Kojima has outdone himself with this welcome addition to the MGS series and the PSP library
The game takes place in 1974, 10 years after the events of MGS 3 and 2 years after Portable Ops. A terrorist group called the Peace Sentinels has invaded Costa Rica but the Costa Rican government can't do anything for they have a treaty in which they can't used armed forces. A professor named Galmez and a 16 year old girl named Paz have secretly hired Naked Snake, aka Big Boss, and his mercenary group, known as MSF, to turn back this threat. The whole story is full of twists and surprises like what the series is known for. The story is, of course, great, but it seems to have little to nothing to do with Portable Ops. The only minor complaint I have with the story is there are a lot of characters like Huey (Otacon's father) but there's a few that seem to appear in a mission or two and then are written out of the plot. Other than that, Peace Walker delivers on a fantastic story like the rest of the series.
The cut scenes are done in the same way as Portable Ops, in a comic book style instead of cinematic. However, unlike Portable Ops, the cut scenes have some interaction with quick time events, aiming and shooting with a rocket launcher, and even zooming in for some easter eggs.
The controls may take some getting used to at first but there are multiple control schemes to choose from so mess around with each one and see which one works best for you. Once you get used to the controls, the rest of the game will be a ton of fun. Before each mission, you can prep up with what clothing you wear and what weapons and items to take with you (like rations, surround indicator, binoculars, etc.). It might be smartest to take at least one tranquilizer weapon with you for you want to be silent but you can also take an assault rifle, a sub machine gun, shot gun, rocket launcher, and many more. Once you have everything you want, your mission can begin.
Seeing as how this is a Metal Gear game, stealth is the number 1 element that you will need to pass most of your missions. The game has a ton of main mission in which you can only play as Snake and can take up to about 15 hours to complete. The newest move in this game is the crouch walk, which is conveniant, but you can't crawl while prone anymore. Each mission for the most part is getting to the destination without dying, stealth is recommended. If you haven't played a MGS game before, being spotted by the enemy soldiers will raise an alarm and will cause back up units to come in and shoot you down; either try to fight them or hide until the alarm goes down. However, it is kind of annoying that no mission has check points which is especially a pain for longer missions, but each mission is more fun than the last regardless.
The game also has a large set of "extra ops" missions as well. These are side missions that have a wide variety of different objectives to complete. They may be about eliminating all enemies, capturing all enemies, sneaking by without being seen, or maybe boss battles. Completing these will give you GMP which you'll need later back at mother base (I'll get to that later).
My biggest complaint of this game would have to be the boss battles. One thing I liked about the previous Metal Gar Solid games were the unique selection of boss fights available; from people to big machines (including metal gear). However, in this game, the only bosses are machines like tanks, helicopters, and A.I.-controlled machines. The human-controlled vehicle battles can be done faster if you kill the troops surrounding it and then killing the captain that pops his head out but that doesn't stop the fact that most of your rockets take forever to bring it down. Same goes for the AI machines but you must bring those all the way down. When you kill an AI weapon though, you go inside it and can gather parts for your own metal gear (which I will also get to in a minute). They're ok overall, I guess, but it's disappointing that there's a smaller variety in bosses this time and, as said earlier, most of your rockets might take a little while to bring health down and the bosses can be tiresome and frustrating.
The game also has a competitive mode, which I can't tell you about because I have a hard time finding people online. There is also a co-op mode for the first time in the series that allows you and 3 other friends (with or without this game) fight in certain missions together which might make the boss battles less of a hassle.
Along the way you can collect enemy soldiers you knock out by attaching them to your fulton balloons and sending them back to mother base. What can you do with them? Well, back at mother base, which is where you will be in between missions, you can manage your own army with captured soldiers. Portable Ops has started this little feature but Peace Walker improves it on almost every aspect. Every soldier has stats and are good for at least one job whether it be combat (in which they can be played as during extra ops missions), R&D (who can be used to build and/or upgrade weapons and items), mess hall (who will make enough food for your army, which you want a good amount of or else they will leave), medical bay (heal sick or injured soldiers faster), and intel (shows more info about your missions). Adding people to each job will help level up that job and give you more items to develop and so on. It's just a shame that you can only have a certain amount of troops in each job, which forces you to fire troops eventually, but it works better than Portable Ops altogether. Not to mention you can actually capture GOOD soldiers this time, and you don't have to carry them a long distance.
The mother base gives you a large menu to manage your team and build weapons and items but it will also let you build your own metal gear with parts obtained from the AI boss battles. There is also outer ops which allows you to send your troops in the combat unit or even vehicles you have beaten to attack other nations. You can even send your own customized metal gear once it is complete. Once you launch the attack, your men will fight that group while you go out on a mission. You can then watch the battle in a turn based battle and see the results. Defeating these armies will allow troops to increase in stats and other soldiers may volunteer. You may even find items. However, you can also lose soldiers. Infantry will be taken to the sick bay to heal but losing a vehicle is permanent (except the metal gear) so make sure to repair them when needed.
For a hand held game, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is one of the best due to its massive amount of content and replay value. Thanks to outer ops, co-op, the fun main missions and extra missions, there is plenty here to keep you bust for quite some time spite the frustrating boss fights. Other than that, it manages to improve on almost everything Portable Ops did wrong and become the best PSP game to date. If you are a fan of the MGS series or if you want to get into the franchise, Peace Walker is a good enough reason to pick up your PSP again.