10. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)

Sterling: We'd love to see more developers put out games that are as wildly crazy and innovative as Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. We know, however, that it usually takes a lot of creative control and an established name to get something like this out. Oddly, it's hard not to think of Kojima's other handheld projects, such as Boktai, which forced vampirically pasty children around the world to go outside to play Game Boy. It's the combination of wacky "only in Japan" gameplay features and the continuation of the Metal Gear Solid storyline that push this to the forefront of the PSP's greatest games.

Gamers interested in putting together pieces of the storyline's puzzle will be well-suited to pick this one up, as the game explains more about how Snake/Big Boss evolves into the terrorist mastermind who threatens the world with Metal Gear by the time the NES game happens. As he's stuck in the middle of an attempted military blackmail of both the US and the Soviet Union in 1970, he must find a way to overthrow the uprising and keep nukes from being launched. The only way to do that, with his limited resources, is to spread dissent among the troops, and convince them to join his battle. The ability to form Snake's army of renegade soldiers is one of the most fun, inadvertently habit-forming, and novel ways that Portable Ops stands head and shoulders above other handheld titles we've played all year.

The online section works exceptionally well. Players can take their beefed-up recruits online and have it out in either deathmatch or capture the flag (in this case, a cute little Kerotan), with team variations on each. There's also the option to send a lower-ranked team onto Konami's servers, where they can gain experience and possibly even recruit more soldiers. It seems like almost everything that could have been thrown into a handheld game was, and for that, we believe that Portable Ops is the best of this year.

The handheld war flared up during the first half of 2006, as Sony and third-party publishers fired off a litany of award-worthy titles, while Nintendo solidified their online presence, garnered mainstream attention thanks to the Stateside release of the Brain games, and dropped a Lite-r DS. While there's still no clear victor in the battle between PSP and DS, there's one indisputable fact: recruiting soldiers over Wi-Fi access points is the digital equivalent of rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, and this one will turn anyone into a pyromaniac.

Patrick: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops' only failure is that it didn't come out when the PSP launched. If it had, I think that the current balance between the Nintendo DS and the PSP would be very different -- Portable Ops as a launch title would have sold systems. It takes advantage of essentially every part of the PSP hardware's capacity, takes some risks with the Metal Gear Solid franchise's gameplay while still sticking very close to its spirit and feel, and covers enough ground between Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid's timelines to feel like a real entry in the series. It isn't the perfect game, or even the perfect PSP game, but nothing else has really shown exactly how much a PSP title can be, given what were probably limitless development funds.

In terms of pushing the PSP, it's important that you see this game on that awesome little screen. It's not as breathtakingly beautiful as Tekken, but Portable Ops perfectly -- perfectly -- captures the design direction of the MGS series. It's easy to see how the equipment and the overall look of the setting has evolved from 3 and will continue on to the next game chronologically, MGS. Even that goofy T-rex run that Snake does to CQC-wield a knife and a pistol together comes off just right, from the look of his costume to the character model to the animation. The shift from the full Kojima-vision cutscenes of the home console games to the Digital Graphic Novel-style scenes is jarring, but they're an excellent choice nonetheless. Ashley Wood's style may not be right for everyone, but it sure as hell is right for the Metal Gear Solid universe.

The camera is a bit shifty, but still outshines most other PSP titles' handling of camera issues. The story mode has metric tons of leave-you-gasping fan service but still leaves some surprises for a sequel or two, and the introduction of a strategic level of gathering soldiers into an army works amazingly well. Just like CQC in 3 finally made Snake seem like he really was this supreme combatant the cutscenes painted him to be, gathering up your army makes Big Boss feel like the global threat he's been since, well, Metal Gear. Full Infrastructure and Ad Hoc wireless and the innovative use of wardriving to gather new soldiers, as well as the tucked-away strategy mode of cyber-survival, delivers a package with more sheer crazy value than most games can hope to match. And it's got all the Snake you've been craving for your PSP, in the real timeline, really answering questions even as more are raised in that Twin Peaks style I love. It feels right to quote Liquid Snake here: "Not yet Snake. It's not over yet."

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