Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus isn’t some amazing new washing powder – in the usual MGS way it’s a sort of remix and expansion, the sort we’ve seen with Substance and Subsistance on the PS2.
The award-winning original which came out last year had you intrigued with a great story and a fantastic multiplayer experience which had you choosing a squad of players, then fighting others online. You could even win cherished characters from opponents and keep them – forever! Unfortunately, this version of the game takes out any single player story and instead has you playing random missions with varying objectives, capturing and levelling up soldiers and equipping them the best you before going into battle.
Without the story, Portable Ops Plus seems plain confusing, especially if you haven’t played the first game. If you have played the first game, you’ll be disappointed by the extras on offer here, it’s something that would have been better as a downloadable expansion pack.
When playing online there are five multiplayer modes which support a maximum of six players. There’s the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch and a target shooting game which doesn’t give you any extra ammo mid-game so if you run out, that’s game over then. There’s also a dozen maps and the new Rex Hangar map which you’ll recognise from the finale of Metal Gear Solid.
It looks and sounds the real deal but the menus are complicated and there are far too many button presses when equipping items and sending messages to people online. The Pokémon-style appeal of collecting soldiers including the older Snake from MGS4 and Raiden may appeal to some but I can only really recommend this to die-hard MGS fans. Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus gets an average 5 out of 10.
