A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged metal gear
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Demo Ops (PSP)
Mar 1st
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
Generous demo version of the upcoming PSP Metal Gear game. It looks very nice, seems to be sensibly designed for the PSP with small areas that don’t take long to get through and for the most part it works very nicely. Sneaking and shooting both work very well, but unfortunately the camera controls just aren’t good enough when things go pear-shaped and you’re desperately trying to find someone standing behind you.
It’s mostly very enjoyable and there’s an awful lot of content in the demo, but the camera’s a real problem. The answer’s probably just not to be seen by your enemies, but it’s a bit of shame that fighting your way out of bad situations is so broken.
iPhone Round Up Part Two (iPhone)
Jul 15th
Posted by That Rev Chap in iPhone
Terminator Salvation Lite – A good effort, with the best use of a virtual d-pad I’ve found, but slightly over-ambitious. Thought has been put into providing a lot of different control options, but none of them quite feel comfortable.
Metal Gear Solid Touch Lite – Very much enjoyed this. Drag your sights around the screen to shoot enemies, the catch being that when you’re moving the sights and shooting you can be shot, but when you’re still you go into cover. I’d very much like the full version, but £4.99 feels steep when it used to cost £3.49.
I Love Katamari Lite – Haven’t quite got used to the tilt controls. Not sure I ever could. I need to play it more, see if it ever becomes comfortable.
Eliss Lite – A game that wouldn’t work on any platform other than the iPhone, which makes it something of a novelty. It’s meant to be good, but the demo is too short and the instructions make no sense at all. I’m interested, but not rushing off to buy.
My Brute Lite – Very limited demo. I play the web version every day, so an iPhone version would seem like an immediate buy, but £2.99 just feels too expensive. £1.79 or less and I’m there… though I may well cave and buy it soon anyway.
Tangled Lite – Untangle stuff. Can’t get my head around it at all and only solve puzzles by fluke. For clever people, though, I can see this being decent.
Unblock Me Free – Great little puzzle game that works perfectly and requires actual thinking. Good stuff.
Skybound Lite – Last but far from least, this is a lovely little game that reminds me off a flash game from a year or two ago where you had to collect bells, or something. A ball falls down the screen, you draw clouds underneath it so it bounces back up, you see how high you can go. Great little demo. I’d buy the full version for 59p in an instant and will probably pay the current price (£1.19 I think) before too long.
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Feb 16th
Posted by That Rev Chap in PS3
Very, very, very good when it wants to be.
But also very, very, very tedious when it wants to be.
Of course, I wasn’t going in blind. I’d seen all the fuss over the Internet about the length and frequency of the cut scenes, but I’m not sure you can really prepare for it. It’s only when you’re “playing” the game that you realise just how much talking there is. It’s not that the cut scenes are especially bad – they’re technically very impressive and are often interesting and exciting. It’s just that there are so, so many of them.
Which wouldn’t matter quite so much if the game itself wasn’t so good. It’s one thing to be pulled out of an okay game to watch some non-interactive scenes, quite another to be pulled out of a wonderful, marvellous, brilliant game like Metal Gear Solid 4. Because that’s what it is. It’s just superb. I’m playing on Easy, so it’s not as tense as it might otherwise be, but it makes up for that in sheer fun. I love it, when I’m playing it.
Metal Gear Soild: Portable Ops (PSP)
Jun 27th
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
Ah, excellent, you can go to the hospital, beat nurses unconscious and then keep them prisoner until they agree to work for you…
…what?
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
Jun 25th
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
I’m slightly confused.
I need to cross a bridge, so was told to blow up a truck at the supply depot as a diversion. I did that, but I still can’t get over the bridge. It seems I need to blow something else up as another distraction, or something, but the only way to find out what I can blow up is by stationing a spy in a level where something can be blown up, who will then tell me about it. Except there are many levels and I only have a single spy.
So I think I’m stuck now until I put my spy in the correct place. Meanwhile, I just have to go to other levels and scavenge items and new recruits from them, while I hope to get lucky.
A bit odd, that. But I am throughly enjoying playing the game still, so it’s not all bad. I’m finally starting to get more comfortable with the controls, too.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
Jun 23rd
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
Didn’t actually play this today, just wandered round the centre of the village at lunchtime looking for wifi signals to try and generate new soldiers. Got three, which wasn’t bad. A couple of technicians and someone for the sneaking unit.
Metal Gear Soild: Portable Ops (PSP)
Jun 22nd
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
Ack, it doesn’t autosave!
Despite telling you it does at the beginning of the game.
All of yesterday’s progress lost.
I must like it, though, because I’ve started again.
Metal Gear Soild: Portable Ops (PSP)
Jun 21st
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
I’ve had this sitting around for months, if not years, after a fit of weakness saw me order it from vgp.ca after reading about how it’s great online because you don’t have to play it, you just send your team off to fight for you. Er… or something.
Anyway, I just decided to try the single player game, as I’m too poor to afford the new and shiny Metal Gear Solid 4. It’s surprisingly great, but the PSP’s controls try their very hardest to ruin it. Still, I’ve played a fair few levels, recruited some new soldiers and have created a doctor from my wifi connection, so that’s nice.
I’m slightly concerned that the game will get too hard, too quickly. Due to the control problems there’s a lot of muddling through to do and most sneaky situations end in cack-handed gun fights, often with off screen enemies. I’ve died a few times already and I fear the first boss fight. Maybe there won’t be bosses in this version. Maybe?
Metal Gear Solid Online Beta (PS3)
Apr 25th
Posted by That Rev Chap in PS3
Well, after hours and hours of slow, slow downloads and updates I finally got online with this. Not quite sure what to think. It seems to encourage one type of play control-wise and another well, play-wise. It’s all very well to try to be sneaky and cunning, but it all boils down to speed and accuracy with the right stick in the end. Unfortunately, I have none of that. I’m very good at faking people out by playing dead and using the cardboard box, when it comes time to capitalise on that I’m all over the place and my shots merely serve as a way to give away my position to the enemy who just ran right past me.
Sigh.
And I’ve no idea how the CQC stuff works at all.
Metal Gear Ac!d 2 (PSP)
Jul 7th
Posted by That Rev Chap in PSP
Essentially, this is the same as its predecessor, based on an hour or so of play. It’s a great idea, but there’s too much text to wade through before you get to the meat of the game and it’s too hard for my poor, tiny brain.
The only real change I noticed is in the graphics, which are cel-shaded and, optionally, in 3D. The 3D thing works fairly well, but it cuts in half the amount of screen space and makes you hunch over the PSP looking through a weird card contraption. It’s not really worth the effort.
Which probably sums up my thoughts on the whole thing, right now. If I could just get my head round the sneaking and – most especially – STOP CHOOSING MOVE INSTEAD OF USE WHEN TRYING TO SHOOT PEOPLE, then I might get somewhere.
