on the map. Thus, scattering your soldiers around a level can create a sort of "net".However, the emphasis is still on single infiltration, and is supplemented by a new form of sneaking: soldiers can "blend in" with other soldiers in similar costume. For example, a standard orange-suited guard could blend in amongst similarly suited guards. This does not work when approaching an enemy of a different class; the same guard would not be able to get past an officer or even a scientist. Suspicious activities (like crawling, sneaking, or pointing a gun) will also cancel blending.
A new map interface is used; different areas are marked on the map similar to Metal Gear Acid. Going to a level takes one half-day, and it switches between day and night. The game starts in November of 1970, and as far as is known there is no "time limit" for missions.
A large part of the system is acquiring and using your comrades. Snake begins alone, but can subdue and drag enemy soldiers back to his HQ (a truck, which his support on this mission drives). Between missions, Snake can manage his comrades, assigning them to different units. The Sneaking Unit accompanies Snake on his mission (or in some cases goes on the mission by themselves) and consists of four four-man teams. One team can be deployed in an area at a time. Spy Units report on events in different areas and will inform Snake of weapons and comrades that can be picked up in areas. Sometimes the spies will bring storyline-important data (the location of a hidden base or the location of a certain individual). Certain spies can also help map out an area and locate items, or reduce the health of enemies in that area. The tech unit researches new gadgets for Snake and his team, much like "Q" from James Bond. Scientists and mechanics are best for this role. The medical unit not only provides medicine, but they also heal units who are recovering from missions (IE at the base when another team goes on a mission).
There are many different types of soldier to recruit in this game. Standard grunts, officers, female soldiers, and elite FOX Unit members. There is even a way to recruit some bosses by using a tranquilizer gun. This contrasts with other Metal Gear Solid games, where tranquilizing a boss would still end up with them dying and the story remaining the same. Soldiers also improve their maximum HP and Stamina levels as they go on missions. There are different levels of proficiency with different weapons (C, B, A, and S, from worst to best) that are ingrained with soldiers (so having a person who is bad at shotguns use a shotgun a lot will not help). A large concern is that if a character dies, they are dead forever (unless you restart a level) so taking care of your soldiers is important.
The storyline has many twists and turns, some of which are important and some of which seem like they fall under George Lucas' Episode II problems (fitting in characters from other parts of the series in a place where they don't really fit).There are references to other games even in the clothes the people wear; the FOX Unit soldiers wear the uniform Snake wore in Metal Gear Solid 3 (with Tiger Stripe camo) and the FOX Unit's leader wears the same trenchcoat that Big Boss and the rebellious members of FOXHOUND wear in MGS1.
There is a great deal of online connectivity in this game. The first kind, for the more casual player, is using Wireless Connections to gain new characters. The network doesn't even need to be connected; the PSP just needs to see that there is a wireless connection there. Some characters are accessible from this process that can't be gained through the normal game, such as members of the Ocelot Unit or KGB. If these characters die, they're gone, and a wireless connection can't be used twice. There are also ways to get soldiers through a GPS Scan (which requires a not-yet-released peripheral) and Passwords (which will be released through "media outlets").
There are online and local death-match modes. A team is taken from the player's single-player game and put online to fight enemies with their equipped items. Some games can result in the loss of a character to an opponent or the gain of a character if you win, while others are just friendly games with no stakes. There is also a "Cyber-Survival" mode in which a squad is sent off onto the Internet and fights other squads automatically. This only requires connection twice: the first time to drop off the squad, and later to pick them up. Once they are input the squad is automatically in the system. Through this, as with the death-match modes, squad members can be won and lost. There is some strategy, essentially focusing on which characters are where and who has what.
The graphics are based on MGS3's graphics, with some minor reductions (no bullet casings, no blood, some less-detailed textures). The cutscenes are done in a stylized comic book manner, similar to the Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel, and it switches between looking amazing and being annoying.
Overall, this is a fun game to pick up for the PSP. The multitude of characters is a plus, but the squad-based gameplay seems wasted. Early videos showed a team supporting each other directly, with Snake giving commands to his two allies. In contrast, the "one person sneaking and three people hiding" mode doesn't seem as exciting. The storyline was also disappointing in several areas. However, if you are looking for a fun extension of Metal Gear Solid 3 and its online mode, this is a great game.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Game, But Only If You're Hardcore, May 29, 2007
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
What made the Metal Gear series so wonderful was the concept of a lone operative sneaking into a base a la James Bond, but doing it realistically (crawling, hiding, sniping) instead of getting invited to a white-tie dinner by the bad guy. In the first PS1 game, you could be a novice player and still make it through the game, each time you play making you better and better. The PS2 games got more and more complex, sort of bloating up the concept with more complex controls and quick reaction scenarios where the average player would get creamed over and over again until the learning curve was passed. These "frustration points," as I call them got more and more numerous until MGS3, where the entire last third of the game was essentially one long frustration point (e.g., oops, stepped wrong, you die, oops, didn't make the shot, you die, oops, didn't lead the girl through 5 screens of bad guys safely, start over, etc.) To a hardcore gamer, these challenges are meat and potatoes, but to a casual gamer that can't play daily, the fourteenth time that 3 Metal Gears blow Snake into atoms is the time that the game gets shelved permanently. This is where MGS:Portable Ops puts itself: it's JUST hard enough to make the hardcore MGS fans want more, but JUST hard enough to frustrate the casual gamer into just shelving it.
First off, the game looks great and the sounds are perfect. How they crammed all of this into a UMD is spectacular and shows how well software developers can compensate for poorly-designed hardware. The controls aren't too bad, but the analog nub can be hard to control at times. The real permanent frustration point in the game comes with the camera, which seems to have a mind of its own. Dragging enemies (a HUGE part of the game) becomes a comedy of errors as the whirling camera causes you to spin around while you get used to the analog nub...you look like you're tangoing with a drunken partner! The camera likes to sit right up against your active man, so you can't pan out and get a wider view of things...this is especially fatal when going through doors, where you can see an all clear and pop out right into a guard's line of fire. For me, the camera is enough to make the game unpleasant...but I suppose it can be gotten used to. The missions are broken up into little ones (UMD format again) and they seem fine. They make sense and you do have some sense of time in the game. Well done!
MGS games are all about sneaking and infiltrating. Well, this MGS takes it one step further by allowing you to recruit soldiers for different teams (this has been explained in other reviews.) This is sort of a tactics-style development where you can outfit the troops, put them in squads and deploy them as a team. However, the developers decided to hamstring this potentially fun feature by making it so killed soldiers never return...so you can get a secret character for a major accomplishment...and he gets an unlucky camera angle on the next mission and ends up getting jumped by 3 guards. Well, your hard-earned man is now gone forever unless you reload. By making the risk too great, this keeps casual gamers from risking hard-earned troops on the battlefield. They should have an option for an easier mode where the soldiers can be brought back. However, the saving grace is that the unique characters (such as Snake) can be brought back and recover slowly.
This game is very complex and mastering it, or even proceeding in it takes a large time investment...unfortunately, it's not one that most casual or older gamers might be able to make. The manual only tells you how things work on a basic level and, like ALL NEW GAMES TODAY, you can't just have fun and play through...you've got to have the FAQ/game guide/cheat sheet with you or you'll never get 100% complete and the best ending. Lame.
With very little to reward the casual gamer, I can't recommend this as a 5-star pick. I'd rate it a 1. However, since it's so appealing by its tough nature to hardcore gamers (5 stars for them!), it DOES merit a 3 on the fun factor (1+5/2). The polish of the game is super and only the whirly camera demon knocks it down to 4 stars.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Gotta catch 'em all", May 4, 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops(MPO) brings exactly what fans of Metal Gear have been longing for, on the PSP. Stealth/espionage gameplay has been reintroduced, since the failed attempt of Ac!d to gain success in Metal Gear fandom.
MPO may take several days, to a week to finish, depending on how fast, or how slow, you wish to play through. The Subsistence engine has been beautifully translated to the PSP (with some very minor graphical instabilities). The in game camera, works a bit similar to Subsistence, except now, the directional buttons are used to pan the camera.
Most mission levels may last a maxium of 10 minutes - short and appropriate for a portable experience. Also, since this is a portable game, expect the gameplay to be slightly different from what's been currently experienced on Metal Gear. For one thing, instead of Snake "gunning" it on his own, he now has the ability to capture and recruit enemy soldiers. The amusing thing is, EVERY soldier, or personel captured, will agree to join your group. One can't help but wonder, if there's a correlation between this game, and Pokemon. Well, by capturing more Pokemon, err... soldiers, your job becomes much easier on missions, as you can now establish teams to cover much of the mission maps.
Well, here's the break through of my ratings for MPO:
Graphics: 9
An almost perfect translation of the Subsistence engine onto the PS2. Some minor pixilation problems might occur, when panning the camera.
Sound: 10
Excellent sound quality. You can also connect your PSP to Dolby 5.1 speakers for a greater MPO experience.
Music: 9
I was a bit disappointed that Harry Gregson-Williams, was not involved in the musical score, as he was with the previous games for the Playstation 2. However, Konami produced a beautiful score, and the soundtrack is worth getting.
Controls: 7
It may take several hours to get used to the controls of MPO. Regardless if you've played Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, you will have to learn controls all over again. I was disappointed that MPO did not incorporate the "pressure sensitive" features of the analog stick. Slightly pressing the analog, will cause your character to run. In order to walk, the Triangle button must be held down, while simultaneously pressing the stick. Also, this lack of pressure sensitivity can be EXTREMELY annoying, when trying to aim precisely with a gun. If you were an ace sniper in Subsistence, expect your talents to drop, when playing this game.
Overall Score (not an average): 8.5
The game lasts roughly 2 days if you speed through, but the side quests, and finding hidden characters, will take a while to complete. Besides a buggy camera, and slightly problematic control issues, MPO comes highly recommended. Metal Gear fans owe it to themselves to get this game.
Well, that's it for my review. I hope you found it useful. :)
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