Opinionation: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker TGS Demo

Last week at the Tokyo Game Show, Konami released a Japanese demo for their upcoming PSP title, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. With every PSP owner able to take part in a little bit of TGS from their own home, I figured I would ask all of our dear readers for their thoughts and feelings on the latest adventure of Not Really Snake.

While the Metal Gear timeline may be a bit confusing, Peace Walker takes place after the portable title, aptly named Portable Ops, and set in Costa Rica circa 1974. The demo begins with some training tutorials on a rainy beach, allowing players to reacquaint themselves with controls very similar to Portable Ops. From there Not Really Snake gets picked up for a chat with some new characters, two military figures and a young woman in a bright read coat named Paz. After what seems like the longest mission briefing for a portable game ever, we find Not Really Snake on another beach and the action begins... sorta... You'll have to find a way past gate, find a short area after that for some CQC with some unsuspected soldiers and then that's it for the all too brief demo. Yeah, I'm sure that I'd be able to get some juicy plot details if I understood Japanese better, but I take whatever I can find when it comes to all things Metal Gear.

Overall, I wish I was able to say that I enjoyed the demo much more than I did. While the visuals are some of the best seen on the platform and I really enjoyed the illustrative cut scenes, they are marred by absolutely ridiculous load times (off the PSP's memory stick at that!) and a control scheme that still doesn't quite make sense. While many games show signs that the PSP could use a second analogue nub, this game's camera control screams for it. I came away from this demo with the same feeling that I had when I played Portable Ops: this is game that has aspirations too grand for its platform to allow. It is not suited to the PSP hardware in terms of a portable game's most important factors and I seriously question if these will be addressed prior to the game's release next year.

However, I am curious if any one had a different experience with the game. Did the controls work for you? Feel like sharing your own impressions?