Looking at: Metal Gear Solid

Legacy

Snake, in his natural environment

Metal Gear Solid Five: The Phantom Pain comes out tomorrow. I can't afford it right now, as it's eighty fucking dollars here in Canada, which is to bad considering that it might be one of the greatest games ever made. So while I put together the money to buy it/ wait for someone to have it on sale (looking at you GreenMan Gaming) I decided to get better acquainted with the rest of the series, having only played the third game to completion and a few hours of other entries.

To whit, I purchased the MGS Legacy collection for the PS3, the entire series consisting of all five original MGS games (1,2,3,4 and an HD re-release of the PSP's Peace Walker). That's certainly a lot of gameplay, and I decided to write my thoughts on the games as I complete them. That said, here's my thoughts on the 1998 game that started it all, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid.

Northern Exposure

series favourite, Revolver Ocelot, making his first appearance. 

The set up to MGS is that you are the legendary mercenary Solid Snake. You've been hired by the pentagon to stop a terrorist incursion of highly trained Genome Soldiers that have taken over a nuclear disposal site in northern Alaska. You infiltrate the facility, remain as undetected as possible, and shut down the operation by any means necessary, killing anyone that stands in your way.

That's actually pretty much the whole plot throughout the game. Rest assured, there are twists a-plenty, it wouldn't be an MGS game if it made any damn sense, but the basic goal remains the same throughout. Take out any obstacles, deactivate the terrorists' super weapon, and escape.

It's all the details that quickly get muddled, and while this wasn't his first game, this is certainly the most high profile game Kojima had at the time, so for a lot of people this would be their first exposure to him. It can be... jarring. The game is, to say the least, cinematic, insofar as it feels like you're watching a series of movies inter-spliced with bursts of gameplay. You'll need patience to enjoy MGS, and not just for the stealth gameplay.

I'll say this, at least it has memorable characters. I can likely recall every major character in the game and give a decent account of what that character was or did, because they were so completely fleshed out. The bosses in particular, were almost insanely detailed, each of them having complete back-stories and motivations for why they did what they did, and even why they fought Snake.

That insane level of character certainly plays on both sides, and Snake and his compatriots are just as well conceived, to the degree that there's entire story arc that take place just over your radio. This would become another staple of the series in time, and it's not uncommon to brake for a ten minute conversation in the middle of an action scene.

There's certainly no shortage of plot and character in MGS, but it's just bizarre how the game approaches it's subject matter, like there's a hardcore military historian, a genetic biologist, and a stand-up comedian all screaming at the same time. It spouts rhetoric about the advances of science, the effects of combat, the mentality of soldiers, and the moral ambiguity of combat and genetic science in the same breath that it tells a lame joke, or has a naked character run around for laughs. It's like the game knows it's supposed to be an adult game, but refuses to grow up completely.

Stealth Action

Enough about the story, how does the actual game play, and more importantly, does it hold up? The answer is... sort of, but not really.

On the one hand, the stealth works great, even despite the game's age and limited resources for the time. Not even the fixed camera is an issue due to two factors:
1) the game wisely chooses to go with an overhead or very high isometric view for most of the game, something I wish it's predecessor would have kept.
2) In the top right corner is a radar screen.

It's this latter item that saves the game in many ways, and I found myself actually just playing based on that small screen more then what Snake was actually doing. The radar, when it's active, displays enemy patrols, cones of vision, and camera placement as well. In order to remain undetected, all you need to do is avoid the eye-lines of enemies and you're golden. That said, the radar can be shut off, either by the room, by being detected, or through jamming technology.

That's the good, the bad is the rest. MGS was before the series introduced the idea of non-lethal play-through's. Killing is the norm, and while it's more than possible to take out one soldier, fighting more than one is nearly impossible. This is because MGS was also before the introduction of first person aiming, meaning to aim Snake you had to spin him around and hope the auto-aim took over properly. Again, one, maybe two enemies this sort of works, but any more and it just falls apart, especially if the enemies are on opposite sides of you. There's one moment in particular, where you have to climb a fucking long tower, all the while being bombarded by enemies. It serves as one of the most aggravating gaming experiences I've had recently.

one of the many, many, many radio conversations throughout the game.

That's actually something that happened a lot, total aggravation. Boss fights often annoyed the hell out of me, rather then challenged me, and several sections were insanely tedious. The last action you do before the end of the game requires you back-tracking through a facility twice in order to (seriously) change the temperature of one of your items. That sort of boring, game-padding back-tracking happens more than once and it grew on my nerves.

The other major issue I had with the game were the controls. Maybe this wasn't an issue on the original PS1, but on the PS3 I found it tantamount to menacing. First, the game doesn't use either of the joy-sticks, not even the left one for movement. I had to control the entire game on the D-pad, and damn near wore that poor thing out. Next, Snake can really only look/move in the four directions, thanks to the aforementioned D-pad controls. This means aiming him, already an annoying prospect due to the lack of proper aiming, becomes damn near impossible. There's a section near the end of the game where you're in control of a mounted machine gun that might be one of the worst vehicle sections I've ever played, and trying to line up a shot properly was almost impossible.

There's other aggravation as well, the lack of crouch movement, something that wouldn't be addressed in the series until MGS 4, ten years later) Trying to aim the few first-person weapons with the D-pad was impossible, making a sniper fight much harder then it should have been, the constant interruptions with cut-scenes, and the over-reliance on radio calls for exposition. All told, MGS hasn't exactly aged that well. I've heard the Gamecube re-release Twin Snakes is better, but I'm unable to play that version.

Cubic Snake

a rare moment of actual gameplay.

I won't harsh to much on the production side of the game, as it is nearly twenty years old now. For it's time, MGS was likely pushing the PS1 to it's absolute limits. The amount of detail pumped into every polygon is spectacular, and it's got an almost retro charm to it. Effects look decent and character models, while low-fi, do look decent. There's no mouth movement on any character faces, but their body language is impressively expressive.

The idea to keep the game localized to a single location was a smart one, and each room of the facility feels incredibly detailed and lived in. Everything from the offices to the prison or a refinery feels completely thought out and believable. There's a logic to how the facility is laid out and everything makes a lot of sense.

MGS's Sound might be the best age'd thing about it, since the voice work is the series' standard over the top and expressive. The characters come to life more then any other PS1 game I've ever played (in fairness, I've only played like, five PS1 games) and it really does feel like a super extended spy thriller movie. David Hayter is doing a damn serviceable job as a young Solid Snake, but there's others that would become series regulars like the illustrious Jennifer Hale, Debbie Mae West, Cam Clarke, and Paul Eiding. All of them doing a great job, even when the script they're reading veers off into the completely insane.

Sound effects and music all work too. Obviously, it's not nearly as good as later entries, but I didn't encounter and major problems throughout the game. Music set the mood well, from the fight with Psycho Mantis, to the unavailing of the Metal Gear itself. All of it worked well and never detracted from the experience.

Soldier's Honour

Snake's relationship with women is...complicated.

If not for it's insane script, unique and memorable characters and completely outlandish plot, it's likely MGS would have fallen into complete obscurity. The gameplay aged like milk and trying to play it much later became a test of patience to me. I don't completely know if I liked it, although it's fair to say I enjoyed it more then my brief experience with it's predecessor, and my next game, MGS2.

The first game created a legacy, and has been called a masterpiece. I don't know if I agree with that, but as far as PS1 games go it's certainly an experience unlike any other.

Next for me: pretty-boys, ninjas, fat men, and one of the best bait-and-switches ever pulled.

All screenshots taken from the Long-play video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpG9XIfFkE0