Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Damn this game is good. Controls are vastly simplified and much easier to use than Portable Ops. I'm not very far into the game but already i'm enjoying it 100x more than PO. Infact I hated PO and never even finished the game myself. I got bored very quickly and the appeal of playing a new MGS wore off fast because I wasnt enjoying the characters, the story or the gameplay (due to some horribly fiddly controls) and the repetitive nature. I also wasnt a fan of the sketch-like cutscenes.
With MGS:PW I think alot more effort has been put in all round. All of the problems I had with PO are gone. I was reluctant to pick this one up after hating PO so much, but i'm glad I did. The story is excellent and is like a direct sequel to MGS3, dealing alot with The Boss, Snake and Eva, with only minor references to the events of PO (which for me is a bonus because I will be skipping that game and pretending it never happened). The controls are vastly improved and while they still take a bit of getting used to, they are great once you do. Everything is kept to a minimum here. If its too much of a hassle to do, you probably cant do it. So while at first it seems a bit lacking that there are several moves from previous games that you cannot do, its actually better because by stripping the gameplay mechanics back to basics and basing them on that of MGS4 its much more fun to play on a PSP.
And on a final note, I now love the hand-drawn cutscenes. They dont seem to be as sketchy as they where in PO and they are animated alot better. The way they move from ingame cutscene to animated is also very good. As well as the cutscenes theres also an option to download data to the memory stick so radio calls etc have voice audio rather than reading loads of boring text like in PO.
So basically all of the niggles that caused me to hate PO are gone, and I cant wait to finish this one. Trust me if youre wary of getting this because like me you didnt enjoy PO. You'll be missing out, because this might as well have been called MGS5. Fantastic.
And that new theme tune. Shit its good. Brings back memories of the awesome score to MGS3 (which I think was the best game and had the best soundtrack to all of the games).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5C2lL6Cv0
