Resurrection: Metal Gear Solid
Solid all round
Resurrection: Metal Gear Solid
Resurrection is a regular feature in which we reminisce about a game from way back when. This week Greg Giddens takes a look at the cinematic marvel METAL GEAR SOLID.
IN 1998 gamers were gifted with a revived genre and two games to spearhead it, Thief: The Dark Project for the PC crowd and – a few months earlier for the console crowd – Metal Gear Solid, a title more akin to a Hollywood movie than a game. With its incredible in game FMVs, superb voice acting, an engrossing – if a little confusing – story, and a revived iconic character, Metal Gear Solid hit the shelves and captured the imagination of millions.
Initially released on PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid was – and still is – one of the best selling games of all time, and for obvious reasons. The first thing to note is that Metal Gear Solid revived the stealth genre, shying away from the more popular action adventure setup and instead concentrated on the mechanics of not being seen and avoiding combat. This seemingly new concept of stealth as well as Metal Gear Solid’s terrific cinematic quality became the catalyst for a change in both developer and player perception of mechanics implementation and narrative scope and delivery; Metal Gear Solid changed gaming.
Once upon a time…
In many respects Metal Gear Solid was less game and more cinematic spectacle, but despite this obvious support of narrative over interaction there is no denying the excellence of the whole package.
Metal Gear Solid’s deep narrative is one of its strongest assets. It consists of an intriguing backstory – only touched on in the previous Metal Gear games on the NES and MSX – and this exciting and perplexing narrative is delivered with exceptional pace. It features a cast of comic book-esque characters that achieve an impressive balance between superhuman and normality. it’s all too easy to become fully immersed in its charm due to this widespread appeal.
Playing as Solid Snake – now retired from a Special Forces unit called Foxhound – you’ve been called in to infiltrate a nuclear disposal facility which is now in the hands of terrorists. Snake has three objectives – rescue the president of ArmsTech Kenneth Baker, rescue the DARPA chief Donald Anderson, and lastly to find out if the terrorists have to ability to launch a nuclear missile – as they claim – and stop them if they do. Throughout the story you will fight against the ex-special forces unit Foxhound members, including their leader, Liquid Snake, who shares a remarkable similarity to Solid.
Indeed it’s an excellent story but it’s unfortunately quite short. Replayability, however, is encouraged through unlockable items such as the stealth suit and infinite ammo bandana. Changing the difficulty setting affected your radar’s capabilities – taking it away completely on higher settings – often forcing a more careful and perceptive style of play in subsequent playthroughs.
The experience it offers is what makes Metal Gear Solid such a great game. The gripping story, the interesting and new or revived concepts, and the truly brilliant voice acting – delivered by an experienced and professional cast – create a believable and immersive world that oozes character and charm. Regardless of how relatively short the game is, Metal Gear Solid is still one of the greatest examples of video game art, cinematic storytelling, and absolute unquestionable fun.
With that I end by saying Metal Gear Solid is a true classic, and although receives constant praise – even after 10 years – it still deserves it. Buy it, play it, then move on to the sequels; this series comes highly recommended.
Good read, Greg :)
In some ways, I can’t help but feel the real meat of the game was found on the VR Missions: short, delicious challenges that truly tested the player’s skill and knowledge of the game’s ruleset. For all the bravado and memorable moments Snake’s adventure implanted on gamers’ collective memory, it wasn’t always engaging. Yes, Psycho Mantis has been considered One of The Gaming Moments (and to many gamers, it was *The* Gaming Moment) that will stand the test of time, but in retrospect, it was mostly a cute little exploitation of how, in older games, we’d quickly swap gamepads from Port 1 to Port 2 to finish a fight on borrowed credits.
What VR Missions did was get rid of the incessant Codec chatter and cutscenes, for instance, and present engaging challenges throughout. A series of stealth based scenarios, detective work, time trials and off beat (though ocasionally laugh out loud) humor – elements which the main game needed a lot more.
It’s still one hell of a little game, although I regard Snake Eater as the best entry in the series. The End is a masterpiece of game design; his own end, no matter how you achieve it, is subtle yet powerful in a way most games – even Kojima’s own games – have yet to surpass.