(Review originally written in Aug 2019 when I was 17 as a Twitter thread, reposting here in Sep 2022 for archival purposes. Not at all how I would write today, but I still like it!)
I finished Metal Gear Solid! It's a very good game that aged quite well, although some of its aspects are somewhat outdated, of course. The voice acting is commendable to this day. I really, really liked the game design, full of interesting ideas, no two parts of the game were the same.
It's really interesting how today's "cinematic" games are a synonym of lack of uniqueness and interactive gameplay but Metal Gear Solid goes totally against that - while presenting an amazing narrative with a new plot twist at every Codec call, it's always a game that's fun to play as a GAME, and you never feel like you're the spectator to a movie.
Every boss battle was quite memorable and so were the characters that oozed charm. My favorites were:
- Otacon, a very charming and likeable sidekick, with good comic relief points, always helpful, with a great redemption arc at the end
- Gray Fox, a great warrior that gave me the most challenging battle of all bosses, with an interesting backstory and motives, and above all, charm
- Naomi Hunter, not only because she's very pretty and her voice is SO CUTE, but she is a very interesting character overall. I liked her monologue at the end, even if it was a bit cryptic
- Mei Ling for being adorable, reliable, and always providing good advice, even if she wasn't the most important character in the story
And Ocelot and Sniper Wolf. I really enjoyed the torture scene as ironic as it may sound, and the GAME OVER screen where Liquid says "Ocelot... you DID IT AGAIN." and Ocelot answers with "Haha... Sorry, Boss." is really nice for a change, instead of the usual taunting where your allies scream in agony. As for Sniper Wolf, she probably has my favorite quote in the game.
"I finally understand. I wasn't waiting to kill people... I was waiting for someone to kill me. A man like you..."
As for my least favorite characters in the game, they're probably the Twin Snakes, Liquid and Solid. Liquid Snake feels like a hollow, edgy villain with world domination motives sugarcoated by "inferior genetics" and his wish of revenge on... basically everyone? I didn't like him. And Solid Snake feels like a mindless government puppet, although Gray Fox tries to tell him he's not. Really, all he knows about is following orders and asking about [a specific something] immediately after [specific something] is mentioned: it can get somewhat boring, honestly.
Some final notes about my personal experience:
- I chose probably the worst way to play the game: MGS Integral for the PC with that one QoL patch. Truth is: the port is still kind of bad. It definitely looks great in 1080p, but the controls suck, your custom control settings reset randomly, FMVs NEVER play correctly, save games sometimes glitch... the list goes on. You really shouldn't play it like this, althought it's not the worst experience ever.
- This definitely had the potential to become one of my favorite games ever, but I played the game reeeally sloowly and the last part was somewhat frustrating, I definitely felt some fatigue and just wanted it all to end. Plus, the port wasn't the best, and finally, Solid and Liquid could be more interesting. Those factors keep it from being one of my all time favorite games ever.
- These are my favorite game tracks!
youtu.be/n1fWzyDVesc
youtu.be/mRSG5k86GFs
youtu.be/hnp_JgJSLoc
youtu.be/LqZVNzNc23w
youtu.be/OReM-Vm2vj4
In conclusion, the game is damn good at basically everything it tries to do, be it dialogue, level design, variety of gameplay mechanics, level of detail (for a PSX game, it's amazing!), characters, graphics, soundtrack, atmosphere, ah, I've ran out of things to compliment. I can really feel it was a revolutionary game and it deserves its place on all those "games you have to play before you die" lists. I'm super hyped for MGS2! Let's go!
Final score: 9,5/10
(I never played MGS2 lol)
I finished Metal Gear Solid! It's a very good game that aged quite well, although some of its aspects are somewhat outdated, of course. The voice acting is commendable to this day. I really, really liked the game design, full of interesting ideas, no two parts of the game were the same.
It's really interesting how today's "cinematic" games are a synonym of lack of uniqueness and interactive gameplay but Metal Gear Solid goes totally against that - while presenting an amazing narrative with a new plot twist at every Codec call, it's always a game that's fun to play as a GAME, and you never feel like you're the spectator to a movie.
Every boss battle was quite memorable and so were the characters that oozed charm. My favorites were:
- Otacon, a very charming and likeable sidekick, with good comic relief points, always helpful, with a great redemption arc at the end
- Gray Fox, a great warrior that gave me the most challenging battle of all bosses, with an interesting backstory and motives, and above all, charm
- Naomi Hunter, not only because she's very pretty and her voice is SO CUTE, but she is a very interesting character overall. I liked her monologue at the end, even if it was a bit cryptic
- Mei Ling for being adorable, reliable, and always providing good advice, even if she wasn't the most important character in the story
And Ocelot and Sniper Wolf. I really enjoyed the torture scene as ironic as it may sound, and the GAME OVER screen where Liquid says "Ocelot... you DID IT AGAIN." and Ocelot answers with "Haha... Sorry, Boss." is really nice for a change, instead of the usual taunting where your allies scream in agony. As for Sniper Wolf, she probably has my favorite quote in the game.
"I finally understand. I wasn't waiting to kill people... I was waiting for someone to kill me. A man like you..."
As for my least favorite characters in the game, they're probably the Twin Snakes, Liquid and Solid. Liquid Snake feels like a hollow, edgy villain with world domination motives sugarcoated by "inferior genetics" and his wish of revenge on... basically everyone? I didn't like him. And Solid Snake feels like a mindless government puppet, although Gray Fox tries to tell him he's not. Really, all he knows about is following orders and asking about [a specific something] immediately after [specific something] is mentioned: it can get somewhat boring, honestly.
Some final notes about my personal experience:
- I chose probably the worst way to play the game: MGS Integral for the PC with that one QoL patch. Truth is: the port is still kind of bad. It definitely looks great in 1080p, but the controls suck, your custom control settings reset randomly, FMVs NEVER play correctly, save games sometimes glitch... the list goes on. You really shouldn't play it like this, althought it's not the worst experience ever.
- This definitely had the potential to become one of my favorite games ever, but I played the game reeeally sloowly and the last part was somewhat frustrating, I definitely felt some fatigue and just wanted it all to end. Plus, the port wasn't the best, and finally, Solid and Liquid could be more interesting. Those factors keep it from being one of my all time favorite games ever.
- These are my favorite game tracks!
youtu.be/n1fWzyDVesc
youtu.be/mRSG5k86GFs
youtu.be/hnp_JgJSLoc
youtu.be/LqZVNzNc23w
youtu.be/OReM-Vm2vj4
In conclusion, the game is damn good at basically everything it tries to do, be it dialogue, level design, variety of gameplay mechanics, level of detail (for a PSX game, it's amazing!), characters, graphics, soundtrack, atmosphere, ah, I've ran out of things to compliment. I can really feel it was a revolutionary game and it deserves its place on all those "games you have to play before you die" lists. I'm super hyped for MGS2! Let's go!
Final score: 9,5/10
(I never played MGS2 lol)