By Sam Coles:
1998 was one hell of a year for video games, we got titles
such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, F-Zero X and of course the game I’m
going to be discussing Metal Gear Solid. The first time I saw Metal Gear Solid I
was five years old, it blew my mind how good it looked visually, now I know you
can look at that statement and grin with how stupid it may come across these
days but it was a technical show piece for the PS1 back in the day.
Metal Gear Solid had a huge impact on how linear games are made;
even today you can feel the game’s routes with cinematic storytelling. Not to
say it was the first of its kind when it comes to storytelling, as Final
Fantasy VII had cinematic scenes. However Metal Gear Solid stood out as it had
voice acting that didn’t sound like someone’s first rendition of Shakespeare or
someone in a pornography film trying to persuade someone to perform sexual
favours to pay for their pizza. No Metal Gear Solid’s voice acting actually has
weight and emotion, yes it can have awkward pauses in some places, but overall
you get invested in the story due to the dialogue being performed extremely
well.
Gameplay was a standout too, now stealth was not anything new
as the superb Thief was released the same year, but Metal Gear Solid relied
more on line of sight as oppose to lighting. Stealth gameplay was tight where
you can run and crawl or if the guards don’t notice you can flip them over your
shoulders like a lumberjack, however the problem is you can’t walk slowly which
is something they fortunately fixed in the sequel.
You have a huge inventory of weapons and gadgets; these can range
from standard fire arms like a Socom pistol, assault rifle to more explosive
offerings like homing missiles. You have gadgets and items to help you with
sneaking around, such as inferred goggles to see laser trip wires, to the
absolute ridiculous scenario where enemies are fooled by a cardboard box. Just
because you are armed to the teeth it does not mean you can run around gunning
down guards like the Doom marine, as the enemies will surround and you can take
as many hits as an asthmatic bong user.
The A.I was rather smart (at the time) as well, now I know
it may sound hyperbolic to say that it was shocking when they would see your
footprints and say “Who’s footprints are these”. But it was mind blowing for 1998;
we had not seen anything like it before then.
Not to say that it is purely stealth as there are boss
fights, which are completely ridiculous where you’ll be fighting mind controlling
Soviet commandos, to a minigun wielding shaman. They are all unique and have
different tactics to take them down, and of course this wouldn’t be a Metal
Gear Solid article if I did not talk about Psycho Mantis. He starts off by
reading your mind which is your memory card, where then proceeds to talk about the
Konami games on your card as well as critiquing how often you save. He can read
your every move during the fight where he seems to be invulnerable, however if
you plug your controller into the second port he can be attacked. This is why
this game is remembered to this day is because of its self-awareness, where it
would even print important in game information on the back of CD case.
Now this may sound silly in today’s climate, but visually it
is an impressive game as it was a full 3D game with both characters and
environments. What generally was the trend with PlayStation games was that only
the characters and certain objects were in 3D, and the environments were
generally pre-rendered backgrounds, this was not the case for Metal Gear.
Character models were very impressive for the time, and yes these days the
faces look like potatoes on a pike bobbing up and down and their motions look
like something from a Gerry Anderson production. You have to be in the mind of
1998, where most games went for a cartoonish look which honestly has aged
better than most games that shot for realism, but it was a breath fresh air
with its grounded setting.
Metal Gear Solid is truly a wonderful game, which influenced
the industry of how they make singleplayer games with its cinematic flare. If
you have any means of playing this game I would recommend it, as its
storytelling is wonderful, the gameplay can take a while to get use to but it
is fantastic nonetheless.
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