I've replayed MGS1 and 2 over the last couple of weeks, then took a break after getting into the post-Ocelot-fight cave in MGS3 (always hate that place) to get a bit of Ground Zero-ing done. I've got my save file ready to go to transfer into MGSV, and I thought I'd give Peace Walker another go.
I've been giving this game chances since it came out. Started on the PSP, but I couldn't handle the horrific bad controls/terrible framerate/awful bossfights combo. I finished it and got the true ending when the HD Collection came out and made the game actually playable, but had absolutely no interest in doing any extra stuff. Came back a year or so later to try some Extra Ops, stopped dead when it became clear that I'd have to suffer through about five of the vehicle fights to unlock each mildly enjoyable normal stealth mission.
This game is just trash. It is not good. I am baffled that people like it. The gameplay is at best mediocre, at worst genuinely deplorable. These motherfucking vehicle bosses are just the perfect storm of every example of bad gameplay design I've ever come across, with a few new innovations in the field just for fun:
- More health than could ever be enjoyable to whittle away? Check
- Near endless backup, spawning from all corners of the arena? Check
- Attacks that destroy you, forcing you to hide in sheds and behind crates for fifteen minute stretches? Check
- You physically cannot carry enough ammo to deplete their health, and the game lowers your heroism if you dare to use the supply markers. Fuck you.
- Trying to do it stealthily? One foot wrong and it's all over, bro.
At least there are only a few of them, right? Oh no, wait, there are like ten in the main campaign and then another FIFTY in the Extra Ops, all taking place in the same three areas, all the exact same fucking thing every fucking time, all terrible. I know there are lunatics who think this trash heap of a game has positive qualities in other areas, but such a huge portion of the game is made up of this 100% irredeemable garbage that I am fully comfortable in declaring Peace Walker a flat out bad game.
And the more you play it, the worse it gets. Every step along the path to building Mother Base requires a trip to GameFAQs to work out where to find shit and what ridiculous, random order the Extra Ops missions are unlocked in and which ones you should waste hours of your life grinding over and over and over in order to farm high rank staff. Grind to get your teams leveled up. Grind to develop the new weapons you can research. Grind to level up those weapons because they're worthless when you first unlock them.
This game does not give you an inch. It takes so much time and effort to make any conceivable headway, and then what? Are you going to use those new weapons to fight more awful bosses? Are you going to go and play with them in the normal missions? No you're not, because you already saw every single level the game has to offer, forward, backward and forward again, when you were playing the story missions and now you can't stand the sight of them. And why would you ever use any of those weapons when simply running up behind a dude (in your magical footstep-silencing suit) and tapping L1 will completely incapacitate him forever? The ultimate stealth move that is the Hold Up is unlocked from the beginning of the game and is never surpassed.
That's not even mentioning the truly woeful story, that isn't even content with stinking up its own game but actively seeks to ruin others. This plot retreads the last ten minutes of MGS3 and retroactively shits all over it. It casts Big Boss as a clueless dope. Kojima has literally made it canonical fact that when The Boss was giving her final, heartfelt speech at Rokovoj Bereg, Big Boss didn't fucking get it. And he continued not fucking getting it FOR TEN MOTHERFUCKING YEARS.
Peace Walker is eight hours of mediocre content stretched out to a hundred hours of misery. Peace Walker is the second coming of that game Takeshi Kitano made that punishes the player at every juncture and actively tries to make you stop playing it. I should have realised that horrible graphics, terrible controls, dull-as-dishwater and extremely basic gameplay and hideous Big Boss facial model were all defense mechanisms, like a cat puffing out its tail and hissing when it doesn't want you to come near it.
FUCK.