9.0
The Good: Excellent, thought-provoking story capably reveals much more about Snake; complex, open-ended gameplay has been updated to best suit a portable game; fully featured multiplayer options include game sharing, online play, and more; excellent presentation, including superb graphics, sound, music, and speech; high replay value.
The Bad: It's missing MGS3's incredible 3D cutscenes, full speech, and blood effects; complicated control scheme has a steep learning curve.
Ever since 2001's stupefying Metal Gear Solid 2, this series has strived to be more coherent in its storytelling without sacrificing the sheer detail and convoluted tone that MGS is known for. At the same time, the gameplay has continued to become more and more freeform, letting you choose how best to approach a tactical situation rather than forcing you to figure it out through trial and error. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops features some great new ideas along these lines, along with a story that will have fans of the series talking for months. Though clearly best suited for Metal Gear Solid fans, it's one of the best, most ambitious games to date for the PSP.