Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker

In Central America, amidst the back drop of the Cold War, nuclear tensions are being stretched and you as Big Boss, AKA Snake, are going to sort it all out and build an army in the process. Peace Walker has taken a look at its predecessors and noted what's worked and what's not. As a PSP exclusive it has in depth story and game play that works well on its chosen system by being dished out in bite sized chunks that can be oh so moreish and some co-op multiplayer to boot.



Peace Walker is half action game and half management sim. Of course game play is geared towards the action side but rather than being one continuous game it's doled out in missions that can take between 30 seconds and 30 minutes to complete, that's including the cut scenes for those weary of the series' pretention to putting whole movies between game play chunks. The opening prologue is probably one of the longest parts giving you a short brief of events in Metal Gear Solid 3 before introducing you to the current scenario. You're given a quick tutorial to the new control style drilled out by one of Snakes Militaires Sans Frontières soldiers and then dropped into a stylised animated comic book cut scene that sets the games storyline in motion. Snake is leading a small nomad mercenary group currently based in Columbia with the help of Kaz Miller. He's asked by a man claiming to be a university professor, Galvez, and his peace obsessed student Paz to kick a CIA backed army out of Costa Rica, a nation that's banned an institutionalised military. You do a bit of shooting and sneaking to get used to the controls before another set of cut scenes raises the stakes even higher. It turns out that Galvez is a KGB agent who's funding the local resistance, the Sandinistas, and the CIA is bringing nukes into the area. Why would Snake want to help the commies expand their influence in the region and fight his former employers? Because Galvez has a cassette with the voice of his mentor The Boss on it, a woman who Snake assassinated at the end of Metal Gear Solid 3. So to investigate the origins of this mysterious tape and in the name of peace for Costa Rica Snake begrudgingly accepts the mission and the game begins proper.




The hub of the game is Mother Base, the management portion of the game. At the start of the game you can assign your starting troops to a couple of teams and start a bit of research or just go straight to the mission listing. You're not overloaded at the start as the game eases you into its various mechanics as you play through the story. On the mission screen you start off with 3 missions that eventually balloon into over 100. Story missions have you either sneaking about levels that are split into several small areas completing an objective or facing off a boss in all out warfare, usually a tank or helicopter backed up by a few hardened soldiers or one of the games giant AI machines. There's enough variety in the missions and levels so you don't feel like you're doing the same thing over and over, fortunate because if you get hooked you will end up doing the levels again. At the end of a mission you'll be ranked on how well you did, with your paltry set of equipment at the start of the game you won't be able to get top marks first time around. Later you'll be coming back with new weapons, items and outfits either to get a better rank or to find hidden goodies you couldn't get at before.

Side missions add a nice break from the main story and a bit of variety with defence, elimination, collection and paparazzi levels to name a few but the diversity is destroyed by the same bloody boss battles appearing about 50 times. It's not even the fun robot battles either but slightly different versions of tanks and helicopters that appear in the main storyline. It's a poor do when you have all these repetitive boss battles and only one 'ghost photography' mission. Maybe Konami could have got away with this if they put an inordinate about of other side missions in too. Lucky you can ignore this repetition with no great loss, except maybe one of the game many, many weapons.



The missions also link in with the management side of the game as you collect soldiers and items to boost Militaires Sans Frontières army and armoury. All enemy soldiers can be knocked out and recruited by using a Fulton recovery balloon which whisks them back to Mother Base, where after a short time in the brig they'll be yours to command. The same goes for prisoners of war less the KOing and brig part. You can also gain troops as they volunteer automatically or through the recruitment option in Mother Base. The recruit system scans for nearby wireless access points and when found lets you play a mission where you knock a load of people out using close quarters combat and then they're yours. If you use the same access point you get less potential troops with weaker skills so it helps to go out and about with your PSP as this is one of the best ways to get strong soldiers for your cause. You don't actually access the wifi point either so you don't have to hound anyone for a password, it's great if you're on the bus as you can just detect random wifi points as you go by and build up your army quickly. The whole point of building an army is to expand Mother Base by assigning your troops to combat, research, medical, intel and mess hall teams. The troops have 5 corresponding stats so it's usually obvious which team to put them in. Most important is combat and research, combat builds up GMP a type of currency you spend on research and development so you can access more powerful weapons. As you build up your base's stats and find weapon designs in the missions you'll be able to develop ridiculously powerful equipment, something you'll be wanting for the later boss battles in the game. Your combat team can also be sent on 'outer ops' missions, along with the tanks and helicopters that you get from them many boss missions, winning these gives you access to even more weapons and items to research.



All this base management and mission replaying works as one of the games strong points as the game is crammed full of things to do once you've run through the main storyline. The story is intriguing and you don't have to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Metal Gear Solid to get sucked into it. Sticking to the main missions the story flows smoothly and you don't get characters worries jammed down your throat while you're trying to play the game. But those in love with the series do get their fill too, there're a lot of cues to events yet to come in MGS 1, 2 and 4 with a lot of information coming from characters in non mandatory briefing files; from useful details about enemies and mission areas to character developing views on the film 2001 a Space Odyssy and Frances disposition to unrest. More so, after the main story there another chapter that reveals the true intentions of the characters that draw themselves to Snake and cements Peace Walker in the conspiratorial ideologies that make up the series. It even lets you develop your own Metal Gear from scavenged parts of the games 4 boss mechs and battle it in a simulation training mission or send it out with your troops in the outer ops.

With the help of an amazing musical score and excellent visuals for the PSP Peace Walker makes its self a game that you can spend hours pottering about in. With that 'just one more mission' game play that allows for a quick sortie or two when out and about or an extended session when at home Peace Walker promises hours of fun. It's a pity it's on the PSP, a console that no one seems to be interested in, but it wouldn't feel right on any other system. My main gripe is that its selling point is its co-op play but it fails to use the internet to realise that, allowing only for local PSPs to connect to each other. Not being able to utilize the multiplayer leaves me wanting, but by enlarge there's enough to keep you entertained with solo play. Metal Gear fan or not, if you have a PSP you should seriously consider getting this game.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood

Assassins Creed is a tale of treacherous corruption throughout history, making up stories about real locations and historical characters that weave a sinister web from past to present culminating in every conspiracy theorists wet dream. Told through the genetic memories of Desmond Miles with the help of a magic chair called the Animus you're transported into the bodies of his ancestors to free run around historical cities, stab people in the face and help some 2012 folk find some magic artefacts. In Assassins Creed Brotherhood you're once again transported into the brain of Ezio Auditore, protagonist of Assassins Creed II, this time in Renascence Rome to stop the evil plans of Cesare Borgia and his Templar cronies, grow an army of assassins and spruce up the city in your spare time.



Ubisoft has looked at Assassins Creed II, an excellent game in its self, and decided it needs more. Looking at Brotherhood you be tempted to think that this is AC2 all over again, it's got the same stunning graphics, the same parkour mechanics and the same stalk and stab missions that are the core of the series. But like the man who didn't think his house was good enough they've extended it and given it a bit of a remodelling. It's not Assassins Creed 3 but Assassins Creed 2 part 2, it even continues directly after its predecessor left off. Ubisoft has listened to its fans and filled in the cracks that AC2 had.

After the first hour or so of the game, which serves as a recap of what's happened previously and a tutorial of the basic controls you'll be dropped off into Rome where the core game takes place. Take a look at the map and you won't find a useful reference tool but a massive mess that the Borgia has left behind. The basis of the game is you just run around the place looking for things to do. Destroying towers so you can expand your assassin army, finding treasure to get more out of the shops, reminiscing about you're lost love in Florence, collecting 101 little flags; there's so much to do it's mind boggling. With all this faffing around you'll feel this is an eclectic sandbox game. Fortunately if you can't be bothered with all these extra frills you can just get stuck into the main missions with no great loss but if you're willing to get a bit adventurous you can leave the expanse of Rome for some fun platform style dungeons or some sneak and destroy action quests. However you approach it is up to you.

For a game where you supposed to be a stealthy assassin there's a heavy emphasis on combat but with the new mechanics it's made much more fluid. If you're spotted by a guard you can hold of a full on assault by quickly taking them out with your crossbow or call on your recruited assassin brothers and sisters to jump out of the shadows and do the dirty work for you. If it descends in to full blow combat being surrounded turns into a one man massacre as you chain a counter blow into a series insta-kills. Of course you can run and hide but it seems redundant as Ezio is a one man army even without his assassin kin. If you're feeling particularly lazy and you have enough recruits you can even call on a hail of arrows to take out every guard in the area at the push of a button. It has a tendency to make the game too easy if you're a seasoned gamer, so getting the most fun out of combat oddly requires you to show some restraint in your arsenal.



As you free run around Rome through the streets, up the walls and over the roof tops it becomes apparent how much life has been breathed into the city. Its citizens who provide places to hide and obstacles to push through don't just feel like mindless zombies but emulate a bustling city. The streets are alive with performers, drunks, couples and crowds who complain when you brush up against them, stop and root when you start a fist fight and run in terror when you start spilling blood. It's got the same ambiance and beauty you might have seen in the previous games but now it blends seamlessly with the countryside peppered with hills and valleys and virtually impassable cliffs. Odd that a man who can climb any building can't find a foothold in a cliff face so you push someone off a horse and race about the place until you can find the slope to the town atop the hill you want to get up. The seamless nature of the map allows you to plough your horse through the city streets, no city gates with invisible walls to make you get off your steed this time. They've taken the gallop button out of the main map in Rome, annoying but as you speed down the city streets the reason becomes apparent. The game can't load the massive map fast enough as you race your horse down the complex avenues so it has a tendency to hang for a second or two and it becomes more frequent if you're making a mad dash from one side of the city to the other. For those equine enthusiasts your horse regains its old gallop skill in the smaller side mission maps, though these are more liner they do provide more interesting horse races. The side missions that take you out of the main Rome map usually show Brotherhood in a platformer style light with its more intricate climbing puzzles, epic chases and in depth stealth areas. The Leonardo War Machine missions provide some particularly off beat renascence jollies giving you access to prototype tanks, areal bombers and machine guns among other things.



New to the series is the multiplayer mode which joyfully rewards you for stealth and skill rather than number of kills. It brings back the assassin side of the game even though it's played through the eyes of the antagonist organisation Abstergo. Each player chooses a character at the beginning of a match and the game revolves around stalking one other player assigned at random and killing them as stealthily as possible whilst keeping an eye out for other players who are after you. The challenge comes from discerning your opponents from the crowds of NPCs which are all clones of the player models. Kill the wrong character and you lose your prey and you're assigned another target. Spot an enemy before they attack you and you can stun them or run and hide. If you're successful they lose you as a target and you earn some extra points for staying alive. It's refreshingly different from the standard murder fests that most multiplayer games are.



On the surfaces Assassins Creed Brotherhood does look a bit too much like its predecessor but all is forgiven as the game opens its self up to you. There's enough to keep you entertained for hours on end with its multitude of missions, it's management mini-game that has you sending your assassins throughout Europe to do their devious errands, the inquisitive 'truth' puzzles that outline Templar plots throughout history and even some VR training missions thrown in for good measure. It provides enough fresh material and replayability that makes this game £40 well spent.

Fallout New Vegas

Fallout New Vegas, it's good, it's bad and it's questionably ugly. It's essentially a Wild West take on the familiar Fallout 3 formula, the free roaming post apocalyptic RPG where you decide how things go down.


You begin by having your face blown off. Then with the help of a friendly neighbourhood doctor you reconstruct your face, select your gender, choose your stats and away you go into the Mojave Wastes. From there you have a whole world to explore full of quests to do, things to find and NPCs to meet. As you explore you'll find various factions such as the New California Republic (the good guys), The Legion (the baddies) and a whole bunch of others all just trying to get by in this crazy new world. They'll be giving you jobs to do and in return you'll be getting cash (known as caps) and respect from the particular faction. Respect builds your reputation in the world and steers the course of how you interact with the factions later down the line. It's not all about being good or evil though, the choices you make never have that obvious dichotomy, it's more about making the best out of the current situation. This might infuriate some players who want to do the whole thing in one play through as seemingly minor choices often close off avenues later on but it all add to building a world that you have an impact on. For me, this is the games best feature and it will keep me coming back for more.

All is not well in the world of New Vegas though. The game suffers from a whole plethora of problems. Some just niggle at the whole immersiveness of the game whilst others downright destroy it.

The play itself brings role playing game elements into a first person shooter environment. The combat is usually intense and you're opponents are quick, often hard to pinpoint with your crosshairs, but this is helped out by the VATS targeting system that pauses the game and allows you to aim at your opponents extremities with varying degrees of accuracy depending on your skill with a weapon and distance from them. If you manage to find a companion they can make combat easier sometimes or they can make it horribly frustrating by walking in front of your line of sight. The speed of the combat is contrasted by your ponderous march across the waste. Though slow it's not too boring, there's all sorts of things to discover out there to prevent tedium from setting in. Ruined cities and bunkers have their own stories that are unravelled through hacking into old computers, reading notes and generally scrounging about the place. Small stores weave together with bigger ones and the greater storyline of the game is pieced together out of little tales making the exploring worthwhile outside of gaining in game worldly treasures.

The whole experience is marred by the games stability though. You'll want to spend hours exploring but game play can easily be broken by the frequent freezes. Nine times out of ten the game will carry on after a second or so but every so often a freeze turns into a total crash forcing you to reboot your system. Having to reload after being mauled to death is one thing, reloading after a crash that is totally out of your hands just leaves you with a bitter feeling about the product.

Total crashes aside the game suffers from many other problems. Sometimes you'll find creatures clipping into the landscape unable to move. The sound suffers from odd screeches and pops. And the graphics, though often stunning, can show signs of the engines strain on the system.


From standing atop a peak, surveying the wasteland to inspecting the crumbling interior of a shack this game can look rather good but in places the graphics start to fall down. Roaming from place to place you'll notice scenery and character models popping up in the middle distance. A billboard fading into existence is a forgivable glitch but when a clutch of deathclaws fades into view 50 metres in front of you after you've surveyed the scene and deemed it to be clear can be rough, especially after they've disembowelled you. Textures have a habit of not loading as you approach. You'll find yourself crossing a sharp line from richly detailed ground to a blurred mess which suddenly remembers your on top of it and changes to the appropriate hi -resolution texture. And if you're playing on a big TV it's easy to notice that this game doesn't go above 720p as you pass a tuft of pixelated grass.

New Vegas is a good game but it suffers from its lack of polish. It seems like creators have put an incredible amount of effort into the world and then rushed to release the game, forgetting to check that the world is playable. When shelling out £40 for a new game you want the thing to feel finished, right now I feel like I'm playing a half arsed product that will eventually be fixed when I buy their up and coming downloadable content.

I want to love this game, but when I start to get seriously involved it just throws everything back in my face. But if you're ready to look past its foibles you can seriously get your monies worth out of this game.