Konami's annual summer barbecue at San Francisco's Fort Mason center yielded a host of new details about Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Kojima Productions' debut of the wildly popular core MGS series set to hit the PlayStation Portable. After showing us the new trailer that's just debuted at the Leipzig Games Convention, the company's own Ryan Payton filled us in on some of the story's particulars, detailed the new strategic comrade system, and updated us on how the game's presentation and localization have been coming together. From the looks of things, anyone who's doubted this will be a full-fledged Metal Gear Solid game up to now has misplaced their skepticism--there's a lot to this one.
Payton started off by setting up the beginning of Portable Ops' story mode, which will be set six years after Snake Eater and will detail the further exploits of Big Boss before he became the big bad guy and founded the mercenary state of Outer Heaven. The PSP game begins with Boss (as Naked Snake) awakening in a South American prison and realizing that the Fox unit has stolen nuclear warheads from the CIA and is attempting to start an international incident by pointing them at the Soviet Union. Serendipitously, Boss then meets none other than a young Roy Campbell in the cell next to him, and the future Colonel helps Big Boss formulate a plan for escape and a subsequent recruitment plan to gain allies and take down the Fox unit and its nefarious scheme.
Allies? Snake--any version of Snake--works alone, right? Not this time. The odds are stacked so high against Big Boss that he'll have to capture enemies and interrogate them at a secret location to gain information and, more importantly, convert them to his cause. Once you've brought an enemy over to your side, you can have him accompany you in subsequent missions, and you'll be able to have up to three such characters with you at once. Allies will fill a number of different roles--you'll have spies, engineers, medics, snipers, and more at your disposal--and you'll get to position them strategically around a given level and then switch between all four characters at will with the select button. Naturally, this will let you set up a multitude of different strategic approaches to a given situation. We wanted to know what the other three characters will be up to at a given moment, since you'll only be controlling one character at a time, but Payton only said they'd be "hidden" in a unique fashion and promised we'd find out more at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show.
The new trailer you'll find linked at the beginning of this article contains a number of graphic novel-style narrative sequences, and we asked Payton if these would be replacing the traditional real-time cinematics that we're used to in the Metal Gear Solid series. Indeed they will, as the Kojima Productions staff is very fond of artist Ashley Wood's prior work on the Metal Gear Solid comic series. If you're feeling a nostalgic twinge at this change, at least take heart that Payton confirmed for us the return of all the principal voice actors you'd expect to see. David Hayter, of course, returns as Snake, and other characters like Major Zero, Sigint, and Para-medic will also be voiced by their respective actors from Snake Eater.
Most tantalizingly, Payton said any other characters we've seen in past MGS games will be reprised by their original actors. (But who else from the series is in this game?! Our silly fanboy pulses quicken.) Regardless of who's involved in the story this time around, we were interested to hear Payton note that he feels this is the most solid writing yet in a Metal Gear Solid game. Hayter apparently even remarked after his voice sessions that Portable Ops had the best script he's done yet for the series, which is certainly good news for MGS fans.
Konami had a multiplayer demo of Portable Ops set up featuring the same content we tried back at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. A few spots of polish were evident in this new demo--Eva has now been included as a playable character, and the new weapon-switching pop-up now features nicely stylized artwork. Payton dropped one interesting new detail about multiplayer: You'll be able to take MGS: Portable Ops to various Wi-Fi hot spots scattered around the country (world?) and access new characters. Some will be randomly generated based on data provided by the hot spot you've found, while others will be story-related characters that you can potentially only get from that one particular outlet. You'll be able to trade characters online, though, so perhaps globetrotting players will be able to use these special bonuses as bartering tools in online trading. We'll be interested to find out more about how this unique feature will work when Konami releases more details.
Alas, Mr. Payton wasn't able to clarify all of our questions, such as how many players will be supported online (the team is waffling between six and eight); how the game will make use of its just-unveiled support for the PSP GPS add-on; and most importantly, when we'll be able to get our hands on the final game (this year or next). He told us to wait till TGS for most of these answers, and when we've got them, you'll know where to find them.
It's gonna be the best psp gameyet:D! But the only thing is there's no blood:(
MGS PO here i come!!!!!!
I'm kind of let down by ther comin cutscenes, but still: this game will be fun... no doubt about it judging by the quality of Kojima games.
why are they gonna use comic book cutscenes?! the old cutscenes is one of the best things in the series and now their takin it away?
looks sweet
I can`t wait ....
i bought my psp for MGA. and it made me want to sell my psp. but now i have something to look forward to!
I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this game, so i can spend some quality time with it.Yeah.
Looks pretty damn good but it wont sell psp's a lot, only to hardcore mgs gamers...
this is gonna be the best psp game yet...metal gear solid owns everygame casue of it storyline (which some ppl dont get but its not to hard to understand) :D MGS4WILL BE THA BEST GAME EVER!
excelent ...at least something great , just what we (PSPeople) need...
This game seems awesome. I'm so glad that Kojima is releasing a real MGS game on PSP.
I'm not too sure about the recruiting aspect, but it sounds very solid. Heh. Solid.
I smell a killer ap!
This looks like its guna become the best psp game to date
Truly Amazing!!!
this looks awesome cnt wait finally a good game on the psp, i liked acid ^-^ but this is even better!!! MGS4ever
KOOL
Metal gear SOlid rocks!!!!!!
This game looks amazing. Roy Campbell is gonna be in the game... which means more characters you have seen in MGS 1. original voice acting!! The guy with the sword is most likely grey fox.... once again original voice acting!! Best story coming from David Hayter (Snakes voice) who wrote x-men 1 and 2, that says a lot. MGS's already have crazy stories and this is the best, and its on PSP! I can't wait for this, and by the time I rape the crap out of this game MGS 4 may hit shelves. This is a great time for the Metal Gear Solid series, which is one of the best series made in video game history. This game with sell PSPs. I can't wait to hear more about this from TGS.
As soon as I heard about this game, I knew that I had to have a PSP. Metal Gear? Online? PORTABLE? MISSING LINK BETWEEN MGS3 and MG!!!??The next day I compulsively bought one. Now, we are happily married, with two little ones on the way (PSP minis!!???) No, but seriously, I love my PSP. No. SERIOUSLY. LOVE IT. LONG TIME. BTW you can fit a LOT of stuff on a 2GB memory stick!! I got 4 full lenght movies (compressed at lowest settings which is... not that bad!) A bunch of tv shows, pictures, about 30 hrs of music/audiobook, the downloadable demos of LocoRoco, FIFA, and the Japanese version of Mercury Meltdown. So yes, MPO is a GREAT reason to get a PSP... but I wish I didn't wait so long to get one! (However, now there are rumors of a price drop for the winter season so... I dunno.)
Can't help but notice alot of you guys don't have a psp yet... you should be commited. though MGS : PO will be amasing the collection of games out right now should be enough to have bought one ages ago. it's a ps2 but you can play on the bus- genius. And there's no comparrison to the DS, nintendogs? gimme a break
I think were all missing a massive point, as great as this game is(and ill be getting a psp just for it) gamespot say sept 2007 for pal release! 2006 elsewhere. Although psp is region free for games so this game could eaisly be imported, I bet pal(european) players wont be able to access online play until it's released on our shores. I imported mgs subsistence from america in march with the ability to play imports using swap magic and will STILL have to wait for late october PAL release of subsistence to play mgo.
Damn it... Before this time I never even considered getting a PSP... Now I'm actually considering it... Damn you Konami!
MGS all the way!!!
Wow! Looking good. Now we know how Ocelot joined Foxhound. Look out for old favourites 30 years younger than in MGS1. And looks like its not just JP and NA that get it 2006 winter coz the trailer was debuted in Leipzig if the infos correct. Looking brilliant!
when this game comes, i will buy a PSP and just this game, sorry DS, but you have to collect a dust a little while, while am playing freaking MGS: PO hell yeah, best seris ever, but i like Tales of series better.
wtf m gs4 will be in graphic novels instead of real time?
This should convert a lot of ppl over to the PSP. This is a definete system buyer game...
Yeeeees!! My god, I really must get a PSP now!! Metal Gear Solid for the win!
Metal gear meets strategy?? Cool!!! More to come in TGS... can't wait this one.
can't wait
Best written script ever for a Metal Gear game!?! *ORGASMS*
oh damn, looks like I'll HAVE to get a PSP now... was it my imagination, or did I see EVA in that trailer?
I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY THIS GAME!! AHHHHHHHHH
THIS IS GONNA BE HOT FIYA!!!! GIMME GIMME MGS now
OMG!!! MGS on the go, while i'm at motor vehicles, I'll be playing MGS. Lunch breaks, anytime in line at post office or anywhere in particular, I will be playing MGS. MAN HOW COOL IS THAT!!! Can not wait for the release of this game.
release this on ps2!
Damn... this is gonna roxx so hard... Looks like we'll get to play as Grey Fox (im assuming thats who that is). Guaranteed to be sweet!
Cannot wait..but we have to...Oh well..It shall be Awesome..
looks good
This thing better come out this year. Oh yeah, we've delayed the game so that we can "add more content." Lazy developers. Hey! How'd you guys like that Twilight Princess game that came out last year?
Best writing yet? I"m sold. I wonder who wrote the script this time, though...
sounds great hope it amounts to snake eater!!!!!!!
I bet Sniper Wolf is one of those allies.
best game ever!!!!!!!1!!!!111!
i cannot wait until this game comes out!
Sick!!!!! This games is ganna be awesome! I cant wait to play it
Damn man, this game is great! I need to get it, PSP or no PSP, this game is mine! I must admit, the music sounds kick ass! ;)
Sony just sold another psp im getting a psp just for this game.