Metal Gear Solid

"A cinematic wonder."

The first time I played Metal Gear Solid in 1998, I was (and admittedly, I still kind of am) unfamiliar with the franchise. I know that the Metal Gear series started out as a stealth/action game back in the earlier days of videogames and featured Solid snake as the main character, who is now one of the most well-known videogame protagonists anywhere, but nevertheless, I went into Solid not knowing much about Metal Gears's roots. But that made absolutely no difference. I was blown away by Solid's incredible cinematic appeal, its amazing graphics, its riveting gameplay, and its fine-tuned gameplay. And I didn't need to know anything about the Metal Gear universe to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Solid was directed by genius game designer Hideo Kojima, a guy who (I assume, after playing this game) seems to specialize in pumping as much cinematic appeal and style into his games as attention to gameplay itself. From the second you turn on Solid, you'll be wowed by the game's movie-like presentation and feel. The cutscenes (there are a lot of them) are all in real-time using the game's engine. Obviously, by today's standards, this can hamper the game's cinematic edge because these blocky, buggy character models are anything but realistic, but back in 1998, no one cared – especially when the script and cinematography of such cutscenes were such a delight.

Metal Gear Solid once again places you in the shoes of Solid Snake, a seemingly legendary covert operations agent who's trained to kill, and is quite good at it. It seems that a group of terrorists known as FOX-HOUND have demanded that the government turn over the remains of Big Boss (Snake's genetic father) or they will launch a nuclear bomb. Snake has been sent to the FOX-HOUND base to rescue two hostages and find out if these terrorists have the ability to make a nuclear strike, and stop them if they do. His targets include some of the greatest videogame villains of all time, including Psycho Mantis (featuring one of the coolest boss battles ever), Revolver Ocelot (voiced by Patric Laine, one of my favorite voice actors), and Liquid Snake, the leader and the man with the same genetic code as Solid Snake.

Trust me when I say that the story gets much deeper than that. But it's not just the story that makes Solid so great, it's the way the story is presented. Solid achieves the incredible cinematic high that Final Fantasy VII attempted only a year before and failed to present. This is because, at times, Solid makes you feel like you're in a movie. When the game first begins, Snake swims into a docking area and control is given to the player. As we traverse through this first environment, the opening credits role. This alone attributes to the game's movie-like feel. Add to that the terrific voice acting (after playing Resident Evil: Director's Cut shortly before playing this for the first time, I thought all hope of good voice acting in a game was lost) and the brilliant cinematography that captures every moment with picture-perfect execution, and you've got all you need to make a compelling adventure… and we haven't even gotten to the gameplay yet.

And that's exactly what makes Solid such a standout game. Final Fantasy VII, only a year before, had managed to create an incredibly epic and compelling (if extremely convoluted) story. The difference here is that Solid also manages to have a riveting story, but it's wrapped around a truly great game experience. This was, for me, the first time the term “stealth/action” meant anything. That's because before I played this, I was taught by most of the games I played that I must destroy everything that wanted to destroy me. But that's exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do here – your weapons and combat are always limited, and confronting enemies is just asking for trouble. So, you're forced to rely on your sneaking abilities to make your way through the game.

Solid sports an excellent tutorial mode – a set of ten VR (virtual reality) missions that teach you the basics of stealth. Your enemies have somewhat limited senses of both sight and sound, but generally, if you walk in front of them, they'll see you, and if you run around close to them, they'll hear you. Easy enough. You have to learn to avoid being seen or heard, either by carefully examining their movement patterns and sneaking by when they're not looking, or actually drawing them away by making sounds. By moving Snake into a wall, he'll lean against the wall and sidle along it, which is perfect for slipping into the shadows and waiting for your enemies to pass. What's more, when you're sidling and you come to a corner, the normally top-down camera will zoom in and give players a view of whatever's beyond that wall.

To make things better, throughout the game you'll be able to use a helpful radar to avoid detection. In the top corner of the screen, a small portion is cut off to show your general perimeter. Not only does this radar show both you and the objects around but, but it also shows your enemies and their field of vision, represented by a blue cone in front of you. This is great, because you can monitor your enemies' movements and decide the best time to make your move. Even more, the radar shows the field of vision of all cameras, so you can carefully watch security cameras turn back and forth and move past accordingly. Realistically, there's a blind spot directly below all cameras, so planning your moves is just as vital as executing them.

Of course, whether you get seen by a soldier or it's just part of the game's design, you're going to have to do some fighting at some point in Solid. So, you're given a supply of weapons – all gained at various points throughout the game – to battle your enemies with (by holding R2, the game will pause and you can scroll through all available weapons). Combat is just a simple matter of pointing Snake in the direction of his enemies and pressing the square button to fire. Most guns have a laser sight that allows you to pinpoint your targets. You can target in any direction (I used a Dual Shock controller, so I can't imagine what it'd be like without analog), and although it's a little clunky, combat works, and helps the game's variety. The only problems that I've ever encountered were when I was forced to use a weapon that takes advantage of first-person aiming, like the sniper rifle or missile launcher. The game has no option to invert aiming, which is what I've always been used to, so this was a little awkward. Thankfully, it only makes up a small portion of the game. Aside from guns, you're also given some more unique weapons, such as grenades that briefly disable electronic equipment, and remote controlled missiles.

And although combat is mostly scarce due to the fact that you'll be spending most of your time sneaking around and avoiding confrontation altogether, one of Solid's most thrilling aspects is its boss battles. Not only are all of the bosses nice because they provide a much-needed break from the continuous stealth, but they're all unique and fun in their own little way. The game's first boss battle is against Revolver Ocelot. During the battle, the room you're in is small, and in the center is a hostage surrounded with bombs that, when triggered, kill the hostage, causing you to fail the mission. Not only must you damage Ocelot without harming the hostage, but Ocelot himself will taunt you with brilliant in-game dialog, and actually use his technique to ricochet bullets off the walls and into you. All of the game's bosses are unique and brilliantly implemented, especially Psycho Mantis.

One of my favorite aspects of Solid is the interaction with other characters. At any given time within the game, you're able to press the Select button to bring up your Codec, which is a little radio that Snake's got implanted in his ear. There are various characters that you're able to call at any time by Codec, including Campbell, your mission instructor. What's so intuitive about this feature is that you can literally call anyone at any time and get their advice about something, or just trigger a little conversation between that character and Snake. It's usually optional, but every character that you can contact usually has something to say about everything that happens to you in the game. For instance, one woman can tell you all you need to know about whatever weapon you've got equipped at the moment. Aside from just being helpful, this feature will often allow you to get to know the characters a little better. Character depth like this is rarely seen in a videogame or otherwise.

Solid is a small and relatively short adventure. The entire game takes place in the same facility, and it's not the largest game environment. In fact, much of the game's length (which isn't impressive to begin with) is due to the fact that you'll quite frequently be backtracking to previous parts of the base that you've visited. However, I believe that on my first run through the game, I completed Solid in about ten or eleven hours. That is to say, though, a lot of that time was spent either watching a cutscene or listen to dialog on my Codec. One of the faults of Solid is that, not only is it too short, but it sometimes spends too much time on story and cutscenes. In fact, I would actually go so far as to say that there's more cutscenes and dialog than actual game time. An experienced player who knows what he's doing and skips all the story elements can probably complete the game in under three hours.

But one of the reasons why it's a problem that there's so much talking and not quite enough actual gameplay is because the gameplay itself is so great. There have been very few times that a game gives me the feeling that Solid does, and I just wish that feeling would last longer. Nevertheless, there are certainly many reasons to play through this game again. Namely, there are four different difficulty levels and multiple endings, as well as a cool unlimited ammo cheat that's unlocked after beating the game once. Even better, though, is that at the end of the game, all of your results are tallied up, such as the number of people you've killed, the number of times you've been spotted, the number of rations you used, and so forth. Based on your standings you're given a rank, and I must say that scoring the Big Boss rank may just be one of the toughest tasks in any game.

Pros

+ A cinematic wonder – the perfect melding of story and gameplay.
+ The story is intelligent and riveting, the dialog is tops, and the cutscenes are brilliant.
+ The stealth gameplay is incredibly well done.
+ Play control is precise and allows you to pull off your moves effortlessly.
+ Great character interaction using the Codec.
+ An enormous supply of nifty weapons and gadgets.
+ Brilliant boss battles.
+ Terrific (for their time) graphics and an intense musical score.

Cons

- There is, perhaps, a bit too much story.
- The game itself is fairly short and confined.
- Laser sight combat is a little clunky at times.
- No inverted control for first-person aiming.

Overall: 9/10

Metal Gear Solid was one of the best games of its time because it was one of the first to flawlessly meld story and gameplay into one slick, beautiful package. It's got cinematic value like nothing else, refined controls, excellent graphics and sound, and some of the best stealth/action gameplay of its time and ever. Sure, the game is a little on the short side and has its flaws here and there, but for the most part, this is one of the greatest and most influential games ever, and one that everyone should play. And now that's it's been updated on GameCube in the form of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, you've got no excuse not to get to know this classic adventure.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/21/05