Sorry about another trip back 1998, but the next game to be saved to The Memory Card is from that year yet again. It was the game to kickstart the Stealth ‘Em Up genre. I am of course talking about Metal Gear Solid.
Now then, if you haven’t played this game then I’ll explain the basic premise of it. You are a special operative of Foxhound sent into a small island, codename Shadow Moses, to investigate and stop the terrorist uprising taking place on the island, save two hostages, DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker and to also destroy the nuclear-capable bi-pedal mech Metal gear.
You play the legendary operative Solid Snake, forced out of retirement in order to stop a take over of Shadow Moses by a special forces unit, FOXHOUND, who are made of of six operatives with incredible abilities. Revolver Ocelot, an expert interrogator and Western gunslinger. Sniper Wolf an expert sniper. Vulcan Raven a muscle bound Alaskan Shaman armed with a minigun and a tank. Psycho Mantis, a psychic profiler and psychokinetic oddball and Decoy Octopus, a master of disguise. All of them led by the nefarious Liquid Snake, the brother of Solid Snake, although he isn’t actually his brother they are clones of one of the greatest warriors who ever lived. However, while both Liquid and Solid have the same skills, Liquid received all of the recessive genes therefore making him the weaker of the two. This is what led him to the taking of Metal Gear and Shadow Moses.
When I first played this game I pretty much just grabbed a machine gun, and started gunning everyone down, and I found it quite a lot of fun. Then a friend showed me the guide he had, and I discovered that, whilst there are running and gunning sections, you are meant to sneak around. And it is in this aspect that Metal Gear Solid really comes alive.
There is is nothing more fun, that hiding under a truck or a crate while the enemy are wondering around, taking one guard out and after making sure the coast is clear, popping out and running to avoid the next guard, hiding behind a tank and then taking out the guard silently as he comes around the corner. Slowly eliminating the guards you need to eliminate so you can get through the area undetected. Gradually making your way towards Liquid, taking down each of his subordinates. Stealth becomes your greatest weapon. If it’s hiding behind a crate, or in a cardboard box which the guards will ignore.
But whilst this makes for a highly tense game, and will often have you sitting in one place for a couple of minutes while you work out the patrol pattern of the guards. It is the Boss Battles that you will have the most fun. Each is vastly different. Take for example, the first meeting with Vulcan Raven. He’s driving a tank, and to beat him you have to throw a grenade into the hatch on the top. This might sound easy, but when your fighting a Tank, you are but a man. Plus, when you do, you had better get into some cover, cos he go crazy. But the second time, takes places inside a warehouse with rows of crates. And this time he has a minigun, which will kill you if you try and get close to him. So you have to use a remote control rocket launcher to defeat him. This means that you have to keep in cover while you guide them.
But the best moment in the game, isn’t the final boss fight against a giant robot mech, or with Liquid on top of it. It’s with Psycho Mantis. It’s isn’t especially hard. It’s what he does in real life that makes it completely. He’ll read your memory card and talk about whats on there. Like ‘I see you like playing Nintendo games.’ Which is pretty damn cool, but after a while he begins to read your controls so you can’t hurt him. The solution of which is to move your controller to Port 2, at which point he gets all confused. But, the absolutely best bit about his fight, is that he makes your put the controller down on the floor. And then he makes it move. Okay, it might actually be through the use of vibration, but it’s damn cool.
At the end of the day, the gaming world owes quite a lot Metal Gear, it’s inventive use of stealth and it’s cinematic cutscenes. Although, they can get a bit much. I’m looking at you Metal Gear Solid 4. With 40% of your game being damn cutscenes.
But I urge you, if you haven’t played MGS yet, please do. It’s a lot of fun, and then you can play the sequels.
E-mail George Marriott at ge****@th*************.com
