Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Demo Review

I finally got around to completing the demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker the other day.  It took longer than I had anticipated since it was kinda tough, and I’ve been busy and all.

The controls were the first hurdle to overcome, but ultimately I settled on the action-based scheme as opposed to the FPS style.  With a few alterations to aiming I was pretty comfortable with the controls.  They are rather similar to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite meaning you move your character with the analog stick and change view with the d-pad.  Holding R1 brings the screen into an over-the-shoulder aiming mode which can be set for auto-aim.  I left this option off since it goes for body shots instead of head shots.

Some changes have been made to the classic system which I have mixed feelings about.  For starters, it appears that Snake can no longer crawl.  It’s possible to lie down by holding X which makes Snake less visible, but while he’s doing this he cannot do anything else.  You cannot crawl or fire a weapon from this position.  I saw at least two trucks in the demo and both times my natural MGS instinct was to crawl under them, but they are built right into the ground!  This feels like a step backwards.

“After being betrayed by America… I will never crawl again.”

On the plus side, that is my only substantial complaint.  Another change I noticed, which makes the game a bit more interesting is that enemies now have different armor levels.  Not every enemy will die from just a few bullets.  On several occasions when trying to tranquilize enemies by shooting them in the head with my MK.22, the pistol simply knocked off their helmet, alerting the enemy to my presence.  I am not sure if it’s because of the size of the round (a .22 is rather small) or if my aim was off, but after that I changed my strategy to shoot-to-kill which resulted in less alarm phases.  I appreciate the realism of this change which really contrasts not being able to crawl.  Yeah, I am still bitter.

Other updates include a more advanced CQC system allowing multiple foes to be dispatched at once.  I did have a lot of fun with this, but for whatever reason I could only execute it in the tutorial in the beginning of the demo and not the heat of combat.  Perhaps I just need a bit more practice.

CQC in a refreshing rainstorm

Since the game has a multi-player option, changing equipment no longer pauses action, meaning you need fast fingers when in alert mode or when facing a boss.  Luckily I feel I got used to the controls pretty quickly so this only really got me in trouble once or twice.  Still, I can imagine some people getting frustrated by this.

I managed to blow through the demo without teaming up with anyone.  I am pretty confident I will be playing this whole game solo, at least for the first play-through since the story is paramount.  Still, the new multi-player features are really cool.  Possibly my favorite element is the “co-op ring”.  When two or more players are in close proximity their rings will form one large ring.  While inside, the allies will share HP and have immediate access to each other items.  This is possibly the greatest and least cumbersome way of swapping items I have ever seen in a game.

When it comes to the story, the demo really doesn’t offer much, which I found surprising.  There is a simple cut-scene showing Snake being approached by some folks from Costa Rica a tad concerned with the goings-on inside their military-less country.  They want Snake’s help in getting them out, and he’s all like “I’m not a dog of war, blah blah.”

I do like the unique comic-book style used for the game’s cut-scenes.  It really creates a sense of cohesion with the character designs used throughout the series.  I just hope it will be able to maintain the level of maturity I love from the series, when necessary.

Paz being introduced in the cutscene from the demo

All in all I enjoyed the demo.  Once you get used to the controls you’ll really have a lot to do… aside from crawling.  Sorry, I am just deeply disturbed by the omission of such a key part of MGS games.  I really need to move on…

I look forward to Peace Walker’s May 25th release date, as well as hopefully getting some multiplayer under my belt!

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