Metal Gear Online

Looking beyond the auto-aim, MGO's weapons and items feel solid and entertaining. Each weapon class is heavily specialised - shotguns for close-up work, assault rifles at longer range, sniper rifles purely for the patient camper - and each one is equally deadly in the right context. There are no poor-man's weapons classes here, and while weapon damage isn't quite one-shot-kill realistic, it's close enough to be very satisfying. Especially satisfying are the tranquilliser weapons, surprisingly. These don't harm an enemy's health, but send them to sleep on the spot for a short time - allowing you or a team-mate to move in for the kill. Combined with a good forward team, an efficient sniper with a tranquiliser gun could be devastating.

Equipment, too, is well considered and implemented. One interesting feature is that explosives, while not as powerful as in some other games (you'll rarely see one-shot-kills from grenades and claymores, as in something like COD4), have realistic physics attached to them. Set off a claymore, and it may not kill you outright - but the shockwave from the blast could knock you off a ledge or a ladder, or simply throw you backwards out of cover. The usual MGS assortment of special grenades are here too - from smoke through to chaff that disrupts the enemy's overhead maps.

There are even a few of MGS' more humorous items that have made the transition through to Online. Players have a Cardboard Box in their inventory, which initially seems silly - until you realise that many levels are littered with the things, making them into a surprisingly good disguise that can sometimes see enemies walking right past you without noticing. The adult magazine, too, makes a return - throwing it on the ground can force other players' characters to glance in that direction, distracting them from what you're doing. They're clever, light-hearted touches that give the game a unique flavour, as well as a few new tactics to exploit.

Heavy Metal

The game's menus give the strong impression that Kojima Productions isn't skimping on Metal Gear Online's functionality outside the game, either. Game-types range from flag-style missions (where you actually end up competing over a small, floating, cheerful-looking rubber duck, which bobs above the head of the player carrying it) such as CTF and flag defence, through to "base missions" (where you capture and hold locations on the map, either to earn points towards victory or to win outright as the first team to hold all the locations) and simple, straightforward deathmatch. The server browser is pretty comprehensive, offering plenty of information about the games you're joining (or setting up), and we especially like the ability to give a server a rating out of five stars when you leave. Those games by control-freak or kick-happy players should quickly get booted to the bottom of the lists as a result.

A quick survey of the rest of the menus reveals further tantalising options. Photographs taken in-game can be stored on the PS3 hard drive (shades of Halo 3 here, perhaps?), while there are menu options hinting at proper support for Clans, an in-game email-style messaging system, proper support for friends lists, and of course, the MGO shop - although this sadly wasn't working, so we couldn't go in for a sneaky peek around.