onami has teased us along with multiplayer MGS: Portable Ops gameplay ever since the title was announced back at E3. That time is now over. We did some single player sneaking and got to see the new graphic novel styled cutscenes, mission-based gameplay, and recruiting mechanic.
The following page sets up the story, so if you don’t want to know anything about this, skip ahead to the next one.
Instead of sliding the obligatory “stuck in prison” scene into the middle of the game, Kojima Productions has opted to start out the game with Big Boss in a cell. This by no means indicates that he won’t be captured again somewhere down the line, but it’s a nice change of pace for now. Snake is awakened by Cunningham, an ex-CIA (currently FOX) operative with a mechanical leg.
After the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in 1964, we find that Big Boss quit working for the government and pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet for the last six years. So the fact that the newly evil FOX was able to track him down, knock him out, and bring him to South America is a pretty impressive feat. Cunningham has joined up with FOX in search of the Philosopher’s Legacy. Apparently, the CIA only found half of this enormous pile of money.
Snake battles Gene, the new leader of FOX.
After zapping Snake a couple of times for shooting his mouth off, Cunningham hits the road. It’s here where the prisoner across the hall pipes up. A long-haired and bearded Roy Campbell informs Snake about a trick he can use to escape from his cell. Campbell was part of a unit of Green Berets who was (almost) entirely slain in an attempt to investigate FOX.
Campbell gets Snake to head towards a radio tower to contact the United States and send for backup. Snake uses an old familiar frequency in the hopes that someone still keeps tabs on it. Fortunately, medical mastermind and film buff Para-Medic answers the call. She informs Snake that he is wanted and that Major Zero has been arrested. FOX has stolen a nuke from the U.S. and they think Snake and Zero are in on it.
Para-medic and Sigint inform Snake that he’s in a secret Soviet base in northern Columbia that was originally created as a backup nuke launch pad when the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) pushed the Russians out of Cuba. The Soviets eventually abandoned the base and all of the soldiers stationed there. This made it easy for FOX to swoop in and win over their hearts and minds. The only way for Snake to prove his innocence is to capture the true leader of the revolt, Gene, and bring him in.
Now it’s up to Snake and Campbell (who can only drive truck on account of his broken leg) to get the former Soviet soldiers to switch sides and go against the FOX team to stop them from launching the nuke. Like the start of any true Metal Gear game, nothing is ever simple.