Go check out the Peace Walker review to see how my views of the game and how it fits into the series changes after finishing the bonus chapter and fighting the best/worst boss of all time.
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Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker — PS3 Port Review by Xilirite
(Before we begin, I’ve never played Peace Walker on the PSP, so I don’t know if it’s better or worse then the PS3 port.)
MGS: Peace Walker vs. MGS 3: Snake Eater
As I’ve said in the past, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, is one of my favorite games of all time. Everything about it — The music, the story, the gameplay, even the visuals — are polished to perfection, and the whole experience sticks with you after you play it. But does it’s PSP sequel, Peace Walker, live up to it’s legacy?
That depends on what you think that legacy is.
Story wise, the game starts out REALLY slowly. I almost didn’t play it due to the opening hour. But progress past the first mission (And the cutscenes preceding it) and you’ll find yourself engrossed in a story about peace, and the many ways — some moral, some not — that it is achieved, until you and you alone stand between the world and Armageddon.
The stakes are higher, the characters more creative, the gameplay more involving. There’s more to do, more to find, and more to keep you playing.
But somehow, even though it is objectively better than Snake Eater, I find myself remembering Snake Eater more fondly.
Maybe it’s the fact that the stealth in Peace Walker feels so much more shallow, or the fact that the boss fights are much less creative, memorable, or unique. Maybe it’s the limitations brought on by the PSP leaving cutscenes in a less impactful (But beautiful) comic book format. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s broken up into individual missions instead of one prolonged story. Or perhaps it’s all of these.
However, I could spend all day arguing the good and the bad of these two games. So let’s just jump straight into the review.
Core/Single Player Gameplay
You control a military company called the Militaires Sans Frontieres (Soldiers without Borders — sorry if my spellings off.) set in Central America. You have cut off all ties with the United States after the events of MGS3. The MSF makes up the core gameplay element of the game — expanding your crew, upgrading weapons and items, and some other, more spoilerific things. Unlike MGS3, where you had less then a dozen guns, in Peace Walker, you have multiple dozens — but you can only equip two.
Part of the strategy in the game is choosing which items to equip — normally, it’s 2 Main Weapons, 4-6 Secondary Weapons, and 7-8 Items.
You only get this many guns at once towards the end of the game.
This makes for a very nice compromise system, where you have to think about what you plan to do on the mission. You also get to choose your Uniform, but most of the time you’ll be using either the Sneaking Suit or the Combat Suit (Seen Above) depending on the nature of the mission. However, you always have the option to go in as Rambo, or in a Tuxedo.
There’s also a lot more… er… variety in terms of the boxes you can use.
Yes. That is, in fact, a cardboard box tank. Yes, two people can fit inside it. And yes, the pink “Love Box” does end up living up to it’s name.
Missions vary greatly in length — The late game missions tend to take around a half hour each, but the earlier ones are only 5-10 minutes each, and a couple later game missions are only a couple minutes long if you do them right. There are 30-ish missions in the main story of the game (Not counting the bonus missions after beating the game) and a VERY large amount of side missions. If you play through the main story, do the Extra Ops, and do some online co-op, you’ll probably get 20-40 hours out of the game by the time you finish the story (As long as you don’t do them in segments, and alternate between them as you play). I got about 31-32 hours out of the game before beating it, and there’s still so much more to do! There’s still Outer Ops, Extra Ops, Co-Ops, and the bonus chapter. This game is huge, and you should get more than your money’s worth out of it.
However, there is a flaw in the Single Player portion of the game. The Bosses.
Although the last 5 bosses in the game are amazing both in Singleplayer and Multiplayer, the first few bosses in the game are slow, long, and boring in Singleplayer. It’s more a battle of patience then a battle of skill. However, if you can make it past the early bosses (Especially that god-damned tank…) you will reach bosses that are actually bosses, with abilities and a persistent weak point, as opposed to just random vehicles.
However, these same bosses are transformed in one simple way…
Co-Ops
Now we’re talking.
Believe it or not, the Co-op is not just a tacked on afterthought — if anything, it’s more entertaining than the singleplayer, and is almost essential to making significant progress in the game without serious grinding. The way this Co-op mode emphasizes teamwork is interesting — when you get very close to an ally, you get a “Co-op In” which creates a large, orange circle around you. If you and your other teammates stay in that circle, then you all get significant bonuses.
I remember my first Co-ops match. It was against a helicopter, modified to be INSANELY tough to kill. When we were nearing our deaths, we ended up holing up in a large storage building, whilst enemies poured in from holes in the walls caused by the chopper’s missiles. Eventually, we were forced outside, and I was downed. Using the in game Co-Ops Communications (Pre-set phrases that you can assign to speak to your teammates without a headset) I shouted out “Give me a hand!” to the one guy left alive. He sprinted towards me as bullets are rockets flew by our heads, and replied “Don’t you die on me!”
The two of us fought to the bitter end against that chopper. And that was the most fun I had ever had with an online game.
Most of the Co-ops you’ll find will be boss fights, but you can find normal missions too — the boss fights are just so much more entertaining in groups that you’ll keep coming back for more every time.
Story
I don’t want to get too far into the story of the game, since it will spoil a lot of MGS3 for you. But a vague outline of the plot is as follows:
As the leader of MSF — An Army Without a Nation — you are approached by a few rebels from Costa Rica — A Nation Without an Army — in order to deal with an unknown group that has been discovered there. You arrive to discover that not only is this group the proud owner of AI-controlled attack crafts, but that they are also bringing nuclear weapons into Costa Rica!
Suddenly, you’re thrust into an alliance with the rebels as you try to save the world from the apocalypse, whilst facing shadows from your past, as you try to bring peace to the world and stop a machine even more dangerous than the Shagohod — The Peacewalker. The Perfect Deterrent — and the bringer of the apocalypse.
The Verdict
This is a great game, as is to be expected from the Metal Gear Solid series by now. However, this game will not be nearly as worth it without PSN. If you pick this up, make sure you can go online to get the full experience.
Gameplay: 8/10 without Multiplayer, 9/10 with Multiplayer
Story: 10/10
Overall: 9/10
I strongly suggest you pick this game up, especially if you have online for your PSP/PS3 (If you’re using the HD Collection like I am). If you liked Snake Eater, you will love this game — It continues the story of Big Boss perfectly.
EDIT
With as few spoilers as I can manage, I am here to tell you that I have bumped the story of the game up to 10, for the amazing twist ending after you beat the bonus chapter.
Once you defeat the ‘final’ boss, you will be left to dabble in the other aspects of the game. DO NOT QUIT. Keep playing. A certain prisoner you acquire at the end of the game will escape 7 times — the first 6 times to random locations in preset times, and the seventh time inside Extra Ops [01] (Telling you this so you’ll actually know what to do.)
After this, you reach the strangest/most amazing boss fight of all time, in which a woman in her underwear controls a nuclear-armed robot whilst you control Outer Heaven support systems to rain death upon her, as a strange mix between orchestral and J-Pop plays in the background.
Beat this boss, and the game ceases to be simply a good sequel to 3, but a good prequel to the series as a whole — even the NES game, Metal Gear, makes more sense after playing this game.
So, in standard MGS confusion, this game has 2 final bosses, 2 endings, 2 credit sequences, and is a prequel to both the first and last games in the series, but only those games.
Stay tuned for the MGS2 review!
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater — Review by Xilirite
Please note that this review will be WAY longer then the Magicka review, as this is a HUGE game.
MGS3 vs MGS4
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best game in the MGS franchise, and probably the best PS3 game to date. Everything in the game is polished to perfection, and despite being a PS3 launch title, it has visuals that rival that of the best looking games from 2011 and 2012.
That being said…
Snake Eater is my favorite game in the entire franchise. It’s gameplay is much less action oriented than 4’s (The boss fights often require stealth to beat, or involve the boss using stealth — in some cases both) and the less varied amount of weapons forces you to plan out which weapons you use and when — although not to the same extent as the PSP sequel, which we’ll talk about when I finish it. The visuals certainly aren’t as good as today’s games, but I could still imagine it coming out a year or two ago and it would still look fine. And of course, the fact that you don’t need to have played a Metal Gear Solid game in order to understand just what the hell is going on makes it available to a wider audience — whereas MGS4 has an impossibly complex plot if you haven’t played ALL of the games prior.
If you’ve played past MGS games, 4 will be a much better game. But as somebody who played 4 before even knowing that MGS was a big deal, I only understood what the objective was, not the who, where, why, when, and what the hell is going on.
Gameplay
Snake Eater, like other games in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, can be played a few different ways. If you’re on the harder difficulties, then Stealth is basically the only option, but you can do it on the easier difficulties regardless. You can also play the pacifist, tranquilizing all of your enemies. Or you can be me, and do a mix between stealthily picking off enemies using my pistol, and then, when the going gets rough, pulling out a machine gun and cackle wildly as every enemy falls dead before you before they can even squeeze a shot off.
If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid 4, then you’re familiar with the Octocamo, which changes your suit’s texture to match the terrain. In 3, which takes place in 1964, you do things a bit differently. When you enter a new area, you need to think about which specific set of camouflage will work best in the area — if it’s nighttime in an urban area, then black will work fine. In a wooded area, simple Woodland camo will suffice. There is also camo for your face, including many national flags, because… Ahem… There are also special camos, such as Fly, Spirit, or Scientist. Some are only useful in certain areas — such as Scientist. Others are just fun little toys — like Fly. Others allow you to take different approaches to stealth — For instance, Spirit makes you 100% silent, but isn’t all that great at camouflage.
This is also the first game in the series to have a third person view — past games have been top down/fixed camera, radically changing the way Snake Eater is played. Simple camera control opens up a huge amount of exploration options, as well as some tactical positioning for a battle.
There are a few things that you need to get used to, however. For instance, to shoot, you hold down Square (Or X, if you’re playing it on XBOX via HD Collection) and then let go. You can also simply tap it for more rapid fire. Automatic weapons simply require you to hold down square for continuous fire. R1 (RB, for XBOX) goes into First Person View, allowing you to aim your weapons more effectively, but canceling movement. This creates a compromise, where you must choose between stopping and aiming, or running and gunning.
Now, something this game does wrong that was fixed in MGS4 (And broken again in Peacewalker) was the inability to move while crouched. You can move while crawling, but you cannot crouch walk, which was used in MGS4 as a less stealthy, but faster crawl, when time was of the essence, as while as stealth. However, this doesn’t actually harm Snake Eater — Again, this limitation adds a layer of compromise, where you must choose between stealth and speed.
The biggest selling point for this game was the Survival aspect — it’s the name of the game (You eat Snakes in Snake Eater.) and is mentioned in (the dumbest) line of the theme song, and it’s an integral part of the game. There are two sides to the Survival system — Food and Cure.
In MGS4, there was a psyche meter, which would decrease as you killed people or as certain story events influenced you, such as being insulted by an old friend. In Snake Eater, there is instead a Stamina meter, which decreases naturally as time goes on. In order to replenish this meter, you eat food. To find food, you must either loot enemies for rations or, much more commonly, kill wild animals (Including, of course, Snakes.) and eat them. Each animal has a different stamina recovery rate and taste. Too much bad tasting food might cause Snake to become sick, so there are situations where you have to monitor which food you eat, not just how much you have.
The Cure aspect is fairly interesting, but doesn’t make much sense in game. As you get shot, cut, bruised, and exploded, you will gain wounds, which lower your maximum Life. You can also be poisoned, causing your Life and Stamina to deplete rapidly. In order to cure these, you must perform self surgery, using your knife to pull out bullets, disinfecting cuts, bandaging wounds. Despite the fairly complex procedures, you start to memorize the order and start to do it automatically (Oh crap, got shot, Knife Disinfect Styptic Bandage DONE) which means you get better at the Cure system ON YOUR OWN, not through the game making you better at it artificially. It’s a small detail, but makes you feel very accomplished.
And finally, the boss fights.
That there is The End. He’s a sniper who has saved the last few minutes of his life (By resting and saving his energy) in order to kill you. He hides in the forest where you can’t see him, and he hunts you as if you’re an animal. This is one of the best boss battles in the game, only beaten by the 5-part epic that is the SECOND to last boss fight (Because this game has, like, 3 different final boss fights in a row.)
The game’s boss fights are all unique, and all have a single thread between them. As you kill them, you see the enemy leaders reacting in rage as you slowly pick off every member of the most skilled squad in the entire Russian Military. This makes you feel as if you’re actions have an effect, and gives you a sense for just how good Snake really is.
All in all, the gameplay alone would be enough to keep you hooked the whole way through. But we haven’t even GOTTEN to the story yet.
Story
You are sent on a mission into the heart of Russia to recover a defecting scientist, named Sokolov
- Sokolov, Former Rocket Scientist, Russian Defector, and Plot Thread Number 1.
You shouldn’t be there. If you are spotted, than you could anger the Russian government, which is not an option in the midst of the Cold War.
You are then contacted by your old mentor, The Boss, who disappeared for two years after training you for a decade. You were never told why.
When you arrive to pick him up, you are ambushed by the Spetsnaz squad Ocelot, lead by, of course, Ocelot.
- Ocelot, Villain of MGS 1, 2, 3, and 4, Snake’s Rival, and Plot Thread Number 2
You are disarmed, and seemingly helpless. But you use your CQC to incapacitate the squad and humiliate Ocelot. You then tell him he is better suited to a revolver, and then knock him out, thus beginning your rivalry.
You and Sokolov hurry to escape. Before you continue onwards, he tells you about what he was creating for the Soviet Union, and you learn of the Shagohod, a Mobile Nuclear Weapons Platform.
- The Shagohod, Capable of being Mass Produced and launching Nuclear Missiles from any where in Russia to anywhere in America, and the focus of the entire game.
You continue onwards, when you reach a rope bridge. There, Boss stands. Suddenly, Sokolov is carried off by a swarm of hornets, as you see a helicopter with a group of very strange individuals, one of which is controlling the hornets.
- From Left to Right: The Pain, The Fear, The End, The Joy (Boss), The Sorrow, and The Fury. All but two of the bosses in the game.
You discover that The Boss has defected to the Soviet Union — Specifically, a group of rebels. From behind emerges the leader of the rebels. General Volgin.
- General Volgin, the Main Villain of Snake Eater
Boss throws you over the edge of the bridge, and she escapes, along with 2 nuclear missile capable of being launched from a Davy Crockett (A rocket launcher for nukes — Think Fallout 3) one of which Volgin uses to destroy a Russian research base.
Now the Russian President thinks America launched the nuke, and you have one week to hunt down Boss, kill her, destroy the Shagohod, and escape before a nuclear war begins.
So begins Snake Eater. You meet more characters throughout the rest of the game, but this is all the setup you need. Other then Volgin, who is just M. Bison with lightning, the characters in the game are all interesting and compelling, and the story has so many twists and turns that you’ll never be able to stop playing.
The Verdict
There are not enough words to describe my love for this game. It is my favorite Playstation game of all time, and by far one of my top 5 games across all platforms. Buy this game. It’s an experience you don’t want to miss. None of the mistakes harm the game or detract from the experience, and a game that is so good that the mistakes don’t affect the game deserves only one score. So I give Snake Eater…
10/10
Like I said before, BUY THIS GAME. Better yet, buy the MGS HD Collection. This game is one of my favorites, and it deserves to be one of your favorites too.
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