Written by: PlayDevil.com Staff

 

 

 

I have every Metal Gear Solid game at this point. One thing you can say about Kojima san’s beloved series is that it is always ambitious. "Peace Walker" is no exception to the rule, but as with all iterations of the series it’s ambition walks a fine line between the games success and failure, as the game creaks under the weight of its own ideals.

 

In honesty I only played for a short time what is still an early build of the game. Before entering I was treated to a video explanation of what was to be expected in the coop missions. How players could work together, sharing health and strategically misleading the enemies to achieve objectives. Players have an area of influence around them which when they intersect with another characters area allow them to initiate actions such as healing.

 

There were two coop modes on offer, a two and a four player. The two player seemed to revolve around an infiltration mission, where as the four player appeared to be taking out a tank. The reason I am unsure of both of these multiplayer modes is because the staff decided to set me down in the solo play area. Even jumping in to the single player campaign immediately demonstrated how much the game is trying to accomplish.

 

It feels like the game is trying to include nearly everything from MGS4, and then some (graphics excluded). All the weapons, all the options, are there but with decidedly fewer buttons with which to execute them. It is daring, and it feels like it could work, but the fifteen minutes I had with the game (with a Japanese tutorial) was not enough to get me feeling like I had a good grasp of how to control it, leaving it feeling cumbersome.

 

One addition to the controls that seemed to work very well was the addition of onscreen prompts to aid CQC (close quarters combat). At first this seems superfluous, but when multiple enemies are encountered it allows you to chain attacks, comboing from one aggressor to another the next for multiple takedowns (according to the opening movie). It is an addition that could help you really feel like the Big Boss during combat; giving you the tools and confidence you need to engage multiple close opponents. Notably load times were long.

 

This is of course early in the games development, but the areas my missions took place were very small, so at the load time came as something of an annoyance, especially when I unwittingly back tracked after a bad CQC left me disorientated and I had to go through another, unnecessary, load. MGS is looking like a title that will easily live up to the pedigree of its big console brothers.

 

Difficulties in porting the controls will continue to be a balancing act as long the Kojima and his team insists on trying to wrestle in so many features.

 

It is hard to doubt that the game will be good given that the team has time and again demonstrated that even if sometimes the user interface may not be the most streamlined, they know how to make an engrossing game experience.