The biggest question I had before playing this game was would the standard MGS (metal gear solid) formula work on the small screen. After all, the system has had trouble with fully 3d games in the past. Also would the PSP have the battery life necessary to make it all the way through those huge cut scenes that are what Metal Gear is known for?
This PSP game does not have to deal with those epic cinema sequences much. They’re still here in Portable Ops but they have been cut down to a more text-based storytelling. The story starts a few years after Metal Gear Solid 3 where we find Snake waking up in a prison cell unaware of his location, being interrogated by a one legged man about a missing ww2 war chest. As you’d expect from a metal gear game the story only gets much more convoluted from there. If this is something you’ve enjoyed with previous games and have fallen addicted to you’re going to love it. If not you’re probably going to find the story highly annoying.
Unlike the standard Metal Gear games Snake is not given a giant military compound that he has to grind through. Instead the game is broken up into small missions where normally the main objective is to get to a specific location. This is great for the “on the move” handheld PSP as it is very easy to pick it up and feel like you’ve been able to have Snake and his army accomplish something before setting it down.
Yes that’s right, I said Snake has an army. This is one of my favorite features of this game. Snake can capture and recruit enemy soldiers. You can figure out their skills and place them in different units. You are able to swap four different characters on the fly. You can even download soldiers via wi-fi. It is an interesting rpg dynamic that is done in a fun fps element and they’ve implemented it really well.
There is multiplayer online but I’ve not really played it up to this point.
Unfortunately like many PSP games Portable Ops definitely has issues in the control department. The game is based on a free wheeling 360-degree system where you’re supposed to often be sneaky and not seen but you’re not given the camera view for 360-degree angles. The game has an over the shoulder view rather than the normal top down view. This is very frustrating to navigate through the missions because there is no way of knowing if an enemy solider is going to see you. There is a noise-based radar included but it does not provide enough information to guide you through your missions.
The difficult of the game is set very easy, and it’s not too hard to wait out and watch the enemy to see when you can move again but it’s not really fun to play that way. The game is fun regardless of the controls and the controls do not ruin the game.
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