Series : Metal Gear
Original Developer : Konami
Port Developer : Kojima Productions
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Other Tags : Hideo Kojima
Achievements : trueachievements.comCOMPLETED
Image source: gamerant.com
Analysis
Metagame - This game has most of the metagame mechanics of MGS5:TPP, including 'recruiting' enemy soldiers with balloons, managing staff assignments on your naval base, and developing and upgrading new equipment. It's hard to understate how much of a move forward this was for the series, from a straightforward action game to a game with solid and original metagame mechanics. It's a big motivating force when playing the game, and extends the game by making side missions relevant, because they contribute to your overall progress.
However, the action gameplay is mostly derivative of MGS3, and feels like a weaker version of that game. The enemies are really blind and stupid, and most of the missions are almost trivial, except for a few of the mech/tank boss fights, which are more tedious than fun. You might say that this game has something else in common with MGS5:TPP, the mech boss fights are tedious and exhausting, and not fun at all.
MGS5:TPP took the metagame mechanics from this game, and completely recreated the stealth action gameplay, and it is a much stronger game as a result. It's interesting to think about whether the metagame mechanics were specifically designed for a handheld game, where many, but relatively short missions and casual strategic management maybe works better than the long, intense action sequences found in some of the previous games.
Visual sound effects - I'm wondering why the hand-drawn cutscenes all have sound effects written in text like a comic book. Is it perhaps because some people play PSP with the sound turned down or completely off, and this visual choice enables conveying important sounds anyway?
Sexism - This game really has some choices concerning the female characters:
- The cutscenes have the 'male gaze', but rather than it just being a bunch of subtle choices, it's actually implemented directly: In certain cutscenes, you can zoom the camera. For certain female characters, their clothes becomes transparent, and you can see their underwear.
- The female story characters have 3D model viewers in the staff menu. Only the female ones. As I understand it, if you beat Extra Op 67 under certain conditions, the female characters from then on appear in their underwear.
- The female characters, which are all grizzled freedom fighters, KGB spies, and top-level AI scientists, all are really good at cooking.
