Twin Snakes, one box - let's play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker!

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was a 2010 PSP release in which players assumed the role of Big Boss, a.k.a. Naked Snake, following the events of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which continued the story of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which would later set the stage for Metal Gear 1 and 2, as well as Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and eventually 4. METAL GEAR.


Prior knowledge of the entire Metal Gear saga is not necessary going into Peace Walker. However, Peace Walker spoils the end of Metal Gear Solid 3. Please proceed at your own risk.

Peace Walker was the first Metal Gear game to include extensive co-op gameplay. In addition to the online versus mode carried over from Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops, the entire campaign could be played with a friend, and certain missions and side-missions could be played with up to four players total. Peace Walker also built upon the recruitment mechanic introduced in Portable Ops: rather than knocking out soldiers and carrying them back to the start of the mission, enemies who were incapicated or surrendered could be retrieved from the field using the Fulton recovery system.

However, Peace Walker suffered from being limited by the PSP platform -- to create an enjoyable online co-op experience, both players would need to use the PS3 Adhoc Party software to create a faux-local network to link their PSPs, then use a third-party application for voice-chat. Also, you really need two analog sticks to play a stealth action game.


The following year, Konami released Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection, a 720p 60fps port of Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and Peace Walker, to the PS3 and 360. While Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 remain largely unchanged aside from the graphical overhaul, the HD Edition of Peace Walker comes with several fixes over its PSP counterpart. Specifically, the second analog stick and increased screen size make the game more enjoyable to play, and the PS3's online infrastructure eliminates the need for Adhoc Party tunneling.


As we experience Peace Walker together, I'll be joined by my partner-in-crime, Lobst, the Jonathan to my Big Boss, as we infiltrate bases, knock out guards, and avoid detection. As always, DemoWeasel will provide largely-uninformed color commentary over our pre-recorded playthrough. I'm Phenwah, and I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-kiri Rock! Welcome to Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: HD Edition.

Your Big Boss's Jonathan is ready, Phen! For this, I'll need to take out my naked pink snake.

Your naked, pink, one-eyed snake.

oh god why did you make me look at Snake's trousers

they're bulging *whimper*

David Hayter sounds like he's trying to do his best Steven Blum impression. Which is kind of awkward when they're in the same cutscene! (No, I have never played a Metal Gear game before, so this could be totally off-base.)

Anyway, looking forward to more of this. I've never really played a stealth game before, but maybe this will get me to change my mind!

This is the first mission in the main campaign that supports co-op! Consequently, this video was my test run for how to edit two sets of footage together; it's a little rough around the edges.

In other words, pop some Dramamine, because we've got shit to do.

Oh man, base management. You got your X-Com chocolate in my Metal Gear peanut butter!

The base management in Peace Walker is worlds better than what Portable Ops offered; the "Auto-Assign" option for Staff removes some unnecessary micro-management, and we've barely scratched the surface of how big Mother Base gets.

In today's video we pat asses in the jungle, and demo crucial game mechanics that will never be used again.

In today's quest for glory, we CQC an APC and Fulton it back to base.

Goddamn this makes me want to play this game again in co-op. Great job so far, to be sure.

...I do have two PS3s in the house now... hmmm...

In today's episode, Snake is a colossal dick to a 12-year-old boy.


I encourage this! There's a ton of side-missions that support up to four Snakes; we'd love to have you join us.

Wow, you weren't kidding.

The Sony Walkman letting you change the background music is pretty cool! More games should do this (though maybe not exactly like this game... although that might be hilarious in some cases).

Best thing about that cutscene is that it was still all indoors. While I can accept the Fulton working inside as a game mechanic, the fact that they let it still work indoors in a cutscene is amazing.

In retrospect, performing a serious hardware upgrade in the middle of a Let's Play might not have been the best idea. Sorry for the week-long delay! On the plus side, my comrades have assured me that their schedules are relatively free for the immediate future, so there should be a significantly shorter wait between the next few videos. Unless something blows up!

In today's update, Snake and Jonathan get attacked by snipers, and DemoWeasel says a lot of dumb stuff that had to get left on the cutting-room floor. NO REMORSE.

Hey, isn't that the tank you fight in the wrong place in the demo? I like that tank. Also, way to go ruining your supply route, tank.

That's right! Actually, this post prompted me to download and replay the Peace Walker PSP demo, so, fuck you for making me fight that tank by myself with the PSP's controls.

DEMO-OPS actually includes four missions lifted from the full game, delivered out-of-order and stripped of narrative context. The first covers the CQC- and weapons-training, along with the jungle portion of MAIN-OPS 0-1; the mission ends before the Supply Facility itself. The second mission is MAIN-OPS 1-1, but with no Sandinista Comandante; the boathouse itself is just an "enemy stronghold" that has to be neutralized. The third mission is actually MAIN-OPS 1-8, which we'll be seeing in a couple of videos, but the game waffles between calling the objective a Crater Base or Mountain Facility. The fourth mission takes the T-72 Ural from MAIN-OPS 1-6 and sets it in the Bananal Fruta de Oro arena from MAIN-OPS 1-3. The Mission Select menu lists a difficulty level (from C to A) and estimated completion time for each mission.

DEMO-OPS also features a limited selection of loadouts for Snake, one of which equips him with the Soliton Radar. Enemies are much easier to stun using CQC, grenades are impossible to throw long distances, and Miller's codec portrait is blue. During the Tank Battle, the T-72U's health is displayed as ten blocks, but the blocks are chipped off either randomly or depending on what Snake's shooting at; sound cues imply that different parts of the T-72U are being destroyed, but its behavior is unaffected.

Oh, and speaking of the T-72U, today we're going to fight a T-72U.

This is the first video where I really got the editing process down to a science. Someone off-site expressed a morbid interest in my workflow, so, here's that:

That... looks kinda complicated. o_o

It's not as bad as I'm making it sound. You're looking at multiple stages of editing layered on top of each other.

FUL is the fullscreen feed, PIP is the picture-in-picture feed, FIX is used for masking loading screens with a still-image black or white frame, and SFX is for inserting the codec noises from MGS2 during transitions. These tracks form the game video and audio.

PHN, LBS, and DEM are the commentary tracks I have to edit when we're done talking over that video. Once the commentary's been cleaned up and I've given the video another once-over in the process, I run the commentary audio through Levelator and the game audio through the auto-duck filter in Audacity, then mix the two together and import it back into Vegas.

FIN is the audio track you end up hearing when that's all said and done.

MUT is the cutting-room floor. It's where I put Lobst's feed when it's not visible, or mine when I've fullscreened Lobst's, just to keep everything in sync.

But anyway. We are on the brink of our first proper boss fight, as well as the introduction of the game's remaining central characters and the first-act twists that've been keeping me from posting the Attract Mode video. Shit is about to get real.

A funny thing as well about the last sequence in that mission? One of the trucks has Hideo Kojima in it, and if you find him he just kind of waves as Snake looks kind of confused.

Funny you should mention that.

In today's video, we conquer the Pupa, the first of the game's AI-controlled bosses, and are introduced to game mechanics that will not be explained for several videos. Full disclosure: Lobst and I actually went through our entire first-run of this game without seeing said mechanics through to completion. This time, things will be different.


I can also now safely post the Attract Mode video, which I'll be editing into the first post, as well.


The next video after this one is just some side-mission tomfoolery; I'll try to have it and the next proper story mission uploaded without too long of a pause. See you then!

Heh, figured you'd go back.

And yeah. It should be easier for you guys now since you have Mosins as well as the tranq pistol, but you can totally stealth-kill the LAV and capture it with 100% health. Each of the story vehicle missions have a limited number of soldiers that they deploy, and once all the soldiers are either killed or KOed, the commander will become vulnerable. The LAV is either 2 or 3 full waves of soldiers.

I think some/most/all(?) of the Extra Op vehicle missions have unlimited soldiers, though; at the very least I know I spend like 30 minutes once sleeping T-72 guys in one of the Extra Ops (as the commander started running over them to kill them) before finally having to quit and take lethal weapons into the mission.

This... is a lot harder when you get to the helicopters, though. For obvious reasons.

There's also the Fulton system you get later on that works on vehicles, too, to be fair.

Umbaglo, you wouldn't happen to have the PS3 version of MGS HD, would you? We're always looking for more soldiers to help with Extra-Ops.

And speaking of Extra-Ops, here's our first Extra-Ops video! This video is meant to be completely divorced from the campaign; any codec calls and Mother Base content will show up in the next Main-Ops video.


And speaking of the next Main-Ops video, here's the next Main-Ops video.

I do, in fact, have the PS3 version of HD. And I just transfarred my PSP save over to it earlier, and remembered that I'm at the same point you guys are in the videos (I just beat the Hind earlier).

I don't know if I need to be at the same progress to co-op, but sure I'd love to join in.

And we look forward to seeing you in the near future, even if the video won't be ready for public viewing for several weeks following.

For today, here's our first encounter with a flying tank!

Yeah, the helicopter knows where you are regardless, so you can only stealth the soldiers. But it never throws up alert.

A hilarious way to clear that mission with little trouble is to hide out and wait for the first batch of soldiers to pass in front of the tree you start behind and then chain CQC them all, then use your RPG2/LAW to shoot into the door of the Hind as it opens to drop more soldiers. You can crouch behind the front hill to be protected against the missiles, since as long as ANY of those mounds are between you and the Hind, the missiles will hit it instead.

Should we ever encounter a helicopter in the Catarata de la Muerte, we'll give this a shot! Unfortunately, most of the Extra-Ops boss battles take place at Bananal Fruta de Oro.

In other news, ghillie suits are the goddamn worst thing.

You know what makes this week's wait worth it? Backtracking.

Big Boss is the worst ornithologist.