The Metal Gear games have been many things to me: ingenious, frustrating, poignant, juvenile, thought-provoking, hilarious, heartbreaking. But tedious? Never! …Until Peace Walker, that is.
Peace Walker is a fascinating exploration of the Metal Gear formula. It eschews the cinematic model of story-driven action present in every previous game, opting instead for a heavily-stratified short-format mission structure. Where in past games, you move naturalistically from objective to objective, learning new information, acquiring new items, and revealing new story beats along the way, in Peace Walker, capital G Gameplay and Capital S Story are mostly cordoned off from one another, with much of the dialogue being completely optional and accessed from a discreet menu. One the one hand, this shift in design philosophy makes complete sense. Peace Walker was originally developed as a PSP game, and I totally get not wanting players to get stuck in the middle of a lengthy cutscene when they need to get off a crowded bus. I’ve been that player. I’ve missed my stop because I was trying to find a save point. Shit sucks.
But. Because of this shift in design philosophy where gameplay and story feel so separate, what we’re left with feels less like one cohesive play experience, and more like a series of tiring scavenger hunt checklists, with the option to listen to the latest episode of a mostly-unrelated radio drama every so often. Which is a shame, because Peace Walker’s story is really fascinating! Though at times in danger of retreading old ground, it always finds new angles with which to examine its cast and themes. Metal Gear games have always found unique ways to blur the line between storytelling and gameplay, and having them feel so distant here makes both feel weaker than they probably actually are.
I wish I liked Peace Walker more than I do. It’s an intricate machine with a million little independently-moving pieces; I didn’t even mention the base-building meta-game that ties all your missions together, for example. If you really gel with the particular repetition that it offers, you could sink a lot of hours into Peace Walker and be happy. But ultimately, I come to Metal Gear for a Good Time, not for a Long Time, and Peace Walker seems more committed to providing the latter.
Peace Walker is a fascinating exploration of the Metal Gear formula. It eschews the cinematic model of story-driven action present in every previous game, opting instead for a heavily-stratified short-format mission structure. Where in past games, you move naturalistically from objective to objective, learning new information, acquiring new items, and revealing new story beats along the way, in Peace Walker, capital G Gameplay and Capital S Story are mostly cordoned off from one another, with much of the dialogue being completely optional and accessed from a discreet menu. One the one hand, this shift in design philosophy makes complete sense. Peace Walker was originally developed as a PSP game, and I totally get not wanting players to get stuck in the middle of a lengthy cutscene when they need to get off a crowded bus. I’ve been that player. I’ve missed my stop because I was trying to find a save point. Shit sucks.
But. Because of this shift in design philosophy where gameplay and story feel so separate, what we’re left with feels less like one cohesive play experience, and more like a series of tiring scavenger hunt checklists, with the option to listen to the latest episode of a mostly-unrelated radio drama every so often. Which is a shame, because Peace Walker’s story is really fascinating! Though at times in danger of retreading old ground, it always finds new angles with which to examine its cast and themes. Metal Gear games have always found unique ways to blur the line between storytelling and gameplay, and having them feel so distant here makes both feel weaker than they probably actually are.
I wish I liked Peace Walker more than I do. It’s an intricate machine with a million little independently-moving pieces; I didn’t even mention the base-building meta-game that ties all your missions together, for example. If you really gel with the particular repetition that it offers, you could sink a lot of hours into Peace Walker and be happy. But ultimately, I come to Metal Gear for a Good Time, not for a Long Time, and Peace Walker seems more committed to providing the latter.