Okay so I finally got a chance to sit down with the Metal Gear Online Beta this afternoon, and while it’s no Call of Duty 4, it does have a certain charm to it. I was a bit skeptical over how a Metal Gear game translates to online play, but MGO feels a lot like its offline predecessors in many ways. Conversely, the game has a very unique side to it as well.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the poor network Konami has going for MGO, so I won’t go into that any further, but once you actually get past the main menu, things get interesting. The game features a character appearance customizer akin to Rainbow Six Vegas, a skill system somewhat like Call of Duty’s perks, and a weapon buy system reminiscent of Counter Strike. What the game adds is a very unique 3rd person perspective, weapon customization, and all the humor and trademarks of the Metal Gear series. Obviously as a beta, Metal Gear Online has a rather unstable network and a rather limited map and weapon selection, but what I got to see was impressive.

The ususal mix of FPS game modes are present, but the truely innovative mode is called “Sneaking Mission”. This randomly chooses one person in the game to play as Solid Snake, and the rest of the players are split between the red and blue teams. Snake is a neutral party who can shoot anyone on either team, but his ultimate objective is to collect a number of tags from enemy soldiers. The blue and red teams are rushing to be the first to kill Snake, while fighting off the other team at the same time.

Snake has quite a few tricks up his sleeve, as I discovered when I played as Snake one round. His first, and arguably most useful asset is the OctoCamo which blends in with the terrain around you. This makes Snake extremely difficult to see, and coupled with his Snake Eye he can effectively hide from enemies while knowing their whereabouts on the radar. Snake has a few guns at his disposal, as well as the obligatory cardboard box and girly magazines (not sure how those are supposed to work in online play).

Additionally, if more than ten players are in a Sneaking Mission match, another player is chosen to play as Snake’s teammate, the Metal Gear Mk II, and gets to cloak around the map electrocuting everyone. Only Metal Gear could pull off gameplay elements like that.

As for the downsides, the cover system could use some work; it doesn’t feel as clean as Gears or Rainbow Six, and the realism factor is a little toned down for my taste. Konami may be a little too close to launch to really adjust these features much, but I will be interested to see what the full release looks like anyway.