Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is going to be big. And by that, we don't mean "successful," even thought it seems to be the only PSP game anyone's interested in anymore (or was, until God of War: Ghost of Sparta was announced). No, we mean that the game itself is huge. To wit, we recently spent a whopping 16 hours playing through its story, both by ourselves and in co-op mode with other journos, and it barely feels like we scratched the surface. There's tons of stuff to do and collect, and the game kept unlocking new modes and options after we thought we'd played long enough to open up everything.

We also liked what we played - a lot. In fact, the only things we really disliked about the game were the hand cramps that developed after playing a PSP for 16 goddamn hours. To give you an idea of what sorts of things you can look forward to when the game ships on June 8, we've scraped together a list of eight vital facts we came away with from our extensive hands-on...

As world-dominating franchises go, the Metal Gear series has had a strange relationship with PSP. First there was the non-canonical AC!D series, which replaced the series’ hallmark stealth action with turn-based card strategy. When fans cried foul, Metal Gear’s unrepentant, idiosyncratic creator Hideo Kojima  ‘rewarded’ them with a sequel.

Konami had a blowout today at the Tokyo Game Show, hosting a stage show that highlighted Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker’s story and characters. Game director Hideo Kojima also talked at great length with two of the game’s voice actresses.

Featuring a two volume script that is “as large as Metal Gear Solid 4’s” according to Kojima, Peace Walker is a full-blown MGS game, despite its portable platform.