Review Type : Extended Play

If you notice, I didn’t do any first impression reviews on MPO like the other games. Reason is because MPO has a new element which I feel I should explore first. A first impression review wouldn’t be fair … and I was right.

I wouldn’t go into detail about the storyline but to put it simply, it’s the missing “link” between Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear. This game will explain what happen between those two time-line and how Outer Heaven was created. You still play as Naked Snake (Big Boss) and the previous characters have also made their return, but not in the old fashion way.

In Metal Gear Solid 3, you had the fun of playing with different camouflage costumes and eating wild animals to replenish your stamina. In Portable Ops, you will have the fun of recruiting your own army. Just simply put his light out, drag him to the truck and voila! After a while that soldier will be in your team. I was feeling a bit uneasy about the recruitment system at first but now, it feels like second nature. You can assign those you captured to a few sections such as sneaking, spies, technician, medics or just independent group. Sneaking is your regular MGS infiltration, spies will give you reports on anything that happens in an area, medics will produce items such as medic kits and ration while technician will produce bullets and other tech gears.

Another thing you will notice in MGSPO, is the free roam ‘mission’ style which wasn’t present in any of the previous Metal Gear games. You get to choose which area you want to complete first and it can be in any order. Specific marked areas will lead you back to the main storyline while other areas allows you obtain weapons, items or recruit soldiers.

Now that we are done with new elements of MPO, let’s go through the difference between this version and other MGS games.

• No 3D cutscenes, replaced by cool illustration
• Voice act only during illustration, most of the time are text based
• A member can only carry 4 items at a time, with a maximum item of 16 (4 members in a squad)
• Can’t save during mission, only during briefing room
• Hints during codec conversation are a lot less compared to previous MGS games

In terms of graphical presentation, MPO looks good overall with a few flaws. The amount of detail featured on Snake is rich but the environment and other soldier models feels a bit bland. The lack of anti-aliasing really shows the ‘jaggies’. The game sometime lags but overall its smooth. Controls will take a bit to get used to. Voice act and music are top notch as what you can expect from a MGS game. No complains about that.

Closing comment : This is definitely a must have for those fans of Metal Gear series. If you are a newcomer and wanting to get into the series, I would recommend you to go play the previous series first before touching this one to truly enjoy the full glory of Metal Gear. Missing 3D cutscenes and stylish codec conversations are the few shortcomings of MPO but the overall gameplay and storyline definitely makes up for it. With the complete saga of Metal Gear series, we are all ready to face Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots.

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