The PSP still has potential! Who knew?

"One must die and one must live. No victory, no defeat. The survivor will carry on the fight. It is our destiny... The one who survives will inherit the title of Boss. And the one who inherits the title of Boss will face an existence of endless battle." The Boss to Naked Snake, 1964.

"Whoever wins, our battle does not end. The loser is freed from the battlefield, but the winner must remain there. And the survivor must live his life as a warrior until he dies." Big Boss to Solid Snake, 1995.

It feels like just yesterday that I (as Big Boss) was trudging through the jungles of the Russian wilderness in an attempt to secure a defecting soviet scientist and destroy a prototype nuclear-armed battle tank. As with most simple plans, things got screwed up rather quickly and, long story short, after killing my mentor (and in so doing, effectively replacing her), destroying the Shagohod, bringing down Volgin and his militia, and being betrayed by my country (should have known it was all for money), the only thing left to live for is the mission.

By now fans of the Metal Gear series have noticed many of the similarities between its various sequels and prequels. It is very much a cyclic story with characters seemingly replacing others across generations: The Boss by Big Boss, Big Boss by Solid Snake, etc. Even the MGS4 trailers show a range of recursion in the form of a young 'Solid' Snake (he'll probably have a different codename) along with an aged Solid Snake (cellular degradation?) and Raiden apparently becoming a Gray Fox-like cyborg. The hook of the series for me - the 'It' factor - is the hope that eventually the cycle will be broken and that Solid Snake will somehow manage to outsmart those who've orchestrated this entire war-driven existence (The Patriots, aka the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo, etc.)

The best way to predict, and with any luck change, the future is to look back at the past, which is why MGS3: Snake Eater and now Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (MPO) are such appreciated additions to the ongoing fiction. MGS3 answered a lot of questions and generated quite a lot of sympathy for Big Boss, whom we know will eventually turn rogue. As mentioned above, Big Boss had to kill his mentor in order for both he and her to fulfill their respective missions, which understandably caused him to lose faith in his superiors. Though the seed of mutiny was planted by the events in Snake Eater, Big Boss's conversion from protagonist to antagonist was beyond the scope of that game. Portable Ops is the direct follow up to MGS3, taking place six years after Operation Snake Eater, and as such provides further insight into Big Boss's inevitable conversion.

Knowing that it's an important piece to the Metal Gear universe, it's hard not to recommend MPO. Those that like the MG series will undoubtedly like Portable Ops and because of its significance in the timeline I'd go as far as saying that it's a must for fans of the franchise. This also makes it particularly tough to critique - as a fan myself there are certain conventions of the series that I love and, in a couple of instances, their exclusion or augmentation in MPO is questionable if not downright aggravating.

My biggest complaint is with the more-than-annoying camera system and controls. Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima, game director Masahiro Yamamoto, and everyone else who could have put a stop to the current layout, completely dropped the ball in this regard. I could forgive them if there was no other choice (and with the PSP that's usually the case), but there is an obvious alternative for MPO. After playing through the game I'm just unabashedly infuriated with the design team - they f*cked up, it's that simple.

For whatever reason they decided to translate the camera system and control scheme from Subsistence instead of the standard quasi-static camera that the rest of Solid series is known for. While the Subsistence system is great on the PS2's DualShock, it's as if everyone at Kojima Productions completely forgot that the PSP only had one analog stick. It is exponentially idiotic because the normal MGS quasi-static camera would have worked amazingly well on the PSP since it not only uses one analog stick, but also would've freed up the other buttons to perform more important functions (made more pertinent by the lack of L2 and R2 on the PSP.) In retrospect, I have no idea how in the hell they thought they had the optimal control scheme with the current design. I wish they would patch it, and they probably could if they were willing.

It isn't just that the camera and controls are clumsy, but the fluidness - the extension of self that is so strong with the console games in the series - is lost because of how complicated and rough they are in MPO. It takes me out of the game - I am no longer Big Boss, but someone sitting on the bus trying to (haphazardly) "control" him. And yet, because it's Metal Gear and because it takes place at a very interesting time within the franchise's history, I was more than willing to persevere the obtuse camera and controls if only to progress the story (in order to fill-in more back-story and help prepare me for MGS4.) Oddly enough, compared to most other PSP games, MPO's controls are adequate. It's when you know where the series has been (and where it could be on the PSP) that the current control implementation stings the most.

Another problem I had was with the cut scenes, however, this is a very subjective issue as it's a matter of taste, not function. Kojima Productions decided to use the graphic novel approach seen most recently in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. I was one of the few people that loved MGS: DGN for what it was - a retelling of the Shadow Moses incident done with awesome Ashley Wood art and razor-sharp sound effects. In MPO the quality of the graphic novel cut scenes are incredibly high, but they feel disjointed in their juxtaposition with the 3D rendered gameplay aspects. Again, this took me out of the experience that MPO's predecessors were able to maintain so well through the use of in-engine real-time cut scenes. Because of that, despite their coolness-factor, I couldn't appreciate them nearly as much as they deserve (or as much as in-engine cinematics.)

The funny thing about MPO is that other than one major wrong and another subjective quibble, there is so much to love about the game. Make no mistake; this is a Metal Gear Solid game. It is very story driven, has amazing visuals, incredible soundtrack, and is full of awesome stealth espionage action. What's surprising though is how well Kojima Productions was able to translate the experience to better suit the portable market and in the process make some truly refreshing gameplay changes that still manage to retain the feel of the console counterparts.

While the Ac!d series shares the MGS fan base, because it's a different type of game it can get away with a lot of experimentation (take MGA2's cel-shaded visuals, for example, or the fact that it's a card-based strategy game). For MPO, completely new core gameplay was out of the question, as is long and complex mission structure in the handheld space. To get around this, MPO uses a mission selection and set-up screen. It is no longer a continuous, linear experience, but an expandable, open-ended one that allows for more strategy through mission choice. While you could drive your way straight through the main story, if you decide to work through supplementary missions you may gain access to weapons, allies, or items that will make things easier for you down the line. Not only that, but the missions themselves have been parried down into easily digestible chunks, so you can play through and save in just a few minutes which is perfect for the gaming on the go.

The other big addition to MPO, that isn't in any other MGS game, is ally recruitment and team assembly, known as the 'Comrade System'. Without giving away anything, Big Boss is marooned on an island (the 'Isle De Los Muertos') and up against an army who've been 'cut-loose' by their home country. Because of the nature of the army and the mission, it is brought to Big Boss's attention (by a young Roy Campbell nonetheless) that some of the soldiers could be persuaded to join his cause. So prior to each mission you're given the opportunity select a squad of four to go out and kick ass.

What makes the Comrade system a more integral part of the game is that you can send allies out to perform various tasks (e.g. capture/persuade more soldiers) or use their strengths to make missions easier. For instance, if you capture a soldier from a given area, you can then use them to walk around that area without being detected as a threat by other patrolling soldiers (because they're wearing the same uniform.) Cool! Furthermore, the squad-based elements of the missions add an extra layer of strategy since each class can do different things.

Recruiting members to join your team can be done in a few different ways, the most straightforward of which is capturing them during gameplay. Doing this is as simple as knocking them out and carrying them back to your truck, which serves as a base of operations out in the field. Interestingly enough the other methods of recruitment serve as a showpiece for the PSP's functionality in that you can use the built-in Wi-Fi as well as the yet-to-be-released GPS adapter. Essentially what happens is that whenever you enter a new Wi-Fi hotspot or, I assume, major GPS location, you can 'search' the real-life area for new, (randomly generated) recruits. A simple screen is displayed and by tapping the 'O' button you 'boost the signal' to ensure defection. What's cool is you don't need the hotspots' password in order to get the accompanying soldier so this can be done anywhere there is a Wi-Fi signal. Originally it sounded irrelevant to me, but I actually ended up walking through a couple of floors in my building to put a few more squads together.

To top it off, MPO also includes one of the most robust multiplayer portions of any PSP game to date. Ad-hoc is pretty standard by now, but the gameshare and complete infrastructure mode are far from the norm. Like the singleplayer, the multiplayer puts an interesting emphasis on recruitment. Depending on which multiplayer mode you play in, if you lose, your opponent can take the recruited allies you were playing with. This adds a great deal of intensity to multiplayer matches, as it's not just a matter of dying and respawning. And you better bring your A-game too, because the people playing online are ruthless. If you don't like playing for keeps you can go into less permanent types of matches (think of it as ranked and player matches), but then you won't be able to win some unique characters from other competitors located around the world.

It goes without saying that you're going to want this game if you've been looking for a PSP title that takes advantage of all the system has to offer. It's the completeness of the MPO package that will make this game appealing to those who are not already Metal Gear fans. There is so much to do in MPO that it shames a lot of other PSP games out there. At the same time, while I love this game, I can't forgive its asinine camera system and controls when there was clearly a much better solution available. What upsets me most is that it could have been avoided. This game was so very close to being an 'A'...