If you have a hankering to watch nine minutes of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker footage, then you’re in luck. And if you were hoping that the game would make the series’ guards breathtakingly stupid again, you’re in luck too.
Sorry, Kojima-san – I’ve just watched nine minutes of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker in action, and I haven’t seen a lick of the “freshness” and “expanded gameplay” that you were talking about.
This isn’t to say that the PSP title doesn’t look good, mind you – it does – it just looks like the same as pretty much every other game in the series. Big Boss does have some new tricks up his sleeve, though: A sheet that instantly camouflages him, a decoy dummy he can set up to distract guards, and (most hilariously of all) a robot drone that will retrieve the unconscious-or-dead bodies of guards unlucky enough to be in Big Boss’ path.
The footage also demonstrates that Peace Walker will return to a series staple: amazingly stupid guards. I don’t know about you, but Kojima’s attempts at making his guards more competent never sat right with me. I want to fool guards with cardboard cutouts, dammit! I want to hide from them in plain sight by holding a sheet over my body! I want to crouch at a right angle from them, toss a marker at their feet and watch as my robot drone drops a crate on their head!
Okay, that last one is actually pretty hilarious.
Peace Walker is out this May.