Portable Ops is an odd entry in the Metal Gear franchise. Be it because of its poor accessibility on a handheld console that can definitely not hold its weight, be it because it has sprung countless arguments online to whether it is worth it to play or even debating about its place in the canon story line of Metal Gear, be it because ever since Acid and Acid 2 and countless mobile games people just stopped caring about the handheld titles in the series, being overlooked as mediocre or simply not giving them a try... Pretty much everything that could go wrong with going ahead and making a fully-fledged story made to fit into an already established and moving story line is simply been overlooked and underrated by many.

I've got to say that my first experience with the game wasn't the best. I first picked it up in my PlayStation Vita console, installed a patch that could let me play with dual stick controls (...because if you don't do this, the only way to move the camera would be with the D-Pad that is very conveniently placed on top of the movement stick in the console), and so I booted it up. The first look at it wasn't really all that great.
I noticed how the game ran pretty poorly in its actual hardware, a sub-30 fps at all times wasn't great for a series that is usually pretty slick and smooth in a technical level, coupled that with the fact that I was pretty much counting pixels on my screen when I was trying to take a guard down with Snake's tranquilizer pistol, it wasn't a really great two first hours and I kind of dreaded the fact that I was gonna have to be playing this but not Metal Gear Solid 4 or something else.

So, in my journey to see how could I improve this game experience I noticed that there was a 60 FPS patch for use with the PPSSPP emulator, and naturally I just had to try it. I put my save file in my computer, increased the internal resolution to 1080p and keybinded in dual stick controls... And, oh my god. This game is literally just diet Metal Gear Solid 3 absolutely shackled and limited by its original hardware its insane, and it doesn't surprise me how this didn't catch on to people even today.

Portable Ops is a following story to Snake Eater, if you think about it, it's kind of like a neglected Metal Gear Solid 3.5 and its main catch is on how the operation rolls out. In most Metal Gear games it's mainly Snake sneaking into some sort of facility without any prior objects of utility or weapons, these having to be found in the facility itself in order to get to advance forward, beat bosses easier or take out guards faster. And in that regard, this game is completely different to any other entry that tries to put its spin into the Tactical Espionage series.

In this game, due to how the plot is set up very early on, Snake doesn't have to work all alone anymore, but you instead have to sneak into different places around San Hieronymo and convince the guards that you take out to join your side to aid in the creation of weaponry, medicine, scouting different places to inform you of valuable arms that might be useful for your own mission, and with this you practically get to create your own army that's out to rebel against Gene who longs for a country inhabited by special soldiers at the expense of some of his own troops... And eventually Metal Gear coming into question.
A lot of these recruits have their own special abilities and are more fit to be dispatched in certain areas (such as tech or medical) than to use in battle, because you can opt for playing as 200 or so characters that you can recruit yourself, some even secret only able to be entered through passwords, they can all be equipped with their own weapons and if you have an unit that gets eliminated or depletes its stamina you can just roll out with another one, this works a lot for gathering objects when your inventory full.

Now, the bad part about this system is that in order to recruit members you have to take out guards, generals, medics and scientists, and that's fine since the stealth aspect of this game is pretty easy, but the one thing that turns away people the other direction is having to drag their corpse all the way back to the spawn area behind a truck to count them in. This process takes a long while if you're doing it by hand and you most likely will because I've found that the mechanic of leaving people nearby cardboard boxes with the other members of your team around for them to get captured simply doesn't work. I personally had to use fast forwarding in my emulator to make it less of a chore, and even then I had to repeat a few missions so that I could gather enough members for a sustainable medic team or spy unit, but it's something that you'll do once and never again hopefully, since most of the time you'll use Snake anyways, and unless you fight bosses there's no need for more than your trusty Mk22 since the enemies' routing is pretty basic and most of the maps you're gonna sneak into are pretty much enclosed, smaller spaces because of the console it was put on (but also works at its advantage because it makes for a bite-sized experience you can either binge or hop in and on every so often).

Having explained how the recruitment system works, the only thing that there is left to say about this game is pretty much its story, it's surprisingly good for a spin-off game of a seemingly low budget, it has great pacing, a great retrospective on Big Boss's actions through MGS3, and even a glimpse into the future that is the start of the whole franchise and a small array of familiar faces who make for bosses that are pretty much on par with mainline. I particularly like how they adapted the story to be in this very rough comic artstyle that fits the tone of the series perfectly and manages to absolutely bring the same movie-like vibe and action of the 3D titles to the portable system.

It's a shame that a lot of people won't look back to this game because it's been argued forever whether it is worth it or not because "it's not canon", when it was made carefully so it didn't contradict anything from the main story, expanded upon Naked Snake's story and even had the approval and overseeing of Kojima himself even if he didn't direct or write for it (he literally didn't want to drop MGS4 until this one was finished and out), and people worry about it because it didn't show up on a timeline? Gimme a break, the story is excellent for what it is and you best bet it's canon, it'd be a waste if it wasn't. (Manifesting it shows up as a remastered version in Master Collection Vol. 2 whenever that comes out three years from now on)

Overall, pretty surprising. Calling to the Night is a really good credits song, too.

envelheceu como leite, o jogo tentou diversas coisas novas em um console portátil todo fudido e mal pensado, a câmera do jogo se move pelas setinhas do controle que estão posicionadas no mesmo canto que o analógico de andar, afinal o psp não tem um segundo analógico como qualquer outro controle normal...

o jogo também parece ser um jogo que foi lançado só pra testar coisas. sendo muito repetitivo, o jogo faz de você escravo da mecânica nova de contratar aliados te obrigando a voltar nas fases para contratar mais gente.

Sinceramente, só jogue se for MUITO fã de metal gear e também do Big boss.

Bite-sized Metal Gear ain’t my cup of Metal Gear. Yes, I know Portable Ops is meant to accommodate handheld play – compact sneaking missions operated within boring car rides and nocturnal “just-before-bed” rituals – and supposedly its sequel in Peace Walker is way better, but the objectives Naked “Big Boss” Snake undertakes in the Colombian peninsula are disposable trivialities that simply can’t compare to the living, breathing console counterparts. Sure, bombing facilities and tranquilizing enemy soldiers may seem familiar, yet when divided in piecemeal rations with none of Hideo Kojima’s ingenuity and authorship, they siphon little of the heart-pounding immersion that makes Metal Gear’s organic tissue pulse with life. (Unless you count me struggling with the chokehold commands as “immersive”; seriously, what happened there? I lost count of how many times I reset missions due to flubbed inputs.)

I know Portable Ops is a different breed of game, so this isn’t entirely fair criticism; really, it does some cool stuff – the story cleverly navigates around hardware limitations with cutscenes framed around the iconic “scratchy graphic novel” art so emblematic of Metal Gear illustrations and the collaborative team set-up with reformed soldiers is a novel approach. Yet there’s little incentive to engage with the latter -- Snake’s able enough to complete most missions by himself, and your newfound ragtag bunch are only short-lived insurances in the face of tough bosses.

Those with deep knowledge of its multiplayer or its Plus expansion may disagree, but to this casual Metal Gear fan, everything from an irrelevant stamina meter to well-worn repetition renders Portable Ops a little too small for its storied britches; a well-meaning facsimile with none of the design know-how that captivated its home console audience. A serviceable spin-off, but nothing more.

(Man, Calling to the Night, though? It has no business being associated with the bubblegum story here, but I knew it was something special when I unlocked it in Super Smash Bros. Brawl all those years ago and the strings still play my shivering spine like a, well, violin.)

This is a fascinating little object. Of the Metal Gear games not written by Kojima, this seems to be the one that's closest to actual canon, with Kojima himself reportedly holding different positions on the subject at different times.

The plot acts as almost a direct sequel to MGS3, and although it has some weird threads that seem to have been totally dropped (like the shadowy figure said to have orchestrated all the events in the prior game) in many ways it fits well within the canon. The conflict between different people's interpretation of The Boss's dream is at the heart of the series, and this game provides one of the clearest explications of that: Gene's and Big Boss's views of what a nation of soldiers could be is front and center. The tension between the CIA and the DOD is similarly a clever real-world touch that follows the political interests of the series as a whole.

Mechanically this is much less "MGS3 2" and much more "MGSV 0". Here is the genesis of a vision of Metal Gear as discrete levels you can revisit on your own recognizance rather than a linear path through a story. Here is the first time the idea of "a nation of soldiers" is encoded mechanically as recruiting enemies in-game. This recruitment mechanic is achingly clunky, involving massive amounts of time just searching for hiding spots and dragging bodies for minimal in-game payoff. But it's so immediately enticing the player is compelled to engage with it anyway. It was wise of them to expand this into an entire game in its own right (and to dramatically smooth out its mechanics).

The game has its frustrations, as well. Boss fights are frustrating on beyond their usual annoyance, not just because of the clunky PSP camera controls but also the nature of the game itself. The player has extremely limited inventory slots and is generally incentivized to go into levels with them empty so as to be able to carry home more resources. Health and particularly stamina are often low across multiple levels. But when a boss fight shows up by surprise after an involved sneaking section, the player has only the resources on hand to fight it. If they think one particular piece of equipment is needed, they have to do the entire level over just to test their theory.

For that reason, I set the game down upon encountering the Null fight and just watched the rest of the dialog and cutscenes on YouTube. But even so, I'm fond of it: it's a black sheep, it's undeniably flawed, but the series after this (and particularly my favorite MGS game) wouldn't be as strong without this strange entry's existence.

somewhat soothing bringing each person back to your base instead of usin the ol' fulton system in later games. For some reason I enjoyed this game a lot more than I probably should have, it's good ol MGS action but on the go where you get to build a small army of guys by abductin NPCs from the levels. The plot is non-canon and a side story so MGS lore nuts don't need to really worry about playing this game if they want the full picture, but all in all I had a good time and thought this game was worth playing.