[bad soda]

[PS3/PSN] Metal Gear Online Beta – FIRST IMPRESSION:  A sad glimpse into what I will play too much of

The path to get playing this Beta is laden with roadblocks, twists, bumps, subterranean detours through grimlock infested tunnels, riddles presented by various lesser sphinxes (perhaps not any that Jason would have troubled with, but daunting still) and one massive volcanic river that was only safely traversed with insulated thermonuclear underwear.

One download, one installation, two lengthy and troublesome patches, two separate (and non-identical with strangely differing password requirements) ID creations, none of which takes advantage of the PS3’s XMB (other than constantly sending you back to it so you have to restart the program and re-watch the company logos), and I was finally –playing?  No.  Then there was some obtuse character creation that included customizable features like hats that, once donned, could be switched for others but never removed completely.  Then I selected my Call of Duty 4 style skills that offered crazy descriptions that included non-existent terminology.

Then I start the match-making and enter a game lobby which had me alternate between the settings “Ok” and “Ready” with the start button.  The twelve of us there just flipped back and forth between the two, having no god-damned idea which one meant “Yes, even after all of this, for some f!@#ing reason I still want to play.”  It turns out it was “Ok,” and remaining at “Ready” left you behind when the timer ran out.  I think.  My commando, looking pretty much just like every other friend and foe, entered the map and found myself controlling my character with the ease that an armadillo shows when doing cartwheels.

The controls are very heavy with button commands, requiring two commands to see down the iron sights of your weapon (with sometimes a third to change alter your lock-on setting).  And we haven’t even fired the gun yet, but you can be sure at this point someone has attacked you.  Thankfully the opponent attacking you who tried to shoot his gun by looking at you and pressing the trigger will only pitifully swing the butt of his weapon in a melee.  Because unless you’re holding the lock-on/aim button there is no shooting but the same button is instead your CQC.

So this, which happened to me almost exactly as described, led me to run to some kind of low cover like a sandbag.  Pressing up against the sandbag did not anchor me against it like previous Metal Gear games, but required pressing the action button like a complicated Gears of War maneuver.  Now I was relatively safe from my attacker, who had managed to shoot at me by now but was now trying to back up while keeping his gun forward.  I sympathized with him, but I presumably had a position of advantage.  That is until I realized that while taking cover you could not lean over, but only around.  So I just kind of sat there, trying out buttons while assuming that the game was not this lame, and was choked once by my own team and then shot to death after I managed to get someone filled with my bullets.

Ten rounds later, not much has changed.  Recoil is a bitch, no one uses headsets, maps are small, success is sweet.

Like the online offered in Subsistence before it, this MGO experience is a distraction at best.  Let’s not be mistaken, though:  I am a Metal Gear fanatic.  Clearly, since I went through all of that and still not only played but forced myself to have some kind of fun.  And worse?  I will play this game more than any other online game if it’s even an ounce better than the previous MGO.  Honestly, I hope that MGS4 isn’t taking nods from this one and I hope that when they say “Beta,” they mean it.  There are some fixes needed, most of all being full integration with the Playstation Network and XMB.