4. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
This may end up a little further down than some would agree with, but that's what is great about lists. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed Peace Walker; I absolutely loved the story as it gave us more of a glimpse into the eventual turn of Big Boss into the villain we would come to know in the original Metal Gear games. I do not own a PSP, so I was ecstatic when the MGS HD Collection was announced, as it finally gave me the opportunity to play this title that so many people raved about. As stated above, the story was really near-perfect and gave us more insight into the mind of the greatest soldier that ever lived. It was very emotional, as most MGS games are, as long as you can suspend disbelief enough to buy that an AI-controlled Metal Gear would drown itself to save Mother Base from being wiped out, to symbolically prove The Boss's innocence, as it was her "will" that was controlling the AI. Yes, that last sentence is quite ridiculous when taken at face value, but this is a Metal Gear Solid game after all. This did, however, give us the subsequent powerful exchange between Naked Snake and Kaz, where the title of Big Boss was finally accepted. Big Boss' betrayal, that he felt due to The Boss laying down her gun, really set in motion the path toward darkness we will bear witness to when MGSV is released. Because I don't own a PSP, the mission-based nature of the game was not something I saw as a positive. Missions that can sometimes take less than 5 minutes to complete don't really transition that well to a home system, and is in stark contrast to every other game on this list. Granted, I understand why the game was designed this way as it was originally a PSP game, but it is just not something that I personally prefer. While the introduction of co-op was a nice addition to the franchise, it sometimes seemed a necessity in order to actually beat the game. Admittedly, I could not get past ZEKE until someone jumped online to help me tag team it. The base building, team building, and assembly of ZEKE also was a letdown, as there were so many prerequisites you had to hit before you could actually get to the end of the game. To me, this really slowed down the pace of the game and caused it to actually drag a bit, which is not something I normally think of related to a Metal Gear Solid game. Had Peace Walker been designed for the PS3 instead of PSP, I think the gameplay style could have possibly bumped this all the way up to the top of my list. Alas, for me it sits at #4.