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What is the general consensus on MGS: Peace Walker?

Angry Guy said:
It's not without problems, though. I played the HD version, but CQC and crawling were still tuned down because of the PSP and that was a huge bummer. All the grindy monster hunter elements were awful.
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I thought it was mind-boggling that they removed crawling (and to a lesser extent, being able to drag bodies), which were both in Portable Ops, while opting against things like being able to move along cover. You feel very limited.
 
Damerman said:
I'm checking out Doctor strangelove as i post this. As screaming meat says, a character was named after Doctor strangelove.
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It's one of the funniest and bleakest films ever made, with some surprisingly good battle sequences.

"When the court of enquiries hears about this you'll get such a pranging..."
 
Fantastic PSP game, alright PS3/360 game. Story is forgettable although Chapter 6 is pretty relevant to MGS's story in general, but I admit I liked the first ending a lot too regardless of how cheesy it is.

I still sit down and play some public coop on the PS3 occasionally, taking down some customs or doing the Hunting Quests again. Coop is a lot of fun and really important to understand why Peace Walker is great to so many people, and I'm glad to be no longer fumbling around with Ad-Hoc Party just to play it with friends. Recently beat it again on PS3 with a friend and had a lot of fun playing through it.
 
Pyrrhus said:
No, it's really, really stupid. Just because you had not heard of perhaps the single biggest threat to human existence in the 20th century and this game happened to reference it doesn't make the flying 1970s vocaloid mechs or a bunch of characters standing in a circle chanting "Kojima is God!" profound. It was fucking dumb. And that's before you even get to the Doritos, Axe Body Spray, the dinosaurs, the butterflies, the tickle stick, the statutory rape in a cardboard box, the complete Mary Sue-ification of one of the best characters in the series, and the frankly bizarre use of The Carpenters.

Enjoy the gameplay if it appealed to you, but don't try to say the story was not some of the stupidest shit committed to silicon in the history of the medium. I still can't believe Kojima thought he could go from giving Paz a sexy underage photo mode and a jpop idol image song in Peace Walker game and then do what he did with the character in Grounds Zeroes. The story is bad on a micro and macro level. Bad.
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so because of the extra content that wasn't part of the main plot ruined the plot for you, to the point where it "arguably" no redeeming qualities? I'm sorry, but everything you said holds no water because it doesn't really address the issue. The silly thing s you mentioned come with the territory when it comes to a MGS game, and luckily you are able to ignore it, i certainly did because i don't even know half the stuff you are talking about.
 
There is no consensus. Some love it. Some dislike it. A few hate it.

I am in the dislike camp myself. If you play it make sure you listen to the tapes. Some of them are fun.
 
I have to finish it some day, I couldn't stand the mission structure and the controls,

Now that I think about it something must be wrong with me because I finished PO without any major problems. I must be getting old or something.
 
Hated it but liked it when I gave it a second chance. The story is thin and the bosses annoyed the hell out of me, especially if you were wanting to play alone. Basically, to be good at the bosses you'll have to grind the fuck out for your motherbase so then you could be able to develop weapons that deal high damage. Only when you achieve that does the game become fun. It clearly is developed with the handheld in mind hence the thin story, structured missions, focus on co-op and grinding. I played it on the Xbox 360 mind you, prefer all the other MGS's a million times over this however, I will say that it did have some fun bonus(extra ops) missions.

For me since I love the MGS universe the first thing I look forward to is what's going to happen next and here the story honestly doesn't feel as if its the focus but upgrading your motherbase, playing with friends is. Since the missions are also short it is also clear that it's made with leaderboards in mind, S ranking and all that. It seems as if MGS5 is going in the same route but I hope we get more story stuff because that's what I look forward to most besides the gameplay in an MGS game, is what's going to happen next and since this is a big chapter in Big Boss's history, I'm sure we are going to get more story. I know people hate the cutscenes/codecs but honestly they were part of the series since the MSX (well atleast the codec was) and they are one aspect of the game that I look forward to when playing an MGS game. Always wanting to know what is going to happen next.

I prefer the more focused and abit open MGS games since they are designed for you to explore abit and always move forward instead of jumping from mission to mission which feels like an arcade game more than an MGS game to be honest but eh we'll see. I loved what I played in GZ so I'm sure Kojima is doing his best to combine both the story elements and PW elements nicely without loosing anything else.

Edit: I forgot to mention, for those wanting to just experience the story, the way to unlock the true ending to the game or final level is total BULLSHIT. Just another grind fest.
 
I couldn't get into it. Playing it feels like a chore and I always get burned out by the bosses and the simplified gameplay a couple of hours into the story.
 
I loved it buuuut I must also admit that it was the only thing I had to keep me entertained on a eight hour flight.

I dunno whether I will go back to it. I have the HD collection on ps3 so maybe
 
Screaming Meat said:
It's one of the funniest and bleakest films ever made, with some surprisingly good battle sequences.

"When the court of enquiries hears about this you'll get such a pranging..."
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Actually, Dr. Strangelove or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (genius title) is the reason I played Ground Zeros with the color settings turned all the way down. It definitely gives it a Kubricy vibe and if anything makes is grittier looking. Plus when playing it monochrome, nightvision actually looks like legit nightvision, not that weird everything highlighted in yellow nightvision.
 
Sub_Level said:
There is no consensus. Some love it. Some dislike it. A few hate it.

I am in the dislike camp myself. If you play it make sure you listen to the tapes. Some of them are fun.
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Yea, I don't think there is very much concensus on anything Metal Gear past MGS, with the exception of Snake Eater.

I have a love hate relationship with Peace Walker. Fucking hate the story, love the base building and hoped to god that they would include it in TPP but more indepth and customizable, which they are.

The missions were EZ mode and kinda fun at the beginning, but the side opts were just grind fests.
 
Screaming Meat said:
It was designed for mobile play so the missions being short makes sense.

How is The Boss "diminished" exactly...?
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I understand why the mission structure is the way it is but it still doesn't make for great level design.

Also, why I know Kojima loves his crazy plot points it felt wrong to
bring back the boss as some sort of computer brain deal. The way MSG3 ends is fantastic and to bring her back in that sort of form
felt cheap and didn't sit well with me at all.

Also, Hayter's voice was gone man. He sounded terrible.

I played the game because it was one of the only MGS games I hadn't tried and I wanted to get some info for GZ and TPP. Honestly, I felt like I could have skipped it and read a wiki instead. Not a terrible game, but one that isn't required either.
 
the end game is tiring, but MAN that fulton-recovery "stock up your roster"-game was kick-ass (and I don't like Pokemon btw!). I was already the sneaky/stun mgs-player, but never more than with the fulton-encouragement.
The super-short mission structure is awesome at times, but scale-wise a big let-down.
Interactive comic-panel storytelling was great and super-cool stylish.
Era it's set in is the best a metal gear game can be set in if you ask me.

I'd say play it, it's really good...

EDIT: As far as kojimas ridiculous philosophy interests go, that "peace is an unnatural state" + "Snake goes Che" was the most appealing to me out of all mgs games. There's also less embarrassing moments like "big mama"+tears.
 
I just started this on 360. CIA mysteriously moves mercs into Nicaragua with nukes. But why? My interest has peaked.

Progressing mother base seems like it will be fun, if it ever explains itself.
 
I'm ambivalent toward it. It wasn't bad, but I didn't like the Monster Hunter mission structure or the requirement of co-op in some of the later missions.
 
Ultimately it's a spinoff, monster hunter style but it's mechanics seemed to have been somewhat transfered to mgsv, at least the good parts. It's definitely not what I would consider a main entry in the series, despite what reviews at the time will lead you to believe.
 
I think there's a good amount of people out there who like it, but I wasn't a fan of the cutscenes/bosses. You're gonna wanna play it though if you're planning on getting Phantom Pain.
 
I liked it.

The story is a bit weird (it's metal gear after all) but the action is good, the mother-base stuff weirdly addicting and The mission structure is great for a portable console.
 
I think it's really really good for a PSP game. I enjoyed it. Yes, the bosses can be a chore fighting alone, the enemies might be dumber than usual and the missions might be too segmented, but come on. It was made for a handheld with a tiny fucking screen and less buttons than a toaster. That last part might not be true...

My second favourite in the series. I play it a bit every day, collecting soldiers on my way home from work :)
 
It's junk. The stealth is stupidly easy because of the Fulton Recovery System, and it's not like you can decide against using it either, because you need the money to buy weapons to beat the bosses, otherwise they're impossible.
 
Didn't like it. Story was weak, "we just animated the concept art" cutscenes suck and I hated the base management and side missions crap.
 
Grisby said:
I understand why the mission structure is the way it is but it still doesn't make for great level design.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to state the obvious. You said your issue was that they were "small".

Grisby said:
Also, why I know Kojima loves his crazy plot points it felt wrong to
bring back the boss as some sort of computer brain deal. The way MSG3 ends is fantastic and to bring her back in that sort of form
felt cheap and didn't sit well with me at all.
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Yeah, I can see why it wouldn't sit well. It's
not really her though, so I'm not quite sure how it "diminishes" MGS3:Boss though.
Is it just a feeling or was there something specific about it? I only ask because I hear similar things a lot and no ones really given a straight answer.
 
Loved the Mother Base stuff; was luke-warm to the story; hated the grinding; was pissed about Snake's gimped move set (...but blame SONY's PSP design).
 
I finished the game last weekend after slowly getting through it but I enjoyed it for what it was. Most of the bosses weren't enjoyable and the stealth was easy due to the Fulton but the final boss was fun compared to the normal vehicle battles. But for a psp game it was impressive.
 
I will never understand how people can prefer Peace Walker to Portable Ops, in PW story and characters are really the worst i have ever played, missions are made of plain mini maps, R&D is just futile minigame, one move is enough to ko opponents and fulton kills everything left of the stealth.

PW is one of the most futile and casualazed games i have ever played.
 
I enjoyed the hell out of it. Bosses were boring, and took way too long to die, but the base management was awesome.

The story was ehhh, but the characters and the getting the team together aspect was great.
 
2+2=5 said:
I will never understand how people can prefer Peace Walker to Portable Ops, in PW story and characters are really the worst i have ever played, missions are made of plain mini maps, R&D is just futile minigame, one move is enough to ko opponents and fulton kills everything left of the stealth.

PW is one of the most futile and casualazed games i have ever played.
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Portable Ops is not a fun game to play. It might have a better story and a fantastic villain, but the actual game is just... not fun. The controls are frustrating, the level design is poor, and the bosses are awful attempts of MGS boss fights on a system which is really not built for it. They don't have interesting patterns, the camera is crap, the aiming is hard to use. It's a really piss poor game.

The missions in Portable Ops are also poorer than PW by a huge margin. They are harder, but because the game is more challenging but because the game is just harder to play. It's harder to control Snake, it's harder to see where anything is because of the camera, it's more annoying to have to drag enemies all the way back to the truck. These are not things which make the game more "hardcore", they're just things which make the game less fun to play.

The recruitment system in PO also does pretty much nothing. It's a really half-baked system which is vastly improved upon in PW. PW has better sub-systems, better camera, better controls, better level design, and even the bosses are way, way better than PO. PW actually offers the player choices which MGS games are noted for, allowing people to play the game in different ways and try out different stuff which always ends up being entertaining.

Boss fights also offer various fun ways to tackle them - you can take out all the soldiers guarding a vehicle to force the commander out, you can just destroy the vehicle, you can stealth it by knocking everyone out, you can brute force it with rockets and guns, etc. The big robot fights have multiple parts all over which you can disable individually, and it's extremely satisfying to take apart a mech piece by piece.

I don't see how it is remotely surprising that people like PW more than PO. The only thing PO has which PW sadly lacks is a good villain and a simpler but more cohesive story. PW is filled with retcons and bad homages to the Metal Gear mythology, but as a game, it's so much more fun than PO ever was.
 
Yeah, I can see why it wouldn't sit well. It's
not really her though, so I'm not quite sure how it "diminishes" MGS3:Boss though.
Is it just a feeling or was there something specific about it? I only ask because I hear similar things a lot and no ones really given a straight answer.[/QUOTE]

I found it weird that snake seems to have forgotten about the epilogue tape eva left for him explaining why the Boss did what she did. He kept stating she betrayed me, as if her spirit was in the machine and what not. I know he's referencing the fact that she "put down her gun" but eva's tape perfectly spelled everything out to him.
 
Damerman said:
whats the point of being this hyperbolic?... it only makes you come off as pretentious.
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It's just the appropriate summary of my full opinion:

jett said:
Ground Zeroes got me in a serious MGS mood, and I jumped at the opportunity to get the Legacy Collection on the cheap. Over the last few weeks I've re- played MGS1, MGS2 HD and MGS3 HD(both to completion) and even some of MGS4. I was hooked once more into MGS2 and 3, 3 especially, playing it at 60fps is just fantastic.

Anyway, this was also my chance to finally play the one MGS game that always eluded me, Peace Walker. I've never really been interested in what seemed like a simple, portable-oriented MGS. And after spending around 7-8 hours on this game, I can honestly say this is by far the worst game that I've played in the franchise. I really don't believe playing any more of this crap will make me change my mind.

Over the course of MGS history, every game has taken the gameplay to the next level. From FPS in MGS2, to the plethora of game systems included in MGS3, to proper first-person and thirst-person shooting in MGS4, to the open world of MGSV. But this, when it comes to proper Snake/stealth gameplay, is a step back in every respect. I understand it's a PSP game, but let's be clear: I don't care. The levels s are miniscule, the "campaign" is sectioned off in a tiny portions/missions, gameplay just feels super basic. The level design in this game is just awful to me, incredibly dull. There's a very stop and go feel to this game that I decidedly do not like. The excuse for this short-mission-design is due to its portable origins(but then the game hits with you unbearably boring, slow and long-ass cutscenes after most missions) and its multiplayer oriented nature, and you know, I really don't care for this. This is not what I want out of a Metal Game at all.

Then there's the big Mother Base component, which does nothing for me. I couldn't care less about playing Metal Gear Solid: Serial Kidnapper. It's not deep enough to be compelling, and it's not basic enough to not be a nuisance to rummage through the menus and updates and whatnot. As it is, I feel complete indifference to this thing. The outer ops, the extra ops, managing troops and whatnot, I just don't care about any of this.

Then there's the story, like I said, boring as fuck, and the cutscenes go on seemingly forever with very little happening in them, and with some ugly half-assed comic book drawings. I spoiled ze (awful) twists a long time ago, so there was no chance I was going to care anyway unless the presentation was magnificently done, and it's so not.

I've seen people recommend this thing constantly and I just don't get it. The worst are the folk that insist this should have retained its original MGS5 title. Good lord no. I consider this thing on the level of Portable Ops or the Acid games. It's such a great thing that MGSV pretty much wipes the events of of this game, although I'm decidedly worried about Mother Base and the fulton crap making a comeback. However it's done, I hope it's completely different from Peace Walker.

I almost forgot to mention the bosses. A complete abomination and an embarrassment to the franchise. The less said about this shit the better.

Anyway, I'm glad I got the Legacy Collection for MGS2 and MGS3 and as a collector's item, but I don't see myself giving PW any more chances. I honestly tried my best to like this thing, but I just can't.
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Screaming Meat said:
That's your problem right there.
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If you say so, but ever since the original Gameboy, there have been fuckloads of handheld games that have hung tight with their console bretheren and aren't at all diminished by their mobile nature.

Fact of the matter is, Peace Walker isn't a Metal Gear game designed for or limited by the handheld experience. It's barely a Metal Gear game. It's a very different thing with some features that are characteristic of Metal Gear. And I don't care for it.

Ghost Babel is an actual Metal Gear handheld game designed around the limitations of the hardware it's on.
 
Hero Prinny said:
Well mgsv is a sequel to phantom pain so I'm guessing its a bit important but mgs story is just plain silly anyways so it might not matter. But on to peace walker, I actually really enjoyed the game. My issue with it though were the bosses, their health didn't scale down if its only 1 person so it makes it really frustrating to fight them. Also the Zeke grinding is a pain in the ass, I personally didn't even bother with it. I might one day though since I now own it on ps3
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Silly..

Yes the story is much more silly than any other Japanese anime.
 
My feelings are that I don't care for the compromises that had to be made to put the game on a handheld. I will never consider it to be a "real" MGS game on equal ground with the others. I played it for a couple of hours when it came out and intended to leave it at that. It was only when I found out that MGSV is essentially Peace Walker 2 that I decided to suck it up and suffer through the whole thing. And I do mean suffer. Awful little game IMO.
 
Still fun, but my least favorite MGS game for several reasons:

  1. It's grindy, especially if you're playing alone
  2. Boss battles are repetitive marathons if you play by yourself
  3. Stealth and enemy AI are much worse. There are some levels where enemies are completely static.
  4. The story isn't quite up to par, but there's still lots of good dialogue and audio logs which is mitigating factor
 
My main concern was (and is for Phantom Pain) that you are putting more time collecting soldiers than following the story.
 
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