Metal Gear Solid

The sequel to the MSX2 videogames and the first two games, Metal Gear Solid was a huge success, which prompted the release of an expanded version for the PlayStation and PC, titled Metal Gear Solid: Integral, as well as a remake for the Nintendo GameCube in 2004 titled Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. The game was originally going to be called Metal Gear 3, but was renamed to Metal Gear Solid instead because of the shift in graphics to 3D and because the other Metal Gear games weren't released worldwide back then.

It was also meant to be a 3DO game, but due to the console's death in late 1996 or early 1997 and the PS1's popularity, the game was released for the PS1 instead, which is a very good thing, because the graphics by PS1 standards are outstanding (with the GameCube version looking even better despite the cheap character models).

The plot: in the year 2005 A.D., ten years after the events of Metal Gear and six or seven years after the events of Solid Snake, the American spec-ops group FOXHOUND has gone rogue and is leading an armed rebellion on a remote island in Alaska's Fox Archipelago. This island, codenamed "Shadow Moses", is the site of a nuclear weapons disposal facility. Led by a mercenary known as Liquid Snake, FOXHOUND has acquired a nuclear-capable mecha, Metal Gear REX, and are threatening to initiate a nuclear attack if the U.S. government fails to hand over the remains of the "legendary mercenary" Big Boss, along with a $1 billion ransom, within 24 hours. Solid Snake is forced out of retirement by Colonel Roy Campbell to infiltrate the island facility overrun by terrorists, who want nothing more than Big Boss' body to create an army of super-soldiers in return for not launching a nuclear strike against the United States using Metal Gear REX, and neutralize that enemy threat.

The overall presentation in turns of cinematography, cutscenes and emphasis on story was revolutionary at the time since NO ONE ELSE was doing this. In fact, it showed the potential video games had for cinematic storytelling, and brought a permanent shift in putting more emphasis on telling actual stories in games rather than just telling the player what the purpose of the game is and why the character is doing it.

In hindsight, this game was also the first to truly bring up the idea of games as an art form in the mainstream eye with its cinematic influences, real-world political allegory and deconstructing of action game tropes demonstrating a far greater level of artistic prowess than what games were previously known for. While plenty of games before Metal Gear Solid could be considered artistic (including the very game it's a sequel to), this was the first of that kind to really make a splash with the broader public and challenge preconceived notions about the medium.

The game isn't cryptic like the first two and gives a general idea as to where you're supposed to go. Plus, the doors now have numbers correlating with what card opens them.

The PSG1 controls in the original PS1 version are awful due to how finicky it is to move the scope, since you can't just slowly move the sniper without pressing D-pad slowly, and it will instead move quickly, which makes it frustrating to line up shots. It's so bad that it makes the first fight against Sniper Wolf a nightmare.

It seems like the game has recycled many elements from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. It gets to the point where Metal Gear Solid can sometimes come across as an outright 3D remake of Metal Gear 2. While there are many examples, here are just a few:

• A puzzle which involves deactivating an electrified floor by destroying its power supply using guided missiles (Metal Gear).
• A boss fight with a rapid-fire weapon-wielding mercenary who is vulnerable to guided missiles (Machine Gun Kid in MG1, Vulcan Raven in MGS1).
• An anonymous informant who warns Snake over the radio of incoming traps; later revealed to be Gray Fox (Snake's Fan in MG2, Deepthroat in MGS1).
• One of Snake's contacts turns out to be the enemy commander, who is willingly giving advice to sabotage Snake's mission (Big Boss in MG1, Master Miller/Liquid Snake in MGS1).
• The first hostage Snake must rescue has a transmitter which pinpoints his location on Snake's radar (Dr. Marv in MG2, Donald Anderson in MGS1), both of whom turn out to be enemy spies in disguises (Black Ninja in MG2, Decoy Octopus in MGS1).
• Snake must follow a female accomplice to the women's restroom in order to meet up with her (Gustava Heffner in MG2, Meryl Silverburgh in MGS1).
• Snake is attacked while riding an elevator by a four-man group of elites (The Four Horsemen in MG2, the four stealth-camouflaged soldiers in MGS1).
• Snake ends up challenging Metal Gear's pilot to a fistfight (Gray Fox in MG2, Liquid Snake in MGS1); despite transitioning to 3D, the gameplay is virtually the same as it was in the previous game.

There are lots of likable characters like Meryl Silverburgh and Hal "Otacon" Emmerich. On top of that, the personalities of Snake and Colonel Campbell have been expanded, making them feel more real. Even Grey Fox is an awesome character, and you even get to play as him in the VR Missions (more on those later). In addition to this, the voice acting is top-notch, especially since most voice acting in games back then ranged from mediocre to awful. It's even better when you consider the fact that this is an English dub. This includes such talent as David Hayter and Paul Eiding, among many others. Then there's additionally the famous quote ("Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!") when you get a Game Over.

The boss battles are epic and memorable, with bosses that are more fleshed out and possessing powers. Psycho Mantis' boss fight was mind-blowing at the time. At the start, he uses his psychic abilities to break the fourth wall and mess with Snake's head (and by proxy, the player's). For instance, he will ask you to put your controller on the floor so he can "move the controller with his mind", which activates the rumble feature. He will also read Snake's mind by commenting on his performance during the mission until now (particularly in regards to the number of alerts, deaths and how many times you died via a trap), the number of times the player has saved the game, and on the presence of saves from other games inside the player's memory card. In the PlayStation version, he recognizes Azure Dreams, Suikoden, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Vandal Hearts (plus Policenauts and Snatcher in the Japanese version, both of which were written by Kojima), while in Twin Snakes, he recognizes Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Also, in order to defeat him, you have to plug your controller into the second controller port (or the 4th controller port in The Twin Snakes). In the Metal Gear Solid: Integral version, he turns the craziness dial up to eleven by being able to open the player's Codex and force-call the Colonel, and even turn off your TV set and change the selected video input of the console (yes, really, it happened to me)! The Hind-D boss fight, however, is pretty tough since you get a limited window to hit it and the final attack can take a good chunk of your health away, or even one-hit KO you if you're on a higher difficulty. Also, you are supposed to keep track of the Hind by listening for it with stereo speakers on the television, but God help you if your TV (mostly some CRTs) only outputs mono audio.

The Torture Chamber section is very difficult, mainly because you have to keep button-mashing the circle button so much and so fast. What's worse is that you have to do this if you want the Good/Canon ending and if you die, not only do you get a Game Over, but you cannot continue, meaning that if you didn't save the game before the section, you need to do everything you lost again! Alongside that, you also cannot use a controller with Turbo buttons, since doing so will instantly kill Snake.

The communications tower is the hardest area in the game. Right when you enter it, a camera sees you even if you throw a chaff grenade, and you then have to make your way up to the top of the tower while being shot at repeatedly by guards. With the exception of boss fights, there have been no forced combat sections up to now. Once the player reaches the top, they have to rappel down the tower with finicky controls while being shot at by Liquid and potentially getting hurt by steam, and cross a bridge which has three alert guards at the other end, happy to tear Snake to pieces. The next tower is much easier to get up, but players will either have to lose four chaff grenades or try and tank hits from the turrets mounted to the wall... right before the aforementioned Hind-D fight.

There's an amazing plot twist where Solid Snake is revealed to be a clone of Big Boss and the commander of the terrorists, Liquid Snake, is his brother who was posing as Master Miller the whole time. But Decoy Octopus, FOXHOUND's resident Master of Disguise, who disguised himself as the DARPA Chief to pass along false information to Snake, only was to succumb to FOXDIE immediately afterward. This makes him the only member of FOXHOUND not to get a boss fight. His very existence isn't revealed until much later, and then it's only acknowledged in passing before being forgotten about.

When unlocking the Good ending, you acquire the Infinity Bandanna, which grants you infinite ammo; and when unlocking the Bad ending (where Meryl dies; despite not being canon, it is still a well-written ending), you get the Stealth Camouflage, which allows you to be completely invisible. Completing both endings and playing the game for a third time without using any of the special equipment will even give Snake a tuxedo!

There's a section in the extras that gives backstory to the events leading up to the game. This is especially helpful, since most outside of Japan never played the original two. Even the Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions expansion would add more challenges to the game, expanding it to 300 challenges. Completing all 300 missions will show a picture of Metal Gear RAY, the mecha from the next game. The time to get 1st place in some of the VR Missions are far too strict to accomplish.

The Twin Snakes remake, while good, is considered inferior by fans for many reasons: The voice acting is weaker. The changes to the cutscenes are very out of place, such as Solid Snake dodging bullets and jumping off the missile (literally). They decided to keep the original game's design, but added in Metal Gear Solid 2 mechanics, which makes the game noticeably easier. Revolver Ocelot's boss fight was designed around the idea of Ocelot running off-screen, meaning that the player needed to keep track as to where he was running and try to keep up, but because the game lets you switch to first-person, you can see where he is and can just point and shoot and almost never miss, essentially breaking the fight completely. The addition of non-lethal weapons. While this makes it easier to not kill anyone in your run, it ends up contradicting what Liquid said to Snake on top of Metal Gear REX: "You enjoy all the killing, that's why!" While the graphics look much better than the original and accurately recreate the environments of the original, the character models look extremely cheap. Konami hinted in 2019 that there might be a second remake of this game. However, nothing has been announced since then and it's unknown if it'll be an actual game or another Pachinko Slot Machine.

Despite the flaws, this is overall a very awesome game for the PlayStation Original that cannot be missed! It was the hottest one back then!