Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, officially abbreviated MPO, is a 2006 action-adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation Portable. The game was directed by Masahiro Yamamoto and written by Gakuto Mikumo, with series creator Hideo Kojima acting as producer.
While not the first Metal Gear game for the PSP, unlike the previously released Metal Gear Acid and its sequel, as well as the Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, it retains the action-based play mechanics from the mainline series. Set in 1970, six years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the game follows the exploits of Naked Snake after he finds himself captured in Colombia by the now renegade FOX unit.
Gameplay
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.
During missions, the player controls only one squad member at a time. Squad members not in use will hide themselves inside a cardboard box, and can be swapped into play when the player-controlled character finds a hiding spot, where he or she will hide in a cardboard box.
A variety of methods can be employed to expand one's squad. If an enemy character is tranquilized or stunned, they can be dragged to a waiting vehicle and captured. After a few in-game days, the captured soldier will become a member of Snake's team. The player can also drag enemy characters to any ally waiting in a cardboard box, where, through the use of a transceiver frequency, or by giving the cardboard box a "nudge", the ally will transport the enemy for the player, saving stamina. Alternatively, by accessing the PSP in certain hotspots using the system's Wi-Fi feature, soldiers and even special bonus characters can be recruited. The PSP GPS Receiver can also be used to similar effect. Since the player's team consists primarily of former enemy soldiers and personnel, generic characters can walk among their own kind undetected as long as the player avoids suspicious actions such as pointing a gun or being spotted by an enemy of another type. Characters that can be recruited by the player include Soviet soldiers, FOX unit members, high-ranking officers, scientists, engineers and government officials. In addition to the standard male characters, the player can recruit and control women scientists and officers as well. The player can also recruit the GRU, KGB and Ocelot unit soldiers from MGS3, but these are only attainable by AP Scan.
Characters who are killed in combat are eliminated from the player's squad permanently. "Unique characters" (i.e. characters important to the game's story, who can only be added into the player's squad by fulfilling certain tasks) are exempt from this rule. If a unique character is wounded in combat, they are sent to an infirmary to recover, making them unusable for a few in-game days. The player can also restart or abort a mission at any moment.
Another new feature is the surround indicator added to the game's HUD. Similar to the radar in previous titles, the surround indicator allows players to determine the relative proximity of enemy soldiers by the noises they make. The surround indicator is composed of two circles; the outer circle displays the noises made by enemies and the inner circle displays noises made by the player's character.
The game contains a Wi-Fi-enabled multiplayer mode, which is an expansion of the "Metal Gear Online" mode previously featured in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. The player's performance in the Online Mode may affect their performance in the single player campaign; the player can recruit and trade soldiers from beaten opponents, or vice versa. Additionally, certain multiplayer options result in recruits being removed from one's single player roster permanently.
In contrast to the console games in the series, the cutscenes that drive the story are not rendered using the usual real time engine. Instead, they are presented using an animated comic style consisting of hand-drawn artwork by artist Ashley Wood. This style was previously utilized in Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. The game also features voice acting, consisting of returning cast members from Snake Eater and new actors. However, mission briefings and CODEC calls are text only.
Plot
Setting 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. Cunningham (Noah Nelson/Daisuke Gōri), an expert in interrogation techniques. who is later revealed to be a double agent of the Pentagon sent to tarnish the CIA's reputation. Gene also has a protégé named Elisa (Tara Strong/Saori Goto) who is gifted with extraordinary psychic abilities, implied to be the result of exposure to nuclear fallout during the Kyshtym disaster. Elisa has dissociative identity disorder and has developed an alter called Ursula, whose psychic abilities are stronger than her Elisa alter. Ursula, she works as a member of FOX, while Elisa is a medic who takes care of Null and acts as an informant for Snake. Snake meets Elisa, who initially tells Snake that she and Ursula are twin sisters, only for him to later learn the truth. Two FOX members previously associated with Snake include Null (Larc Spies/Jun Fukuyama), a teenage assassin trained to be the perfect soldier. and Python (Dwight Schultz/Yusaku Yara), a former war buddy of Snake who was previously presumed dead during the Vietnam War.
Other returning characters include Ghost (Brian Cummings/Naoki Tatsuta), an informant who comes into contact with Snake, revealing the existence of ICBMG, the new Metal Gear prototype, Ocelot (Josh Keaton/Takumi Yamazaki), a former Spetsnaz Major who assists Gene from behind-the-scenes, EVA (Vanessa Marshall/Misa Watanabe), a spy for the PLA who assisted Snake in Snake Eater, and Raikov (Charlie Schlatter/Kenyu Horiuchi), a GRU Major. Teliko Friedman (Kari Wahlgren/Yūko Nagashima) and Venus (Kathryn Fiore/Rika Komatsu), the heroines from Metal Gear Acid and Metal Gear Acid 2 respectively, can both be added to the player's squad by either: completing certain side-missions or by starting the second playthrough with save data from their respective games.
Story In 1970, six years after the events of Snake Eater, Naked Snake's former team, FOX unit, has broken their allegiance with the CIA and gone rogue. Snake is also targeted by the FOX unit, which has sent renegade FOX unit soldiers to capture him. The game begins with the torture and interrogation of Snake by one of the FOX members, Lieutenant Cunningham. Cunningham is trying to locate the missing half of the Philosophers' Legacy, with the United States Government having already acquired the other half of the Legacy from the Soviet Union at the conclusion of Snake Eater. Snake is imprisoned in a cell next to Roy Campbell, the sole survivor of an American Green Beret team sent in to investigate the base. Snake learns through Roy that they are on the San Hieronymo Peninsula (a Russian transliteration of "San Jerónimo Peninsula") or "La Península de los Muertos", the site of an abandoned Soviet missile silo in Colombia.
The two escape and Snake makes his way to a communications base, where he attempts to contact his old CO, Major Zero. Instead, he is greeted by his old FOX comrades Para-Medic and Sigint, who reveal that Snake and Zero are being charged for treason and that the only way for Snake to be exonerated from the charges is to find and apprehend the leader of the rebellion, Gene. Gene has also persuaded the Soviet garrison stationed at the base to join him, soldiers who were abandoned by their own government and branded as rogue operatives amid the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the US. In order to complete his mission, Snake must persuade enemy soldiers to join his ranks due to the scale of his mission.
Snake and his squad defeat the top members of the FOX unit and eventually they make their way into Gene's guesthouse. Snake learns many things on his way. Cunningham was working for the Pentagon and wanted Snake to push Gene into launching a nuke at the Soviet Union to tarnish the CIA's reputation and to prolong the Cold War. Gene was actually aware of this plan from the beginning due to information from Ocelot. Gene really wanted to launch a nuke at America to destroy the Philosophers and to make his nation of soldiers, "Army's Heaven".
Gene kills Elisa, who with her dying breath tells Snake “Your son will bring the world to ruin. Your son will save the world.” Snake destroys an experimental model of the ICBMG, codenamed RAXA, and eventually defeats Gene, destroying the finished ICBMG model afterward. After Gene is defeated he gives Snake the funds, equipment, personnel, and all other information regarding "Army's Heaven". On his return home, Snake is awarded for his actions, he then establishes FOXHOUND afterwards. Elsewhere, Ocelot kills the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) and takes documents containing the identities of the Philosophers in an effort to "end them".
In the post-credits epilogue, Ocelot speaks with an unknown man on the phone, they are plotting to use the Legacy to fulfill their own agenda. Ocelot actually wanted the trajectory data of the nuke to point to the DCI, in order to blackmail the DCI into giving Ocelot the documents containing the true identities of the Philosophers. Ocelot agrees to join his new employer's project under the condition that Snake/Big Boss participates as well.
Development