Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is, no pun intended, a solid experience for any Metal Gear fan. The story is engaging and emotional and the gameplay, using the systems from MGS4, is enjoyable. The more condensed and streamlined missions work well for an initially portable experience, but when played on a TV screen and not on the move, the experience feels segmented and disconnected.
Exploration was always something that was rewarded in the previous games. Whether it was an extra weapon or item or a fun codec call, all the previous games had a huge level of detail in the levels.
The reason I even bother criticizing an HD port of a non-numbered PSP entry is because this game's working title was Metal Gear Solid 5. Clearly, as early as the game's inspection, even though the budget was much lower, the importance to the series was as much as any other numbered game.
Overall, I still really enjoyed this game and its story but this was the first game that really made me realize this franchise may never reach the same heights as it did with the first 3 games. It's a sad thing to experience the slow decline of such a legendary series. Overly ambitious and misguided, a director ready to quit every step along the way, all while the series captor, Konami, wants nothing to do with him or Metal Gear. The Series should have rested on its laurels. Instead, the series wants to introduce more ideas, characters and plot twists ignoring the existing gaps in the stories and further widening them. This is what happens when one man claims all responsibility for a series. He's been idolized and fantasized into an amazing and inventive auteur where none of his ideas are bad and everything is gold.
I hate to have such a negative take on a series I've grown to love but it really bothers me when a company/developer doesn't know when to throw in the towel. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say when I play through MGSV but as it stands now, the series has been over long before Metal Gear Survive. Konami was just the last one to find out.
Exploration was always something that was rewarded in the previous games. Whether it was an extra weapon or item or a fun codec call, all the previous games had a huge level of detail in the levels.
The reason I even bother criticizing an HD port of a non-numbered PSP entry is because this game's working title was Metal Gear Solid 5. Clearly, as early as the game's inspection, even though the budget was much lower, the importance to the series was as much as any other numbered game.
Overall, I still really enjoyed this game and its story but this was the first game that really made me realize this franchise may never reach the same heights as it did with the first 3 games. It's a sad thing to experience the slow decline of such a legendary series. Overly ambitious and misguided, a director ready to quit every step along the way, all while the series captor, Konami, wants nothing to do with him or Metal Gear. The Series should have rested on its laurels. Instead, the series wants to introduce more ideas, characters and plot twists ignoring the existing gaps in the stories and further widening them. This is what happens when one man claims all responsibility for a series. He's been idolized and fantasized into an amazing and inventive auteur where none of his ideas are bad and everything is gold.
I hate to have such a negative take on a series I've grown to love but it really bothers me when a company/developer doesn't know when to throw in the towel. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say when I play through MGSV but as it stands now, the series has been over long before Metal Gear Survive. Konami was just the last one to find out.