Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Thoughts
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Thoughts
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is the 2nd Metal Gear Solid game in the game series’ chronology (see my Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater post for the explanation). Peace Walker is a bit of an oddity in that it is a mainline Metal Gear Solid game but was originally only released on the Sony PSP and because of that, I feel like it went a little under the radar.
Peace Walker takes place in 1974, 10 years after the events of Snake Eater. We now know that Naked Snake aka Snake aka Jack aka John is actually Big Boss. This will be more important as we continue through the series, but if you’ve ever heard of Big Boss then you know that this particular Snake is not Solid Snake, who becomes our main character starting in the original Metal Gear games and beyond.
Once again, there’s a lot of political and military influences here due to the events started with Snake Eater but also with the location and time period. Nuclear threat still plays a central part to the in-game story as do real life events. The Cold War continued to influence the world and during the 1970s, the Nicaraguan Revolution took place. The United States supported the existing Somoza regime while the Soviet Union supported the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front). After multiple attacks, kidnappings and sieges, the FSLN eventually controlled the majority of Nicaragua and forced Somoza out of the country. There was much tension in the region at the time and the US and Russia played a big part in those tensions on both sides. Peace Walker takes place around the region where all of this is happening and touches on the events both literally and thematically.
What I Liked 😃
Let’s Build a Base
Anyone who knows me or has been reading this newsletter for a while knows I like games that have base building. Seeing a visual progression of a hub area or a town or whatever adds a sense of accomplishment and progress that is hard to beat. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has base building and so therefore, I like it just a little bit more.
Peace Walker isn’t structured like any other Metal Gear Solid game. Instead of a linear cinematic story or an open world game, Peace Walker is split into various missions that are initiated from a hub area. The hub area isn’t a fully realized place, it’s just a bunch of menus. As you go on these various missions, Snake can capture soldiers, collect items and gain GMP (Gross Military Product) which acts as a currency in the game. After collecting enough GMP, Snake can choose to upgrade Mother Base which is the name of the main base of operations. Again, all of this is done via a menu rather than a fully realized 3D space, which is kind of a bummer. But nonetheless, various sections of Mother Base can be built and upgraded such as a prison, mess hall, sickbay and more. New weapons and equipment call also be researched that can then be used in the field. Soldiers have morale that needs to be managed, and each soldier can be assigned to a part of Mother Base. Morale can be affected by the amount of room the base has, the types of soldiers who make up the base and more.
It’s kind of like a little simulation game within a Metal Gear Solid game. There are the missions which look and feel just like what you would expect from the franchise. But upon returning to Mother Base, you are managing resources and staff. It became a pretty addictive game loop to bring home a bunch of soldiers and money and then figure out how to distribute everything and which parts of the base to upgrade first.
Like a Big Boss
A big chunk of Big Boss’s development occurs within Peace Walker. He still prefers to go by Snake, but his official title is Big Boss. He leads a mercenary group with his buddy Kaz Miller who will become more important in later entries but still plays an integral part in this game.
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Snake finds out that the Boss, his former mentor, was used as inspiration for the AI within the Mammal Pod portion of the deadly Peace Walker machine and he is thrown for a loop. He loved his mentor after all and so to hear her voice coming out of the very thing he is meant to destroy must have been difficult. At the same time, Snake is still trying to come to terms with killing the Boss in Snake Eater and understanding the sacrifices she made and why.
On top of that, Snake is building an autonomous army. An army of soldiers that can live by their own terms. An “Outer Heaven” if you will 😉.
There are two endings to Peace Walker, and both address the struggles Snake has been dealing with over the course of the two games. One deals with the end of the Peace Walker weapon, reminding Snake of the rollercoaster ride that the Boss took him on. The other deals with betrayal, the forming of Outer Heaven and sending him down an arguably more “villainous” path.
What is great about all of this is that the story is partly told using a semi-interactive comic book style. Instead of building fully rendered 3D cutscenes, presumably to save money and because the game originally released on the less powerful PSP, comic book panels drawn by artist Ashley Wood tell the bulk of the story. I actually didn’t mind this approach, and it was cool to see all the wonderful artwork. If you know Ashley Wood’s work, you know his style doesn’t deal with crisp clean lines, there’s an abstract-ness to it. So, it might turn some folks off.
What I Didn’t Like ☹️
PSP Controls
The single thing that makes Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker very frustrating and frankly not very fun are the PSP controls. The PSP is a great handheld system, and I love that it exists. But I just don’t think there are enough buttons for this particular game or maybe the idea for the implementation needed more time to cook.
The PSP only has one analog stick which isn’t really a stick, it’s more of a nub. This makes precision and control of Snake difficult. Since there’s no second analog stick, camera control is relegated to the face buttons. If you own a PSP, you can imagine how odd this is for a Metal Gear Solid game. Switching out weapons and equipment involves cumbersome combinations of buttons.
I would recommend taking the approach I used after getting fed up, which was using the Transfarring feature within Peace Walker. This allows you to copy over the save data from the PSP to your PS3. The PlayStation 3 controller is immensely better and negates this entire section because it plays just like you would expect due to the two analog sticks and button mappings. It does eliminate the portable aspect, however.
Overall Thoughts 🤔
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is an underrated game. I don’t think it got as much acknowledgement or praise as the other games in the series. That’s a shame because the game really is pretty good, has some great story beats involving Snake and his emotions about his dead mentor and is really the precursor/prequel to the last game released in the series: Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain. You can see so many similarities between Phantom Pain and Peace Walker. I think the PSP controls really hindered the game and might have even caused a lot of players to bounce off it rather quickly.
Where Can I Play This? 🕹️
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is most easily playable via the Metal Gear Solid: Legacy Collection for the PS3. However, as of now, there is not an updated re-release of the game. There is speculation that the (hopefully) upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2 will contain Peace Walker, but that has not been confirmed as of yet.
I played Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker physically on the PSP and using the Transfarring feature on the PS3.
absolute slept on banger!