It's never been an easy task when it comes to converting a larger, more visually complex game onto less demanding hardware, and that challenge could be magnified considerably when it came to squeezing Hideo Kojima's massive Blu-ray draining PlayStation 3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 onto Apple's iPhone/iPod Touch hardware. But how does one go about translating one of today's most sophisticated and technologically demanding experiences into something that's not just playable, but with any luck enjoyable? Not without considerable effort, streamlining, and a undemanding fanbase with a love for all things Solid Snake with Metal Gear Solid Touch.

If you ever played Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots you’ll first realize that MGST is basically a modest retelling of last year’s ambitious release, except the tremendously ambitious (and consuming) full-motion cinematics have been heavily condensed into smaller text crawls still shots that do a fairly decent job of conveying the original game's complex narrative. Shoehorning MGS4's operatic and sprawling storyline onto Apple's machine might strike some as ironic, given how much attention the original game received for its preference of movies over gameplay.

Robbed of both cinematic flair and gameplay limitations posed by Apple's button-free interface, MGST instead opts (no pun intended) for the direct approach, again a great deviation from the original's adherence to espionage-laden missions. The perspective and gameplay is now a direct shooting gallery experience, complete with simplistic controls and mechanics that are generally a good match for the iPhone/iPod Touch's responsive screen. You only need worry about controlling Snake's targeting cursor, handled by moving your finger across the screen and switching between close and long-range targets by pinching the screen. Taking your fingers off the screen will cause Snake to duck and cover, easy enough to remember and implemented as well as you could imagine.

While the gameplay seems simple enough, the developers have decided to implement some of the franchise's strange humor and stylistic choices into the fray, most likely to keep an otherwise mundane effort lively and entertaining. The effect is akin to shooting ducks in a barrel, as the multitude of onscreen enemies can only attack when a circular icon (above their heads, another nod to Kojima's strange sense of humor) completes a cycle. This of course gives the player more than enough time to zone in and wreck all sorts of destruction, which can be quite explosive when you've got an RPG launcher in your hands. Standard PMCs to monstrously huge Gekko units are just some of the enemies that appear from the console games, but you'll have to keep your eyes out to avoid friendly-fire and casualties on the small screen.

Thankfully, the game looks great on the screen, with pre-rendered graphics making a good substitute for the mammoth polygons and in-game graphics from previous titles, while the soundtrack sounds as bombastic and interesting as well. Other than shooting "alternative objects" like rubber duckies and frogs, it’s mostly a tapping, dragging, and pinching affair. In-game "Drebin Points" can help unlock artwork and wallpapers from the menu screen, but there really isn't much else in the way of long-term gameplay or substantive content. Although this might sound harsh, the whole experience isn't much more involving and fulfilling than most Flash-based internet games, and in some ways less so.

From what many readers have already deduced, Metal Gear Solid Touch for the iPhone/iPod Touch achieves a small triumph in bringing the series to Apple's increasingly vital platform, but little else. Those expecting the full Metal GearSolid 4 experience on the go will be greatly disappointed, as the simple point/click gameplay and interface never approaches fellow portable Solid Snake action, let alone that of the PlayStation 3 juggernaut. Still, despite its enormous faults in gameplay execution and lack of depth, the idea of carting around a compact Solid Snake on the same machine that plays your favorite MP3s and movies should please the most diehard of Metal Gear fanatics, at least in short spurts.