REVIEW: Metal Gear Online Multiplayer Beta

I’ve never been one for online games. It’s a fad that has totally left me behind, like the Latin Invasion of the Late 90s. My dislike of online games boils down to a few undeniable truths: I suck at them and the people online can get aggressive. You know that kid who accidentally scores in his own basket in gym class, earning glares of scorn from the other, more athletic and popular kids? Imagine that kind of situation, but those athletic kids now have shotguns.

To be honest, I was going to give Metal Gear Online the biggest pass I could possibly imagine. I loathe online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or even games like Matrix Online for their lack of story and my aforementioned habit of being bad at multiplayer games. But I decided to give this online beta a shot when I learned it was open to those who pre-ordered Metal Gear Solid 4, which of course I did. I didn’t expect anything except a primer for MGS4’s controls. Perhaps it’s because of that lack of expectations, but I’ve found Metal Gear Online to be a lot of fun to play.

I seriously recommend going into the training sessions because if you just jump straight into gameplay, you might as well run into the battlefield wearing a purple jumpsuit holding a banana and screaming Rhianna’s “Umbrella” at the top of your lungs because you’ll be just as easy to shoot. The control scheme for Metal Gear Online is very confusing at first, multiplying the number of buttons the Playstation 3 controller has exponentially using context-sensitive commands. For example, R1 fires your weapon (after holstering your weapon with L1). However, if you have a weapon with a “CQC” label on it, pressing R1 punches with your weapon while holding R1 enables a choke hold, from which you can drop your opponent to the ground with the X button, and a-hey-nanni-nanni-and-a-ho-ho-ho. Get the idea? Metal Gear Online opens up a world of possibilities from the simple run-and-gun style of games like Halo 3 or Call of Duty, but because of that, it takes some time for these moves to become second-nature. Therefore, if you’re not some kind of Metal Gear prophet, expect some boneheaded moves on the battlefield while your opponent gives you a lead suppository. One of my favorite moves so far involves “playing dead” and then plugging an opposing player as he runs past you. You can’t do that in Halo!

The maps of Metal Gear Online have the standard “urban plight” feel to them, but with a nice aesthetic, looking straight out of Metal Gear Solid 4. I’m not a connoisseur of multiplayer maps, but with enough study and tactical experience, you can have some fun creating choke points. Some maps are great for sniping, while others work best for straight-up one-on-one dogfighting. The one complaint I have about the maps themselves is that ground cover is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Unlike Gears of War, where cover is near essential, the only things cover is good for in this game are looking pretty and running behind. You can’t tactically use cover to poke out from behind, but only as a brief reprieve from the bullets. As a sniper, I’m doubly pissed that you can’t use cover with a sniper rifle. But arial cover does work somewhat. Besides, most of the players I meet chose not to use cover anyways, unless they’re under sniper fire. Instead, they’ll chose to just face you down one-on-one.

The last thing about Metal Gear Online that I can comment about is the game modes. There are the standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag games, which are made fun through the controls and the new ways of waging combat. Other games are just about how many bullets you can put into the air at one time, while Metal Gear Online, ever the subtle game, puts as much emphasis on CQC and use of SOP tactics (which allow you to easily identify where teammates and enemies are). One mode that I’m looking forward to play is Sneaking Mode, where one character plays as Solid Snake himself and must collect dog tags from all the other players before they kill him three times. This is a unique mode of gameplay that is total Metal Gear Solid.

Beta Verdict: 3 Cardboard Boxes out of 5

The big question about this game is how much fun is it? Well, from my perspective, I spend half my time dying, so it’s quite frustrating, but I enjoy the tactical nature of Metal Gear Online and the familiar Metal Gear aesthetic. It feels like I’m actually playing Metal Gear Solid 4 months before anyone else, and in the end, I guess that’s what the point of Metal Gear Online is would be to drum up more interest for MGS4. You can certainly come back to the online multiplayer gameplay again and again for the basic fun of shooting other people, but if you don’t play Metal Gear Online and start to salivate over the eventual release of the final Metal Gear Solid game, you are functionally dead.