Since the day Metal Gear Solid wowed E3 show attendees back in the late 90’s, the Metal Gear franchise has since been known for its stealth action mixed with an incredibly deep story told with cut-scenes that resembled something out of Hollywood rather than a videogame. With the release of the PSP, Konami is taking a drastic turn with the Metal Gear franchise by ditching the stealth action, and injecting turn-based strategy gameplay with cards. “What?!”, you ask. That’s right, in this game you don’t have direct control of Snake, but rather move him strategically around the levels with cards. The result is a mix of Metal Gear Solid gameplay with some Final Fantasy Tactics and Magic the Gathering twisted in. Metal Gear Acid takes the franchise in a totally new direction; so if you come into this experience expecting a “normal” Metal Gear stealth/action game, you’ll be in dire shock at what actually lies before you. With that said, if you’ve grown tired of the Metal Gear Solid formula or have never really had interest in the series previously, you may find something to like in Metal Gear Acid.

Metal Gear Acid is all about turn-based strategy. If you’ve never played a turn-based strategy game before, expect to spend the first couple hours learning how to play this game. There is a very steep learning curve for inexperienced players, but gamers familiar with titles like Ogre Battle and Shining Force will come to grips with the gameplay rather quickly and will most likely get the most enjoyment out of the game.

MGA doesn’t follow the storyline from the MGS games, but rather creates its own parallel universe with similarities, but an entirely new cast of characters (besides Snake) and plot. In MGA, your main CIA connection is a guy named Roger who briefs you periodically and keeps you up to speed with the events as they unfold. Mercenaries have taken over a scientific lab on the African Lobito Island and are demanding for the top secret “Pythagoras” to be handed over to them. To be taken seriously, they have hi-jacked an airliner and they’re holding all the passengers on the plane hostage, which includes a United States senator, the front-runner in the upcoming presidential election. It is up to Snake, with the help of Roger and a psychic girl named Alice -- that can feel the presence of humans -- to infiltrate the base, find out what the Pythagoras is, and defeat the mercenaries. Like all Metal Gear games, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the story, which weaves around and has you trying to guess what exactly is going on.

The story is one of the most important parts of all the games in the MGS franchise, and in MGA, the story plays a pretty large role as well. The first thing to know is the story is not told like all Metal Gear Solid games with action packed cut-scenes, but rather with mostly static backgrounds with a hand-drawn look. It is quite under-whelming at first but you get used to it after awhile. Also excluded in this Metal Gear is voice acting. All of the dialog and story sequences are only presented with text. The production value isn’t near what is found on console MGS games, but the underlying story will be very familiar to Metal Gear fans.



Gameplay
Now the important part, how the game plays. The first thing you’ll notice is you must use a card to do most anything. Actions are executed with cards, whether you want to walk around, fire a gun, or plant C4 you’ll have to draw and use the corresponding card. The only action that doesn’t require a card is a punch, which can be executed when you are right next to an enemy; this is basically a “free” action. Since movement around the levels is the most important part of the strategy, most action cards like guns, rations, and grenades give you the option to use the card to move if you don’t want to use it for its main purpose. There are also plenty of special character cards that you’ll find throughout the game. They highlight some of the characters from past MGS games and have special effects unlike any other cards. One of the first character cards you’ll have access to is the Ninja card which lets you attack any enemy from anywhere on the map – a very useful card.

Most of your time with MGA will be spent checking over the battlefield and contemplating your coming turns. In order to be successful in Metal Gear Acid you’ll need to constantly be thinking several moves ahead and what you will do in every situation. Like all Metal Gear games your main goal is to make it through the levels without being detected and without killing any guards, it’s all about stealth. In this sense the game has a similar feel to the past games in the series. If you are able get by undetected and not kill any guards during each mission you earn bonus cards after each level. The three ways to earn bonuses are by not getting spotted, not killing any guards, and getting through the level without using much cost (more on cost later). When trying to make it through the game without being seen and without killing anybody, the game really comes down to a lot of trial and error as you have to figure out the guards patrol patterns and figure out just the right time to sneak by undetected. Luckily, if you want to go this route, there is an option to save at any moment during the middle of a level so you can always keep yourself near a save game and not have to re-do a lot if you get caught. On that note, I found it a lot more fun to just blast through and kill all the guards without them seeing me.