A Long, Long Game
Kojima's hype about Peace Walker being the longest game in the series may or may not have substance depending on how you interpret it, but it certainly tries to be huge. At this point, I've actually started to complain about how long it takes to unlock high-level R&D equipment — or rather, how long it takes to recruit worthwhile MSF members who can unlock them for you. Having already gone beyond the credits and recruited tons of soldiers along the way, I still don't feel close to the end. I know that the rare items are supposed to feel rare, and you have to collect the hidden R&D documents to get the good stuff, but once you've played through the whole story campaign it can easily become more a question of patience than enticement. It's a bit of a committment.
This asshole is not representative of the target demographic of Peace Walker
|
Maybe it's not a problem with the game, though. Gamers like me have lost a lot of the patience and devotion we had when we were little, because we can pretty much just buy new games as soon as it asks too much of us; we don't need to squeeze every last bit of fun out of games anymore, or obey their strange demands. Kojima deliberately aimed this game at a new generation of gamers who hadn't tried MGS before, and not the 23-year-old demographic that he knows has become complacent and overly demanding, so for the young ones it may be an ideal excuse to play the game to death. (And maybe their little childish hands won't feel cramped and strained after playing the game for two hours, either, which would certainly make all that extra gameplay more comfortable.) If you're the kind of person who's obsessed enough to unlock everything, you're probably obsessed enough to make full use of them once you get them too. Doing so will no doubt allow you to unlock some legendary title to brag to your thirteen-year-old friends about. |
Or, maybe it would be better to let us have the carrot earlier. Could be that I'm missing some simple exploits that would allow me to double my R&D rank by in no time, but that's not how you judge the balance of a game anyway. As it stands, it takes a long ass time to do it the normal way, and that's tough for me to swallow. New experiences — or at least new twists on old experiences — are the breadcrumbs that keep us following the proverbial trail, but, like some artificially inflated MMORPG scheme, there's only so much "grinding" I can handle before it's not worth my time. At least, that's what I'd say if I cared to get offended about the principle of the whole thing.
New Habits
You may be interested to know that I no longer play Peace Walker on the TV. I've learned to appreciate the handheld experience. The controls pissed me off when I first played the game, but I fiddled around with the settings and practiced enough to actually enjoy them. The invisible boundaries still don't make sense, but neither does the invisible magic helicopters that snatch up the Fulton balloons you send into the air. What I mean is, if you're paying attention to those things, you're missing the point: this game is bold enough to make fun of the absurd Fulton system in multiple cutscenes, making it immune to criticism. It says "So what?" in the face of nitpicking, "Here's an Ambulance Box and a monster island."
Think about it this way: if Metal Gear Solid 4 suffered from carrying the burden of ceaseless fanservice, Peace Walker may be an example of the opposite. This game pulls you along for the ride, and doesn't stop to apologize.
I can get used to Peace Walker. For the first time since the original Metal Gear Solid, I've found myself enjoying a Metal Gear game without reservations; without a nagging feeling that something didn't add up. The objective of the game was, at least in part, to revive the interest of jaded fans while attracting a new audience at the same time. I can only speak for myself, but I love the heart of Peace Walker above any of its other merits. Kojima enjoyed making this game, and it can't help but shine through. The stunning catalogue of Shinkawa-drawn faces for the MSF soldiers; the strong-hand dialogue that reminds us why Solid Snake was so lovable in Shadow Moses; the full commitment to bridging the gap between Snake Eater and the first Metal Gear; these things aren't the product of quick-buck exploitation, or apathy. They're the product of a man who loves making games.
Conclusion
With all of that said, however, the question of how this game truly stacks up to the series remains.
Peace Walker's engine wasn't built "from the ground up" like other major installments, but was an update to the Portable Ops engine, which was already a port of MGS3: Subsistence. The PSP controls are unwieldy, giving the game an unnecessarily long learning curve and hurting your thumbs with extended play. Obviously, the actual techinical limits of the platform make the graphics and whatnot a step backwards as well. The inability to crawl on your stomach, smoke tobacco during a mission, or use a Nikita missile launcher to blow up a panel and turn off an electrified floor may all be considered betrayals of the series as well. But honestly, are these the things that make a Metal Gear game?
As I said in my Go In Peace, My Friend article, Peace Walker can only be great by PSP standards, and as a spinoff. The obvious "weak points" simply aren't up to par if you seriously think of it as "Metal Gear Solid 5", but they quickly become acceptable if you forget all the hype and take it for what it is: a very important spinoff. The best spinoff you can ask for. But not Metal Gear Solid 5.
If you don't have a PSP by now, and you aren't interested in any other games for the platform, this game is not worth the money. The $200 bundle is still a steep price to pay for a single game, and even if you're the kind of person who bought a PS3 for Metal Gear Solid 4, the difference is that the PSP doesn't have much to offer besides this game, so you probably won't get your money's worth in the end. You'd be better off waiting for it to be re-released for the PSN or ported elsewhere, which has been discussed before.
If you do decide to get the game, however, do yourself a favor and try to agree with it, because you'll be missing out on a great experience if you don't.
BACK TO PEACE WALKER
