Metal Geared
Posted by: j_john | From: June 25, 2005
Wow, that was one EPIC ride. A week after finishing the exhausting new GTA at 100% I have completed Hideo Kojima's fantastic "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater." Since I'm still experiencing the afterglow, I decided to take a quick look back at this excellent series.
Back in 1998 Kojima pioneered a new form of gaming entertainment, integrating traditional movie-style story cinematics with gameplay in "Metal Gear Solid". Some folks scoffed at the rather ambitious nature of the game (and its long stretches of exposition), but I appreciated how seriously Kojima took his art-form. He slipped up a bit with the follow-up, 2001's "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty", with an extremely difficult to follow plot and a new effeminate main character, the infamous Raiden. However, I was still excited to see what MGS3 had in store--I knew the gameplay would be rewarding and I was anxious to see how his storytelling had progressed.
[Regular Game Thumbers may remember Curt Merrill's MGS3 introduction from a few months back. By his own admittance, Mr. Merrill wasn't completely familiar with the storylines and characters, but was drawn into the world nonetheless. I have played every US release of the series going back to 1987 (including the original "Metal Gear" on NES, and the US-only sequel "Snakes Revenge"), and each time I enter into the world of tactical espionage action I am immediately impressed by the attention to detail and unique style of gameplay. The simple premise--sneaking around, avoiding detection, is always a welcome break from the traditional "destroy everything" style found in most games.]
Since Curt already touched on the new features for Snake Eater I will stick to the overall story and game development. Possibly due to the utter confusion of MGS2 I was continually amazed at how coherent this story was. The real-life framework of the 60s era Cold War allowed the mood to be instantly engrossing, without too much fake futuristic technology. Cinemas were never too long and always left you with interactive camera choices--plus you never knew when you might be required to make some button presses to determine your hero's fate. The title music was wonderfully James Bond-esque, and once again featured a score by Hollywood composer Harry Gregson Williams. I felt compelled to play for hours on end to see what new plot twist awaited me--and at almost 25 hours the length was certainly impressive. My only complaint might be the relative ease of the game, but then again I am still riding my confidence high from GTA. With MGS3 Kojima really has achieved what he set out to do over 7 years ago--elevate games to a new form of artistic, interactive entertainment. MORE PLEASE!
john. you should get an MSX emulator and play the original metal gear 1 and 2 "solid snake." i am sure you know about them, but i played them both this past year and, wow. The NES version is a poor port of the original MSX version, the MSX version actually makes sense. and the real metal gear 2 "solid snake" is basically like playing metal gear solid only 8 bit. its pretty amazing to see the ideas that kojima had even back then, and he really pushed the concept of gaming to its limits. unfortunately there was never a US release of "solid snake." it was awesome to play, a lot of fun and very dramatic, with some really interesting little 'kojima-isms' . and the instruction booklet is even good! i have a pdf of it if you're interested.
here's a good site for Metal Gear 2:
http://www.msxnet.org/gtinter/mgear2us.htm
notice the character portraits. i am pretty sure they all are supposed to be someone, but i don't know who they all are.
funny though.. in the intro, Snake looks like Mel Gibson, then in the communicator scenes he looks more like Stallone.
check it out.
Posted by: grant at July 3, 2005 11:20 AM
hmm -- the cinemas require button presses? interesting -- Resident Evil 3 did that too. awesome game btw...
Posted by: Justin at August 3, 2005 5:08 PM
And you get to eat animals! Like bunnies and snakes!
Posted by: Mikey at June 27, 2005 8:44 PM