GAME OVER

GAME OVER

In the past couple weeks I enjoyed Metal Gear Online Public Beta on my PS3. Like many, it took me sometime to get it working (I missed the first four days) but it was well worth the effort and time I spent figuring it out. I will not bore you with the details of how I got in as the beta is, unfortunately, already over.

Except for two summers of Final Fantasy XI Online and some long hours many moons back of Resistance: Fall of Man, I don't usually enjoy online gaming. This was not the case with MGO, the game is far better than what I've hoped it to be. I played for hours, created my own clan (FiRE UPoN NeED, The FUN PSN Clan), mastered a few skills and played as Old Snake and as Metal Gear Mk. II.

The controls are as seamless and natural as they get. You use the square button to switch between lock-on (which automatically aim at the nearest enemy in the direction you are facing up to a certain range depending on the equipped weapon - cannot be used when sniping) and free aim (which uses over-the-shoulder camera). L1 is used to ready your weapon while triangle toggles first-person-view on and off. In combination with L1, R1 does primary attacks while R2 does secondary attacks. Tapping R2 alone switches your weapon which can be customized to: equip/unequip, three slots or two slots. L2 functions similarly with items. You can also specify what each slot represents: primary weapon (like a shotgun or an assault rifle), secondary weapon (like a handgun or a tranquilizer), or support weapon (like a smoke grenade).

My favorite support weapon has to be the ENEMY LOCATOR (which is thrown as a grenade and shows any enemy within its range) while my favorite item definitely is S.PLUG.S (which allows you to hack into a captured enemy SOP - must equip HACK skill to be able to use it).

The circle button is used for reloading and tapping X switches between sitting and standing while holding it puts you into crawling position. You can also roll using the X button while running. Using R1 alone does CQC moves while tapping it while sitting or standing and moving in a certain direction does advance CQC moves. The SELECT button followed be some input from the d-pad allows you to use pre-defined, yet customizable, voice messages (you could call them Codec messages) while holding SELECT is used for voice chat. The left stick, of course, moves your character while the right stick controls the camera (also used for aiming while holding L1). I believe you can also switch the sticks' functionality (useful for lefties).

The beta contained five gameplay modes, called Rules: DM (deathmatch), TDM (team deathmatch), BSE (base mission or control points), CPT (capture) and the unique SNE (sneaking where one player controls Snake whose goal is to collect three dog-tags, and two teams whose main objective is to defeat Snake a specified number of times, with a secondary objective of getting the highest number of enemy kills, and if there's more than ten players, one gets to control Mk. II who helps Snake by shocking enemies).

MGO beta contained three maps out of the five to be included with Metal Gear Solid 4: Blood Bath, Groznyj Grad and Midtown Maelstrom (my favorite of the three). Find out more about these maps here.

The beta offered many Skills from specific weapon-type mastery to fast movement or trap detection. You can advance each Skill to Mastery (or level three) by using it frequently. Say you like shotguns and you want to reduce recoil and reload time for this type of weapons, then you should equip Shotgun Mastery Skill and use shotguns as much as you can to achieve that goal. Each skill carries a Cost and you are allowed a total of four. Usually a Skill's level matches its Cost: level three skill carries three Cost points (though few carry only one Cost point for all levels).

Now to the meat of MGO: the SOP System. This system is key for teamwork in MGO which allows you to easily locate your teammates and know exactly what they are doing. Some skills and items even allow you to get this same information about your enemies and share that data with your teammates through the SOP. This is revolutionary and, in conjunction with Codec messages, almost eliminates the need for voice chat (which I didn't use although I have a headset).

You link to your squad through the SOP System using the triangle button near any member who's linked into that network. Note that you need to do this every time you respawn so you may wanna look at the radar which always displays your teammates location making your mission a lot easier. Simply put: teamwork is where MGO clearly rises and shines above all of your favorite online multiplayer shooters.

Make sure you register for a Konami ID here by June 12 where we will all SNEAK OUT.

For your viewing pleasure, check the following trailers: Find Snake and Midtown Maelstrom Deathmatch.