Metal Gear Solid: Ranking The Series From Worst To Best

9. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

Kojima's first 'proper' foray onto portable territory following the fantastic (yet thoroughly-overlooked) card-based battler Acid, was Portable Ops, the game that elected to give PSP owners the 'full Metal Gear experience' they'd been missing.

It worked fairly well considering the technical limitations of the hardware, and would see the series' first take at getting you to amass a large army that could be analysed, customised and deployed in various ways.

As the PSP's UMD discs couldn't handle 'proper' cutscenes, instead MGS graphic novel artist Ashley Wood was brought in to create motion comic variations, their rough, angular and occasionally primitive aesthetic dividing fans right down the middle.

All things considered PO was fine enough, but its story was almost completely forgettable aside from a couple of key character cameos (Grey Fox FTW). Still, the appeal was playing as an eyepatch-wearing Big Boss for the first time since the close of Snake Eater, going up against the renegade Fox unit headed up by the mysterious Gene as we got the first look at how the hero from MGS 3 could start to turn into the villain of the later chronology.