One of the best PSP games, but not necessarily a reason to get one.
Story
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game takes place 6 years after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Naked Snake (known as Big Boss) wakes up, kidnapped, in a cell, being interrogated by Cunningham, a member for FOX, who has started a revolt on the island of San Hieronymo Peninsula, which acts as a abandoned Soviet base. Being framed for the revolt, Snake rescues Roy Campbell and together they form a resistance group, and tries to stop FOX from prolonging the Cold War.
Despite the game being a cannon entry in the MGS series, the game isn't really that important. The overall story isn't bad, but it lacks the emotional punch that the series is known for (among other things) and it just lacks any sort of memorable moments. Though the ending (which is anti-climatic) and one certain hint is sure to keep the debate about The Patriots alive, the story doesn't bring anything interesting to the Metal Gear franchise
5.0
Gameplay
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MPO offers a new direction for the MGS series. While the game is still about sneaking, it's also about managing a small resistance group. You slowly build it up by recruiting new soldiers and gathering new weapons and items. You recruit soldiers by dragging them to your truck, and then you wait a little while before their recruited. Then you place your men throughout your group as a technician, a medic, a spy or on your sneaking team. Each soldier has a special power, like being able to drag soldiers faster, run faster, or just have a big bonus in technician or medic, which allows faster and better recovery and development of better equipment.
While it works well, it's not perfect. Dragging bodies to the truck takes ages, and though you do have soldiers that can drag bodies faster, it's still slow and you'd wish there was a faster way. Another problem is the spy unit. While they do a good job, there are times, where you can't advance in the game, because your spies haven't filed in a new report. It get's annoying, though you can avoid this, by placing people in the spy unit, so you won't have to go through this. There are alternative ways of recruiting though. You can enter passwords, steal them from other players (more on this later), or go to various Wi-Fi hot spots and search for soldiers. It's actually unique, though it's not really worth driving around to several hotspots, just to get a soldier.
The gameplay in itself is almost like MGS3, except you can't hunt down animals and eat them. With the exception of that, and the lack of camouflage, the game is exactly like MGS3, with CQC, first person-view and everything else that game had to offer. Though there are slight changes, like only being able to hold 4 items. The controls are ok, but have one major flaw: you control the camera with the D-pad, which isn't a good combination, and the camera is the new 3D camera found in MGS3: Subsistence. A over-the-head camera would have been much better, especially in indoor areas.
When you walk around as your recruited men, you can actually walk without being spotted, thanks to some kind of disguise system, which doesn't make sense. If you walk slowly, the enemies will think your suspicious and raise the alarm, same if you're holding a gun, it's really odd. Beyond that though, the gameplay does work and it does have some fun in managing your own resistance group, and the bosses are great as well.
Besides the single player, there's also a online mode, which features your standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag. The unique thing here is, that you can actually recruit defeated players, so you'll be stealing one of their players and naturally, you can do the same. There are also certain modes, where you can actually lose characters, if they die, so you got to be really careful. The online mode is actually good, though it shares the same flaws with the single player mode, which is the controls, but its fun and provides some tension, knowing what kind of risks are at stake.
The game should take around 10-15 hours to finish the first time, though it depends on whenever or not you want to tackle some side missions to get new men and equipment. Unless you really like the online mode and want to collect every character, there's not a lot to keep you coming back.
8.0
Graphics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game almost looks as good as MGS3, though what's holding it back, are some of the textures, which looks very pixilated, and the frame rate does tend to go down during the boss fights, and some tense moments, but as a whole, the game is beautiful on the PSP. The game's story is told via animated cut-scenes, which looks really good, though a bit odd a times, but their generally beautiful.
9.5
Sound
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The voice acting is good, though there are places where it could use some improvement in a few places. The soundtrack though is as good as usual, with the exception for the game's main theme "Calling to the Night", which doesn't really fit the game.
9.0
Overall
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is one of the best PSP games out there, though it's a flawed one as well. It's an unimportant part of the MGS franchise and doesn't add anything special, except for its ending and one small hint. If the game was only made to prove, that MGS can in fact work on the PSP, then mission succeeded, but I'm still going to hold out for a better MGS game, on the PSP. If you're a fan, you're probably going to buy this, but while it is one of the best PSP games around, it's not necessarily the reason to get a PSP.