Most Overrated Games #4
Metal Gear Solid (Playstation, 1998)
Let’s get this out of the way to begin with: this game looks like complete shit. I’m sorry, but it does. I get that the Playstation couldn’t handle as much 3D as they wanted for this game, but it seems to me that the better solution would be to use a bit less 3D and make the stuff you have look not so much like ass, yeah? Especially since, hey, riddle me this: is there any reason to make your game in full 3D if you’re not going to allow the player any kind of camera control anyhow?
Beyond the fact that the game looks like shit is the fact that the controls are extremely ornery. Aiming is a severe chore due to the game’s unwillingness to allow you to move the camera (which means no first-person aiming mode) — I don’t just mean precision aiming, but even just, like, shooting straight ahead. When you do get the game’s one aimable weapon — the sniper rifle — you’ll find that its aiming controls are even worse; the aiming reticle sloooooowly drags its way around the screen as you haul on the stick, and you end up getting your face shot off since you can’t get the gun pointed at the damn boss fast enough to accomplish anything. Which is exactly why nobody does the second Sniper Wolf fight with the sniper rifle.
While I’m talking about the bosses… holy shit. There are a few good ones here and there, but the garbage is laid on thick. In addition to the Sniper Wolf fight, there’s the Revolver Ocelot fight, where you run in circles around and around and around and then try to aim at him, and if you miss a step it’s instant death. Or there’s Liquid Snake, who you have to punch off of a giant robot within a time limit, and, if you fail, you get to watch a ten-minute cutscene all over again. But, most importantly, there’s Psycho Mantis. Psycho Mantis has a gimmick, you see: he can read your mind! Which basically means the game is a big damn cheat, and he’ll avoid all of your attacks. To get around this problem, what you have to do is (are you ready for this?) switch the controller to port 2 on the Playstation during the jabberjaw cutscene before the fight starts. I mean, yeah, that’s a retarded gimmick, but it’s okay, because the game gives you plenty of clues to help you figure it out.
What’s that? It doesn’t give you hint fucking one? You have to look it up on the internet? Oh. Well, in that case, fuck you, Hideo Kojima.
Plotwise, the game is fun, and doesn’t get into the really absurd loony-land metaphysics of the later series entries, with with their magical mind-controlling arm transplants and so forth. The cutscene density is really thick, though, and the acting’s not so good, so you might be ready for the game to stop yammering long before it’s ready for you. And the ending is goddamn insulting, what with the final boss who you kill four times, emerges from the base unscathed, and then dies of a heart attack right before he kills you and wins the world. Seriously, Hideo Kojima. Fuck you.
