Metal Gear Solid (1998)

I did not grow up with this franchise, and this was my first MGS game I'd ever played. I think that makes my experience a bit unique. Few people play old games they've got no nostalgia for, me included. But I've really been wanting to get into this series, and I didn't want to play the newest titles first. The second I completed this game, I immediately started in on the second. So, here's a concise review from someone with absolutely no nostalgia nor exprience:

Things I liked:

1. The plot, though silly, is really engaging and fun, especially for a PS1 title. I feel like very few games around this era can compete with MGS when it comes to dialogue and storytelling, and have you heard voice acting from around this time? It's terrible. MGS has some really good voice acting in comparison.
2. I also feel like this game makes full use of the PS1's graphics capabilities. I know it doesn't look good now, but go ahead and play any title released in the same year.
3. The soundtrack is fire, and it really reminds me of Nobuo Uematsu's work on FF7, especially the early reactor theme. The sound design in general is just really good.
4. I love the UI. Games in this era had notoriously dogshit UI, cluttered, experimental, and/or gradient-heavy, but I feel like MGS has something that's stood the test of time. Clean, efficient, and wholly unqiue.
5. It makes me laugh. The Twin Snakes version is especially hilarious, but this game is funny enough on it's own. Mostly unintentionally. The Ocelot battle specifically was just really silly, and the way characters will monologue at you as they're bleeding out will never not be funny, Liquid in general is fucking hilarious.
6. I love Hal and Dave. Liquid is an amazing villain. The boss battles were pretty cool, especially Psycho Mantis''. Memorable characters all around in an era of forgettability.
7. I very much so enjoy the anti-war, anti-nuke message played through the eyes of an American military grunt, and feel as though the only people who could do it right were Japanese developers. Military propaganda has always permeated video games, and I think Kojima knew that and wanted to slide in a deeply serious message about the ravages of war on the planet, the psyche, and the people. Snake himself is an anti-war icon, and we love that.
8. Snake has 50 huskies and I'm going to pet them all.

Things I didn't really like:

1. I hate the controls. This goes for every MGS game I've played so far. The controls are very aggravating and unintuitive. I hope they get better as the series moves along, because I don't think I could play ten more games with this aggravating setup.
2. The amount of cutscenes and their length. I know Kojima has a hard on for cutscenes and lengthy exposition, and I know it only gets worse as the series goes on, but it just has to be mentioned. So much time could be saved by trimming or removing so many scenes.
3. I do not like the way Kojima treats women. This will likely be a repeated sentiment as I play through every game. We were introduced to five women (Meryl, Naomi, Mei-Ling, Natasha, and Sniper), all of which are flirted with, two of which are blatantly sexualized (Meryl's ass and Sniper's tits) and I'm sure if the other three had been shown outside the Codec, they would be, too, and two of them die (Otacon ending). They don't get to be whole people in comparison to their male counterparts. Just compare what we know about Meryl and Otacon. The sad thing is, I know it pretty much only gets worse as the games go (more women dying, more tits and ass, less backstory and engagement outside of their fuckability).
4. Some of the boss fights made me wanna rip my hair out.

Overall, I actually really liked this game and I think it has a lot of replayability. It's definitely unique and stands out amongst it's generation of games, and I think it's stood the test of time in terms of story, setting, and gameplay. While there were a few things that made my playthrough of the game slow and tedious, I'll chalk it up to age. Great game.

It's been a while, but here's what I've been up to. Finished the original Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill 1, and Devil May Cry 1. Three absolute batshit series, in three separate ways.

Here's my quick thoughts

Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake and Otacon are my favorite bromance in any video game. I love those idiots so much. I've only ever played the remake before, and I'm pretty sure out of anything I internalized as a child, Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes was most of it. It was my first M-rated game on the GameCube, and my first story heavy game. To little me, that was what a game should BE.

So I'm very happy to report that, aside from uh... Literally the climax of the game, it has aged extremely well and I kinda like it more than Twin Snakes from a pure gameplay perspective. Twin Snakes barely changed the maps and just gave you the MGS2 sandbox which destroyed the balance of the game.

Also I just want to say, wow, the presentation of this game is incredible for 1998.

Silent Hill 1: This is my first Silent Hill game! It's fucking gorgeous for the PS1. Ambient Occlusion or something on the snow? Get. Out!

The story is... Eh? Very memeable, but not really the strong suit of the game unlike the previous game. The environment and mood is pretty strong which is the point. Gameplay is satisfyingly clunky (it's survival horror. Come on now.) without feeling like a Resident Evil clone. I feel like the game kinda falls apart on the Sewer level and up to the last stage, but I must be weird because I LOVED Nowhere, which a lot of people do not, I am told. The impossible geometry and clever reuse of old and new locations didn't make it feel particularly back-tracky. Also major kudos for the game skipping some portions of walking towards the end that would have been incredibly tedious. (Doesn't stop the sewers and trek to the light house from sucking a lot though)

Devil May Cry: Instant classic. The gameplay feels slick and responsive, and it is just fun to play. The story is fucking dumb but it did what it needed to. I can definitely see how this was originally a Resident Evil game, it even ends with a countdown to explosion.

The only thing I'd really knock points for on this one is the ABYSMAL camera angles, especially during certain boss fights (Nightmare in particular). Also the game does not have a way to look up combos that I know of, so it's kind of obtuse. I think if I hadn't played DMCV and various Platinum games, I would have been completely lost when it came to the style of combat.

Beat on Normal with rank Leopard; 79 saves, 31 continues (most at the final boss), 23 detections, 143 kills and 108 rations used. I missed this back in the day and would have loved it then, but my first experience with the Metal Gear series was MGS 3 on the PS2. Some of this this game was spoiled by watching awesome parodies on Newgrounds, but that is how I got into the series in the first place. I have the digital version to play on my PSP and was impressed how they handle the game's gimmicks. I started off with VR training, then read the manual. I was not going to bother with the time trial until the manual said there was a shooting mode acter beating it. So I did the time trial and the shooting because I felt it would be good practice for the main game. The shooting was very clunky and I absolutely hated failing upon detection, but I learned how to shoot decently. I skipped the final level.

I considered playing on Hard but decided against it because it disables the radar, which is a part of the plot. I felt I would be missing too much. Good thing too because this game was not easy. I messed up strangling the 1st enemy and took a hit from the other guy. Ran away to hide, then on to the helipad. I took out the guy on the right then gathered the loot, timing the dash between the spotlights and using chaff to disable the storage room camera. Then I decided to go up and and take out the guy patrolling up there. I messed up strangling and instead slammed him into the ground. Then died. This happened a few times. So 2 problems with the game; slamming an enemy to the ground sucks because you can't easily finish them off, and the entire room resets if you load. I ended up taking out that guy 1st, then going for the loot. It was also annoying how being spotted immediately triggers the alarm rather than giving you a chance to take out the guy before he radios in, but I can see how it could happen with a psychic reading everyone's minds (but not after he dies). It was also a little annoying how enemies seem to respawn after the alarm, and every time you leave an area. It was not so bad afterwards as I made sure to frequently zone transition to save progress. Beat Ocelot 2nd try. I wasted too much ammo the 1st time until I figured out he went invincible after taking a hit, and did not notice an ammo pickup. Still it was a struggle to hit him but not so hard to avoid getting shot. Beat the tank 2nd try. I did not think to use chaff to disable the cannon and instead crawled as close as I could and timed a run between shots. I took an embarrassing amount of damage by hitting myself with grenades once or twice, and getting wrecked by the cannon while getting more grenades, but I won. I had to check a walkthrough for the ninja. I figured the chaff and bullets around meant I had to disable him then shoot, but that did such low damage that I would not have enough supplies to win. He also hit way too hard with that sword. Oh I have to punch him. The fight was not difficult after that. I wonder if I forgot to call for advice.

Psycho Mantis was easy and I beat him 1st try. I already knew the trick but I wanted to see how the game would expect me to know. Oh they straight up say it in dialogue. Very good then. Thus far I have been doing very well at stealth and decent at shooting. At the wolf cave I learned to line up shots in 1st person mode and time them to when the wolves got back up. I don't think dogs should take that many shots to kill, and it was annoying not to be able to finish them off while they were down. This game would be so much easier with 1st person shooting. I failed my 1st try vs Sniper Wolf because I was figuring out the rifle mechanics. Well I did not bother to use all the rations and considered it just a trial run since I got shot almost immediately. I settled on putting my back to the wall with thermal vision on to see where she was. Pop pills and get out to shoot her. I was able to keep up with her using the rifle and finish her without moving, though I took a few hits. I absolutely hated the torture. I hated rapid button mashing back in the 90s and I still hate it now. I took a few attempts at it and thought I had won after barely making the 3rd sequence. Wait there is a 4th?! Screw this, submit. The only sensible way to do that would be a turbo hack. The big tower climbing battle was intense and I took more damage than necessary because I forgot about shooting while running. Probably should have used stun grenades too, but that body armor got me through no problem. I had trouble with the 3 guys guarding the area between the towers. I went to snipe them thinking it would be 3 easy kills, but they take 3 sniper shots to kill and don't take bonus headshot damage?! And they can shoot their assault rifles accurately at sniper range. Got it after a few tries by focusing on quick body shots. The hind was easy and went down 1st try. I beat Sniper Wolf part 2 on 1st try by hiding behind the tree near the start and sniping her. I did not think to use missiles. I got a sweet headshot on her when she was hidden behind a raised bit of ground and only the top of her head was exposed. I used a lot of chaff to get past turrets, especially with all the backtracking near the end. Vulcan took 2 tries. The 1st try I messed up with the guided missiles and hit myself a couple times. I probably could have won but decided not to use all my rations and restart instead. The missiles were somewhat awkward to control, and turned way too quickly in 3rd person view, but I got some good hits on him. I finished him with c4 because I noticed how easy it would be to get him as he moved around the corner. I died about a dozen times trying to get a ration on a narrow ledge overlooking lava, or molten metal or whatever it is. I would expect there to be a way to transition along 90 degree walls, but could not figure it out. I tried everything I could think of and cardboard box was the trick; weird. I loaded the game because I took a hit getting there, so those continues should not be in my score. It took me over a dozen attempts to beat Rex, even with guides. I knew what to do, it was just getting the timing down and those god damn homing missiles. I got good at phase 1; throw a chaff then get ready to hit with a missile. Spam chaff to disable the homing, be moving when the missiles fire, then shoot my own in between. Had to keep the timing right or I would get hit. A few times I got behind him while he was blind and had full run of the other side until I shot. Phase 2 was more difficult but I beat him by spamming stun grenades, baiting missiles, strafing closer to avoid them, shooting a stinger while the white flash was still there, then moving out of laser range. Was a very close fight though when I finally won. Died once at the final jeep chase because I only picked up 1 ration; I spent my time trying to get on the jeep to man the gun instead of meleeing and looting. While the final chase was fun, I don't see how Liquid is surviving without body armor.

The game was not quite what I expected. There was far less stealth. I expected much more frequent, elaborate sneaking in larger areas with more enemies to keep track of. Instead it was more like lots of action set pieces and boss fights, with a spattering of stealth against 2 or 3 guys in small areas. I felt the stealth was under utilized and should have been a bigger aspect of the boss fights, especially given how the controls do not lend well to action gameplay. The game reminds me of Resident Evil, with terribly unhelpful camera angles, disjointed controls after camera changes, awkward combat, that Metroidvania sense of backtracking for new loot and the excellent setting and plot. This game goes even further by having one of the best stories of all time. The presentation, writing and acting are all stellar. I loved how every character felt like a real complicated person with their own beliefs and motives; that whole sense of everyone being more shades of grey than the stereotypical black and white good guys vs bad guys. The gameplay itself leaves a bit to be desired but also has some great features. Maybe I will play again on Hard at some point, but don't think I could put up with Extreme.

9/10

Finished story and reached credits on Easy

Final thoughts:

I've never really grown up with any 90s titles (heck I didn't even start gaming and only started with Mario titles on the Gamecube in 2002). Prior to this game, I've only know Snake from Smash Bros. It's neat to see how Smash helped expose me to titles I'd never considered before, such as Persona 5, Fire Emblem Awakening / Three Houses, and now Metal Gear Solid.

Considering the time era Metal Gear Solid came out, there was nothing else quite like it to my knowledge. The game features expansive dialogue that's fully voiced, a cinematic direction, and the building blocks for the entirety of the modern stealth genre. The only other 90's titles I remember having a larger focus on voice acting was Sonic Adventure and the voice acting quality falls flat in comparison to the stellar voice acting in this game. Even if the in-game models lacked face faces, emotions still get across with a combination of voice acting, cinematic camera angles, and incredibly moving BG music.

There's nothing more that needs to be said about the story that people have already stated. It's excellent full of twists and turns with lots of memorable characters, where you even start to question who's even "right or wrong". It still holds up well today. Unfortunately, the gameplay is atrocious to modern standards. It's just so janky to play with pretty much no precision. Snake's movement just doesn't feel natural, and aiming feels impossible especially when you have to use the sniper rifle. Not to mention this game features extensive backtracking, which is certainly archaic game design. Props for Psycho Mantis for being an amazing 4th wall break.

In my opinion, the gameplay feels like a 2/5 but the story is still a 5/5 that's worth exploring.

Playing MGS in 2016 made me really appreciate modern stealth mechanics: I lost count of how many times the stick-to-wall move just didn't work as intended or how many times I got frustrated about the sloppy first-person aiming, the sniping being the worst of those moments.

My other complaint is the backtracking: oh man, that section with the keycard is just infuriating.

Other than that, everything else is excellent. I can truly see this game being called a masterpiece in 1998, and without a doubt a classic today. I can't wait to play MGS2.

I am currently at the Psycho Mantis boss fight, where I was told things would get crazy, and I still have yet to be impressed by this game. I want to like this game, but there's nothing I can latch onto; the dialogue is stilted, the controls are clunky, and the game world isn't quite compelling enough for me to explore it. I'm really looking for any flimsy excuse not to shelf this, because it currently feels like a chore.

Update 11/28/17: I decided to give it another shot, and I'm right before the first duel with Sniper Wolf. The idea is really cool! I have to say, though, I'm not looking forward to all of the backtracking.

I will jump straight in there, if you play video games and you haven't played Metal Gear Solid. Then all I can say is that you're doing it all wrong.

This game is called a classic, timeless, legend and many more. I fully agree with all the positive statements. I'm perhaps being too biased, but I cannot find any faults in the game.

From the introduction of Solid Snake and Roy Campbell to exploring Shadow Moses and crawling through ventilation shafts. You want to play the game from beginning to end. Rather than feeling as if you're being forced to as many games do (certainly most recently).

Enough of the fanboy moment....

Graphics: Overall I can see they were pushed as far as they could have gone. Any further and either the game would have ended up with 10 discs or sacrifices would have had to been made with the story.

Music: If you want your music to be seemingly interwoven into the gameplay. You don't need to look further. If you enjoy classical arrangements, again, look no further. If classical music was more widely regarded then any one of the pieces would remain at number one forever.

Cinematics: As with the music, certain cinematic scenes are seemingly interwoven with the gameplay. When they're not you know something big is going to happen in all of them. This also relates back to wanting to play the game from start to finish.

Story: I won't say too much here as I wouldn't want to accidently give something away. However if you enjoy stories regarding nuclear war, ethics of cloning, romance and many more themes. You won't go wrong here.

Controls: Simple. Responsive. That's all you need.

Gameplay: Although it's very linear, towards the end you can wonder off and explore to your hearts content. Need I say more?

Summary: Metal Gear Solid. Solid in name, solid in nature.