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Metal Gear Online Starter Pack
June 23, 2008 | 5:59 PM PST
by: Nick Michetti
Kombo's Review Policy:
Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game's About
Metal Gear Online is an online third-person shooter that supports up to sixteen players. It is based around the stealth action principles of the Metal Gear franchise and is powered by the Metal Gear Solid 4 engine. Bundled with MGS4 is a Metal Gear Online "Starter Pack," an offering of MGO's basic foundation, which will be expanded upon by future downloadable content and updates.
What's Hot
Metal Gear Online, as mentioned above, is a third-person online shooter built with the principles of Metal Gear. What does that mean? It means that MGO is not a "frag anything and everything" shooter. It's slower paced with a fewer players and a focus on on-a-dime kills, which emphasizes strategy over fragfests. Think of Doom and Quake as lightning-paced games of frag checkers -- if that's the case, then MGO is a fine-tuned game of war chess. Just like chess, MGO can be a game of positioning, strategy and knowing when to strike. You'll need to know the best places to hide in and attack from in order to do your very best. There's a maximum of sixteen players on any given map, who are all setting up their own attack strategies. A great part of the fight is knowing the strengths of each map -- i.e. the close-quarters situation in Blood Bath or medium-range warfare in Groznyj Grad -- and using them to your advantage. There are only a few maps (the maps from the beta and a few new ones), but each one is well designed and offers maximum opportunity for everyone to have viable strategies.
Part of doing your very best in MGO is knowing your strengths and building a character that revolves around those strengths. A CQC master can have more than an advantage against a Rambo-type with a tricked out M4, but neither can rule out being picked off by an expert sniper. Aside from mastering skills, you can also be highly effective by just being proficient in your favorite weapons and skills. All of this can be offset, though, by the Drebin Points System, MGO's battle merit system. With Drebin Points enabled, everyone begins a match with a selection of only basic weapons. The better or worse players do, the better or worse their weapon selection becomes. Every weapon (and mod) is "priced" in DP and your DP fluctuates with better or worse performance, once again leaving your fate in battle in no one else's hands but your own. It's this constant dynamic of gameplay that separates MGO from other shooters.
Aside from all of these variables, Metal Gear Online is actually a very simple and fun game to learn and get into. The game is built off of the MGS4 engine and allegedly shares assets with the game. This includes controls, so most of playing MGO is not even remotely foreign if you've played MGS4. Controls are just as slick as their MGS4 counterparts and the core shooting and sneaking actions are identical to their MGS4 counterparts as well.
As for modes: Deathmatch is fun, sure, but it's Team Deathmatch where MGO really shines. It's clear from the first time you play Team Deathmatch (or one of its variants) that MGO was built for teamwork. You'll find many players in TD basically using makeshift buddy systems with surprising efficiency, even without headsets or microphones. The S.O.P System in MGO also enables players to see each other's positions on the map, thus making it easier to come to a team mate's rescue and coordinate strategies, even without headsets.
What's Not
First and foremost, the registration process is long and complicated, with multiple user names and passwords required just to login to MGO -- the same as it was in the beta. The efforts of Konami to protect our personal information should be commended, as identity theft is a life damaging crime, but the lengthy process seems unnecessarily long and can be frustrating if there are problems in the process.
The requirements for leveling up your character in MGO and his skills aren't exactly clear. I've entered a number of games where people are messaging each other, asking how to level up. Few seem to be sure of what said requirements exactly are. This is important and should be clarified soon.
Team Deathmatch, while the bread and butter of MGO, has several near-clone modes with little major differences. Only Sneaking Mission really stands out as a unique experience from the rest. Also, while the maps are well designed, I'd love to see future content offer more variety.
Downloading updates for MGO can take a while, especially because of the BitTorrent-like update system. Since the beta, download times have dramatically decreased, but there hasn't been as big an update as the ones introduced in the beta yet. Why a PS3 firmware update system like in other PS3 titles (where you try to boot up the game, but it says it needs an update, then performs the update on the spot through the PS3 and you boot up the game) wasn't opted for, I don't quite understand. It would be much simpler and wouldn't have people fighting over bandwidth.
Final Word
MGO is a strong, stable foundation for a very promising online shooter. It isn't without some problems, but the core gameplay experience is well put together, fun and addictive. The MGO team clearly put that experience first, leaving only some problem fixing and what content to add as concerns for the future. MGO could use a bit more variety in future content packs, but again, what's here is strong and it's only a Starter Pack -- not to mention one awesome bonus with MGS4. I very much look forward to seeing MGO's evolution.
Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game's About
Metal Gear Online is an online third-person shooter that supports up to sixteen players. It is based around the stealth action principles of the Metal Gear franchise and is powered by the Metal Gear Solid 4 engine. Bundled with MGS4 is a Metal Gear Online "Starter Pack," an offering of MGO's basic foundation, which will be expanded upon by future downloadable content and updates.
What's Hot
Metal Gear Online, as mentioned above, is a third-person online shooter built with the principles of Metal Gear. What does that mean? It means that MGO is not a "frag anything and everything" shooter. It's slower paced with a fewer players and a focus on on-a-dime kills, which emphasizes strategy over fragfests. Think of Doom and Quake as lightning-paced games of frag checkers -- if that's the case, then MGO is a fine-tuned game of war chess. Just like chess, MGO can be a game of positioning, strategy and knowing when to strike. You'll need to know the best places to hide in and attack from in order to do your very best. There's a maximum of sixteen players on any given map, who are all setting up their own attack strategies. A great part of the fight is knowing the strengths of each map -- i.e. the close-quarters situation in Blood Bath or medium-range warfare in Groznyj Grad -- and using them to your advantage. There are only a few maps (the maps from the beta and a few new ones), but each one is well designed and offers maximum opportunity for everyone to have viable strategies.
Part of doing your very best in MGO is knowing your strengths and building a character that revolves around those strengths. A CQC master can have more than an advantage against a Rambo-type with a tricked out M4, but neither can rule out being picked off by an expert sniper. Aside from mastering skills, you can also be highly effective by just being proficient in your favorite weapons and skills. All of this can be offset, though, by the Drebin Points System, MGO's battle merit system. With Drebin Points enabled, everyone begins a match with a selection of only basic weapons. The better or worse players do, the better or worse their weapon selection becomes. Every weapon (and mod) is "priced" in DP and your DP fluctuates with better or worse performance, once again leaving your fate in battle in no one else's hands but your own. It's this constant dynamic of gameplay that separates MGO from other shooters.
Aside from all of these variables, Metal Gear Online is actually a very simple and fun game to learn and get into. The game is built off of the MGS4 engine and allegedly shares assets with the game. This includes controls, so most of playing MGO is not even remotely foreign if you've played MGS4. Controls are just as slick as their MGS4 counterparts and the core shooting and sneaking actions are identical to their MGS4 counterparts as well.
As for modes: Deathmatch is fun, sure, but it's Team Deathmatch where MGO really shines. It's clear from the first time you play Team Deathmatch (or one of its variants) that MGO was built for teamwork. You'll find many players in TD basically using makeshift buddy systems with surprising efficiency, even without headsets or microphones. The S.O.P System in MGO also enables players to see each other's positions on the map, thus making it easier to come to a team mate's rescue and coordinate strategies, even without headsets.
What's Not
First and foremost, the registration process is long and complicated, with multiple user names and passwords required just to login to MGO -- the same as it was in the beta. The efforts of Konami to protect our personal information should be commended, as identity theft is a life damaging crime, but the lengthy process seems unnecessarily long and can be frustrating if there are problems in the process.
The requirements for leveling up your character in MGO and his skills aren't exactly clear. I've entered a number of games where people are messaging each other, asking how to level up. Few seem to be sure of what said requirements exactly are. This is important and should be clarified soon.
Team Deathmatch, while the bread and butter of MGO, has several near-clone modes with little major differences. Only Sneaking Mission really stands out as a unique experience from the rest. Also, while the maps are well designed, I'd love to see future content offer more variety.
Downloading updates for MGO can take a while, especially because of the BitTorrent-like update system. Since the beta, download times have dramatically decreased, but there hasn't been as big an update as the ones introduced in the beta yet. Why a PS3 firmware update system like in other PS3 titles (where you try to boot up the game, but it says it needs an update, then performs the update on the spot through the PS3 and you boot up the game) wasn't opted for, I don't quite understand. It would be much simpler and wouldn't have people fighting over bandwidth.
Final Word
MGO is a strong, stable foundation for a very promising online shooter. It isn't without some problems, but the core gameplay experience is well put together, fun and addictive. The MGO team clearly put that experience first, leaving only some problem fixing and what content to add as concerns for the future. MGO could use a bit more variety in future content packs, but again, what's here is strong and it's only a Starter Pack -- not to mention one awesome bonus with MGS4. I very much look forward to seeing MGO's evolution.
November 20, 2009
