For those of you with the keen prowess to interpret the "2" at the end of Metal Gear Acid 2, you’ll probably realize that this PSP game is a follow-up to the original, which shook up the Metal Gear Solid world. Of course, Metal Gear Acid 2 (or "Ac!d" as it is also written) isn’t a true sequel to the first Acid, but they share similar stealth-action-come-card-battler gameplay mechanics. Now, while MGS and TCG/CCG might seem like a rather odd mix, the two actually work really well together...though not without some flaws.
Though all the actual missions in Metal Gear Acid 2 take place entirely within the same business complex, it doesn’t start there. Instead, when the game first opens, we see a plane sneaking into America, an amnesiac Snake and his friends aboard. While Snake laments his lost past, the others are celebrating the millions of dollars they have to start new lives with, but there isn’t much time for either. It seems they didn’t enter the States as undetected as they hoped and, when they land, an FBI agent named Dalton arrests the group. Using Snake’s friends as bargaining chip, Dalton "convinces" Snake into helping him investigate SaintLogic, a contractor doing some R&D for the government. Before they can complete their mission, though, General Wiseman (an official with the Department of Defense) takes over the operation - it seems SaintLogic is having a crisis separate of Snake’s infiltration, and you know who gets volunteered to sort it out.
From there, the plot of Acid 2 only gets convoluted, with more and more questions being asked and without a single answer until the very end. You’ll span the entire SaintLogic complex in your quest for those answers though, and even though there is a bit of backtracking, you’ll rarely be in the same place twice, but rather different areas in them that were otherwise inaccessible. You’ll meet a wide range of characters – including mad scientists, a new partner and possible love interest for Snake, genetic mutations and a hacker extraordinaire – entangled in a variety of subplots – involving child trafficking, implanted memories, corporate and government cover-ups and, of course, the titular Metal Gears – all tied up neatly into a singular plot for revenge...or is it?
Metal Gear Acid 2 has so many clichéd story arcs and twists (all foreshadowed by the appropriate musical cue, of course) that you may begin to think Snake’s lost identity is Dolph Lundgren or Lorenzo Lamas. But, in the end, I don’t suppose it really matters in a game like this. Now, I’m not saying a good story isn’t important, but it doesn’t always have to be so involved in a game such as this. After all, when you sit down with a friend to play a game of Magic: the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh! do you really worry about the story? No. In those cases, it’s all about testing out your deck strategies, testing mettle against mettle, and that’s where Acid 2 can really be appealing.
Though Acid 2 is a card-battler, it still has its roots in stealth-action, so you can crawl, flatten against a wall, knock on a wall (to lure guards away from their posts) and perform Close Quarters Combat (CQC) just as you would in the regular series. Now, there have been some improvements from the original Acid game, since it no longer takes individual cards to perform those actions (or others, such as climbing a ladder, and you only need walk over a card to pick it up, not stop on it) and they are all rolled into your movement. I should mention, though, that if you are facing the wrong direction or need to do any of those actions when your turn begins, you will need to waste a card – but that’s okay, since almost every card can be used for movement, as well. However, a well-balanced deck is still important.
While you could go in guns--er, I mean cards blazing or even with nothing but health and defense items (relying solely on CQC) if you wanted to, it is best to have a fair mix of both offense and defense. In the end, though, it is important to have a deck that supports your style of play, and there are several types of cards to take into account. There are over 500 cards in all, which you can collect by picking up from the levels from packs that are either hidden or dropped by fallen enemies, buying as singles or in packs from the Card Shop and upgrading your existing cards. Primarily, cards are only broken into two main types: Use and Equip. But, apart from that, there are weapons, health items, defense items, traps and more. Whatever your decision, you must consider the COST.
Essentially turn-based, Acid 2 doesn’t always work as such. In a normal game, when you play a card, there is generally some sort of sacrifice or requirement to fulfill, in this game, every card has a COST. Represented in the top right corner of the card, the COST of playing cards during your turn is added together and, if your COST is higher than your opponents, they can continue to move until it evens out. And though this works both ways – sometimes you will get the rare opportunity to move a few times in a row – it makes the turn-based aspect seem very lopsided. Also, it can be rather annoying to have to watch the moves of every character onscreen (and even those off-screen, too) but at the very least there is a Quick Mode, which speeds up NPC actions, though your PSP will probably still go into energy saver during the wait. But again, if you look at which cards you are putting in your deck, calculating their COST and even slipping in a few cards to negate it, you may be alright. Unfortunately, the cards in Acid 2 can’t always be trusted.
When you really start to get into the game, taking the time to analyze your deck and perfect it, you will soon be surprised to learn that a lot of the cards in the game don’t work exactly as their descriptions say. This is most notable with certain trap and effect cards, where the cards are supposed to last for so many COSTS or turns, but don’t. I can only assume it is just another of the many translation issues that plague the game. Scattered throughout Acid 2, there are moments of confusing dialogue and unclear objectives (though truly not enough to be a major problem) in a text-heavy game, which in and of itself is a problem.
Posted: 2006-04-18 08:38:50 PST