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Review: Metal Gear Solid (1998)
I'd watched a Let's Play for Metal Gear Solid V a while ago and I found myself thinking about the story from time to time. MGSV was the first game in the series that I'd watched, and I was obviously missing a lot of background information. Since I was thinking about the story and curious about the pre-established characters, I decided to take the plunge and go back and check out the old games.
I was informed that the first two Metal Gear games weren't really that important to the plot, so I'm going to check out the main Metal Gear Solid games. For Metal Gear Solid, I watched this series of videos.
As I'd mentioned in my MGSV review, stealth games aren't my thing, so I wasn't big on the gameplay and mostly just followed it in the background. I was watching more for the story. I have mixed feelings about the story, but I do think that it helped me get a better understanding of the MGS story.
Spoilers.
Story
I was trying to read up on what actually happened in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 as it seems like it wasn't an insignificant amount of information, and I was right. There is a TON of lore to catch up on even before Metal Gear Solid. From what I understood, Big Boss and Foxhound were responsible for taking out a WMD in Outer Heaven. Gray Fox had been sent to handle the mission but went missing, so Big Boss called upon Solid Snake. Eventually, it was revealed that Big Boss was actually the one who had created the WMD "Metal Gear," and had just sent out Solid Snake to create confusion for other intelligence agencies. In MG2, Solid Snake ended up killing Gray Fox while he was killing Metal Gear, and he also ended up killing Big Boss in Zanzibar Land. This is A LOT of information, and I sort of wish that I'd watched Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 before delving into MGS, but also, the graphics are very old, so maybe it's okay.
Now, on to the actual game. There was a lot to digest in this story. Each cutscene had a lot of information. In terms of the actually events in the story, they were fine. It was a typical thriller story in which the player gets to be the big hero of the day.
When I'd watched a playthrough of MGSV, I was really impressed with the cutscenes. I was similarly impressed with the cutscenes in this game. Obviously the graphics were older, but each cutscene was very interesting and provided information that helped propel the story, which I really liked.
My biggest complaint with the story would have to be the romances. Solid Snake flirted with nearly every woman. It made MGS feel like a dated action movie in which the main character is super charismatic and attractive to every woman. This game is pretty old, so I can see that perhaps this was still the popular norm back then. But as a woman watching in 2020, it was pretty painful to watch.
MGS had a few loose ends, but it doesn't annoy me because I know that this is just the first game of many.
Presentation
As I mentioned, the cutscenes were extrmely well done. I did a bit of reading on Kojima Hideo, and he seemed to have a big interest in film. I can see that he really respects the story telling aspect of video games, and acknowledges the opportunities it provides to engage the player.
If it's not clear by now, I didn't actually play the game, and just watched a Let's Play for it. So I don't have comments on the gameplay.
Characters
Solid Snake
I expected Solid Snake to be cooler, someone like Big Boss/Venom Snake in MGSV, but he just ended up being the stereotypical action hero in 80s and 90s movies.
When it came to his missions, Solid Snake was mostly a blank slate. He reacted appropriately to events that came as a shock, but there was nothing about his character that stood out.
The one thing that did stand out about Solid Snake was his flirtiness. He obviously developed at least platonic feelings for Naomi, but I'm half convinced that it was because she was pretty. The first thing that Solid Snake commented to Meiling about was that she was so cute. And of course, Solid Snake and Meryl fell in love and skiied off into the sunset after hours of knowing each other (though Solid Snake is presumed to die soon due to Foxdie).
I hope his character becomes a bit refined in future games. I don't expect him to be a Big Boss clone because they are different people, but I'd like to see more from Solid Snake that makes him more like a person and less like a male fantasy.
Roy Campbell
Roy Campbell was kind of the boss of the mission, but it was revealed that he was forced into running the mission because his niece Meryl was in trouble. He was a talking puppet the whole time, but Solid Snake still respected him after their years of working together.
Naomi Hunter
Naomi Hunter was a scientist working for Foxhound, and pretended to be Solid Snake's ally to seek revenge for killing Big Boss and nearly killing Gray Fox. She ended up feeling remorseful for injecting Solid Snake with Foxdie because she realized he wasn't the evil man she thought he was. I believe she was captured by authorities by the end of the game.
Meiling
Meiling had a pretty small role in the game as the tech expert, but I thought I should put her in here anyway because apparently she comes back as a character in later installments.
Master Miller
Kaz Miller was my favourite character from MGSV so I paid extra attention to him in this game, only to find out he was Liquid Snake in disguise -_- Anyway, the real Miller was found dead in his home days prior. I'm curious as to whether he was killed by Liquid Snake just so Liquid Snake could impersonate him, or whether there was another reason.
Meryl Silverburgh
Meryl was Campbell's niece, and Solid Snake's love interest. She was pretty green at first, being a new soldier and all. Being the daughter of a soldier, she wanted to become one herself to become closer to her family.
Despite being one of the reasons for the mission (as Campbell was threatened) and being Solid Snake's endgame love interest in the game, Meryl didn't really have a big part in the story.
Otacon
I know of Huey Emmerich from MGSV, and I remember that he wasn't really the most moral scientist. I did some research and found out that Otacon was his father. Here, Otacon was more "emotionally fragile" as opposed to immoral. He'd sort of gotten a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, and felt bad about Sniper Wolf dying.
At the end of the game, Otacon said he'd remain at the facility because he found a new meaning in life, though I don't remember if we know what that new meaning in life was.
Liquid Snake
Liquid was the bitter twin brother of Solid Snake. While Liquid did want Big Boss's remains to continue the genome soldiers, he also wanted to kill Solid Snake because of his jealousy of Solid Snake being the better twin.
I think Eli from MGSV was actually Liquid Snake, and we saw that he was kind of an angsty kid early on.
Liquid ended up dying due to Foxdie.
Big Boss
I think Big Boss was the main antaonist in the Metal Gear games, but in this game, he was really more of a legend if you hadn't played the Metal Gear games like me.
Gray Fox
So apparently Solid Snake had "killed" Gray Fox in a previous battle (that probably took place in Metal Gear or Metal Gear 2). However, Gray Fox hadn't actually died and came back as a minor antagonist.
By the end of the game, Gray Fox decided that he was against Metal Gear and helped out Solid Snake, even though he'd die.
Naomi was his adopted sister. He'd killed her parents and so he did feel a great deal of guilt about her, though he never revealed to her the truth behind where she came from.
Revolver Ocelot
Revolver Ocelot also came up in MGSV so I had my eye on him. He was just a regular antagonist in this game, whose specialty was with interrogations, though we saw that his method of interrogation was really just torture.
Psycho Mantis
Psycho Mantis was another character who I met in MGSV. In that game, he was still kind of a child, whereas in MGS he was a full grown adult. He had the powers of mind control and levitation. In MGSV, we saw that he'd communicated with Eli a bit, so I guess it makes sense that they'd stayed together until adulthood.
Overall
The game had its share of strengths and weaknesses, but I think most of the weaknesses stemmed from the fact that this type of story is dated now in 2020. Otherwise, it helped me get my footing in the MGS story.
I was informed that the first two Metal Gear games weren't really that important to the plot, so I'm going to check out the main Metal Gear Solid games. For Metal Gear Solid, I watched this series of videos.
As I'd mentioned in my MGSV review, stealth games aren't my thing, so I wasn't big on the gameplay and mostly just followed it in the background. I was watching more for the story. I have mixed feelings about the story, but I do think that it helped me get a better understanding of the MGS story.
Spoilers.
Story
I was trying to read up on what actually happened in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 as it seems like it wasn't an insignificant amount of information, and I was right. There is a TON of lore to catch up on even before Metal Gear Solid. From what I understood, Big Boss and Foxhound were responsible for taking out a WMD in Outer Heaven. Gray Fox had been sent to handle the mission but went missing, so Big Boss called upon Solid Snake. Eventually, it was revealed that Big Boss was actually the one who had created the WMD "Metal Gear," and had just sent out Solid Snake to create confusion for other intelligence agencies. In MG2, Solid Snake ended up killing Gray Fox while he was killing Metal Gear, and he also ended up killing Big Boss in Zanzibar Land. This is A LOT of information, and I sort of wish that I'd watched Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 before delving into MGS, but also, the graphics are very old, so maybe it's okay.
Now, on to the actual game. There was a lot to digest in this story. Each cutscene had a lot of information. In terms of the actually events in the story, they were fine. It was a typical thriller story in which the player gets to be the big hero of the day.
When I'd watched a playthrough of MGSV, I was really impressed with the cutscenes. I was similarly impressed with the cutscenes in this game. Obviously the graphics were older, but each cutscene was very interesting and provided information that helped propel the story, which I really liked.
My biggest complaint with the story would have to be the romances. Solid Snake flirted with nearly every woman. It made MGS feel like a dated action movie in which the main character is super charismatic and attractive to every woman. This game is pretty old, so I can see that perhaps this was still the popular norm back then. But as a woman watching in 2020, it was pretty painful to watch.
MGS had a few loose ends, but it doesn't annoy me because I know that this is just the first game of many.
Presentation
As I mentioned, the cutscenes were extrmely well done. I did a bit of reading on Kojima Hideo, and he seemed to have a big interest in film. I can see that he really respects the story telling aspect of video games, and acknowledges the opportunities it provides to engage the player.
If it's not clear by now, I didn't actually play the game, and just watched a Let's Play for it. So I don't have comments on the gameplay.
Characters
Solid Snake
I expected Solid Snake to be cooler, someone like Big Boss/Venom Snake in MGSV, but he just ended up being the stereotypical action hero in 80s and 90s movies.
When it came to his missions, Solid Snake was mostly a blank slate. He reacted appropriately to events that came as a shock, but there was nothing about his character that stood out.
The one thing that did stand out about Solid Snake was his flirtiness. He obviously developed at least platonic feelings for Naomi, but I'm half convinced that it was because she was pretty. The first thing that Solid Snake commented to Meiling about was that she was so cute. And of course, Solid Snake and Meryl fell in love and skiied off into the sunset after hours of knowing each other (though Solid Snake is presumed to die soon due to Foxdie).
I hope his character becomes a bit refined in future games. I don't expect him to be a Big Boss clone because they are different people, but I'd like to see more from Solid Snake that makes him more like a person and less like a male fantasy.
Roy Campbell
Roy Campbell was kind of the boss of the mission, but it was revealed that he was forced into running the mission because his niece Meryl was in trouble. He was a talking puppet the whole time, but Solid Snake still respected him after their years of working together.
Naomi Hunter
Naomi Hunter was a scientist working for Foxhound, and pretended to be Solid Snake's ally to seek revenge for killing Big Boss and nearly killing Gray Fox. She ended up feeling remorseful for injecting Solid Snake with Foxdie because she realized he wasn't the evil man she thought he was. I believe she was captured by authorities by the end of the game.
Meiling
Meiling had a pretty small role in the game as the tech expert, but I thought I should put her in here anyway because apparently she comes back as a character in later installments.
Master Miller
Kaz Miller was my favourite character from MGSV so I paid extra attention to him in this game, only to find out he was Liquid Snake in disguise -_- Anyway, the real Miller was found dead in his home days prior. I'm curious as to whether he was killed by Liquid Snake just so Liquid Snake could impersonate him, or whether there was another reason.
Meryl Silverburgh
Meryl was Campbell's niece, and Solid Snake's love interest. She was pretty green at first, being a new soldier and all. Being the daughter of a soldier, she wanted to become one herself to become closer to her family.
Despite being one of the reasons for the mission (as Campbell was threatened) and being Solid Snake's endgame love interest in the game, Meryl didn't really have a big part in the story.
Otacon
I know of Huey Emmerich from MGSV, and I remember that he wasn't really the most moral scientist. I did some research and found out that Otacon was his father. Here, Otacon was more "emotionally fragile" as opposed to immoral. He'd sort of gotten a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, and felt bad about Sniper Wolf dying.
At the end of the game, Otacon said he'd remain at the facility because he found a new meaning in life, though I don't remember if we know what that new meaning in life was.
Liquid Snake
Liquid was the bitter twin brother of Solid Snake. While Liquid did want Big Boss's remains to continue the genome soldiers, he also wanted to kill Solid Snake because of his jealousy of Solid Snake being the better twin.
I think Eli from MGSV was actually Liquid Snake, and we saw that he was kind of an angsty kid early on.
Liquid ended up dying due to Foxdie.
Big Boss
I think Big Boss was the main antaonist in the Metal Gear games, but in this game, he was really more of a legend if you hadn't played the Metal Gear games like me.
Gray Fox
So apparently Solid Snake had "killed" Gray Fox in a previous battle (that probably took place in Metal Gear or Metal Gear 2). However, Gray Fox hadn't actually died and came back as a minor antagonist.
By the end of the game, Gray Fox decided that he was against Metal Gear and helped out Solid Snake, even though he'd die.
Naomi was his adopted sister. He'd killed her parents and so he did feel a great deal of guilt about her, though he never revealed to her the truth behind where she came from.
Revolver Ocelot
Revolver Ocelot also came up in MGSV so I had my eye on him. He was just a regular antagonist in this game, whose specialty was with interrogations, though we saw that his method of interrogation was really just torture.
Psycho Mantis
Psycho Mantis was another character who I met in MGSV. In that game, he was still kind of a child, whereas in MGS he was a full grown adult. He had the powers of mind control and levitation. In MGSV, we saw that he'd communicated with Eli a bit, so I guess it makes sense that they'd stayed together until adulthood.
Overall
The game had its share of strengths and weaknesses, but I think most of the weaknesses stemmed from the fact that this type of story is dated now in 2020. Otherwise, it helped me get my footing in the MGS story.