

Like Acid and Rising, Survive veers away from the series' staple stealth action, instead offering its own spin on the likes of Rust and Ark that have proved so popular in recent years. Survive, despite the acrimony and apathy surrounding it, can be racked up as another spin-off that's half-decent. Some of those spin-offs - think the brilliant Ghost Babel on Game Boy, the eccentric Acid on PSP or PlatinumGames' Rising, a game so good it threatens to eclipse some of the mainline Metal Gears - have even turned out okay.

This was always going to be a tough sell. Metal Gear's first post-Kojima outing plays fast and loose with the formula, with results that are equal parts brilliant and baffling.
