Metal Gear Ac!d - the review

[Euan]

‘Sequals are never better than the originals... apart from the Godfather’. Everyone has heard it at one point in their life, whether it be from a parent, a grandparent or a friend. Let’s give them credit, though - they are normally right. Normally is the key word. Metal Gear Ac!d 2 is still in development, with a few neat screenshots proving it’s looking fantastic and it could once again prove that saying wrong once again...

That’s not saying that Metal Gear Ac!d is a bad game. Konami’s first venture into the turn-based card genre - not the most popular type of game, that’s for sure - from the real-time stealth was something of a risk to the normal person. Konami haven’t built a huge fanbase, however, off making risks - they knew exactly what they were doing in creating a stepping stone for a potentially excellent series.

The year is 2016, and Solid Snake, the hero or the pervert depending on your viewpoint, returns from his retirement after hearing a presidential campaigner has been taken hostage on an aeroplane. Roger, your ‘codec buddy’ replaces Roy Campbell in directing you, and there’s an all new playable character - a sweet young girl named Teliko.

The story is intruiging to say the least with many enigma’s over the course of the game. Is Gary Murray quite the man he says he is? Just what is ‘Pythagoras’ exactly? What does Dr. Flemming have to do with the project? Who the hell is this man Hans Davies, and what does Solid Snake have to do with him? And, finally and most importantly, who the HELL are those dolls?

Although many aspects of the story may not appear to be linked, Konami, as they always do, pull everything together. Even if you don’t enjoy the gameplay as such, it is worth playing just to have all these questions answered.

I would love to be able to say ‘the gameplay is simple’ in Ac!d, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not. When you first switch on and start a new game, there is a very rushed tutorial, most of which isn’t taken in by the player. After that, it’s basically for you to work out how to play, with a few hints and tips inbetween levels your only saviour. They certainly could have made it easier, and the learning curve is pretty big - it could take you one or two hours to get fully used to it.

Despite playing through this game for nearly five hours, I still don’t fully understand the card system which says something in itself.

The essential parts which you must know to even begin to get this game are that Snake can move twice per move. In a basic deck, you should have all different types of cards - simple movement cards (all card can be used as movement, but you don’t exactly want to use your best weapons for moving do you?), some rations, some support cards for Teliko, some special moves (based on former characters of MGS’, they each do something different, for example ‘Sniper Wolfs’ increases your hit rate) and of course weapons. Depending on how powerful a weapon is, it can either be simply ‘used’ by pressing use, or if it’s more powerful then you have to equip and wait for ammo before you can begin shooting.

For attacking, you need to know how much damage you are going to throw out to a character. If you are behind or to the side of your enemy, it will increase the damage. When you have selected the weapon and found the target it will have four different statistics - ‘hit%’, which is the chances of the weapon hitting the enemy, the amount of damage times by the number of shots, the amount of health the enemy has and finally the chances of the enemy countering Snake/Teliko.

Although it’s all very complicated there is one simple fact regarding the gameplay - for the stealth game which Metal Gear as always been, it has the potential to work extremely well if there wasn’t some niggly features during play.

The camera is frustrating at times when trying to view things close to you, such as doors or air vents which you need to crawl under, though there is a useful ‘birds-eye view’ camera which can come in handy when planning a route to the goal. Due to it being a card game, when you have killed all nearby enemies and are nearing the end of a mission, it’s frustrating moving around as it is restricted to 4 spaces per move, which makes it pretty slow. One potential way of improving the game would be to have the traditional method of movement, clicking on the character and selecting where to move to instead of movement cards would work extremely well. I do, however, think the cards work well in terms of equipping body armour and using/equipping weapons.

The graphics as you’d expect for a Metal Gear are nice, crisp and clear. The ‘normal’, in-game graphics are very similar to Metal Gear Solid, but the cut-scenes are where MGA really excels. Rather than more-of-the same, the cut-scenes are hand-drawn, with the obvious touch of a Japanese hand and generally beautiful. It really works well, and creates a contrast to the normal graphics which we have come to expect from Metal Gear’s.

Yet another thing we have come to expect from the famous Konami series is ‘chilling’ music. Although it can get quite repetitive it creates something of a stealthy atmosphere and although is not music you’d freely listen to on your iPod, works well with the games mechanics.

The only unfortunate thing about MGA’s sound is the lack of voice acting. David Hayter, the man behind Solid Snake, has one of the best voices around and really it’s a disappointment not to see him in Ac!d. Voice acting isn’t used at all really, with the exception of guard ‘noises’ when they semi-spot you or when they’re being mutilated.

The final area to view is whether or not this game is truly worth your hard earned cash. With so many great games around just now, it’s hard picking just which ones to get and which ones to leave alone.

The lifespan of this game could be pretty short, could be long depending on how you play games. I’m not much of a collecter and don’t think much of 100%ing games. If, however, you do like to do that sort of things, you can collect all the cards or try different things with various missions (eg, play without getting spotted, killing every guard, etc). To play straight through isn’t bad. Although some who don’t enjoy games like this may find it a chore, it’s an enjoyable ten-twelve hours and the story will certainly pass most of the time. Due to it being pretty difficult as well, replaying missions to complete may also prove a challenge to some.

Even though it’s non-related to MGS, fans of that particular series will fondly recognise the story as being good enough for an MGS. With good music, addicting and rewarding gameplay and a good enough length, it’s well worth a shot or a rent to see if you like the change. It’s obvious that turn-based battling works well for stealth games, but because it’s never really been attempted before, there are some areas which could have been improved.

Storyline: 9.5/10 There’s so many questions to be answered, but it is a little text heavy with no voice acting - will it lose you?

Gameplay: 7.5/10 A little confusing to get used to and to play, but rewarding and pretty deep. Works well with the stealth genre.

Sound: 8/10 Good music, definately works well with MG’s as they have proved time in, time out, but the lack of voice acting is pretty disappointing.

Lifespan: 8/10 Not the longest of games you’ll ever play, but it’s certainly long enough and pretty challenging. Plenty to collect and there’s also multiplayer modes to play through.

Overall: 8.3/10 (not an average - Definately better than what was said about it, but still not quite perfect. Worth a rent to check if you like the gameplay.

[bignds]

Nice review, an improvement from your last.

[chuddy_2001uk]

Another quality review from Euan.

It's a very polished review with some excellent english in there. Could of had some specific titles for each portion of the review thoughas you jump from one thing to the next pretty rapidly. Overall, it's very good. Well done Euan, you get chuddy's...thumbs up!