"MPO+ Time!"

Introduction:


Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus, the awaited expansion for the original MPO. The new features consist of new online maps, weapons, characters and the new infinity mission which replaces the regular storyline. Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus is mostly intended for online play.


Infinity Mission Game play:

9/10

First of all as you are starting up MPO+ , if you have the option of importing your old MPO save into it. Doing so, you carry over all unique on your save, and any legit HP soldiers, gladly those soldiers with altered HP will not be carried over. Once you get to the starting screen, you have the Mission, Manage, Status, Recruit, Match, the new Training, and lastly System. At the Mission screen you have the difficulty missions, you must complete the each one to unlock the other. Infinity mode consists of you starting at one point and finding out where the Exit Portal to the next stage is.

Eventually over time you will remember all the possible locations of all the exit portals and going through each difficulty will be a breeze. Easy mode consists of 5 stages , with the last stage being the "Special Mission" stage, after you complete it, depending on how you did, you will get a certain rank and a certain amount of experience(experience is what raises your hp/stamina). Normal mode consists of 10 stages , you will have a couple special missions in this stage, once there complete you will go back to the manage part aka the withdraw point, where you can equip/unequipped weapons or items and heal your soldiers and also be able to replace a soldier from your team with one you might of captured and also be able to make a temporary save which will exit your game and it will start up again.

Hard mode consists of 15 stages, like the above there will be special missions and just do like you have done with the following missions. Extreme mode consists of 20 stages, with a special purple exit portable in stage 14 which skips over stage 15 and takes you to stage 16 which you will be in Gene's room and will have the chance to capture a room full of soldiers or collect a room full worth of items. This round you also take less damage when shot, so you have a better chance to live!. The withdraw points for each stage are 3 and 6 for normal, 4-8-12 for hard and 5-10-15 for extreme.


The types of special missions are , where you find the exit portal before the time runs out, neutralize all enemies, then exit portal will show or Survive until time runs out, then exit portal will show. Mostly the survive till the time runs out, they give you about a 2 minute clock. Neutralize all enemies sometimes they give you a clock , sometimes they don't. Finding the exit portable sometimes they give you a short time or a long, remembering where the exit portals for each map is a must to make this allot easier.

After beating each Infinity Mission mode also, you will unlock unique characters. At the Manage screen you have the same thing as regular MPO , the ability to see all your soldiers, your sneaking team, the medics, the spies ,the tech unit, rookies and independents.

For the Status section you have all your current levels ,spy level, tech level, medic level and new assistance and recon level. On the Recruit section you have the new AP Scout, which is basically the same as AP Scan except some of the possible recruits you find, they will ask for a specific trait. Also you have "enter password" , the new online trade where you can specify a certain stat or soldier you want and someone else accepts and you trade.

Soldier List shows 68 possible types of soldiers, get all 68 and you unlock a special taunt.
The new training , is for all the weapons in MPO+ , you choose a weapon and difficulty and if you complete it you gain something special.


Soldier capacity has doubled, going from 100 to 200. Two new careers have been added , one of them gives you the ability to heal allies with tranquilizer shots from the mk22 or the mosin nagant, the other allows you to detect the enemies abilities.
In regular MPO the stats all maxed at "S" but now in MPO+ you have S2 and S3 stats.

Online Game play:

10/10

MPO+ is mostly for the online game play, with Infinity mission being the way it is, you can mostly train your soldiers through it to max their stats to make your online experience better. Some new features for online game play are the ability to make your very own pre-set messages. Also you have the ability to join games from the regular MPO Infrastructure and Adhoc, so players from MPO and MPO+ can play one another but MPO players have to be hosting and no new weapons or characters from MPO+ cannot be used.

The online games are death match(DM),team death match(TDM),team capture mission(TCM) and Capture Mission(CM+). CM+ has changed , you no longer can capture the kerotan and run with it with the timer running down, you now must stay in a X-marked portal before the timer starts. The two new online games is the shooting range, Targets placed around the maps , require the players to shoot them to gain points, with a big icon showing up during the matches which result in more points for the team who destroys it.

Chat Room which you have the ability to basically mess around and chat with other players. The new online maps are the Ghost Factory, Kill house B, Kill house C, Pillbox Purgatory, Rex Hangar, Ravine, Western Wilderness. The new weapons are the P90, MK23 also known as the Socom, the AKS-74U, the Famas, the M4A1 and the M4(SOPMOD). Three new items are , the heart of justice (changes your Genome's color),fashion magazines(gives you new online taunts), and the textbooks which raise your soldiers weapon stats.


Graphics and Sound

10/10

It being a psp game the graphics are really good, like the way the dark area maps blend in with the night and you see the dark gloomy clouds moving overhead . The map details are really outstanding with some big maps and some small maps. The music in the background during a online match can be soothing to some but others not so much, basically all the same music from MPO is in MPO+. Just imagine replaying through it and getting into tune with the amazing sounds that goes along with MPO+.


:Replay Value:

10/10

The replay value of MPO+ is highly outstanding, you mainly just have to replay through it to train your soldiers and capture new better ones. Maxing your soldier stats at 50,000 EXP will take you replaying over at least Extreme , doing so you might just of trained the ultimate soldier.

:Ending:

For $20 Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus is such a good and cheap pick up for any MGS fan or MPO fan, heck you can even get a combo pack of MPO and MPO+ for $40. MPO+ is a definite buy if you enjoy constant replay value and online game play.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/07

Game Release: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (US, 11/13/07)