Metal Gear

[Pink Gregory]

The original two are probably the most important in terms of the story as well, and no-one plays them.

Especially considering the Big Boss betrayal and all that, or remake Snake's Revenge with Cyborg Big Boss!

[Thursday]

It is interesting thinking back to playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time at the age of 11 I think. I remember feeling very aware that there was so much backstory from previous games going on. It does catch you up in exhausting detail in conversations throughout the game anyway, but it's kind of mad the extent to which it's carrying on the story of a game made 8 years before. Which I guess is why it's both sequel and almost remake in a way.

[bgmnts]

It's in the Special section of the main menu but what nine year old kid is going to read a dozen pages of backstory in a video game. Replaying it did bring up vague childhood memories of confusion as to what the fuck Zanzibar Land and fighting in a minefield were about.

Finished MGS last night. Was surprised by how dated and cringeworthy I found it. It's obviously influential and innovative, like many games of that era, but there was enough eyeroll inducing cack to pierce through the nostalgia.

2 and 3 are better.

[Thursday]

It's in the Special section of the main menu but what nine year old kid is going to read a dozen pages of backstory in a video game.

*Raises Hand*

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah I did too.

[bgmnts]

Fair enough. I admittedly was a poor attention-spanned kid!

[thelittlemango]

I'm playing through the Switch collection one by one at the moment, just finished Metal Gear Solid 1 and I definitely remember it a lot differently to how it actually is.

Haven't played it since it came out (and didn't manage to complete it at the time) but remember being completely terrified of being spotted to the extent that I was a massive coward and scuttled back and forth between my hiding place and destination as I worked up the bravery to go for it. This time round it's completely different, all of the fear is gone as I realised you don't actually have to bother looking at the actual screen and can sprint around the levels while staring at the radar and moving out of the slowly moving blue cones, at one point I realised I'd spent so much time staring at the radar and not the actual screen that I may as well have been playing a 2D Spectrum game. The jeopardy was gone, and I also had some kind of Mandela effect where I was certain I used to slowly creep up behind enemies, strangle them and then drag their bodies to hiding  places, whereas in actuality you can only move at one speed and when you kill someone their body disappears in a very much video game-ish way.

The feeling of the game (especially the first half) still holds up, the Switch version is basically a port of the PSX1 version, with great characters and a well crafted world and interesting set-pieces, but the actual playability was a lot worse than I remember and actively annoying/frustrating at times, I was relieved to finish it but enjoyed it.

Now onto MGS2 and have spent a couple of hours on it, it's the HD collection version (which I haven't played before) but it already feels lightyears ahead, the narrow corridors mean you can't strafe around massive areas in plain sight and have to take your time, more intelligent guards (in the sense that they call for backup, clear an area, bring reinforcements for specific areas you've been spotted in) and the control feels so much better, the first person mode works really well, as does the peak around corner thing and I'm generally not feeling as frustrated anymore. I don't think I finished this one either so I'm excited to experience the convoluted story again and see if the standard remains high, especially as I've never ever played MGS3 and everyone seems to say it's the best one (pre-MGSV anyway...), the story is a load of old cobblers though.

[The F Bomb]

Good post.

[Pink Gregory]

playing MGS2 again fairly recently, what struck me as impressive, even for a game of that time, is that you have collision with enemy soldiers.  Run full pelt into them and you both go 'buh' and fall about the place a bit.  There are games *now* that don't do that.

[elliszeroed]

Wasn't MGV heavily truncated? I remember reading about a third area featuring the Lord of The Flies kid that never made it in the game. It really felt rushed at the end.

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah it wasn't finished, essentially. This didn't emerge until a while after it came out, to the extent that I sank 250 hours into it and "finished" the main story before learning that would be all I was getting. Haven't been back to it since though my predominant memory was of a game that was mechanically faultless if a little barren in terms of layout and story.

[Pink Gregory]

Wasn't MGV heavily truncated? I remember reading about a third area featuring the Lord of The Flies kid that never made it in the game. It really felt rushed at the end.

You can find a sort of animatic of that ending mission on Youtube somewhere.  Personally I feel it was better without it.  There's some discussion about whether it was intentionally left out to 'feel like a missing limb', but given the highly publicised budget problems and Kojima's subsequent ejection from Konami it does seem a bit like that might not be entirely true.

[Thursday]

The real problem wasn't so much the cut content, it was the stuff like credit sequence when you're 80% of the way into the game, and it says "end of Act 1" but then Act 2 is just something like "do these missions again on hard mode. Then do a couple of random side missions to unlock the 'important side mission about the fate of Quiet, even though there was no reason to not just make it a regular mission' And then you just suddenly get the last mission of the game and it ends.

There was no reason for it all to be such a confusing mess. I recall the game had a couple of delays. Not defending Konami, but it seems like terrible management from Koj productions.