Before Solid, there was this, Metal Gear, which tells the story of Solid Snake infiltrating a top secret base where the nuclear war tank "Metal Gear" is being secretly built. FOXHOUND member Solid Snake is sent into a fortress known as Outer Heaven to investigate, and from here things are pretty simple. It's a minimal story with a surprising amount of dialogue for a late 80's game, as well as a decent twist that is foreshadowed really well using the games radio, I was genuinely impressed by that.
The gameplay itself is solid enough, it's a top down game where you must sneak around the base, find items to progress and defeat bosses with specific items. Stealth is encouraged as enemies will swarm you if you're seen, and early on it's easy to stay undetected as all the enemies have a severe case of tunnel vision. As long as they aren't looking directly at you, they won't see you, and you can punch them or shoot them without bringing attention to yourself, especially if you have the weapon suppressor.
If you are spotted, you either need to run, or fight, but combat is clunky. Weapons work but often don't seem to hit targets, so it's often better to run away. To be fair if you do need to just spam your guns, running out of ammo or health packs is never really an issue as item pick ups respawn when leaving and re-entering a room.
All of this is functional and fundamentally playable, but the big issue with this game is how cryptic it is, often requiring you to do things you are never told about, find items by backtracking, blowing up walls that look no different to other walls and defeating bosses with specific weapons. It's very possible to become totally soft locked, so without a guide, you aren't beating this.
It starts okay, but just nosedives into obscurity in the second half, so unless your really curious, I would skip this one - 3.5/10
The gameplay itself is solid enough, it's a top down game where you must sneak around the base, find items to progress and defeat bosses with specific items. Stealth is encouraged as enemies will swarm you if you're seen, and early on it's easy to stay undetected as all the enemies have a severe case of tunnel vision. As long as they aren't looking directly at you, they won't see you, and you can punch them or shoot them without bringing attention to yourself, especially if you have the weapon suppressor.
If you are spotted, you either need to run, or fight, but combat is clunky. Weapons work but often don't seem to hit targets, so it's often better to run away. To be fair if you do need to just spam your guns, running out of ammo or health packs is never really an issue as item pick ups respawn when leaving and re-entering a room.
All of this is functional and fundamentally playable, but the big issue with this game is how cryptic it is, often requiring you to do things you are never told about, find items by backtracking, blowing up walls that look no different to other walls and defeating bosses with specific weapons. It's very possible to become totally soft locked, so without a guide, you aren't beating this.
It starts okay, but just nosedives into obscurity in the second half, so unless your really curious, I would skip this one - 3.5/10