PixlBit

Bonus BaD #29

Hello Pixlbit, how are you? Last time I talked about eating snakes in MGS3: Snake Eater, today I'll be walking for love and peace in MGS: Peace Walker...

Peace Walker takes place sometime after MGS3, no not directly afterwards. A Metal Gear game called Portable Ops takes place before Peace Walker and after 3, never played that one so have no idea what's it about or what happens there that leads to the events of PW. So I checked and it takes place 4 years after Portable Ops and a decade after Snake Eater. The game takes place in 1974 in Costa Rica and it follows Snake, now known as Big Boss, who runs his own mercenary unit known as Militaires Sans Frontières (Soldiers Without Borders). Snake is given a mission to investigate a mysterious group known as the Peace Centinels who have been seen in parts of Costa Rica, because the contitution of Costa Rica doesn't allow it to have its own army. There's more to it, but that's all you're getting from me.

Peace Walker is a Metal Gear game, but feels different. The fundamental gameplay is the same, like sneaking around and using stealth, except the way they structured the game is different. Here's how it is: basically instead of having access to the whole map and running around like in the previous games, you have missions that allow you to go through segments of a part of the map. To make more sense, I'll be using Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for example. In Dark Moon, the game map is divided into Mansions, each with it's own theme. When you go an explore one, you can only explore certain areas of it per mission, as some areas are locked. You get access to different areas as you get more missions and you can do more things with more equipment. I'm aware Peace Walker came out before Dark Moon, but I played Dark Moon first, which is why I'm giving an example. So, Peace Walker is structured like this in its missions. I'm guessing because of the limitations the PSP had?

There are different types of missions, Main Ops and Extra ops. In Main Ops, it's all about the story related missions in order to advance in it. It is pretty straight forward. Extra Ops are slightly different. You do different things in each mission, like not getting spotted or rescuing all hostages, to other things like not killing an enemy, to more ludicrous things like defeating all enemies with only 1 shot. There are some parts that are off limits on the map as they aren't needed in some missions. This time, you get graded at the end of each mission. You get graded on how fast you complete the mission, how many enemies you didn't kill, and so forth.

You can also save hostages and capture enemy soldiers and bring em back with you using a feature in the game called the Fulton Recovery System. This allows you to attach a balloon and air lift the enemy or hostages safely. I'll explain in a bit what you can do with them.

  

This time around, you can only take a certain number of weapons, equipment, and consumeable items. I'm guessing to avoid too much clutter, but that means you have to pick your gear wisely before you go off in a mission. However this time you can upgrade your equipment so it has greater effects. For example, you can upgrade rations to heal you more, and make your weapons stronger. You can also find schematics in levels to develop new gear too. Outfits have added effects too like making you more agile to having more defense. Except that you have to choose it before you take on a mission, as opposed to changing it anytime like in Snake Eater.

In the game, you are in the command of your own base called Mother Base. The base will serve as the hub for the game. You can do various things, like take on missions, develop new weapons, go online, and more. You can expand the base eventually as the game progresses and these expansions come in the form of divisions. The divisions are were the hostages and enemies you've rescued/captured come into play. Each of them come with special skills like they might be good at a certain thing, like medical capabilities and so forth. You assign them to divisions according to their abilities, like the Mess Hall, R&D, and so forth. You can even assign some of them to take on special missions while you are away to take down bad guys and get stuff for winning that skirmish.

  

Cutscenes this time around aren't rendered in real-time or using the games graphic engine this time. Instead, they are sort of animated, kinda like a manga but I think they most likely resemble a motion comic as the images aren't static. If you've played Infamous on PS3, then you know what I'm talking about. They look pretty neat and look like someone sketched them or something. There's also QTE's in some of them unfortunately. Really can't say much for the story without spoiling anything as usual.

Boss fights are a little different this time. Instead of fighting enemy soldiers with special abilities, you will be fighting military vehicles and weaponry. Some are tanks, and others are massive pieces of machinery that are bigger than a Metal Gear. You basically just shoot at the vehicle to take it down, but it really is more than that. You can just shoot it, or equip weapons accordingly to take it. You have weapons with armor piercing ammo to wear down a vehicles hp more. You can also shoot and destroy certain pieces of it's armor and weapons so you can take them for yourself to use for something later on at Mother Base. It feels like a step down from the super soldiers I'm more used to fighting as it is just shooting at them, but they aren't bad.

  

Final Thoughts: The game isn't bad, it's very good actually for a portable entry. I never tried this on the PSP but if I had one, this would of definitely be on the top of my list. The game is good and you have to give it credit for trying something different with the formula we've been used to.

Missions aren't short, but they are about the right lenght if you're out and about, you can even play them with friends online too, haven't myself though. Bosses are cool, but feel like a step down from the previous games, but at least there's still an element of strategy on where to shoot it. The story is pretty good, but some people might not be a fan of the style they used for the cutscenes.

The game has alot of replay value, trust me, there's alot of missions and alot to do to keep you playing for a long time long after you have beaten the main missions. But more Metal Gear isn't a bad thing I guess.

Well that's it for now, wanted to save this instead of the Q/A post for last, Metal Gear on Leap Year I guess. It's been a great BaD, I think I had alot more variety this year than I did last year, so hope you enjoyed it. Maybe next year I'll hopefully have played the remaining Metal Gear games, I actually have one coming by the mail and I'm excited to try it.

So, have you ever played Peace Walker?

Happy Last Day of BaD, Happy Leap Day, and...