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Description
METAL GEAR AC!D was the first Metal Gear title on the PSP; it was an admirable attempt to bring the series' top-down sneaking to a portable environment, before people figured out how to translate real-time third-person games to the fledgling system. But while converting tactical espionage action into a turn-based card game sounded interesting, too many key elements were lost in translation, making for a game too clunky for stealth and too random for action.

The first strike against AC!D is that it's not canon, which distances about 75% of its audience. And not in MGS: Ghost Babel's 'alternate sequel' bent of non-canonicity, either - aside from a main character who vaguely resembles Snake and another model of bipedal tank, the characters and story have barely any relation to the franchise. AC!D has its share of militaristic circus freaks, but gimmicks like 'goth lolita with teddy', 'missing an arm', 'female Decoy Octopus' and 'a really good ventriloquist' come off more irritating than memorable, particularly since there's no voice acting.

Its real problems lie in its collectible card-based tactics. Movement, weapons and equipment are all drawn from a deck of at least forty cards, with a maximum hand size of six. The issue is that doing anything beyond moving and skulking involves a great deal of time and luck, either to draw duplicate cards or a certain combo, and then hope the resultant dice rolls turn up your way.

Using cards costs a certain amount of...well, 'COST', or time units. There's not a set COST limit per turn, but incurring too much forces you to wait longer while the enemy does more stuff. But the kicker is, Snake (who is alone for a third of the game) can only use two cards each turn, which means he can't pull off much of anything without giving the enemies a turn in between. Something as elementary as setting up a Claymore mine takes Snake an entire phase: move to the space you want it (one card), set the mine (two cards, so your turn's now over), stand right on top of it and pray that the enemy doesn't turn around or, worse, set it off and killing both of you. Sure, you could move to the designated spot and wait till next turn to place the mine, but most enemies don't move on their patrol routes until you're very close and do tons of COST-heavy actions each turn, meaning you'll spend multiple turns milling through your deck waiting for them to go away.

Weapons are even worse; since their accuracy is pathetic (50% chance to hit with a sniper rifle? Really?) and each attack requires a duplicate gun card as ammo, you'll often spray an entire magazine at an enemy's back from point blank, missing half the time and barely getting them to half health, then be unable to follow up with another attack or retreat to cover until after the enemy takes his turn, calls the alarm, and five guards rush to empty their AKs in your face.

Since earning an S rank on a mission requires low total COST used and damage taken, the only way to get through a level that quickly without kills/alerts is to abuse Stealth Camo and COST-reducing cards so you can take move after move without ever letting the enemy have a turn. That's right, Stealth Camo - a game-breaking cheat in past Metal Gear games - is now an essential element of stealth here and is available very early on, while classic techniques like choking out an enemy or tranquilizer pistols aren't available till halfway through the story.

Indeed, judging by the multitudes of +HIT (accuracy), +max health, +% chance of reaction shots, healing and attack evasion cards in the game, it almost feels as if the game is trying to encourage sweep-and-destroy tactics, a la X-Com: UFO Defense. But I didn't want X-Com from this game, I wanted Metal Gear, and that's absolutely not what I received. And I will certainly not be playing any other Metal Gear spinoffs in the future.

EDIT: No, there's even more to whine about! Completing missions awards points for buying booster packs of random cards, which means getting what you want involves grinding early missions for more points and more packs. The game attempts to make past missions more replayable by imposing one of these conditions each time:

Kill all enemies in the level.
OR
Reach the end without being detected, or it's mission failure.
OR
One of the enemies has a keycard to the exit. Kill guards until one of them drops it, then finish the level.

The problem is, the selection is always random. And since doing anything is such a hassle, your deck can only be focused around either combat or stealth, not both. So when you load into level with a deck filled with Stealth Camos and COST reducers and are told to kill everyone, your only option is to quit and reload the mission until you get the objective your deck is built for. What's the point? Why not just let us choose which scenario we want?

Description
METAL GEAR AC!D was the first Metal Gear title on the PSP; it was an admirable attempt to bring the series' top-down sneaking to a portable environment, before people figured out how to translate real-time third-person games to the fledgling system. But while converting tactical espionage action into a turn-based card game sounded interesting, too many key elements were lost in translation, making for a game too clunky for stealth and too random for action.

The first strike against AC!D is that it's not canon, which distances about 75% of its audience. And not in MGS: Ghost Babel's 'alternate sequel' bent of non-canonicity, either - aside from a main character who vaguely resembles Snake and another model of bipedal tank, the characters and story have barely any relation to the franchise. AC!D has its share of militaristic circus freaks, but gimmicks like 'goth lolita with teddy', 'missing an arm', 'female Decoy Octopus' and 'a really good ventriloquist' come off more irritating than memorable, particularly since there's no voice acting.

Its real problems lie in its collectible card-based tactics. Movement, weapons and equipment are all drawn from a deck of at least forty cards, with a maximum hand size of six. The issue is that doing anything beyond moving and skulking involves a great deal of time and luck, either to draw duplicate cards or a certain combo, and then hope the resultant dice rolls turn up your way.

Using cards costs a certain amount of...well, 'COST', or time units. There's not a set COST limit per turn, but incurring too much forces you to wait longer while the enemy does more stuff. But the kicker is, Snake (who is alone for a third of the game) can only use two cards each turn, which means he can't pull off much of anything without giving the enemies a turn in between. Something as elementary as setting up a Claymore mine takes Snake an entire phase: move to the space you want it (one card), set the mine (two cards, so your turn's now over), stand right on top of it and pray that the enemy doesn't turn around or, worse, set it off and killing both of you. Sure, you could move to the designated spot and wait till next turn to place the mine, but most enemies don't move on their patrol routes until you're very close and do tons of COST-heavy actions each turn, meaning you'll spend multiple turns milling through your deck waiting for them to go away.

Weapons are even worse; since their accuracy is pathetic (50% chance to hit with a sniper rifle? Really?) and each attack requires a duplicate gun card as ammo, you'll often spray an entire magazine at an enemy's back from point blank, missing half the time and barely getting them to half health, then be unable to follow up with another attack or retreat to cover until after the enemy takes his turn, calls the alarm, and five guards rush to empty their AKs in your face.

Since earning an S rank on a mission requires low total COST used and damage taken, the only way to get through a level that quickly without kills/alerts is to abuse Stealth Camo and COST-reducing cards so you can take move after move without ever letting the enemy have a turn. That's right, Stealth Camo - a game-breaking cheat in past Metal Gear games - is now an essential element of stealth here and is available very early on, while classic techniques like choking out an enemy or tranquilizer pistols aren't available till halfway through the story.

Indeed, judging by the multitudes of +HIT (accuracy), +max health, +% chance of reaction shots, healing and attack evasion cards in the game, it almost feels as if the game is trying to encourage sweep-and-destroy tactics, a la X-Com: UFO Defense. But I didn't want X-Com from this game, I wanted Metal Gear, and that's absolutely not what I received. And I will certainly not be playing any other Metal Gear spinoffs in the future.

EDIT: No, there's even more to whine about! Completing missions awards points for buying booster packs of random cards, which means getting what you want involves grinding early missions for more points and more packs. The game attempts to make past missions more replayable by imposing one of these conditions each time:

Kill all enemies in the level.
OR
Reach the end without being detected, or it's mission failure.
OR
One of the enemies has a keycard to the exit. Kill guards until one of them drops it, then finish the level.

The problem is, the selection is always random. And since doing anything is such a hassle, your deck can only be focused around either combat or stealth, not both. So when you load into level with a deck filled with Stealth Camos and COST reducers and are told to kill everyone, your only option is to quit and reload the mission until you get the objective your deck is built for. What's the point? Why not just let us choose which scenario we want?