Them Glass Slippers
Kojima is wise to develop Peace Walker for the PSP and not actual consoles. By relegating the great"MGS5" to an inferior handheld platform, the game is guaranteed to be held to a much lower standard than it would be otherwise. He can cut corners anywhere he wants (read: story, presentation, length, controls, design and audio) and people will simply forgive it, because "It's a PSP game." And surely thegame will be great... for a PSP game... even if it doesn't begin to match the quality of a full installment. Factor in the emphasis on cooperative multiplayer and you have the perfect distraction, too — like a pair of shiny glass slippers on a crack whore.
I look forward to reading the words "Best played with other people" as a caveat for bad design, or even lack of content. What, you didn't enjoy the game? Did you play it with 3 other people? Well no WONDER you thought it was bland and generic! Go play it properly! In fact it's already being said:
And it's obvious that Peace Walker is heavily structured to be a multiplayer experience. It's story-driven, yes, but the game plays consistently whether solo or working with others. For instance, bringing up a menu or hitting the Start button doesn't pause the game, even in a single-player game. Kojima wants you to play this with a friend, and you should.
Of course it's fun when you play with a friend! Scrabble can be fun when you're playing with a friend. The "multiplayer experience" is a shortcut; a cop-out. There's no story reason why Big Boss needs war buddies, and there's no design reason either. Metal Gear is supposed to be the perfect solo experience, feeling totally alone deep in enemy territory. Pulling away from that is a clear sign that something isn't right. But, sadly, it's enough to entertain the simpleminded, along with super-neato Ashley Wood cutscenes (yay?) and really real canon story! It will be a 9/10, guaranteed, and the Prince will be happy indeed... Until the clock strikes midnight, that is.
The Clock Strikes Midnight
Yes, as the story goes, the magical fashion of the Fairy Godmother can only last for so long, until it suddenly turns to shit. The Pumpkin Lowrider turns back into a jackolantern, the latex dress turns back into stinky rags, and the full set of white teeth turn back into a few gnarled stumps. So it could be with Peace Walker. After the hype and momentum dies down, we'll be left staring at what the game truly is: a bad spinoff.
No matter how often Kojima may try to call Peace Walker "MGS5", it's still a spinoff at heart. A non-numbered, multiplayer, prequel, on the PSP? Let's not fool ourselves. Strip away the novelties, and you're left with an inferior product that will (most likely) serve to further mangle the storyline, not patch it together or elevate it. Considering that it apparently continues from Portable Ops, it's already doomed to either A) retcon everything, or B) awkwardly follow a story that nobody cares about. When push comes to shove, those glass slippers are going to shatter.
The controls are a perfect example of the double-standard this game will get. Despite the shining reviews, I played the 
demo and found them to be boring and unintuitive. Yes, I'm sure it's much better than Portable Ops, but that's not saying much. It's certainly not better than Metal Gear Solid 4, so why include an over-the-shoulder camera at all? The original version of MGS3 had the same top-down view as its predecessors, and that was fine. A dynamic camera is good if you have large seamless areas, but we're dealing with small linear paths here! What's the point of making it easier to get lost? Or harder to aim? Or to see what's around you? This would be an ideal opportunity for Kojima to revive the top-down view that the series was known for, but instead we have fumbling "Westernized" gameplay, with the inevitable need to compensate for it in the process.
As countless games have proven in the past, bad controls are "balanced" by dumber enemies, bigger health bars, and more powerful attacks: all traits you can see in Peace Walker. "You can't aim properly? Don't worry, these guys are idiots!" At least the old games seemed to realize this, and placed the emphasis on avoiding combat. (You know, that whole "stealth espionage" thing?) Cooperative multiplayer, however, is the pinnacle of balancing shortcuts. How can anyone say whether a certain challenge is balanced when it allows you to play by yourself, or with 3 extra players at once?
Of course, this fairy tale is not yet finished. Metal Gear AC!D² showed us the merits of a game truly designed with the weaknesses of the PSP in mind, and it did an excellent job; while Peace Walker promises to walk the fine line and live up to all of its hype. Could Kojima really be back in his old groove, and "make the impossible, possible"? If so, he will have redeemed himself in the eyes of so many jaded Metal Gear fans. If not, MGA² will still be sitting alone in the basement, beautiful and unwanted, wishing that the Fairy Godmother would bring her back in style.
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