Metal Gear Solid

System: Playstation
Release Date: 1998
Published By: Konami
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

After a ten-year hiatus, Solid Snake returns to action in his third starring role. Metal Gear Solid is an action game, but with a twist - instead of mowing the enemy down, you'll find your life gets a lot easier if you sneak by them. It's an espionage game, see, and the odds are stacked against Snake if he decides that running-and-gunning is the way to proceed.

So what's going on here? Well, there are these terrorists, and they've stolen a nuclear weapon and fortified a remote Alaskan research base, and they're making all manner of outrageous demands. Snake is sent in alone to rescue some hostages, disarm the bomb, and kick some people in the hindquarters - but wait! Things may not be quite so simple as they seem! This is probably not much of a surprise, since, frankly, things are never as simple as they seem in video game plots, but the story and the way it unravels are quite good, and will probably manage to hold your interest for the length of the mission. Speaking of that, the game's not very long, and it eats up a fair portion of its running time on cinematics. The cinematics are good, and the voice acting is good, but there sure is a lot of it, and it can become tiresome at points.

When you're not watching cutscenes, you'll divide your time rather evenly between sneaking and not-sneaking. The sneaking parts are where the game really shines; it's great fun to try to dodge guards and cameras while making your way toward objectives. The non-sneaking parts consist basically of combat and weird minigames, and aren't as much fun - the controls are a bit troublesome and aiming is difficult, which can make combat frustrating, and we all know what I think of minigames: namely, I don't get the point of sticking a bit where you mash one button as fast as possible or die in the middle of the sneaking game. But there you are.

I'm trying very hard to be kind to the graphics, since, true, this is about the best possible 3D graphics the Playstation supports, but I just can't get over the impression that that was a damn good reason not to do the game in full 3D on the Playstation. But, hey, there you are. 3D was hot, the Playstation was hot, they were young, needed the money, okay. Handwave. The sound is very good, though, and is appropriately sparse - the game does a good job of keeping everything quiet when Snake is hidden, and getting loud and panicky when Snake is spotted.

In all, what we have here is an excellent game with some weaknesses; tightening the controls would probably get it another half-point in my ratings all by itself. The game's definitely worth your time, regardless, even if the final battle in the Jeep is a hopeless pain in the balls.

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