Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

Portable Ops draws heavily from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, utilizing the camera system from the Subsistence edition of the game. The main addition to MPO is the Comrade System. Instead of the solo missions of previous MGS games, MPO goes for a squad-based approach, with Snake having to recruit allies and form a team of trained specialists. Before each mission, the player must compose a four-man squad.

The squad is then sent into battle. Each member of Snake's squad has their own strengths and weaknesses. While some units are best utilized on the battlefield, others may specialize in producing items, healing allies, or providing intel for each of the game's maps.

Portable Ops takes place in 1970, six years after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It follows the soldier Naked Snake (David Hayter/Akio Ōtsuka) who is forced to fight off his former special forces unit, FOX, after they instigate a revolt in a secret Soviet base in San Hieronymo Peninsula, Colombia, recruiting the abandoned Soviet garrison. In his fight he meets Roy Campbell (David Agranov/Toshio Furukawa), a surviving member of the Green Berets team that was sent to investigate the affair. Snake's former teammates including his commanding officer Major Zero (Jim Piddock/Banjō Ginga), Para-Medic (Heather Halley/Houko Kuwashima) and Sigint (James C. Mathis III/Keiji Fujiwara) return as the support crew as they are suspected for treason alongside Snake.

The main antagonist is Gene (Steven Blum/Norio Wakamoto), the current commander of the FOX unit who seeks to establish his own nation for soldiers. He plans on achieving that goal by threatening both the US and Soviet Union with a Metal Gear that is capable of firing MIRVs carrying nuclear warheads. He is a product of the Successor Project that aimed to artificially create the perfect commander, patterned after The Boss. He is assisted by Lt.

The game was conceptualized when the Kojima Productions staff decided to make the first Metal Gear Solid chapter rather than another spin-off for the PlayStation Portable. Hideo Kojima had the idea of the player being able to recruit comrades with the Wi-Fi play. As a result, the game was specifically designed for a portable platform, rather than a home console. Some of the staff had previously worked in the spin-off Metal Gear Acid 2 making Portable Ops their first time doing a main installment.

Their biggest challenge was adapting the play mechanics from Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (the latest console installment at the time) to Portable Ops as the PlayStation Portable lacked a right analog. Since players cannot spin the camera with the PlayStation Portable the game added a sound indicator system that helps them to see where there are enemies. Impressed with Ashley Wood's work in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel the studio asked his collaboration to illustrate the events accompanied with voice-overs from the story replacing the typical use of real time graphics previously used for cutscenes.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops received positive reviews. The game scored an average of 86.95% based on 43 reviews on GameRankings and an 87/100 based on 54 reviews on Metacritic. IGN and GameSpot in particular both awarded the game 9 out of 10. GameTrailers gave the game a 8.3, saying "It simply tries to do too much with too little, and while not a deal-breaker, it definitely makes the experience a lot less fun than it could be."

The game sold 230,321 copies after two weeks on sale in Japan.