Landmark espionage thriller
I feel like I can go ad nauseam about how Metal Gear Solid changed the game industry back in 1998 with its innovative narrative design, gameplay, voice acting and graphics. Approaching it from a more personal appreciation, I really think this game is amazing and still holds up despite those years later. The story beats don't hit as much considering I know it by heart at this point but everything feels well done, cohesive and never really pulls the brakes from beginning to end barring a few speed bumps. One of the few games I can really call a work of art from a visual and storytelling perspective and from a personal perspective as well as I feel gaming wouldn't be the same without it.
Solid Snake, the protagonist of the first two Metal Gear games on the MSX gets out of retirement in a personal operation to stop terrorists from launching a nuke from Alaska. The game does a great job getting you up to pace with the previous operation tabs and the briefing file itself. I can't imagine playing the game without the briefing file itself since it gives a lot more context in what you're doing and why you're even doing it but you can play it without it if so desired. What feels like a spy movie thriller, Metal Gear Solid always keeps you on your feet from beginning to end due to its amazing pacing. For the most part, you are always moving forward in the story and something interesting is happening which never left me bored even with essentially memorizing the story at this point. If you never played the game, I can easily imagine just binging the whole nine to ten hour story in one go just trying to see what happens next. I will say one of the few speed bumps in this game is the backtracking which felt like padding more than anything but it wasn't too bad as things mostly do happen during this. One of my favorite things in the series in general are the codec conversations in general, important exposition and information relayed to Snake free from the stress of what's going on now. Campbell generally giving you hints when you need it acting like a free game tips hotline, Master giving you some general advice how to react to nature and your own instincts, Nastasha giving you insight on how each of your weapon works and the magic behind them. What I enjoy is the overall theme and narrative feeling surprisingly grounded despite the ridiculousness of some of the things portrayed in this game. Everyone treats Snake as this legendary hero but he always rebuffs this knows his true nature and the game never shies away from that. The voice acting here also helps as I felt like nobody really put out a bad performance throughout the entire cast which must have raised the bar even further at the time. Not to mention the camera shots and general cinematography of every scene feels years ahead to the point you forget this came from the last millennium.
The name of the game is "tactical espionage action" and feels accurate to the word. Snake is a legend but he's still human. He can't take many hits and you start off with nothing. The game quickly teaches you that avoiding conflict is the best approach as even one soldier shooting you is a quick death. The general AI of enemies might seem a bit barbaric to recent titles but it feels a bit more consistent in the way you can manipulate how they act. They will see footprints in the snow, react to sound when you step on metal or knock on a wall, even hear you sneeze if you stay in the cold too long. Their general vision is displayed by a cone area of effect on your soliton radar system that lets you get a better picture of the general area. Don't always rely on this though as it goes away in harder difficulties and goes away pretty frequently during the game due to being unable to use it in closed spaces as often. Other than that, Snake can move freely around enemies as long as they don't hear or see his footsteps and stay away from their general line of sight as it's all played from a mostly top down perspective which makes for a simple but fun stealth experience. You're given a surprising amount of tools too from a silenced pistol to eliminate a guard without raising an alarm, an assault rifle when it becomes "you or them", stun grenades that quickly incapacitates an area to get away or even chaff grenades to get through the various gun cameras through out the game. Using the weapons themselves does feel a bit unwieldy at times with how enemies interact with getting shot sometimes other than the pistol but it still feels good enough honestly. There's a surprising amount of interaction with the tools in the world too like having a specific item will make it easier to get through a wolves den to even finding secret rooms in a storage area. The boss fights themselves are surprisingly varied with each of them having a different way of approaching them with some iconic ways I won't even spoil but I'm sure everyone that has played the game know which fight I'm talking about. I'm just happy a lot of care was also given in the gameplay department considering it feels like the general cinematics are amazing as it that it didn't feel like anything was compromised for it.
I think some people might be turned off on how face textures look in this game but I think everything else from a graphical perspective is pretty good. The models in game animate extremely well all accentuated from the action and voice acting when serious moments happen. Metal Gear Solid did actually get a remake in the form of Twin Snakes on the gamecube but I still recommend playing this first and Twin Snakes being a companion piece rather than a replacement, I actually think the wackiness the cutscene direction took looks pretty fun and the gameplay enhancements to MGS2's style looks great albeit with none of the balancing it seems but I don't think it should be a replacement to the original PSX/PC experience that feels more like a landmark than the remake does. Something I haven't really got into as much was the soundtrack and I forgot how somber some tracks are with The Best is Yet To Come and how disturbing some can be like the sound you hear in a specific hallway. The general sound of Metal Gear Solid's soundtrack is industrial with what feels like hearing machine clanging in the background with the synths for most of the music you'll hear while infiltrating.
Focused, thrilling, cinematic, meaningful. Four words I would use to describe the original Metal Gear Solid. I feel like even with some of the personal gripes I have with the game like backtracking more than I remembered and the gunplay not being up to snuff, everything works pretty well still. I usually hate stealth games due to my inherent impatience with a lot of things but I never really had the thought of purely go guns blazing not only because it would feel less satisfying but because it actually gave me a bit more to think about in the method as well. A spy movie thriller that I feel would be hard to replicate in any medium but video games.
I feel like I can go ad nauseam about how Metal Gear Solid changed the game industry back in 1998 with its innovative narrative design, gameplay, voice acting and graphics. Approaching it from a more personal appreciation, I really think this game is amazing and still holds up despite those years later. The story beats don't hit as much considering I know it by heart at this point but everything feels well done, cohesive and never really pulls the brakes from beginning to end barring a few speed bumps. One of the few games I can really call a work of art from a visual and storytelling perspective and from a personal perspective as well as I feel gaming wouldn't be the same without it.
Solid Snake, the protagonist of the first two Metal Gear games on the MSX gets out of retirement in a personal operation to stop terrorists from launching a nuke from Alaska. The game does a great job getting you up to pace with the previous operation tabs and the briefing file itself. I can't imagine playing the game without the briefing file itself since it gives a lot more context in what you're doing and why you're even doing it but you can play it without it if so desired. What feels like a spy movie thriller, Metal Gear Solid always keeps you on your feet from beginning to end due to its amazing pacing. For the most part, you are always moving forward in the story and something interesting is happening which never left me bored even with essentially memorizing the story at this point. If you never played the game, I can easily imagine just binging the whole nine to ten hour story in one go just trying to see what happens next. I will say one of the few speed bumps in this game is the backtracking which felt like padding more than anything but it wasn't too bad as things mostly do happen during this. One of my favorite things in the series in general are the codec conversations in general, important exposition and information relayed to Snake free from the stress of what's going on now. Campbell generally giving you hints when you need it acting like a free game tips hotline, Master giving you some general advice how to react to nature and your own instincts, Nastasha giving you insight on how each of your weapon works and the magic behind them. What I enjoy is the overall theme and narrative feeling surprisingly grounded despite the ridiculousness of some of the things portrayed in this game. Everyone treats Snake as this legendary hero but he always rebuffs this knows his true nature and the game never shies away from that. The voice acting here also helps as I felt like nobody really put out a bad performance throughout the entire cast which must have raised the bar even further at the time. Not to mention the camera shots and general cinematography of every scene feels years ahead to the point you forget this came from the last millennium.
The name of the game is "tactical espionage action" and feels accurate to the word. Snake is a legend but he's still human. He can't take many hits and you start off with nothing. The game quickly teaches you that avoiding conflict is the best approach as even one soldier shooting you is a quick death. The general AI of enemies might seem a bit barbaric to recent titles but it feels a bit more consistent in the way you can manipulate how they act. They will see footprints in the snow, react to sound when you step on metal or knock on a wall, even hear you sneeze if you stay in the cold too long. Their general vision is displayed by a cone area of effect on your soliton radar system that lets you get a better picture of the general area. Don't always rely on this though as it goes away in harder difficulties and goes away pretty frequently during the game due to being unable to use it in closed spaces as often. Other than that, Snake can move freely around enemies as long as they don't hear or see his footsteps and stay away from their general line of sight as it's all played from a mostly top down perspective which makes for a simple but fun stealth experience. You're given a surprising amount of tools too from a silenced pistol to eliminate a guard without raising an alarm, an assault rifle when it becomes "you or them", stun grenades that quickly incapacitates an area to get away or even chaff grenades to get through the various gun cameras through out the game. Using the weapons themselves does feel a bit unwieldy at times with how enemies interact with getting shot sometimes other than the pistol but it still feels good enough honestly. There's a surprising amount of interaction with the tools in the world too like having a specific item will make it easier to get through a wolves den to even finding secret rooms in a storage area. The boss fights themselves are surprisingly varied with each of them having a different way of approaching them with some iconic ways I won't even spoil but I'm sure everyone that has played the game know which fight I'm talking about. I'm just happy a lot of care was also given in the gameplay department considering it feels like the general cinematics are amazing as it that it didn't feel like anything was compromised for it.
I think some people might be turned off on how face textures look in this game but I think everything else from a graphical perspective is pretty good. The models in game animate extremely well all accentuated from the action and voice acting when serious moments happen. Metal Gear Solid did actually get a remake in the form of Twin Snakes on the gamecube but I still recommend playing this first and Twin Snakes being a companion piece rather than a replacement, I actually think the wackiness the cutscene direction took looks pretty fun and the gameplay enhancements to MGS2's style looks great albeit with none of the balancing it seems but I don't think it should be a replacement to the original PSX/PC experience that feels more like a landmark than the remake does. Something I haven't really got into as much was the soundtrack and I forgot how somber some tracks are with The Best is Yet To Come and how disturbing some can be like the sound you hear in a specific hallway. The general sound of Metal Gear Solid's soundtrack is industrial with what feels like hearing machine clanging in the background with the synths for most of the music you'll hear while infiltrating.
Focused, thrilling, cinematic, meaningful. Four words I would use to describe the original Metal Gear Solid. I feel like even with some of the personal gripes I have with the game like backtracking more than I remembered and the gunplay not being up to snuff, everything works pretty well still. I usually hate stealth games due to my inherent impatience with a lot of things but I never really had the thought of purely go guns blazing not only because it would feel less satisfying but because it actually gave me a bit more to think about in the method as well. A spy movie thriller that I feel would be hard to replicate in any medium but video games.