MGS Peacewalker

/MG/ Metal Gear Discussion /MGU/
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I’ve been playing through the Metal Gear games again and that’s led me back to Peacewalker.
I really liked this game back in the day and while it still has a special place to me, finally getting to play Portable Ops and seeing the mess of MGSV come after it, the flaws stick out to me a lot now.

In theory I like the reintroduction of the camo system. Having it be a decision you make at the start of the mission (instead of flipping through menus constantly or having it auto change for you) to make you at least plan beforehand is a neat idea. But this gets invalidated midway through by the sneaking suit so you can crouch walk (why they removed crawling I will never understand) through the game no problem.

Soldier recruitment is a mixed bag for me. Dragging people back to the truck was pure ass in Portable Ops so fulton is nice (if a little retarded) but it was streamlined so much in PW that soldiers you recruit are nothing more than faceless goons with zero personality. You’re either Snake, generic man or generic woman. The few unique recruits that you do get aren’t playable at all. Kaz has a 3D model and the women even have two but they’re relegated to the model viewer. No unique character models, no disguise system, no changes to how they play based on stats (the lowliest scrub can use CQC no problem) and the only secret character is Kojima himself who turns into generic MSF #342 when played. Boring as hell.

The bosses are all pretty terrible too. They aren’t interesting to look at or fight. They’re all damage sponge vehicles and in the case of the AI units they continue the trend of making the “revolutionary” TX-55 look like a bitch. Some plot ideas behind the Peacewalker itself were interesting but I wish they had put in a little effort to make it not outclass the Metal Gears that canonically are supposed to come later. That being said I can’t solely blame PW too much for this considering Portable Ops did it too.

What are you guy’s opinions on it? While it definitely hasn’t aged as well for me I still like it more than most it seems.

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I got to say, as far as MGS games goes I like it more than PO but PO is the bottom of the list for me. At the time of playing it, the game was a marvel, nothing of that scale was ever released on the PSP and it truly made owning the psp worth it. The trend of having nameless bosses without personality though though started here and i kind of hate it for that. stick crouch walking and aiming make it generally fun to play. Dont get me wrong this game is a beast. A PHENOMENAL game but as far as MGS story goes i can barely tell you what happened beside the boss’s and Paz final scenes.

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Peace Walker is a a dog shit unforgivable mess.

My main issue with Peace Walker is this isn’t even an attempt to make a Metal Gear game. This is an attempt to make a Monster Hunter game. Only without the satisfying reward loop and incredible gameplay mechanics.

Fighting the same thing over and over again at different difficulties? Check.

Upgrading your base and going on “gathering” missions? Cheeck.

Having to upgrade weapons because you’re not taking on end game bosses with early weapons? Cheeeck.

A game you can play Solo but are in fact encouraged to play Co-Op? Cheeeeck.

Kill or capture depending on what rewards you want? Cheeeeeck.

Unkillable bosses you have to destroy certain parts of to get certain rewards? Cheeeeeeck.

Now throw in some side Ops where you fight a Tigrex and you’ve got yourself a cynical cash grab unit shifter staring the dullest ensemble Kojima has ever put together. Snake’s supporting cast has less personality combined than The Fear. I accept the PO cast isn’t phenomenal but I can remember Gene, Cunningham and Python. I remember the cool little gimmick of Elisa/Ursula. I had to go Google Hot Coldman because I thought he was called Coldhands. But that’s someone else from another convoluted series.

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I’m sure it was the compensate for the PSP but playing it now on PS3 it’s just waaaaay too easy to me. You can basically be constantly mobile and pulling headshots without effort through the whole game. The imbalance between useless guards that you can take down in 1-3 tranq darts no problem and robot bosses you need to dump multiple rockets in makes it very jarring too.

I agree with most of your other points but I think that Peacewalker’s supporting cast had some pretty stand out characters who at least got to stay relevant in the plot and/or audio tapes. Kaz, Paz, and Strangelove definitely had more lasting memory than freezy arms pinhead who disappears from the plot after like 3 cutscenes. Besides Gene the villains weren’t super unique/memorable to me either but anything is better than HOT COLD MAN tbf.

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I did a review of MPW a few years back that I’m mostly still in agreement with:

But I’ve come to really like the game a lot more than I used to when it first came out and even back when I reviewed it in 2019.

Much of my criticism still stands. The enemy AI is terrible. Mk22 breaks the game. The bosses are grindy and terrible. And co-op completely ruined much of the game. But all of that aside, I really enjoy playing it.

Like MGSV, I can jump into almost any mission and have fun with it. I go for zero trace runs instead of knocking out all the bad guys and using the environment the way I do feels far more satisfying and enjoyable. MPW, to me, has the best level design of any linear MGS game, with MGSV’s level design being the best in the series for me. There’s tons of structural cover to leave you room to bypass enemies instead of having to confront them. Almost every mission has multiple paths from A to B. And in a pinch, the level design can accommodate action pretty well, with some being really fun to get into firefights with.

The story is well structured, and Snake is, in my opinion, the best version of himself in MPW since his interactions feel far more substantive than any other games Kojima’s written. And I like that it’s lighter in tone. But as @Wayno said, the supporting cast is the blandest it’s ever been in this series, and the villain is not only unremarkable, but thoroughly underdeveloped, since we have no real insight as to why he has the mindset he does about machines.

But then again, I’ve made it pretty clear in my videos that I don’t really regard MGS as a well written series nor have I ever played any of these games for their writing. I play for the gameplay, and even though the bosses suck, I get a good deal of fun out of the majority of missions.

To me, it’s not nearly as good as MGSV or MGS3, since the former was better to play in every regard, and the latter had the best bosses in the series with more entertaining combat since MGS3 let you run and gun a lot easier. But I’ve grown to really come around to this game. It’s probably one of my favorites in the series now simply because I have more fun replaying it than I do some of the other games. And whereas a game like MGS4 is a grab bag of different game types, Peace Walker stays consistently a stealth action game, only losing track of that during its boss fights which, while annoying the first run, can be ignored whenever just jumping back into the game and replaying main ops and objective-oriented side ops.

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All the things you’ve listed is all the things that I dont want to play in an mgs game. Dont get me wrong first time through that stuff is fun but there’s a reason i only start up mgs1-3 and occasionally the middle eastern section of mgs4. As a metal gear fan i dont think i’ve taken anything out of this game or refer to it in anyway. it’s mostly forgotten in my mind story wise. One day i’ll watch a whole movieesque breakdown of the game just to see if a decade later…if i can finally learn to love the bomb.

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I will never forgive PW for making listening to conversation tapes crucial to the story

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Yeah but you will forgive it for KazXSnake wrestling and love scenes though?

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you drive a hard bargian! okay :3

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I was thinking of replaying peacewalker again, mostly cause I never beat the whole game, cause I couldn’t get some of the parts for the metal gear, and just gave up, and just YouTube it, but those boss battles take so long to beat😭.

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yeah gotta play w friends bro, otherwise the grind is unbearable

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Let’s do it! Nick is scared of being arrested by the Japanese police!

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Found out I can’t go online cause my old markthecool account is connected to the peacewalker data, and been trying to transfer to my current one, but no luck, and have no way to access it, might have to contact Sony, if not I gotta restart the game from zero😬.

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