本文是之前申请暴雪中文游戏测试员时仓促而作。申请虽然石沉大海，但辛苦写的东西若弃之不顾也实在可惜，因此还是发到这里给大家看着玩玩吧。
Kojima Production is a guarantee of hit to many military action game fans. But frankly speaking, MGS Peace Walker is not so great a sequel as its predecessors due to the limitation of PSP. The stages are much smaller and freedom limited; combats are easier with less enemies and more convenient CQC actions. Even the story is simpler: You can guess the end even before starting the game.
With all these being said, however, Peace Walker is still a great action game on PSP in that Kojima Production has pushed everything in that UMD to its possible extremity.
Graphics:
You know it’s PSP, and you cannot expect PS3 performance out of it. However, you can still have the PS3-like visual effects. With MSG’s signature real time rendering, game flow and story cut-ins are smoothly combined together, and details are maintained as much as possible.
The weapons in the hand, the textures on the uniforms, and the smooth movements of both Big Boss and the enemies, all these are signs of Kojima’s efforts to build a real, if not refined, world. You have a realistic feeling when you see Big Boss carefully crawling in the jungle, when you see the fingers of enemy soldiers when they are thrown by CQC, and even when you fight those huge unrealistic “metal gears.”
Between-stage storytelling is another highlight of Peace Walker. Similar to the last MGS o PSP, Peace Walker also uses comic animation flows to unfold the story. With the series’ unique drawing style, and the interaction and QTEs that keep players from being bored, Kojima has brought a different experience compared to the blockbuster-like MGS 4.
Game Play:
The whole game is pretty fluent. Long story is cut into short stages for the convenience for PSP players, who are usually on the move and pause the game a lot. Mission selection lets you replay previous stages at anytime with more advanced equipment.
The overall movement in game is smooth, although some latency exists when facing a lot of enemy. But still, that’s acceptable given that Peace Walker is on PSP. The only annoyance in my experience is the short delay between actions, such as using fulton recovery and crouch down, which made me spotted for many times.
The view angle has much improved from the last MGS on PSP. Probably the physical engine hasn’t evolved much, but somehow Peace Walker seems to offer a wider view. This, together with an easier angle control, let players detect the environment and enemies with more convenience.
Combat:
The unique fascination about MGS is “no kill” despite its military theme. Unlike in Halo and Gear of War, where you heroically run on the battlefield and “kill them all,” you have to play hide-and-seek with enemies, and the less you kill the higher score you’ll get. And with the introduction of Close Quarter Combat (CQC) since MGS 3, this stealth game series has evolved into infinite possibilities.
In Peace Walker we see a simplified but more effective CQC system. Moves are reduced to only holding and throwing, but all actions are gathered on one button, which is convenient on the portable console. Although it lacks the variety we see in MGS 3&4, the new system is more efficient in laying enemies down during the combat.
As compensation, Peace Walker adds the consecutive CQC mode, which zooms the game into bullet time and allows you to knock down multiple enemies as 
whole. Now here is the unrealistic part that I don’t really like despite its astonishing visuals. It’s usually hard to approach a group of enemy soldiers unnoticed, and even harder when noticed. And when you are ready for group CQC, usually you would alert others when you get you first guy, thus sounding the alarm. And you have to do consecutive CQC several times to truly knock out everyone, or they would keep climbing up. Therefore, when you finally knock down the whole group, probably you would find yourself surrounded by new reinforcements with a red HP meter, and then you should be ready for the CQC again.
Of course some would say you can throw smog grenade before approaching the group. Yes I can. I can throw the smog first and then turn on the night vision for group CQC for safety. But the point is, with that level of technology, why would I ever need to use CQC? I may as well stay aside and throw a sleeping grenade or use tranquilizing weapons, and then fire a recovery rocket to pack them home. Therefore, group CQC to me is a weak existence.
Boss Battle:
The trend “the bigger, the better” has also found its way into the game world, 
with bosses nowadays are ever larger, heavier, although not necessarily stronger. When standing in front of those huge AI weapons, I suddenly have the feeling of God of War or Wander and Colossus. Although previous MGS’s also feature huge metal gears, the feeling was never so strong.
When the growing boss size is coupled with a declining requirement of control skills, Kojima’s compromise to a bigger player group is obvious. I kind of miss Vamp, the Boss, Beauty & Beasts, because they are unique characters with unique experiences, and the ways to defeat them are unique, too. Well, in Peace Walker we still see challenging boss battles—like the tank, chopper, and the AI metal gears—but they are just kind of common machines you can beat with advanced equipment if not advanced skills.
The Recovery System
Now this is the most creative invention in the whole series. It’s serious, it’s funny, and it’s addictive. When you see the unconscious enemy soldiers hooked with balloons and dragged into the sky, you know this is just another odd taste of Kojima, just like the banana pistol and the porn magazines.
The Fulton Recovery System is a serious thing to capture enemies for your base development, and a great way clear all the “bodies.” But sometimes it just doesn’t make sense: How can you recover a soldier inside a building onto the chopper? At least I remember in Dragon Quest VIII, when you use the returning feather under a roof, you would hit right onto that.
The Mother Base:
“Foster & develop” is another popular trend nowadays. Big Boss says Outer Heaven needs a base, and therefore Kojima makes a base—another feature that justifies investing time into Peace Walker.
The base development in PW is unique, though. You don’t simply invest money;you have to invest people—the poor soldiers recovered by the recovery system. By assigning right people to the right place, you have a faster R&D process and a stronger combat unit for side missions.
You can even build your own metal gear. After fighting for this huge thing 
throughout the series, now we finally can have our own. Of course it needs parts that don’t come easily, but for those who keep re-challenging bosses for perfection, this is a decent reward. And just like other similar elements in Japanese games, successfully building a metal gear also leads to the true ending of the game—another hook for the time.
Plot:
As an action game, MGS series however owes half of its credits to its storyline. Many great action games have great stories, too, but none is like MGS in successfully telling such a complete, realistic and rich story with deep implications.
The game is the final piece in the Big Boss’ legendary life, completing the storyon how Outer Heaven was founded. Peace Walker is a nuke launcher, and the terrorist group Outer Heaven is in pursuit of world peace and freedom. In addition to these controversies is a Cold-War-based storyline as real as the history. The game brings us back to the time where not only ideology was split, so was people’s mind, and in that split world the game tries to reshape the series’ conflicting theme: peace vs. war, freedom vs. patriotism, sense of belonging vs. lonely heroism.
Kojima’s outstanding imagination blends once again with reality, and his distinctive understanding of politics is shown in the game’s political implications and futuristic foresight. The result is: We know the story is fictional, but somehow we all see it repeat over and over in the real world.
If not a game producer, Hideo Kojima would be an excellent military fictionist no worse than Tom Clancy.
Vetigial Firmament 
