Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Walking Peacefully?

Metal Gear Solid, the very name fills me with glee - reminding me of all the best moments from the last few years of playing through this epic series. As readers may know, Metal Gear Solid 4 scored very highly, myself awarding an extremely solid 10 and still by my own reckoning one of the greatest games ever crafted. Indeed after a recent play through, despite issues that many have found with story over the last year, I still hold that 10/10 to it.

So here we are, over a year later with the next instalment of the series, titled Peace Walker, why am I sat here confused and bitter, despite awarding the preview with a solid 9 for anticipation, well – that’ll come later, let’s get the good out of the way first because there’s so much of it.

The first thing that people are going to notice without fail is simply how good it looks, this is the closest the PSP has ever been to emulating the kind of visuals you would of expected from the PS2, it looks absolutely gorgeous, and thankfully most of it’s all in the details. The slight camera wobbles when you move, the gorgeous transparent lapping waves meeting the beach. It’s not just the fact that Kojima Production have finally cracked the PSP tech, it’s the usual Metal Gear Solid exactness to every conceivable detail that again gives it that polish that so many games lack. Cut scenes are a mixture of the traditional in-game engine but also returning are the Ashley Wood animated graphic novel sequences that complimented the previous PSP titles Portable Ops so well. The transitions between the animated and in game cinemas is a thing of beauty too. Close up of Big Boss, a sudden flash of lightning and the game suddenly dissolves from in game visuals to the lovely graphic novel drawings that Wood has brought to the title.

The frame rate is silky and smooth and the lower resolution of the PSP screen doesn’t hinder at all, the game looks absolutely lush. The music and audio is everything you expect from a MGS title in that it’s absolutely superb, so no more needs to be said there.

In a departure from the previous controls of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Kojima Productions have attempted to map the Metal Gear Solid 4 controls into Peace Walker, and on the most part get away with it (though it has to be said that there is an option for standard Portable Ops controls if you really can’t get on with the new system – but stick with it). The analogue nub is used for movement, with the face buttons used to control the camera, in a sense emulating the two analogue approach of traditional console games. Ordinarily this kind of system would be utterly horrible but for some reason or another, it isn’t. The aiming and camera control on the face buttons works, how?! I don’t know – I suspect there’s a small amount of the game helping you, when you are aiming and you are swinging your aim with circle or square or whatever, you seem to nearly always stop true on what you are aiming for, it just... works. Masterstroke game design.

The rest of controls are mapped faithfully if a little confusing at first – the D-pad is now used for weapon and item menus, as well as reloading and changing stance from being stood to crouch to prone. Once you have the hang of it plays absolutely brilliantly, and mimics MGS4 extremely well.

With the regard to single player it’s extremely similar to Metal Gear Solid 3, in that all the usual aspects of that game are in place, there’s a lot of story and cut scenes (though sadly the demo played was Japanese, so I understood none of it), and the stealth gameplay, and close combat is all the same as Metal Gear Solid’s 3 + 4. So in that regard know that it plays stunningly well with lots of different ways to approach the situations.

Where the game truly comes alive though is in the multiplayer co-op, and it’s a treat. This could truly become one of the greatest co-op experiences in current gaming if final product continues what we’ve seen here. Play through the game in single player, and there’s only pretty much one path through a mission (and there’s reportedly over 100 missions in the final game), but with extra players, many more paths open up – with two players you can give your partner a boost to a ledge you couldn’t reach in single player, and then that player can reach down and pull you up – opening a new way through the mission you simply could never see in single player. It’s a wonderful concept and something I’m surprised hasn’t been tailored into other titles.

With the whole demo in Japanese at the minute, I can sadly not comment on the story, playing as Big Boss and set in 1974 (10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3) it appears Naked Snake is building a small army to take on a group causing unrest in Cambodia, but that’s sadly all I got from the game at the minute. Control customisation seems extremely varied but again tinkering yields next to no results as the Japanese masks it all, it’ll be very interesting to see the demo in English to give other aspects of the demo a full write up.

So it all sounds good, so you’re probably wondering where the negative comment came from at the beginning of the article. Well it’s this, Metal Gear Solid 4 marked (for me) the end of the series, a collective round up of all the characters and ending their stories in one last title, and also for me, it did it perfectly. It had every kind of resolve I wanted and actually went even further than I’d ever imagined it would. I know a few have found issues with the story and where it goes, fair enough. But for me it emotionally resonated beautifully and I still feel the same. I said there and then when I finished it, enough Kojima, no more. No need. It was done. Set a new story in the universe sure, but let the characters rest.

So here we go, Peace Walker is here and has to now slot into the storyline that Metal Gear Solid 4 rounded up and completed, and I just can’t rest with it. Playing through Peace Walker I was amazed at how much, (despite it playing and looking great) I just couldn’t get into the character, the setting, anything to do with it all. This is because I feel the series’ characters whose arcs ended with MGS4, and seeing them brought back again for another title, after everything has closed and finished seems redundant, and I hate to say it – pointless. I’ve no doubt in my mind that the game will be superlative, it’ll will tell another great chapter of this series, but my god – it’s just so unnecessary.

If remakes and reboots are hampering cinema at the minute, unnecessary sequels are sadly the bane of some game series.

This title will still be immense, and I endlessly look forward to it, but secretly – deep down, I loathe its existence, and Metal Gear Solid Rising. Let the series rest Kojima, let it rest. Metal Gear Solid 4 was the perfect swan song for the series, but now we know it’s not the ‘end’. Shame.

Written by :

Sean Hall