Metal Gear typically conjures up visions of advanced graphics, intricate storylines and stealthy action. But to bring the series to the PSP Konami has jettisoned most of the graphics, some of the stealth and simplified the story...kinda. Metal Gear Acid is, of all things, a turn based strategy card game. And yet it's also the deepest, most complex and difficult game on the PSP. That's not always good.
As unlikely as the card-based strategy are the murderous dolls that drive the plot. After
Were still a little bit miffed over the fact that we were fooled into falling in love with strategy card games in the first place. Metal Gear AC!D dropped right under our collective radars, and turned us into obsessive collecting freaks. The sequel, Metal Gear Ac!d 2, throws fresh salt in those wounds. An avalanche of new cards marks the return of this highly varied, wickedly addictive, trading card/strategy game. We know our made-up genre sounds weird, but that's really what it is. This series
Even if you're the most die-hard fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, you're bound to think the plot gets pretty damn screwy at times. It says a lot that the first game - with its cybernetic ninja, mind-reading psychic and walking nuclear tank - may have the most concise and understandable tale of them all. And if you just can't get enough of playing the game, the Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel recreates every single detail of the plot in an animated comic book bursting with
Much like record companies in the
late-’80s, game publishers have realized that they can mine their back catalogs
by sprucing up a couple classics and putting them out in a single package. While
some of these are obvious cash grabs, even those are often worth it for people
who missed the included games the first time around. Such is the case with the
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which pairs 2001’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of
Liberty, 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and last year’s Metal Gear
Solid: Peace Walker. For anyone who’s already played all three games repeatedly,
HD Collection isn’t worth your hard-earned ducats. Sure, seeing these games in
hi-def is cool – as with the God of War: Origins Collection, Bluepoint has done
an impressive job upgrading these games’ visuals – but since they just have
better looking versions of the original graphics, not new HD graphics, it’s hard
to justify the double-dip...
Despite what you might have heard elsewhere, this ain’t Metal Gear Solid 5. Realistically, how the hell could it ever follow PS3’s Guns of the Patriots? After all, Peace Walker runs on a bit of portable plastic that’s less powerful than a PS2.
Thankfully, though, it does beat seven shades of stealthy shit out of it’s two PSP predecessors, namely the turn-based car crash of Acid and mega fiddly Portable Ops. Put simply, this is a proper, hugely ambitious Metal Gear game… just one that can’t quite match its console cousins.
It took a while, but Metal Gear fans with PSPs finally have the game they've been clamoring for. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a direct sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, ditches collectible cards and strategy in favor of straight-up stealth action. But while sneaking around and shooting guards has a familiar feel to it, Portable Ops isn't quite the epic you might be expecting.
Portable Ops feels like what you'd get if you took the Metal Gear Online game from MGS3: Subsistence,
Nov 13, 2007
Given that it's been almost a year since the awesome Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops came out, you could be forgiven for thinking that Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is the expanded edition that seems to follow every MGS release. It's implied right there in the title, after all. In reality, though, Portable Ops Plus is more of a companion to the original; it features the same fully 3D, stealth-action gameplay, but ditches the story mode in favor of a ton of improvements to
Going from zero Metroid games in eight years to three in two years was a welcome change. But why do both of spacey-chic heroine Samus Aran's first-person adventures have to be so damn similar? Per usual, you start with the most basic of sci-fi equipment; a meager blaster and roly-poly, morph ball for locomotion. Eventually, these make way for multi-targeting missiles and a chasm-spanning hover jump. As you explore the rocky, swampy and airless terrain ot the planet Aether, new paths will open
By
NGC_
posted February 15, 2006
Okay, this isn't exactly a full game but you still get a First Hunt demo free in your DS box (if you imported from the US), so we reckon it deserves an appraisal.
The game comes with two very different modes: training, and a multiplayer version. The latter is perhaps the one you'll get the most enjoyment out of, allowing up to four DSs to go head-to-head in three different arenas.
It's surprisingly accomplished for a handheld. The visuals are crisp - if maybe a little blocky - and, crucially,
Sometimes awesome games come from weird places. In this case, the videogame adaptation of a movie that remakes an '80s TV show. It reads like three layers of pure, uncut horrible, but Miami Vice: The Game somehow fails to be just another crappy licensed shooter.
Sure, the gameplay is linear and repetitive, but the execution is fun enough that you won't care. At its best, it's a slow, methodical stealth-shooter, with Det. Sonny Crockett or Det. Ricardo Tubbs (you have to pick one or the other
