Released 8 years after Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid marked the comeback of Solid Snake and the Metal Gear series as a whole, but this time bigger, better and worldwide.

PREAMBLE
Metal Gear Solid was originally planned to be released on the 3DO and named Metal Gear 3, but when it got delayed and the 3DO became less popular, Konami decided to make the game for Sony’s PS1, the leading console of the time, and renamed the game to Metal Gear Solid.

Metal Gear Solid takes everything that Metal Gear 2 did and improved on it.
Compared with other stealth games of the time, MGS was more fast-paced and allowed for more action elements. Compared to other action games, MGS doesn’t really enforces nor encourages face to face action, but when it does, it does it just as good as a full-time action game.

When it comes to controls, we still have the same ones available to us in Metal Gear 2 but improved: we have crawling, punching and firing. But now we can do combos when punching, we can aim our gun before actually firing it, we can fire and run at the same time, and we can go into first person view, although we can only use it to look around. The game is completely compatible with the analog stick, making it much easier to play than with the digital pad.

The cardboard box made a return, but this time there’s three different versions. Just like in MG2, we can hide in the box inside trucks to be taken between different areas quickly.

Graphics-wise, not many PS1 games can be compared with the quality this game offers, but it’s interesting to note that no character in the game has actual noticeable eyes, they rather have a shadow where the eyes should be, this is due to eyes looking too cartoony in the PS1, and that would not fit with the game’s nature.

The game came packed with a demo of Metal Gear Solid VR Missions, including a about 30-40 Missions from the game: Sneaking, Time Attack, Survival, etc.
Metal Gear Solid VR Missions is a standalone game consisting of hundreds of VR Missions that put you in different situations (some of them really absurd and funny) with the main goal of training you for the actual game. SPOILER When you complete 80% of the game you get to play 3 really nice levels with the Ninja.END OF SPOILER

One thing this game is criticized for is the lack of any actual replay value, there’s only 3 unlockable items and there’s little to no extras aside from the already mentioned VR Missions.

Leaving all this aside, let’s talk about the most important aspect of the game: the story, and once again, f-ing spoilers for a 15 years old videogame.

STORYLINE

The game starts with Solid Snake, infiltrating a nuclear disposal facility by underwater means. The facility is located in Shadow Moses, in the Fox archipelago off the coast of Alaska. The facility was taken by a group of terrorist formed by the Next Generation Special Forces Foxhound. Snake’s mission is to rescue the President of Armstech Keneth Baker and the DARPA Chief Donald Anderson, as well as Campbell’s nice who got caught up in the whole mess.

In the cast of supporting characters are composed of Roy Campbell, who is once again commanding Snake, even though he’s retired, Naomi Hunter, the main medical staff, who gives Snake some medical advices, Mei Ling, who is in charge of saving your progress and other technical stuff, and Nastasha Romanenko, who is a weapon’s expert and heavy smoker.

On his way to infiltrate the facility Snake receives a call from an old friend of him, Master Miller, who apparently moved on to Alaska for some peace and quiet but decided to give Snake support via radio. Snake then manages to infiltrate the facility and locate the DARPA Chief, who’s transmitter shows up in Snake’s radar screen (does it sound familiar? yes the same thing happens in Metal Gear 2). The DARPA Chief reveals to Snake that the facility was a cover-up for the construction of a new weapon, a nuclear equipped bipedal walking tank: Metal Gear Rex. The DARPA Chief suddenly dies from what appears to be a heart attack.

After the death of the DARPA Chief Snake continues his path to to rescue the president of Armstech Keneth Baker, but when he finds him, he’s tied up and surrounded by a wire trap connected to C4 bombs, preventing Snake from getting close to him. This is when one of the members of the terrorists, Revolver Ocelot, makes his appearance and challenges Snake to a draw duel. Both Snake and Ocelot put up a good fight but none of them win. As soon as Ocelot attempts to shoot Snake an invisible man cuts his arm off and sets Baker free. This invisible man reveals himself to be a cyborg Ninja, who is neither part of Snake’s team nor the terrorists team, Ocelot gets away but with a severed arm. In the Twin Snakes Snake fights the Ninja in a cinematic and then this one runs away, in the normal PSX version he just runs away directly.

Snake proceeds to talk to Keneth Baker, who reveals some more details about the Metal Gear Rex project and that he should contact the main engineer, Hal Emmerich, to help him destroy it. He also advises Snake to contact Meryl, but forgets her codec frequency, but Snake should be able to find it in the back of the game’s case, which is nothing more of a way to discourage piracy: if you don’t own the real game, you won’t be able to know the codec frequency, and the internet wasn’t that common back then. Baker then gives Snake an MO disc containing all the data about Metal Gear Rex and a PAL key capable of overriding the detonation code for Metal Gear Rex, and then suddenly dies of a heart attack too, leaving Snake to wonder what the heck is happening and why everyone is dying from heart attacks today. Snake contacts Meryl and has a long boring chat, Meryl then helps Snake by opening the door that connects to the canyon.

Once in the canyon Snake receives a call from an unknown man warning him that there are claymore mines in the canyon. This man advises Snake to use a mine detector. When asked for his identity this man tells Snake to call him “Deepthroat” and also tells Snake that he is his “#1 fan”, sounds way too familiar to Metal Gear 2.
After getting rid of the mine Snake is ambushed in the canyon by Vulcan Raven ridng on a tank with two other soldiers. Snake uses grenades to kill both soldiers and destroy the tank, but Raven survives. Snake then heads to the nuclear storage building.

In the nuclear storage building Snake heads to Hal Emmerich’s lab and finds a corridor of slaughtered soldiers, all killed by the mysterious Ninja. Inside the lab Snake finds the Ninja staking Dr Emmerich and tells him to keep his hands off the Doctor. Dr Emmerich hides inside a locker out of fear while the two men fight each other bare-handedly. After the fight and due to the Ninja’s comments, Snake realizes who the Ninja is and calls Campbell to inform him that the Ninja is in fact Gray Fox, the man who Snake killed in Zanzibar Land. Campbell of course doesn’t believe this and says it’s ridiculous, but Naomi Hunter breaks into the conversation to inform both men of a project conducted by Foxhound to revive a dead soldier via enhancements through exoskeletons, and the body of the soldier they used was that of Gray Fox, so basically, they revived him and turned him into that Ninja.

After all this Snake has a conversation with Hal Emmerich, who now insists of being called Otacon. Snake asks Otacon about Metal Gear Rex, but he seems to be unaware of the fact that it’s capable of launching nuclear weapons and that he initially created Rex as a selfdefence machine. After realizing that they used him to build a nuclear weapon Otacon agrees to help Snake destroy it. Snake tells Otacon to hide with the help of the stealth camouflage and to give advice via codec. After this Snake sets out to find Meryl.

Meryl is being disguised as an enemy uniform and the only way Snake can detect her is by looking at her ***, seriously, the game has you look at enemies *** to find Meryl, after you find her and she sees you, she will run away to the ladies bathroom and you have to follow her. Snake a Meryl meet and have another conversation which we don’t care about and then continue the quest to the underground base where they keep Rex.
On their way Snake has to fight Psycho Mantis who is controlling Meryl. Soon after that they reach the walkway that leads to the entrance of the communication towers, but Sniper Wolf was there waiting for them and shoots Meryl down, leaving her greatly wounded.

Snake has to backtrack to find a sniper rifle and comes back to fight off Sniper Wolf, but Meryl is no longer there.
Snake defeats Sniper Wolf and attempts to enter the communication tower, but is ambushed by a group of soldiers and Sniper Wolf, who wasn’t dead. They knock Snake unconscious and take him to the interrogation room where Ocelot tortures him a few times. At this point the player either resists the torture or submits, the ending of the game changes depending on the action taken. If the player dies in the torture sequence he can’t continue, meaning he will have to exit and reload from the last saved slot, so it’s recommended that you save right after beating Sniper Wolf.

Inside the cell where Snake is being held hostage he finds the body of the DARPA Chief, but there’s two things odd about him: his blood has been drained, and he has already started to decomposed. Taking into consideration that the DARPA Chief died only a few hours ago this is really strange. Snake manages to exit the cell (there’s three ways to exit it) and goes back to the communications tower. As soon as Snake enters the tower he is spotted and a chase sequence begins where he has to reach the top of the tower while fighting enemy soldiers, this is also taken from Metal Gear 2. At the top of the first tower Snake is greeted by Liquid piloting his Hind D, which he uses to destroy the pathway connecting tower A with tower B, forcing Snake to rappel down to another pathway that is just below them.

Snake manages to get to tower B but the elevator is not working and the staircase leading to the bottom is destroyed, as if someone is trying to force him to go to the roof. Otacon stays to try and fix the elevator while Snake goes to the roof to finish off the Hind D. After an epic battle Snake destroys the Hind D and kills Liquid inside it. Otacon informs Snake that the elevator is working again, but it was strange as it just started working on its own. When Snake gets on the elevator he notices something strange: the weight limit goes off. Otacon calls Snake to tell him that he used to have 5 stealth camouflages, and not counting the one he’s wearing there should be 4 (Snake makes a joke here that this is not first grade math class), so he went back to his lab to get one for Snake but the 4 suits were all missing. Taking into consideration that it takes about 5 people to go over the weight limit of the elevator and that there are 4 dudes going around in invisibility mode, it becomes apparent that Snake is not alone in the elevator. Snake manages to kill the four dudes and carries on. This elevator fight is also directly taken from Metal Gear 2.

Snake’s job is not yet done, as soon as he exits com tower B he is attacked by Sniper Wolf in the middle of a snow field with a huge blizzard. Snake manages to beat her again but this time she actually dies. In the sequence with Sniper Wolf on her death bed we learn that Otacon was in love with her, that’s why he asked Snake not to kill her. Sniper Wolf talks about a man named Saladin who rescued her from a war-torn town, Snake soon realizes that this man was Big Boss.
Snake puts a final bullet on Sniper Wolf’s head and covers her with her handkerchief. Snake continues his journey through the underground facility that houses Metal Gear Rex, and is once more ambushed by a group of soldiers in a cargo elevator, this time they are visible.

Snake beats the soldiers and gets to the warehouse, where Vulcan Raven has been waiting for him for a while.
Raven talks about his life as a Mongol and other cultural stuff before taking Snake head on with a huge *** Gatling gun.
Once Snake defeats Raven, this one reveals to Snake a secret. The man who Snake thought was the DARPA Chief was in fact another terrorist member named Decoy Octopus, a master of disguise who was able to impersonate someone down to the last detail, this is due to the real DARPA Chief being killed by Ocelot days before Snake’s arrival, which also explains why the DARPA Chief’s body in Snake’s cell was already decomposing. Snake asks for the motive behind this, but Raven tells him that he has to figure it out himself. Snake leaves Raven who is then eaten by his pet ravens.

After fighting Raven Snake receives a call from Master Miller, who tells Snake that he thinks Naomi Hunter is a spy and gives some interesting facts that suggest she is not really Naomi Hunter, but an impersonator. Snake continues and finally reaches Rex’s hangar and goes to the command center where he listens in on a conversation between Liquid, who turned out to be alive, and Ocelot. Snake learns that they have already entered the detonation code and that Rex was ready to launch, he calls Otacon who tells Snake that the only way to override the detonation code is to use the PAL key. Snake wonders this as he only has one key and he needs 3, but Otacon explains that the key is made of a shape memory allow, meaning it changes into different keys depending on the temperature, so it’s basically three keys in one, all he has to do is change the temperature. Snake also learns from this conversation that he was injected with a virus called FoxDie that attacks targets with specific DNA traits by simulating a heart attack, which killed Keneth Baker and Decoy Octupus.

Ocelot notices Snake and shoots him which makes Snake drop the PAL key to the bottom of the hangar. Snake retrieves it and comes back to the command room, to find it empty, so he uses this time to insert the key into the first computer.
Snake backtracks to a cold area to cool the key down, and at the same time receives a call from Campbell that Naomi has been arrested as she was caught sending messages to inside the facility. Snake cools down the key and inserts is on the computer, then proceeds to warm the key to turn it into the third key. Once warm and on his way to insert it Snake receives a call from Naomi Hunter who managed somehow to communicate with Snake. Naomi explains that that the idea about injecting Snake with FoxDie wasn’t hers but she did modify it so that FoxDie would ALSO kill Snake, which was not part of Campbell’s plans. Snake wonders why Naomi wanted to kill him and she explains that it was because Snake killed her bother, Frank Jaeger, yes, Gray Fox, the Ninja, he was Naomi’s only family and Snake killed him, so she wanted revenge. Before she could finish speaking to Snake she gets caught by Campbell and taken away. Snake continues to insert the third key into the command room computer.

Once Snake has inserted all keys the computer informs that Rex has been correctly, activated! But why? Rex was already active, the key should have deactivated it! Snake wonders what the heck is happening when he receives a call from Master Miller. Miller explains that they never managed to obtain the detonation code from the DARPA Chief since Ocelot unwillingly killed him in an interrogation, so they weren’t able to activate Rex and they were getting a little worried, so they thought of a plan. The plan was to have Snake himself figure out how another method to activate Rex and then tell Snake that Rex was already activated, so that when he tried to deactivated he was actually activating it.
Campbell cuts the conversation and tells Snake that that is not the real Master Miller, Miller’s body has just been found dead in his apartment and that he has been talking to, Miller cuts the conversation and reveals himself to be Liquid Snake in disguise. Liquid then locks the door of the command room, trapping Snake inside, and poison gas starts filling the room.

Snake escapes with the help of Otacon and confronts Liquid, who reveals to Snake that they are both twins and a few other stuff regarding Liquid’s hatred towards Big Boss and the fact that Snake killed him before he could. Liquid gets inside Metal Gear Rex and turns it on and the battle begins.

Otacon explains to Snake that he has to destroy Rex’s radome (his radar) to incapacitate all of the visual equipment, forcing Liquid to open the cockpit and exposing himself. Snake initially tries to and it seems he got it, but then Rex keeps on moving and is just about to step on Snake, but Gray Fox appears out of nowhere and stops it, cause it seems he’s strong enough to stop a heavy as *** machine. Fox makes Rex blind for a few seconds and takes the time to talk to Snake. He explains to Snake that he is not really Naomi’s brother, and that he actually killed Naomi’s parents, but couldn’t bring himself to kill her too, so he took her with him and raised her as if she was his own blood, to soothe his guilty conscience. Fox also reveals that he was Deepthroat. Fox gives Snake one last gift and destroys the radome, but at this point he is weak and Liquid kills him in front of Snake. Snake, full of rage that Liquid killed his best friend, sets out to deliver a final blow to Liquid.

Snake destroys Rex but looses consciousness due to the explosion coming out the Metal Gear. When Snake wakes up he finds himself handcuffed on top of Rex with Liquid right in front of him. I will be a bit vague here, the following scene is long as heck but I will only disclose the important data. Liquid reveals to Snake that they are both sons of Big Boss, but they are not normal sons, they are actually clones of him. They were cloned in 1971 and born in 1972 (this isn’t actually said, you learn this in MGS3) in a project called Les Enfant Terrible (The Terrible Children) that originally intended to make 8 clones, but only two (for now) were born, the others were sacrificed in favor of Liquid and Solid, leaving Liquid to tell Snake that they were murderers before they were even born. He also explains that the Genome soldiers who Snake have been fighting were genetically improved soldiers using Big Boss’ DNA. Last but not least, Liquid tells Snake that he got all the recessive genes from Big Boss while Snake got all the dominant genes, making Snake superior, and the idea of knowing that he was garbage since the day he was born was not something that pleased Liquid a lot.

Liquid then tells Snake to look behind him. Snake finds Meryl unconscious there with a bomb next to her. Liquid tells Snake that in order to save her he not only has to beat Liquid but also do it before the bomb blows up and he has to be careful not to fall outside Rex’s head or he will fall to his doom, on top of this Snake calls Campbell but in the middle of the conversation he is taken away by Jim Houseman, a White House representative or something, who tells Snake that he has sent a few fighter jets to bomb the heck out of this place.
And so the final battle between Snake and Liquid begin. Snake manages to kick Liquid out of Rex’s head and he falls down.
Now, if you previously decided to submit to Ocelot’s torture then Meryl will die and Ocelot will help you escape the facility, but if you resisted then Meryl will wake up and help you escape.

Independent on which character you escape the facility with, the next few segments are the same, just replace Otacon with Meryl or Meryl with Otacon, I will just refer to them as the “supporting character”.

Snake and the supporting character escape Rex’s hangar through a door on the west side and find themselves in a garage with two military jeeps and a runway. A few guards start chasing them but the supporting character manages to turn on one of the jeep and takes the wheel while Snake takes the mounted gun. After a few segments of fighting enemy checkpoints the player is once again greeted with Liquid’s presence, who took the wheel of the other jeep, does this guy ever die?
Anyway, the rest of the scene is just Liquid chasing Snake and the supporting character and firing at each other.
At the end of the runway Liquid makes a sudden turn that makes both jeeps crash. Snake and the supporting character are trapped under the jeep while Liquid manages to set free. Liquid attempts to kill Snake with his last strength, but at the last moment he suffers an attack caused by FoxDie and dies, this time for good, or is it?

Snake and the supporting character escape and depending on who this supporting character is you will unlock a hidden item: Meryl will give you the bandanna, that gives you unlimited ammo, and Otacon will give you the Stealth Camouflage, which turns you invisible under the eyes of every enemy except bosses. I don’t you about you, but anyone using the stealth camo in this stealth game is a ***.

Credits roll and depending and after it we see a conversation between Ocelot and the president of the United States, who is then revealed to be Solidus Snake, the third clone that nobody knew about. With this you learn that Ocelot was spying on Liquid in favor of Solidus, but Ocelot’s spying gets much, much, much, much, much, much, much complicated later on.

end of spoilers

GAMECUBE REMAKE

Metal Gear Solid was such a big *** hit that some dudes who were high on LSD decided to port it to the GameCube, but not just port it, but completely remake it, and thus Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes was born in 2004.

The game featured the same exact gameplay, controls and animation from Metal Gear Solid 2, but it had a bit better graphics than MGS2 due to the GameCube’s superior hardware.

The voice acting was remade, with some voice actors from the original replaced for whatever reasons.

The overall story is left INTACT, so if you only care about this game from a story point of view then either the original or the remake will work just fine, they tell you the same thing, almost line by line.

Now when it comes to cinematography is when Twin Snakes GREATLY differs not only from the original but from pretty much every other Metal Gear game. This game has over the top action, with Snake and most other characters being able to make backflips, jumps and twists worthy of olympic medals. If you take this seriously then you’re gonna have a bad time, it’s best to take it with either the “this *** is badass” attitude or the “this *** funny as heck” attitude.

Most fans consider this game to be blasphemy, but quite frankly I enjoyed it a lot, but I have two complaints about it:
– having MGS2 controls in a pretty much unchanged MGS1 environment, the game becomes way too easy, heck the Ocelot fight looses all the tactical side it had.
– THE F-ING DOG TAGS ARE USELESS, Y U DO THIS KONAMI?

That out of the way, although the original is by far the best, this version doesn’t at all deserve all the negative response from fans, it’s fun and it gives you a refreshing perspective of the storyline. And quite frankly I loved seeing all my beloved characters in almost-HD clarity.

CONCLUSION

I cannot say more than it has already been said: if you have not yet beaten this game, your life is pointless and lacks any scientific meaning, either go play this game NOW, or kill yourself, and don’t tell me “1 d0n’t h4ve any t1m3” excuse cause you can easily play this game on your PSP or Vita wherever you are, and I’m pretty sure 100% of the people who come here have either one of the two. This game is a perfect 10/10 (8/10 for the GameCube remake).

If you missed any of my previous Metal Gear articles, here’s a list of all of them so far: