Metal Gear Ac!d early impressions

[8 1/2]

First off, I want to say that these are early impressions, based only on playing through the first three missions. I'm going to just do a simple break-down by category on what I think so far.

Graphics: Really nice character models trapse around in fairly generic environments. Nothing that you couldn't really do on the PSone, but a solid effort none-the-less. Some nice gore effects highlight kills, and there are moments of nice animation too.

Artwork: The basic story is told through static comic book/manga sequences. All the artwork throughout these bits and on the cards themselves are really well done in that classic dirty Metal Gear Solid style, with lots of rough pencil lines left in on purpose to give everything a gritty and organic look that's totally unique.

Sound: Classic Metal Gear tunes, classic sound-effects. Nothing really new, but everything fits really well in the MG universe.

Gameplay: Ok, on to the meat and potatoes. First off, it's a card game, but not in the traditional "Battle" sense. By this, I mean that you're not going to be pitting your deck against every enemy you come across to see who has the best hand. Instead most cards seem to serve two functions: their own action and the ability to move. This sounds confusing, but really it's more difficult to explain that it is to execute. To explain: Most cards are based around actions or items. You will get cards for guns, mine detectors, armor, rations, and even just characters such as Genome Solidiers. You can equip some items like the bullet-proof vest which will obviously protect you if you get shot. Weapons or kung-fu attacks each have a range and can be used only when you are within striking distance of an enemy. Range is determined by how many squares on the grid you are from an opponent.

This is where it gets a bit odd and where the secondary movement action of each card comes into play. Each level is broken up into a grid, meaning that the hallways and bases you traverse are each made up of panels on the floor much like a traditional board game. Most cards then also serve as your means of movement. So, instead of firing off your socom pistol you can instead use the card to move a set number of spaces along the grid. You must use cards to move, so the balance then, it seems, is to decide which cards you will sacrifice for movement and which cards you will actually use for their intended function. Not all cards provide the same movement ability either. A bandage won't grant you the same movement potential as the Genome Soldier card. I'm not totally sure of exactly how it's calculated, but these amounts of movement seem to be based on the "cost" of the card. In this, each card has a cost which seems to effect it's power. The higher cost, the more powerful a card (I think, again I'm not totally sure on this just yet). You are then ranked at the end of each stage on a number of things like kills, number of times you were found and also the total amount of cost you have racked up in a stage. So, again it seems to come down to balance--forcing you to choose whether it's worth it or not to up your cost by using that machine gun to blow away a guard instead of trying to sneak past.

There is a certain level of frustration in this though, in that the game doesn't simply hand you your deck, but rather doles it out a few cards at a time, so it's possible that you may be facing an attacker, but have no way to fight back until the game deals you a gun or a spin-kick move card. In the brief bit I've played this wasn't really a problem as I always seemed to have enough cards to get by, but as the difficulty ramps up it may become bothersome.

All of this leads me to level design: The goal of the levels I played was simply to reach a certain point in the level. Go from point A to point B essentially. The trouble here is that being forced to use cards to move makes it very tedious to traverse a level, and a few times I realized I had gone the wrong way and simply restarted the level instead of waiting for my deck to replenish itself and slowly move back to where I was supposed to be. You see, you're only allowed a certain number of moves per turn, so it can take several "move" cards before you're in the position you want to be. Finding out you've headed for the wrong door could take a dozen turns to correct as you slowly inch along card-by-card.

Action too seems fairly limited as most attack cards will kill guards immediately. This is stilted, however, by the fact that you can't stockpile cards. You could potentially have enough machine gun cards to take out all the guards in a room, but you'd have to use some of them to move, and even then you can only use so many cards per turn anyway.

All of this isn't to say I don't like the game. It's very interesting, and very strategic. It's also the deepest game I have on the PSP right now, and it would make a great travel game as there's no real immediate action that would be hard to walk away from. So far, it seems like a worthy addition, though it's slow pacing and lack of action may turn off quite a few.

[CMoon]

First off, it's a card game.

You're shitting me...

[8 1/2]

First off, it's a card game.

You're shitting me...

Hey, you never know. Someone may have missed it... Ok, you're right that was dumb.

[judesalmon]

I'm loving it so far.

[CL@$$!C]

Nice avatar

[judesalmon]

Nice avatar

Ha Ha Ha! I was here first though...

[CL@$$!C]

Oh wellz, Dynamite Headdy is a badass too

I'll probly change mine to my Gunstar Red avatar from the Treasure forums ran by MrMonkeyMan.