Konami Gamers' Day 2005 Hands-On: Metal Gear Acid
What happens when you mix stealth action with turn-based card combat? We go hands-on to find out.
Published: January 31, 2005
We'll be the first to admit that there are a few strategy whores here in the office. Granted, not everyone here can lose themselves in an hour-long battle, but for those of us that can, the whole idea of mixing Metal Gear Solid's stealth action gameplay with turn-based card-driven strategy seems like an awfully tasty goulash.
Even with the Japanese release of the PSP and the availability of MGA overseas, though, most of us non-Japanese reading schleps still have no idea what's going on in Snake's first Sony handheld outing, and dammit, we want details. Luckily, we got just that when we finally got to go hands-on with the first English-translated version of the game at Konami's Gamers' Day event last week, and we've come back with plenty of storyline details.
Acid drops Snake onto Lobito Island, nestled in the deliciously fictitious Tejan Republic of South Africa sometime in the year 2016 after an airliner is hijacked over U.S. airspace by two bizarre looking clown-like twins a few days before. The pair use a nerve gas to sedate the full 500+ passenger complement -- including the President -- and threaten to detonate a bomb on the plane if it drops below 35,000 feet. Their demands are simple: give them something called Pythagoras, a weapon of some sort that on paper doesn't seem to exist.
Konami's demonstration of the gameplay basics cleared up a lot of the confusion that many of us had about what the gameplay actually entailed. Shinta Nojiri, the game's producer, walked the Gamers' Day crowd through the basics and then let us try our hand at translated version. We also got the surprising news that the U.S. version of the game would allow for wireless two-player multiplayer, nearly sealing the game's must-have status for strategy fans.
The actual card collecting bits were relatively simple. At the start of the game, a set of cards tailored specifically towards the opening tutorial's walkthrough is dispensed, and once you've passed the first mission, you're awarded points based on performance factors like the number of times Snake was spotted and the number of turns taken, which can then be used as currency to buy card packs with characters and items from both Metal Gear Solid and MGS2. The character cards were particularly interesting in that they allowed for massive attacks, complete with a short video intro for each before the attack. Nojiri showed off the Metal Gear Ray card from MGS2 which attacked a clump of four enemies with a hefty amount of overkill.
The actual turn-based gameplay is simple, and follows most grid-based strategy conventions. For each turn, you're allotted a set number of card uses, each of which has a specific action that can be carried out (attack, place item, etc.), or can be sacrificed to make a move, with the number of available squares apparently directly related to the card's tactical value or rarity, not unlike a Scrabble letter's points. If you choose to move, you pick the exact path (i.e. a deliberate zig-zag rather than just a point-a-to-point-b move), then choose the direction you can face (which in turn determines the actions you can take -- like attacking with a weapon card if you're facing towards an enemy), and whether to stand, crouch or go prone.
Moves can be linked together as combos, too, which Nojiri showed us by tossing a few grenades into a trio of enemies and then firing on them to get them to explode before the turn was over, showing the level of sophistication that goes into each turn. We also were treated to a sequence where Snake planted a claymore, then tapped the wall in classic MGS fashion to alert the guard, who promptly walked right into the claymore. The level of strategy in manipulating the events in the stack seems almost as important as movement and actions taken each turn.
For those worried that the game would lack the kind of word-heavy storylines that have become the series' hallmark, fear not. The introduction alone weighed in at a good couple minutes, told though text boxes and hand-drawn head shots (though no voice acting), and Konami promises plenty of storyline details between missions. If the interruptions we got during the first levels were any indication, inter-mission updates and storyline feeds should be commonplace as well.
While the 2D art is impressive, the 3D work isn't all that shabby either. Things seemed oddly blurred most of the time, and the overall texture detail wasn't quite as staggering as we originally thought, but the direction on cinemas was top-notch. Being that the game was turn-based, most of the animations are short, staggered bits, but what we saw was as smooth as one could hope for. This isn't the visual tour-de-force that will put the PSP on the map (right now it appears that title goes to Mercury), but then again it wasn't meant to be.
It'll be interesting to see if any of the English voices we've come to know and love from the series will be implemented to great measure, but the music, a sort of electronica-infused remix of Harry Gregson-Williams' MGS2 score, seemed more than up to task in the video montage we were treated to at the end of the Acid presentation. The music in the demo we played was fairly tense as well, though it wasn't quite as hard-driving.
MGA is the one title that really needs more play time before we can offer any sort of verdict on how it holds up in relation to the rest of the series, and right now the release date is still rather vague. Konami has said that they want to release the game here in the States when the PSP rockets onto (and likely off of) store shelves, but seemed a bit apprehensive about the date, offering only a "Spring 2005" deadline. Let's hope Spring gets here quickly.
Even with the Japanese release of the PSP and the availability of MGA overseas, though, most of us non-Japanese reading schleps still have no idea what's going on in Snake's first Sony handheld outing, and dammit, we want details. Luckily, we got just that when we finally got to go hands-on with the first English-translated version of the game at Konami's Gamers' Day event last week, and we've come back with plenty of storyline details.
Acid drops Snake onto Lobito Island, nestled in the deliciously fictitious Tejan Republic of South Africa sometime in the year 2016 after an airliner is hijacked over U.S. airspace by two bizarre looking clown-like twins a few days before. The pair use a nerve gas to sedate the full 500+ passenger complement -- including the President -- and threaten to detonate a bomb on the plane if it drops below 35,000 feet. Their demands are simple: give them something called Pythagoras, a weapon of some sort that on paper doesn't seem to exist.
Konami's demonstration of the gameplay basics cleared up a lot of the confusion that many of us had about what the gameplay actually entailed. Shinta Nojiri, the game's producer, walked the Gamers' Day crowd through the basics and then let us try our hand at translated version. We also got the surprising news that the U.S. version of the game would allow for wireless two-player multiplayer, nearly sealing the game's must-have status for strategy fans.
The actual card collecting bits were relatively simple. At the start of the game, a set of cards tailored specifically towards the opening tutorial's walkthrough is dispensed, and once you've passed the first mission, you're awarded points based on performance factors like the number of times Snake was spotted and the number of turns taken, which can then be used as currency to buy card packs with characters and items from both Metal Gear Solid and MGS2. The character cards were particularly interesting in that they allowed for massive attacks, complete with a short video intro for each before the attack. Nojiri showed off the Metal Gear Ray card from MGS2 which attacked a clump of four enemies with a hefty amount of overkill.
The actual turn-based gameplay is simple, and follows most grid-based strategy conventions. For each turn, you're allotted a set number of card uses, each of which has a specific action that can be carried out (attack, place item, etc.), or can be sacrificed to make a move, with the number of available squares apparently directly related to the card's tactical value or rarity, not unlike a Scrabble letter's points. If you choose to move, you pick the exact path (i.e. a deliberate zig-zag rather than just a point-a-to-point-b move), then choose the direction you can face (which in turn determines the actions you can take -- like attacking with a weapon card if you're facing towards an enemy), and whether to stand, crouch or go prone.
Moves can be linked together as combos, too, which Nojiri showed us by tossing a few grenades into a trio of enemies and then firing on them to get them to explode before the turn was over, showing the level of sophistication that goes into each turn. We also were treated to a sequence where Snake planted a claymore, then tapped the wall in classic MGS fashion to alert the guard, who promptly walked right into the claymore. The level of strategy in manipulating the events in the stack seems almost as important as movement and actions taken each turn.
For those worried that the game would lack the kind of word-heavy storylines that have become the series' hallmark, fear not. The introduction alone weighed in at a good couple minutes, told though text boxes and hand-drawn head shots (though no voice acting), and Konami promises plenty of storyline details between missions. If the interruptions we got during the first levels were any indication, inter-mission updates and storyline feeds should be commonplace as well.
While the 2D art is impressive, the 3D work isn't all that shabby either. Things seemed oddly blurred most of the time, and the overall texture detail wasn't quite as staggering as we originally thought, but the direction on cinemas was top-notch. Being that the game was turn-based, most of the animations are short, staggered bits, but what we saw was as smooth as one could hope for. This isn't the visual tour-de-force that will put the PSP on the map (right now it appears that title goes to Mercury), but then again it wasn't meant to be.
It'll be interesting to see if any of the English voices we've come to know and love from the series will be implemented to great measure, but the music, a sort of electronica-infused remix of Harry Gregson-Williams' MGS2 score, seemed more than up to task in the video montage we were treated to at the end of the Acid presentation. The music in the demo we played was fairly tense as well, though it wasn't quite as hard-driving.
MGA is the one title that really needs more play time before we can offer any sort of verdict on how it holds up in relation to the rest of the series, and right now the release date is still rather vague. Konami has said that they want to release the game here in the States when the PSP rockets onto (and likely off of) store shelves, but seemed a bit apprehensive about the date, offering only a "Spring 2005" deadline. Let's hope Spring gets here quickly.
