Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a member of the series that pioneered the now popular stealth genre, laying the foundation for later games like Splinter Cell, Thief, and Assassin’s Creed.
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Story & Themes
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walkers centers around Big Boss (AKA Snake) who has created his own mercenary faction, Militaires Sans Fronti̬res. Snake is hired to investigate a mysterious army in Costa Rica and ultimately must prevent a nuclear attack on the United States.
The Metal Gear games intricately intertwine real history with the supernatural and wild conspiracies , mixing mythological archetypes with near-future military realism: Shadowy puppet-masters controlling world events? Check. Artificially intelligent supercomputers controlling the global flow of information and all the weaponry of the U.S. right under our noses? Yup. The games also are bizarrely fantastical, oftentimes breaking the fourth wall. One instance has you switching the port that your controller is plugged in to, in order to thwart a mind-reading enemy. Another has a character mention the packaging the game was physically sold in, where a code necessary to proceed can be found. Yet another has a character mention the storage capacity of the medium (Blu-Ray) that the game, and by extension himself, is contained on. Thinking outside the box is a common theme in this series.
Save Points
Players can call a specific character on their radio to save the game at any time, except for during a cutscene.
Difficulty
For anyone who has played a Metal Gear game before, the gameplay will be familiar and not too difficult. However, boss fights are tricky, especially when playing alone. They can be done on single-player, but be forewarned that this will require extra time and effort.
Heads Up!
Violence Since this series more or less centers around weapons and warfare, there is of course a fair amount of blood; a few scenes feature lots of blood, though the violence generally doesn't go as far as dismemberment or mutilation. Torture is also depicted.
However, most of the games in this series allow the player to successfully complete the game without a single kill. The ultimate goal of the stealth-based game is to infiltrate without leaving any trace of your presence, so it's usually best to just sneak by enemies without being noticed. In situations where you are forced to incapacitate enemies, including bosses, you have the option to tranquilize them and slip by while they are unconscious.
Sex & Nudity One of the extra ops missions includes the implied sexual encounter between the player and another character. During this mission, the female character is depicted in a bikini.
Strong Language Occasional crude language, but not excessive.
Substance Use References to drugs are made throughout.
Online Community
There is an online multiplayer mode, but it can only be accessed when two players are in close proximity to each other.
Conversation Starters
- Do you find killing a genetic clone of a super-soldier easier than killing a unique individual? Why might this be?
- Is the added challenge of accomplishing a mission without killing anyone worth the trouble?
- Do you think it's plausible that shadow elements such as the Patriots control world events in real life?
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