In My House: The Super Sneaky, Snake, and a Plane Edition

In today's entertainment-run world, mention of card games conjures visions of Pokémon or Kung Fu Fighting, not a video game… let alone one that fits into the palm of your hand. That, however, is exactly what Metal Gera Acid 2 is… a card driven tactical strategy game for the PSP. Mouth-twisting adjectives aside, Metal Gear Acid 2 is one heck of a treat for turn-based gamers and Metal Gear fans alike.

Metal Gear Acid 2 opens with Snake, a mercenary who suffers from amnesia, and his companions flying home from a mission. As they land in America, believing they are finally safe, a man named Dalton, who is posing as a FBI agent, takes them into custody. Dalton coerces Snake into infiltrating SaintLogic Inc. to retrieve a file for Dalton's investigation. Initially Snake obeys Dalton so that he will release Snake and Snake's friends, but later Snake discovers there is a mad scientist in SaintLogic who has built a Metal Gear (read: BattleMech) and has access to numerous nuclear weapons (how many do you really need?). The mad scientist (is he really mad -or just slightly angry?) threatens to annihilate the United States if certain people aren't handed over to him. As Snake winds his way through the factory he'll fight some battles, unravel his past, fight some more battles, learns the factory's secrets, and then fight some more battles. Did I mention the fighting?

Metal Gear Acid 2 keeps the card-play combat system used in the original game, but offers quite a bit more. First on the more list are more cards. Bottom line, there are over 500 Metal Gear Acid cards that can be bought, used, upgraded, and sold. These include movement, weapons, items, traps, character, and link cards which activate automatically when certain events take place. And we aren't just talking generic pistols, the game is chalk full of semi-exotic stuff like the Vz61 sub-machinegun, Type-17 pistol, chaff grenades, and OICW assault rifles. Many of these weapons can be fired by simply playing the card, targeting the bad guy (or girl), and letting the ammunition rip. Yet others require the player to equip the weapon, and then play another card with the same ammunition to fire. At first blush the later would seem to be the least desirable, but in fact works quite well. See, when a weapon is equipped it allows the player to counterattack an enemy who has fired on him. In essence, rewarding Snake with a free attack…something no self-respecting mercenary would turn down.

Players will find cards as they work through the levels. Additionally, cards can be bought with points earned at the end of a battle when an enemy is defeated. New to Metal Gear Acid 2 is the ability to buy specific cards. So, if you just GOTTA have that sleek, new assault rifle, it is available for the buying. A good portion of the player's Metal Gear Acid 2 time will be spent finding and buying cards, and then building the perfect deck for each mission.

There is a large variety of battles in this game. I did mention the fighting, right? These are turn-based battles, and many are the common, get-from-point-A-to-point-B variety, but there are also some creative contests, like train dodging while fighting. The cards are the stars. The gamer must play a card to move, play a card to shoot, play a card to hang on a rail, or just about anything else for that matter. The enemies encountered range from generic guards and patrol robots to "gee-whiz-wow!" bosses --like experimental subjects gone wrong. Not only can new bosses be battled but so can the classic bosses from the first Metal Gear Acid. In most battles the best strategy is to kill everything in sight so as not to be overwhelmed by other guards that may be alerted. Killing, however, is not the only option. There is also the stealth approach that Snake has been famous for since the first Metal Gear slid into a PlayStation (waaaaay before we called them "PS Ones"). It's great fun to sneak around the bad guys, by crawling, climbing, and hanging from pipes.

Although Snake often fights alone, he later teams up with a delectable (well, as delectable as a two-centimeter high, two-dimensional video game vixen can get) babe named Venus. As with most characters in video games, Venus also suffers from amnesia, but has thankfully retained her knowledge of how to employ sophisticated weaponry. Characters usually level up after each mission, increasing their health points (usually) and raising the deck capacity (occasionally).

Perhaps the most noticeable feature is a semi-lame, and decidedly old school viewing option titled the Solid Eye. In a nutshell, Solid Eye a method to view small video clips (full motion animation) in simulated three dimensions during the game and also during battles. Solid Eye is a neat idea but not quite practical. Why? Well, for it to work you must don a very retro looking, cardboard pair of 3-D goggles. The eye pieces are cumbersome, uncomfortable, and make my dog bark. All-in-all, it's poor implementation of a great idea.

Nevertheless the graphics are pretty slick even without the dog-spooking goggles. The graphic novel style for plot development is nice, and the in-game visuals are crisp, and colorful. Better still, the camera zooms on all the action so playing that M4 card, and then selecting a target will pull in the camera so that the player can get a close in view of Snake waxing the terrorist.

In the final analysis, Metal Gear Acid 2 is more than a worthy successor to the original, it's a significant step forward. The game's clever plot, intriguing car play, and intense tactical battles, make this a must have for the PSP… even if the goggles do make your dog bark.

About the Author

He writes, he designs, he plays. Mark has been addicted to war games since he popped the cover on Tactics II. Designer of Mark H. Walker’s Lock n’ Load, author of forty-some books, and a voracious drinker of beer, Mark enjoys Battle Hymn, The Dark Tower, and Sam Adams in equal measure.