Metal Gear Online: Beta Version (Playstation 3)

*Note: This is a review of a beta product. A product that hasn't been completed. This score may change in the future.

Welcome to Outer Heaven soldier! We're gonna teach you the world's most valuble battle tactic, "THE SPAWN CAMP!"

Best Feature:Beautiful visuals, airtight control and some cool maps. Sneaking mode.

Worst Feature:Lends itself really, really well to cheap tactics, especially "Spawn Camping." Konami's beta servers lag like crazy. It has an autoaim.

Now, I remember the original "Metal Gear Online" on "Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence" for PS2. I played it a few times, and then put it down, never to return. "Why was that?" some of its fans that I've met ask me. And its really quite simple, it had some very annoying quirks that even with as big of a "Metal Gear" fan I was, I couldn't work past. Has the series' next foray into the online community fixed them? Well the short answer would be...no.

In my eyes, the original MGO was pretty much destroyed by the auto aim feature. This feature, as you could imagine, immediately affixes your aim on the nearest target. This dissolved the games into a shallow mess of characters running around with the most powerful machine gun they could find, auto aiming the crap out of each other. This was worthy of a resounding "meh." Your other option was the first person aim, while allowing you to aim for precise disabling shots...or instant killshots, you couldn't move while aiming, making you an easy target.

While this feature is back in the new version of MGO, it is offset by only aiming for body shots, which make you have to plug away like crazy for an auto aimed kill. While this helps, it doesn't stop the users from grabbing their M4 and auto aiming like crazy.

At least they have given you an alternitive in the new game. In addition to stationary "sitting duck" first person aiming, you get a handy "Resident Evil 4" ****shoulder cam in which you can aim more precisely and while you can't run, you can strafe, dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. This is a nice addition that I found to be a godsend. (As I find auto aiming dishonorable and NEVER use it)

Another bothersome feature that MGO comes with, is the Stun Knife. This is an electric knife that upon contact...instantly knocks you out, so all your enemy must do is execute you. It was not uncommon to see people running around with their knives out simply skimming the area near you...and knocking you out. Very annoying.

BUT, if you can believe it, that isn't the largest burden you must wrestle with in MGO. Have you ever heard of the term "spawn camp"? For those who haven't, Wikipedia defines it as:

"Spawn camping is the practice of camping near a spawn location with the intention of killing any player who spawns there. This occurs mainly in first-person shooter games, but can also occur in other games where spawning can occur, such as paintball or airsoft. It is a common tactic and controversial issue in online gaming communities, where many consider it to be a form of cheating, or, at best, an unfair tactic and bad form."

If you enjoy participating in this dubious practice, you'll love MGO. Even in standard deathmatch games, the spawn points are usually set to certain areas. This means "spawn camping" is easy as hell to do. (In one team game, one of my opponents literally was waiting at our spawn point, immidately headshotting us as we popped up...for 4 straight mintues. LAME) You can do this to you hearts content in MGO, and make the game immediately horrible for anyone but yourself.

Now, if you've read up to this point, you may be asking yourself. "Is there anything at all to like about this game?" Sure there is, you just have to find it. There is the occasion where you get into a team game with a bunch of really fun, fair players and it can be especially tactical and fun.

I was in one "Base" game, (Your team must go around the map and capture bases) where another player and I were in the middle of capturing a base, when the other team stormed us. We were surrounded by 5 opposing players. And we got back to back, him with an AK, and me with my SVD sniper rifle. (The only gun I ever use) And in our back to back formation, we won the day...eliminating all 5...by ourselves. We captured the base, and moved on through an alley...staying back to back. Moments like that can be insanely cool.

Perhaps the best and most unique part of MGO, is the Sneaking mission games. This puts one player in the shoes of Solid Snake, and the rest of the players are set up as guards. Their mission? Kill Snake obviously. His? Knock out, Hold Up or Kill the enemy guards and retrieve their dog tags.

You must be saying to yourself, "a potential 14 vs 1 game how is that fair?" Simple, that octocamo that Snake has in the MGS4 trailers, the one that mimics his surroundings in look? He gets it, making him pretty much invisible. Only the truly keen eyed will find him upon a first glance. A unique game type like this creates some memorable events during play. The most fun I had, was when I slowly stalked an alley as a guard, my gun aimed, looking for any sign of Snake. I walk to the other end of the alley, when behind me on my left I see the sand colored wall ripple...before I could turn around, he had me in a choke hold. I WALKED RIGHT BY HIM! Things like that, are completely awesome, even when they happen to you.

At its highest high's, MGO shows potential to be something truly great. Unfortunately some primitive problems, (That have been solved by other games already) stifle it in some very key areas. Lucky for us all, this is only a beta run. They do have time to fix it. If they don't repair it all, at least fix the spawn camping problem for me eh? It can still be fun how it is, just not fun enough to encourage me to purchase the full game that will come out after the starter pack we're getting with "Guns Of The Patriots."