I sat down last night and attempted to feel my way through the Japanese demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Given that I had no kind of transcript and do not know Japanese yet, it was an interesting experience --- to say the least. If you still haven’t gotten your hands on the demo yet (it was released at the Tokyo Game Show this week), IGN posted it Wednesday and it can be downloaded here for free (http://psp.ign.com/articles/102/1027904p1.html).
Though Peace Walker looks to continue the MGS legacy of keeping its plot up-front, the game is pressing itself forth as more of a cooperative experience than any other Metal Gear title I’ve seen. Upon loading a new game, the player is greeted by the same rich motion-comic cutscenes which were also used in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (illustrated by returning Australian artist Ashley Wood). Though, I wasn’t able to follow the conversations word for word, the gist of the scene presents that Big Boss has slipped even further from his loyal ideals as a soldier (a result of the events that transpired in MGS3: Snake Eater), and has since further solidified the army he began at the conclusion of Portable Ops four years prior. He’s asked to help with a supposed takeover in South America and by doing so; his army without a nation is tasked with aiding a nation without military.
After the scene, the player is let loose across a couple of restricted areas in order to test out the game’s new system and mechanics. The foremost change here for gamers is the control scheme. The camera’s movement by default has been mapped to the face buttons (triangle, square, etc.). This leaves the attacking and aiming to be managed by the ‘L’ and ‘R’ buttons. The directional pad handles crouching, contextual commands, and item/weapon control (the analog nub is of course, movement). While this might initially sound a little wonky for some, it actually functions more efficiently than Portable Ops did. However, the true issue here is how indicative the demo is of the final product. The ability to shimmy along walls and crawling didn’t seem to be in the demo at all. The crawl function actually has some significant importance in the game, as being crouched significantly affects the camouflage index (which makes a return from Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots). Moving around while laying on the ground is something I'd argue needs to remain in the game.
The wall-slide however may be more of a superficial necessity, as the game offered up a makeshift replacement for Snake whenever he’s hugging a wall. Upon sticking to a surface (Snake stays stationary as long as the player holds down the context button), the camera can be cycled over all of the enemy soldiers within the player’s immediate proximity. It effectively cancels out the need to slide and eliminates an old danger from past games, as staying hugged against the wall was sometimes troublesome due from the sensitivity to which the player could accidentally exit the hug-mode and expose themselves. This could only be temporary of course, but Peace Walker’s restrictions work to the game’s nature as a portable experience. Not to mention it also effectively streamlines some of the more common faults of the series’ longtime mechanics.
The demo also suggests that Snake will be able to level and customize himself between missions (not too unlike Portable Ops). I was able to choose between a Jungle Fatigue Snake that was more equipped for stealth abilities and a barechested ‘Naked ‘version, which was armed with high-damage weaponry (*Post Edit* I found two more fatigues in addition to those two as well). The differences between these versions became very practical, as a mission which tasked the player with destroying a tank is very different from one that asks them to dispatch a heavily patrolled dock area.
It should be noted however that there’s no pause button in the demo and the quick selection from past games might take some time to get used to with this control switch. I was able to switch the face/directional buttons around so I use the D-pad for camera control instead. There may be some polish issues for Peace Walker right now but I can confidently attest that Kojima Productions is taking some earnest steps in making the game more accessible to the large number of those who always found the franchise too daunting to get into from a game-mechanic standpoint.
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