Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)

STEALTH-ACTION - Big Boss tries to stop the development of the first bipedal nuclear weapon, Peace Walker, while trying to grow his mercenary group called MSF.

PROS:

++ Sizeable amount of content. Quite ironic that the MGS game that was built for the PSP was also the MGS game that contained the most content. Along with the Main Ops (campaign), there were dozens of additional Side Ops. These challenges were varied and were fun to do.

++ Attempts to innovate. I liked how they deviated from the standard MGS formula and decided to incorporate Base Building and Soldier Management. It provided a nice change of pace from all the stealthing and shooting.

++ Stylish cutscenes. I loved the hand-drawn art they decided to use for cutscenes. Given the limitations of the PSP, this was the next best choice!

++ Gameplay is at the forefront. Unlike MGS4, this game had tons of gameplay. Any mission can be instantly replayed. And the gameplay itself was solid! Both combat and stealth were great (even if it was a bit too easy).

++ Great selection of tools. Tons of equipment and weapons to choose from.

CONS:

-- Exclusion of important mechanics. The omission of important mechanics like crawling, FPS aiming and shooting, on-the-fly camo changes, and the ability to pause mid-mission. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but it was just odd to exclude these mechanics.

-- Uninteresting bosses. Probably the worst bosses in the series so far. Although they were fun enough to fight, not a single one was memorable since you only fought against a variety of machines. And each of them can be taken down in similar fashion (rockets to their weak spots).

-- Tanky bosses. Since bosses were designed for Co-Op play, they were bullet-spongey and were tedious to fight while playing solo.

-- Uninteresting narrative. The story and the new characters weren't able to fully grab my attention. First time in the series where I felt disconnected from the narrative, and I noticed my mind often wandering during cutscenes.

Finished all main missions through Chapter 5.

Final thoughts:

It's a nice sequel to MGS3! I find this a decent game overall minus the clunky controls for the PSP version, especially when you still have to be able to make precise headshots. I do like how silly this game can be at times, from singing Vocaloid AI's to Cardboard Tanks and even having to fight Rathalos for... some reason. The hand-drawn cutscenes are a cooler way to do dialog than just long codec conversations to me, though I'm not a fan of the quick-time events in this game. Some of the new music are great standouts, from the main theme (which I'm also glad is somehow in Smash Bros now), and to Heaven's Divide which might be the most powerful song I've ever heard in a MGS title yet.

Even though this game was designed as a watered-down MGS for the PSP, I still find this to have strengths that are just as good as the main series titles.

I give this game a 3/5 and not less because a 2/5 is way too low. The real rating is a 2,5/5 (and maybe something less). I didn't particularly liked this game, but it had something to it that had me keep playing. so I can't give it a 2/5.

After enjoying both Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater, I was really eager to play the third part of the HD Collection and from the first cut scene it was clear to me that this was a made-for-PSP game. The cut scenes were this kind of a painting or something like that, that I can't really describe. Anyway it wasn't real animation and it got really distracting and it never stopped being. I found the cut scenes really damn boring because of that and it got really tiring for me to actually stay focused on the story.

The story was cool. It was an okay story. The previous two games had amazing stories with great character developments and complexity to them. They felt really complicated and they had many layers and twists. This game's story was kinda simple. Not many twists or anything and while it did have certain messages to pass, they were really simple in contrast to the previous games. Also it felt like they didn't have many ideas, but they were made to make this so they just took things from previous games and made them again but a tad differently. And last about the story and certainly not least what they did with The Boss, for me just destroyed her character in Snake Eater.

There was this Mother Base thing here, where you would have to upgrade weapons, recruit new people and some things like that and I found totally useless. I would have to play secondary missions or replay older missions, because other wise I wasn't able to pass a stage other wise. I found that just stupid and that was the reason I would turn the game off many times. Also it was constantly taking me out of the story.

Now as a gameplay it was just fine. It did have some enjoyment when there were stages and all that, even the secondary missions, but I can't say there were many difficult levels. The levels were mostly just repetitive and frustrating. There was this frustration, because the weapons were good enough yet or you would play a stage for 30 minutes and you would loose to a stupid thing. So yeah clearly I didn't really enjoy this game. I am going to give it a 2/5 actually...