Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Preview - How to Raise an Army
With the next chapter in the Metal Gear Solid saga just days away, we got an up-close look at the new missions, storyline, and gameplay, and how they all tie together.
Find out what to expect from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops in our video preview, featuring new footage from the game.
The PlayStation 3 and the Wii may have finally landed, but the year ain't over yet. One of the last major new releases slated to ship in 2006 is Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a sequel to 2004's memorable Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Exclusive to the PlayStation Portable, this new MGS title is a direct continuation of Snake Eater's story, picking up six years after the events depicted in that game. You'll reprise the role of Snake, now known as Big Boss, as he musters a mercenary army to overthrow a plot that could result in mutually assured destruction between Russia and the United States. As a result, Portable Ops will be key to filling in some of the blanks of the Metal Gear series' elaborate yet increasingly cohesive storyline. But even if you're not so hardcore into MGS to care about these types of plot details, Portable Ops should still be an impressive game, featuring an open-ended mission system, remarkable visuals, an engaging story, and lots of lasting value. We recently got an exclusive look at a near-finished version of the game and are here with the details.
Two aspects of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops immediately stand out. One is that the in-game visuals look comparably as good as those of Snake Eater for the PS2, which was hailed as one of the best-looking PS2 games at the time. While you'll see a lot of familiar graphics and animations, some of the visuals are definitely new, such as Snake's updated sneaking suit (it's made of aromatic polyamide, observes Snake). The other is the cinematic cutscenes, which are presented as animated comic book panels, reminiscent of the work seen in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. In fact, Ashley Wood, the artist who worked on the Digital Graphic Novel, also supervised the cutscenes of Portable Ops. While his pen-and-ink artwork is starkly different from the relatively realistic look of the in-game 3D graphics, it's highly reminiscent of the original design work by Metal Gear Solid series illustrator Yoji Shinkawa. The comic book cutscenes in Portable Ops don't have quite the same big-budget feel as the incredible 3D cutscenes of Snake Eater, but they're impressive in their own right. Most importantly, though, the story in Portable Ops seems consistent with the tone and quality of its predecessor.
Please note that minor spoilers will follow, though it's nothing that publisher Konami wasn't prepared to divulge leading up to the game's release. Portable Ops takes place around 1970, and the story begins with Snake getting assaulted somewhere in South America. He's thrown in the slammer, and soon he comes face-to-face with one Lt. Cunningham, an ex-CIA interrogator who appears to have an electric cattle prod for a leg. He's bad news for sure, but Snake doesn't give in to Cunningham's first line of questioning about something called the Philosophers' Legacy--something that Metal Gear Solid 3 players will know a thing or two about. Cunningham promises he'll be back, and leaves Snake to rot. But it turns out Snake isn't all alone. A nearby cell mate is a resourceful young man who helps him break free; he recognizes Snake as the legendary Big Boss, a patriot and a hero. Snake, freed from his prison, is left to wonder what heavily armed members of the FOX Special Forces unit are doing in a Soviet base in Colombia. The answers may shed new light on the Cuban Missile Crisis of the '60s. Used to working alone, Snake reluctantly agrees to collaborate with his new friend to find some answers. His new friend is Roy Campbell.
Snake and Campbell discover a dangerous plan unfolding in this base, apparently perpetrated by a Russian expatriate named Gene. Viewed as a great leader by his comrades, Gene is seeking to retaliate against his former commanders in Russia for leaving him and his team for dead in that South American base. So it appears there's a complicated situation afoot, with tensions running very high between these Russian militants as well as the FOX unit that's ostensibly there to take them out. Snake and Campbell are the wild cards in all of this, and amid all the chaos, Snake finds a cause--something worth fighting for. And apparently the cause is inspiring enough to make others willing to join him.
It appears that much of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops will revolve around Snake recruiting new forces to his side. This means you won't be limited to playing as Snake in this game, but will in fact have dozens of unique characters at your disposal, so long as you're able to capture and recruit them. Each character, including Snake, is rated differently across more than 10 different attributes, which may naturally predispose them to certain types of tasks--for instance, sniping or close-quarters combat. Not all tasks are violent in nature, as you'll need to employ medics for healing the injuries of your wounded troops as well as spies for investigating different territories and retrieving valuable supplies. You recruit new forces literally by kidnapping and interrogating them, at least at first. You may knock enemies unconscious during your missions, then drag them back to your makeshift mobile command center, basically a truck outfitted with radio equipment. There, ostensibly Snake and Campbell give the would-be victim a good talking to and a coercive choice: Join or die.
We got a chance to see a great cutscene surrounding the first of these capture attempts. Snake kidnaps a soldier named Jonathan, a grunt in the service of Gene. It's here that we learn that Gene isn't just a villain--he's a freedom fighter as far as his comrades are concerned, and he's out for justice. Snake has another perspective; it's not a soldier's responsibility to decide what's just. It's a soldier's responsibility to be loyal to the mission. This is his past talking, and it's an affecting moment, thanks partly to an unmistakably familiar delivery by voice actor David Hayter, reprising his role as Snake. During the course of the discussion, somehow, Jonathan turns, realizing that Gene is in the wrong and must be stopped. Leave it to the Metal Gear Solid series to present such a conversation with all due complexity, resulting in a plausible change of tune coming from a man who seemed unshakable in his convictions.
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- GameSpot Score9.0Editors' Choice
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Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Review
Just what the PSP needed, this latest Metal Gear delivers on all fronts with an excellent story, a deep campaign, and a complete set of multiplayer features.
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- Release: Dec 5, 2006 »
- ESRB: Mature
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