Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

The first thirty minutes plus of the PSP-exclusive Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is clearly and definitely Metal Gear in several ways. It’s heavy on story, really gives you a strong sense of its distinctive visual and auditory style, and features an optional small or large install to your memory stick (300 or 800 MB respectively) to reduce load times and add audio to various cut scenes and codec conversations. There’s definitely an independence felt with the setting here — Snake and his Soldiers Without Borders group is off on their own hanging around in tropical Central America, unbothered by the deep political problems of the US and USSR (at least when the game begins, anyway). Snake’s also quite busy being a manly man, CQC-ing the nights away bare-chested while his troops fight in full gear and masks on the beaches if the tutorial is any indication.

The first couple of missions I’ve done have done a decent job of introducing the sneaking concepts, weapon menus, and camouflage system, and while the way it uses vertical space is definitely different in the menus I’m not finding it hard to follow. The menu systems do feel easier to understand than previous Metal Gear games, including Portable Ops, and I’m relieved that they have apparently jettisoned the Japenese holdover that the O button be the X button in Metal Gear games once and for all. I guess you can teach an old Japanese developer new control scheme tricks after all, something other developers *cough*CAPCOM*cough* might want to heed.

On the subject of controls I’m still coming to grips with the camera, something I knew I would have trouble with. Most of the time I trigger an alert, if I don’t run away immediately and try to fight, I fumble with the camera and almost always get killed. I’m going to have to get used to it since I hear the boss fights are tough, but I may try other control schemes again to see if any of them gel better with me. Again, equipment navigation and the like seems to work very well, it’s just the camera I’m having difficulty with. On the plus side, to quote Crackdown, death is not the end. At least in the earliest missions I’ve tried, they seem to allow you to either retry the mission or head back to base to pick another, but that may only occur if you’re playing as a soldier other than Snake, I’m not sure.

Graphically the game reminds me strongly of Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2, the voice work is excellent, and the sound design and quality is really very good. I’m looking forward to spending more time with Snake, his team, and the no doubt odd twists and turns of the story ahead.