The Free Gaming Thread v2 : Electric Boogaloo

[GameWizard001]

I've started Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker the other day. I tried playing it before when I first got the HD collection but stopped after a few missions. It is kind of a lengthy explanation of why I like and don't like this game so I will put in the spoiler tags.

Spoiler

One of the first reasons for why I stopped before was because the mission files and audio logs you can listen to are lengthy and multiple (meaning there are a lot to go through. Each support character that talks to you and gives you good intel and each has their own files of audio logs to listen to. Some is even about the characters themselves so it is good character development without actually having to be in the same room as them.

Unlike other Metal Gear games where you hit the Select button to semi-pause the game so you can contact a character by Codec/Radio and can in the middle of battle have full conversations about many things related to the mission you are on or even random things.

Here though you listen to them before the mission and only get little bits of info and words of encouragement. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I am actually starting to like it because now I can listen to this right away before starting something and hear all the relevant and irrelevant information before starting a mission. In MGS3 alone if you wanted to hear something new you had to keep hitting the send button to start a new conversation and sometimes they repeat some lines so you have to skip over those multiple times to get to a new one. This one for Peace Walker (which is a PSP port I should mention that got an HD upgrade for the PS3) though doesn't have that. Each file is labeled and designated for each character and has an icon appear whenever new stuff shows up. That way you don't have to tread over old territory.

I think one of the gripes I had though was with the new system involving how you can make your little army expand. See this game was designed around Co-Op and team based efforts so you acquire a large group of people through out your missions by knocking them out or putting them to sleep with a tranq gun. Then you use a recovery item that whisks them away so after your mission you can assign them to various groups depending on their skill levels. Some can go for combat, R&D, or Medical and Intel gathering. If you have someone injured you want a good medical teams so they can get back to the fight more quickly. You want newer stronger weapons and items, invest in a R&D team. They even have a team for the Mess Hall so you can improve and create new support items that recover HP or cardboard boxes to hid in and sneak around when enemies are about to spot you, you can drop down with a box off to the side and they won't see you.

There are quite a few things that make this a great game and carries over into MGS5 and some that make it a little irritating. Like the aiming system. In other MGS games you could have a more precise aiming system to make more accurate shots but here it is just a little aim icon that gives you a general area of where the shot will go.

What makes this game frustrating though is it is both incredibly easy and hard at the same time. There are not that many enemies in any given area but they can call in backup for support if you are spotted. And if you want to recruit new people you have to not kill too many enemies. Which puts a small handicap on you if you want to expand rather quickly.

Thankfully though you have side missions you can go on that may be like level grinding (and to be fair it is) that lets you expand slowly but a lot better than being in on a story mission and you really should just take a kill shot over a tranq gun shot.

I know there are other points to make on this but I'm starting to ramble in my head on what to say about this. The reason I'm even playing this is two fold;

1) I do like Metal Gear Solid as a series and really Metal Gear (although probably not Revengeance with Raiden just because it really isn't what Metal Gear is all about).

2) and this is the bigger reason of the two, Metal Gear Solid 5 takes place after Peace Walker. Ground Zeroes although short is a bridge between the two games and unless you play Peace Walker you can't really understand why characters react the way they do to other characters and they also gave some big ass spoilers in it so now I have to play it just to get a more complete and full context of the spoilers. That and characters that appear in MGS5 are introduced in Peace Walker so I need to play it for that as well.

You have to give it to Kojima, he knows how to create a very rich and complex narrative that has taken him a long time to tell. And by the looks of things not ready either to finish it anytime soon.