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aurahack

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Days of Gaming : Day 3

By aurahack 12 Comments

Ugh. So tired. Long day... but not long enough to prevent me from writing today's entry in my 30-day series of blogs! Let's get JIGGY WITH IT, shall we? 
 

No Caption Provided

Metal Gear Ac!d 2

 
    
ARGH MY APPENDIX 
ARGH MY APPENDIX 
I was only seconds away from saving the version of the banner you see above that included a screenshot from Rule of Rose before I stopped and started thinking a little bit more about what I was doing. In reality, I've yet to play Rule of Rose and despite really wanting to, I don't really have the time to get around to that right now. So I, instead, stopped and looked around through my game library in search of something I've played that I know people seem to hate for no reason. It took a while but when I reached my PSP games, I instantly found what I was going to write about. It's a terrible, terrible shame that both regular gamers and fans of the Metal Gear series dismiss Metal Gear Ac!d 2 because it's one of the best titles the platform has to offer.  
 
"But Aura," you say, "surely you can't be saying that a card game spin-off, of Metal Gear no less, is a good game! I mean, it's a card game! CARDS!" 
  
"A valid point." I reply after some consideration. "A valid point, indeed. However, you're missing the bigger picture, here." 
 
"And what's that?" you ask after I give you a very stern yet thoughtful look. 
 
 I scream at your face, "You're forgetting that you're an assbutt!". right before I punch you square in the nose. 
 
... or at least, that's how I imagine every conversation going whenever I tell people that MGA2 is a terrific game. It generally plays out more like "Haha, right. As if that shit would be good." 
 
MGA2 is a seriously good-looking game. The cel-shaded stuff looks *perfect* on the PSP's screen. 
MGA2 is a seriously good-looking game. The cel-shaded stuff looks *perfect* on the PSP's screen. 
Metal Gear Ac!d 2 is a stupidly-named game that is completely non-cannon to the core MGS story and sets you up on an island with the mission of infiltrating a secret base. What follows from there is a surprisingly well-paced and thought-out story that carries you from stage-to-stage, in which you'll engage in stealth and combat using a series of playing cards that you assign to your deck. Complicated enough, for you? Nah, it's nothing. The game does  a fantastic job of easing you into how combat and movement works with some learn-as-you-play tutorials that set you up more-than-sufficiently for the bosses and levels that follow. Everything you do is governed by a set amount of moves you can take during your turn. Certain cards, like special abilities or certain weapons, will use up more than one move count and will force you to strategically plot out your course throughout the stage, making it far more tactical than just the "use this to move" and "use this to blap blap dudes in the face" thing you would probably assume MGA ends up being.  
 
Slick UIs make my snake go solid. 
Slick UIs make my snake go solid. 
Menus is where you will build your deck using booster packs that you purchase and upgrade the cards you already have. There's a ton there for you to tweak so if you want to play a specific style, the cards will very much let you do so-- provided you build your deck the proper way. It's also worth adding that the game's presentation is jaw-dropping. As a design student and avid graphic artist, I nothing-short-of envy the UI team that worked on MGA2. The menus, the in-combat UI, the cutscenes, the intro video... everything is slick and stands out like no game you've ever seen before. 
 
If you own a PSP, do yourself the favor of picking Metal Gear Ac!d 2 up. It's incredibly cheap now and you're more-than-most likely to find a copy of it used at your local EB/GameStop. You'll also get to play your PSP again, which is something we're all guilty of kind of wanting to do whenever we see that bastard son of ours just gather up dust. It's fun, it looks amazing and it's addictive as hell once you get the hang of how the game flows. I sincerely hope Konami revisits the series because it's a rare, experimental gem that turned out far better than most give it credit for. 
 

Days of Gaming Recap!

Feb 13th, 2011 - Day 1: Your Very First Videogame
Feb 14th, 2011 - Day 2: Your Favorite Character 

I'll attach this one to the Off-Topic forums for views' sake but since I'm unsure if having one of these posted every day on the forums would be considered spam, I'll keep to my blog after this one.    

See 'ya tomorrow! :D        
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