Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

Like Pokemon, Monster Hunter has been a series of incremental improvements. Freedom Unite has polished many aspects of gameplay, smoothing rough edges and easing burdens, but has also failed to address the biggest issues. Weapons have been rebalanced slightly, item boxes now hold 99 of each object in each slot. Load times, should you wish to use the space-hungry data-install option, are greatly reduced and a huge chunk of high-level content has been added. There are new monsters, armour and weapons. But I can't help but feel all this elbow grease would have been better employed working on the single biggest barrier to enjoyment in Monster Hunter: the camera.

On the whole, it's actually pretty good: close-up but generally offering a wide enough range to keep track of the action. Enter a small cave, however, or get too close to a wall (often as a result of being flattened there by a charging beast) and the view can rear up to show nothing but floor, or the inside of a 20-ton dragon. Foliage and scenery often obscure the view as well, and clumsy fingers can all too easily leave you completely disorientated. It's not a game-breaker, but at its worst it made me apoplectic, and it is the biggest flaw in an otherwise wonderfully polished game. Capcom has had more than enough time to perfect it by now.

The other impenetrable decision is the continued absence of an online co-op mode. In case you haven't gathered by now, Monster Hunter is bloody tough, and many of its later missions are absolutely impossible on your own. The best, and most enjoyable, way to take on the harder challenges is to team up with up to three friends and tackle them as a group.

Group hunting is not only immensely fun, it also adds tremendous tactical depth. Filling different roles in a hunting party means that something approaching an MMO party balance can be achieved, with tanks, damage dealers and support roles. This collaboration is easily the best way to enjoy the subtleties which the game has to offer, so it's bewildering that it remains an ad-hoc only activity.

It's been a bugbear of all the PSP iterations of the series. Is Capcom trying to force the culture of social gaming so prevalent in Japan by ignoring it? Perhaps, but in all honesty, I don't think that's ever going to happen. As a professional working within the gaming industry, I still struggled to find people to play with. There's no scanning for players on the commute or in the park as you might in Tokyo; the series, and indeed the PSP itself, simply doesn't have the market penetration in Europe.

Perhaps this can be the game to change that, but it's a huge ask, and one which could easily have been avoided. For years there have been third-party software solutions to this problem, allowing disparate online gatherings via a wireless connection, so it's entirely possible. Its absence smacks of tenacity bordering on the obstinate.

But despite Monster Hunter Freedom Unite's faults and grating omissions I can't remember playing anything recently which has given such an immense satisfaction and sense of achievement. Finally honing your technique to the point where you fell a beast which has been routinely spreading you all over the environment (I'm looking at you, Khezu) is a real moment of triumph, and doing it in the company of friends is even better. For the sheer volume of content here alone, Capcom deserves massive recognition. We're talking about MMO levels of time to be happily sunk; it's completely unparalleled on the system, and indeed almost unheard of full-stop.