After procuring a PS3, the first thing I decided I wanted to do was become a Metal Gear fan, properly. I played through most of Peace Walker on PSP years ago with no context, so I got the Legacy Collection and I'm working my way through it in release order. So I started here, at Metal Gear.

The game is fun. For being the first in the series, and the first real stealth game, it's actually fun. Sneaking through a room, freezing behind cover and silently punching out a guard actually feels great. As does clocking the puzzles in rooms full of traps and tricks. The story was fun enough but I really loved the codec calls as a means of delivering both exposition and gameplay hints.

Having said all of that, some of these puzzles are so damn obscure that I had to rely on a walkthrough. I'm sure I could have punched every wall in a massive room to see which was hollow and needed to be blown up, but uhhhhh I value my time enough to not do that shit. I needed the walkthrough and I needed to cheese it multiple times. I realised that if you died enough times, you'd get fully refilled on ammo and rations. Early on I was annoyed that the game pitied me, by the end I was intentionally stepping onto electrified floors to summon my care package. Having said all of this though, the obscurity of these puzzles actually makes them feel really unique and clever when they come together. The parachute thing off the roof? That gives you a little cut scene of Snake floating down, after you've navigated the wobbly bridge and blown up a helicopter? Cinematic shit fr.

This game clearly lays the groundwork as best as it could, and it seems to be feeling out what stealth games can even be. A lot of the time it's seriously unfun, and it hasn't aged incredibly, but it's always engaging.