Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Let’s just go with MPO+ instead. MPO+ is a first-person shooter set in the mercenary underworld of South America in the early 1970s. This isn’t just another run-and-gun shooter; the missions are stealthy, and a violent run-in with a couple of bad hombres at once can be permanently discouraging. In fact, stealth is such a major factor that you have a constant gauge monitoring the sound you’re making as well as the sounds of nearby enemies, and an additional icon shows up (a chameleon!) when you’re hidden from view.
MPO+ is based on the popular Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, but it’s designed primarily for multiplayer gaming, which is why there is little or no plot to be found in it. The higher levels are (or at least seem to be, if they’re not) completely random. There’s no real story to the game — no way to justify your missions. You’re simply going on mission after mission (called “infinity mission”), capturing or killing enemy troops across unpredictable, but similar, urban battlefields. Capturing them is much more rewarding since prisoners may end up joining your team!
As you progress through the game capturing enemy soldiers and adding some of them to your team, you will have many more options available going into each mission. You can choose a team that emphasizes stealth or one that uses technology or weapons. Since you can store up to 200 of these captured teammates, this lends some variety to the otherwise repetitive missions. If you have Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, you also can import your teammates from that game to jumpstart your unit. A number of preset characters also are available from throughout the previous Metal Gear Solid games. If you’re familiar with the saga, you’ll recognize many of these characters.
Aside from the aforementioned “infinity mission” mode, you also can play in “shooting range” mode to practice multiplayer Deathmatch games against the AI. Another available option is “training mode” to speed up your skill with the controls. I found both of these game modes useful to prepare me for the higher random levels, and I imagine they would help with multiplayer gaming, although I did not have the opportunity to try that for myself.
The enemy’s AI isn’t stupid. Enemies will advance on you, make good use of cover and shoot accurately when they find you. They’ll also call for backup and go on a higher state of alertness once you’ve been spotted, and they’ll look around cautiously if they hear you crunching gravel nearby. I even like the way they make use of riot shields in some cases, bringing their own cover with them as they advance on you. They also can use those shields effectively in hand-to-hand combat, so be careful! I recommend claymores or TNT for those guys, unless you enjoy shooting their feet out from under them.
I like this game — it’s fun! If you’re like me and are thinking you might prefer something with authenticity and realistic weapons, not chirping frogs and random levels, you might be surprised. Even though that’s what I usually look for in FPS games, I still enjoyed it. It’s not designed to be an historical game like the Call of Duty series or a mission-planning game like the Rainbow Six series. Really, the worst part of this game is that the PSP controls are just not very good for FPS gaming. Still, MPO+ manages to do a pretty good job of providing moving and shooting controls that let you succeed — probably because this game was designed for the PSP right from the beginning!
Paradoxically, I think it’s some of the “gamey” aspects of MPO+ that I like so much. Silly chirping frogs that hide on the ground so you have to crawl around to find them (Why? Because they give you items!), brightly colored mission end and return points, and allies hiding in cardboard boxes waiting for you to give them prisoners all add to the zany appeal of this game. Sure, there are plenty of lethal weapons — the rocket-propelled grenade is my favorite — but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as sneaking up behind an enemy and punching him in the kidneys, then shaking him around to make him drop his “phat lewt” before you dump him in the back of the truck so he can be sent back to headquarters for evaluation as a possible recruit.
Even with all of the silly bits, I like that the game still manages to include many traditional military FPS aspects. Numerous weapons are provided, including pistols, rifles, rocket launchers, mines, grenades and TNT, among others. Rations can be eaten to increase your stamina, and medical kits can be used to recover your health. Secret documents and other items of interest can be found or captured. You can roll, jump, run, sneak, crouch, hide, go prone, climb, punch and grapple. You can drag unconscious enemies or use them for cover. The only thing lacking is a real plot.
Overall, I’d recommend this game to anyone who likes any of the other games in this series or who is looking for a simple shooter to while away their time, particularly if you like multiplayer gaming. If you really need the story, get plain-old Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops instead.
