Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus

"Plus More Metal Gear"

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is a standalone "expansion pack" to last year's Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Portable Ops was Metal Gear Solid's first game on the PSP, not counting the Ac!d card game spin offs. Portable Ops was successful in porting the Metal Gear Solid experience to the Playstation Portable. Portable Ops plus expands upon the multiplayer aspect of the original Portable Ops game. The game adds the soldier capacity to two hundred people, and adds some aspects of training and improvement to soldiers in the game. Portable Ops Plus includes various characters from multiple Metal Gear Solid games. The game lets you import your old army into Portable Ops Plus. The game lacks a traditional story mode, and instead, a mode called "Infinite Mission" is included. This mode is similar to going on unscripted missions in the original Portable Ops. The player's goal is reach the advance point in each level. The advance point is not shown on the map, and it is up to the player to locate it themselves. The mission structure has now changed, and the player will no longer be taken back to the main screen after each level to manage squads and the army. The player chooses a squad to take into a mission on a difficulty of their own choosing, and the player plays through a number of stages. At the end of these stages is a special mission, where the player will have to meet a certain requirement before finishing the stage, such as surviving for two minutes, or eliminating all enemies. At the end of that stage, the player is taken into a stripped version of the main screen, where they can manage their current squad, items, and enemy soldiers captured during the stages. The player will then have the option to save the game and quit to the main menu, or to continue the mission. If a player aborts the mission, he will lose all items and soldiers captured during the mission. If the player wants to keep everything, they will have to complete the entire mission. Each mission usually ends in a final battle, involving Tengu soldiers attacking the player. Their job is to eliminate all of the Tengu soldiers. The credits will roll, and the player will be taken back to the main screen. Sometimes, a new recruit will join the team, or the player will receive a handbook on a certain skill, used to upgrade the stats of an individual soldier. The player can then choose to either play the game again on the same difficulty, or try a on a harder difficulty, which holds more rewards. This makes up the entire single player mode, along with a weapons training mode, and a boss rush battle, for testing out your squads. The game plays essentially the same, with the same controls, features and camera angles as before, so players of the original Portable Ops game should be comfortable as soon as they start they game. For newcomers, the game forces you to play through the easy mode first, so that you learn all the controls and basics of the game. The single player game is designed so that players can train their soldiers and equip them for multiplayer combat.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is obviously a multiplayer oriented title. As said before, the single player is geared towards preparing the player for multiplayer mode. Portable Ops Plus supports both Ad Hoc and Infrastructure mode. Players choose one of their squads, and they can entire deathmatches, team deathmatches, and "capture the Kerotan" mode, among a variety of others. Players can choose to play so that when a soldier dies, they lose that soldier, or where no soldiers are actually killed, and are returned at the end of each match. Players can also chat in rooms online, and trade soldiers between each other. A returning feature from Portable Ops is the Access Point scan recruiting feature. If you're near a wireless access point, Portable Ops can scan for the signal, pick it up, and recruit a soldier from the router. This feature has been improved upon, with the soldiers that you are attempting to recruit demanding things of you. When you have met these demands, equip your squad properly, scan the access point again, and the soldier will join your squad.

For those not interested in multiplayer, is Portable Ops Plus worth your money? The simple answer is yes. The game comes bargain priced, at twenty dollars. This is a must have for any Metal Gear fans, simply because of the variety of characters the player can control from throughout the Metal Gear series. While it does not have the story of Portable Ops, the mission stages are randomized enough for it to be different almost everytime. As a portable game, it's a great title, because you can easily pick it up, play, train your soldiers for a bit, and put it back down without too much attachment. Portable Ops Plus is should definitely be an addition in any PSP library.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/07

Game Release: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (US, 11/13/07)