Collection essentials #366: Metal Gear Solid (PS1)

And now we have one of the significant and revered games on the original PlayStation. It’s a top-10 seller in the console’s library, and #1 among games made by the legendary Konami. The creator of the game and series, Hideo Kojima, is now one of the most famous and revered video game designers of all-time.

Metal Gear as a series actually debuted over a decade earlier, with two games for MSX2 computers in Japan. Since MSX2 was not popular in America, the games didn’t come out here in their original forms. The first Metal Gear, though, received a port to the Nintendo Entertainment System which with some big changes (for the worse) from the original, and that port did see a worldwide release and sold very well. The second game never received such a port and remained stuck in Japan. Despite their success, Metal Gear as a series went dormant for years after those two games, as Kojima worked on other projects such as Snatcher, and this third game took an unusually long time to make.

These are stealth action games, where the goal is generally to achieve your goals without fighting if possible, because enemy reinforcements will try to ruin your day if you get in a fight and it’s often very hard to win in such a scenario. The first Metal Gear was originally supposed to be a more normal action game, but with the limitations of the hardware making that difficult, Kojima had the great idea to get more creative and make the game based around stealth instead. The second game greatly improved on the original, adding more gameplay elements such as crawling and a radar to see where enemy guards are patrolling, and it also featured more of a story. Both games see you taking control of a soldier named Solid Snake going on a mission to find and destroy the latest Metal Gear, a name given to a series of advanced nuclear-capable walking tanks.

This third Metal Gear game benefited immensely from the PlayStation’s capabilities. Metal Gear Solid feels far more cinematic than perhaps any other game released before. Indeed, it’s the story rather than the cool stealth gameplay that truly defines this game and helped it make a big impact. The PlayStation’s graphics were certainly very “blocky” and nowhere near something that could be mistaken for realistic, but nevertheless having graphics in 3D still really helped bring the game to life and gave it more of a movie-like feel. The game is fully voice-acted, and the actors did an incredible job, which was absolutely not a given in the video game world at the time. David Hayter voicing Solid Snake in particular provides an iconic, distinct gruff voice that fans will instantly recognize whenever anyone even tries to do an impression of it. The music is also excellent, capped off by a gorgeous song called “The Best Is Yet To Come” with Irish vocals for the ending credits sequence.

Metal Gear Solid takes place in an alternate version of the real world. Sometimes references real-life events in history such as the bombing of Hiroshima. The year is 2005, and Solid Snake has been retired for a while. But special forces unit FOXHOUND, with whom Snake used to be affiliated, has sent the world into a crisis. They have control of a remote fictional island in Alaska called Shadow Moses, and are threatening to launch a nuke against the USA if their demands are not met. Snake must infantry the facility, rescue hostages and thwart their plans, and uncover the truth of what’s going on along the way. Unfortunately I can’t really explain why the story is great without spoilers. It’s a roller-coaster ride full of twists and turns, along with great characters and interesting villains. It was probably the best storyline in any video game released up to that point, and at the very least it was the only one that truly felt like it could have been an action movie.

The game is played from an overhead view, and there is a radar that shows a simplified layout of Snake’s surroundings, and enemy guards are shown with a cone that represents their current field of vision. If Snake gets to close to an enemy’s field of sight, they will become suspicious and attempt to approach him. Any closer, and an alert will be triggered, in which the radar is shut off and more enemies will be called to try and kill the intruder. Snake can fight back, but he usually can’t deal with too many reinforcements. Snake has to find a place to hide until the alert goes away, or perhaps escape to a different area. Trying to kill guards without them spotting you is sometimes possible, but can be difficult to do without making too much noise and alerting another guard. To help avoid guards, Snake can crouch, crawl, press himself up against a wall and mosey left and right, and he can famously hide in a cardboard box which a guard may overlook. There are various items and weapons Snake collects along the way to aid him. Sometimes Snake does have to fight, and actually there are quite a few boss fights which are sometimes highlights of the game. While Snake is on the mission alone, he has a codec device which he can use to call and talk to people who are remotely helping him out with his mission.

How is it playing Metal Gear Solid in modern times? As you might guess, the storyline is still great as ever. The gameplay, however, likely will feel clunky and not so great. As you can imagine, future Metal Gear games refined the gameplay quite a bit after this. It’s still definitely worth playing for the story alone. There was a remake of this game several years later during the next console generation which I will cover eventually, which for some may feel better to play. I do have to note that fan reception on the remake is mixed, and there are legitimate criticisms with some of the changes that it made. As for my opinion…you’ll have to wait until that version gets its own post.

When Metal Gear Solid was new, I knew multiple people who had the game so I was first exposed to it at their houses. It looked intriguing, and I heard that it was a great game. I wound up getting and playing the aforementioned remake shortly after it came out, and that was my first time with the series. I went back and played the original PlayStation version later. 

Metal Gear Solid is a PlayStation classic for a very good reason, and if you’re a gamer you’re likely not the least bit surprised that it’s on this list. Although it sometimes feels like a movie, it also takes advantage of being a video game to deliver some unique moments, which I’m going to be vague about on purpose, but if you’ve played the game you know which moments I’m talking about. A port of this game (not the remake) was recently included in the “Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1” on modern platforms, so if you’ve never played it then you certainly have a very accessible way to do so. If you like great storytelling in a video game, it’s one that you really ought to check out. It’s a legendary, groundbreaking game and a quintessential essential in my collection.