On the Metal Gears Solid
I was thinking about these games against last night, inspired by a conversation with Evil Stephen (!!) about how he thinks I’m a "crazy nut" for liking the first two games about equally. He thinks, in common with many people, that the first MGS was much better than the second for more reasons than just how completely repellent Raiden is. In fact, I believe he’s downright shocked that I rated the original Metal Gear Solid as low as I did, but I had my reasons. One of those reasons was its utterly horrible boss fights. Shall we go through them one at a time, then?
- Revolver Ocelot: Run around in a circle waiting for him to stop, then shoot him once. Repeat.
- The Tank: Step 1: Throw a chaff grenade. Step 2: Throw two frag grenades. Step 3: Profit!
- *The Ninja: Run and punch, run and punch. Then play tag. Then intuit that you have to shoot him even though he and all your radio advisors have talked your ear off about how you can’t do that.
- Psycho Mantis: A giant foolish bullshit gimmick fight. Either look up the solution on the internet, or else lose four times consecutively (as in, die and continue, but don’t turn off the system) and then the mechanics will change so you can win more easily.
- Sniper Wolf (first battle): First run all the way back through the game to get the gun you need. Then come back and struggle with the bizarre aiming controls.
- *Liquid Snake (first battle): Hide behind the boxes. Wait for him to fly up, then shoot him with a missile. Don’t stand on the upper platform where he’ll shoot your ass full of bombs.
- Sniper Wolf (second battle): Ignore the fucking sniper rifle controls and kill her with remote-controlled missiles. It takes about a million hits.
- *Vulcan Raven: Ignore the fucking stinger missile controls and kill him with C4. It takes about a million hits.
- *Liquid Snake (second battle): Sit through the cutscenes, then dance around the bottom of Metal Gear REX to confuse him and then pop out and shoot him with missiles.
- Liquid Snake (third battle): Punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch WHY WON’T YOU DIE?
- Liquid Snake (fourth battle): Goddamn motherfucking pointless stupid awful irritating and terrible VEHICLE GUN BATTLE with BAD CONTROLS.
I put an asterisk next to every boss battle I actually enjoyed even a little. You can see it’s not very many of them. The only other thing I have to say here is that you kill Liquid Snake FOUR TIMES through the course of the game, every one of which is pretty damn convincing:
- You’re on the top of a tower, he’s attacking you with a helicopter, and you shoot it with missiles until it crashes and explodes.
- He’s in a giant walking tank, and you shoot it with missiles until it crashes and explodes.
- A fistfight so high up that "nobody could survive this fall," at the end of which he falls.
- A stupid Jeep battle in which you shoot him in the face over and over again with a mounted heavy machine gun at point-blank range.
Would you believe that after all this the asshole is still alive? And that after escaping the base, when Solid Snake’s car flips over and pins him underneath it, Liquid emerges from the rubble unharmed? And after all that, after all these dramatic boss fights, after getting crushed, blown up, dropped from huge heights, shot in the face, and punched over and over again, Liquid Snake stands there, ready to execute Solid Snake, and then… dies of a heart attack?
I have never felt so completely ripped off by a video game before in my life. Well, except for Final Fantasy VIII.
