Portable Ops Plus
On July 17, 2007, Konami announced Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, a stand-alone expansion of the original game, focused on online play. Among its new features, the expansion includes new characters such as Genome and Gurlukovich soldiers from MGS and MGS2 respectively. There are also new missions, tutorials for beginners, as well as a new single-player mode called Infinity Mission.
In Japan, Portable Ops Plus was released on September 20, 2007 in two formats: the expansion on its own and as a deluxe package that includes the original game and the expansion. It was later released in North America on November 13, 2007 and in Europe version on March 28, 2008. This is the first game for the Metal Gear Solid series to have a Teen rating by the ESRB.
The stages in the game for the MPO is putting together in difficulties including Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme, where the player must go through randomly chosen maps, looking for the advance point within the level, using the surround indicator to help them. Stage Selection consists into difficulties. This adds some extra difficulty, because the surround indicator could show an enemy, or the advance point. Within this mode, there are also Kerotan, which make a small croak sound, as well as briefly showing on the surround indicator with every croak. The game places an emphasis on online gameplay, with the modes from the original being used with their + counterparts, such as "Cyber-Survival+" and "Infrastructure+". During online gameplay, rookie players will have a rookie mark (On the EU and NA versions of the game the mark is a cherry logo, whereas on the Japanese version its a green and yellow heart shape), reducing the damage they get, and increasing the damage they give, making online gameplay easier for less skilled players.
The game is available in 2009 on the PlayStation Store for download for both PSPgo and PSP.
Read more about this topic: List Of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Characters, Versions and Re-releases