Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops sneaks onto PSP

Anyone who's played any of the console Metal Gear Solid games will know they're a long way from the Metal Gear Ac!d titles available for PSP – and with good reason, seeing as they're meant to be very different experiences.

But with that knowledge, you can't help but wonder how the traditional MGS gameplay of sneaking, shooting and snapping necks would translate to PSP.

WEll, now you no longer need to because Kojima Productions has had enough time to put together a 'proper' MGS for Sony's handheld.

If you know your Solid Snake games, you'll realise that by being set in 1970, Portable Ops slots in after events of MGS 3: Snake Eater and therefore occupies a crucial period of the MGS timeline.

However, we'll leave plot details for another time because we're currently more concerned with how the game, rather than the narrative, plays out. Fans of the series will be pleased to learn the core 'stealth action' MGS elements are present, along with additions that promise to introduce additional depth. Konami has reworked the third-person camera to suit the PSP, resulting in a field of view that helps identify enemy locations and potential covert spots.

But it's the ability to recruit soldiers as you progress through the single-player game that represents one of the most significant embellishments, enabling you to build up a small army with distinctive abilities and effectively injecting an element of squad control into the mix.

This extends to the multiplayer wireless aspect, in which you get to pit your squad against that of fellow players' on a selection of purpose-built levels (a cooperative option also seems likely), recruit new members, and even trade them.

One particularly intriguing notion is the suggestion from Konami that any soldier killed in action stays that way – no magical restart options here. That appears to be backed up by the game's 'white flag' concept, which enables players to surrender and therefore live to fight another day.

We've yet to get our hands on it but we'd say on paper it looks like it's been worth the wait. Had Kojima Productions simply attempted to emulate the standard MGS experience, judging it on its suitability on PSP would have been reasonably straightforward – bar an understandable drop in graphical details, the comparable elements of Portable Ops we've seen are impressively close to the game's console predecessors. But we would inevitably have complained of a disappointing lack of innovation.

By playing around with the formula, the developer has introduced a number of variables – namely the recruitment and squad-based dynamic, not to mention the online side of things – that will prove crucial in determining how successful the overall package turns out, sure, but which may also revitalise the MGS formula.

At this stage it's obviously too early to tell, but if you click 'Track It!' above, you'll be able to sneak into the shadows and pounce on that information the moment it passes your way.