Metal Gear Solid is a game and by extension series that I both appreciate yet am critical of at the same time, and with the release of the MGS Master Collection, I want to give a long detailed thoughts on the series, and now I am starting with MGS released in 1998.
I'll start with the story first. I do think MGS tells an enjoyable and entertaining tale if you don't think about how ridiculous it is. This is where the story of the game gets it's fair share of questioning right away, MGS is a superhero story but also a spy thriller story as well as an action movie, it combines multiple genres into one and this helps makes it stand out from even other stories of it's type and that is not including the fact that it's a video game. It has 4th Wall breaks, characters surviving impossible situations, while also having characters with over the top names like "Decoy Octopus" and "Psycho Mantis" that's not even including the fact this is a game where characters have superpowers in a game that is focused on espionage and stealth.
The game's biggest and most well known aspect is how it is both really serious and really silly at the same time. The game will have random 4th Wall breaks while also having geniunely serious scenes happening. You will have a guard with hygenie problems while also having the protagonist coming to terms with the fact that he killed his own father.
I could be here all day discussing it, but I always felt that MGS unlike it's sequels did have the most well rounded narrative in the series in spite of how ridiculous it is.
What makes MGS for me an enjoyable story is that the characters in the story from characters like Roy Campbell, Naomi Hunter, Hal Emmerich, Master Miller and many others is that they all have a part to play in the story and they all strengthen the story with their inclusion.
Roy Campbell is a friend to Solid Snake but he does lie and withhold information in spite of all that, Naomi Hunter is Solid Snake's worst enemy yet at the same time can also be viewed at his greatest ally, Hal Emmerich can come off as a bit awkward with and his "nerdy persona" at first made me groan a bit but he does warm up and become solid character and a good friend to Snake. Master Miller despite being the main character Liquid Snake in disguise, also contributes to the plot by giving Solid Snake valuable information later in the game.
Speaking of Liquid Snake, the villains of MGS despite being over the top and ridiculous in both designs and names are endearing in their own right. Unlike the sequels, most of the villains all have their own backstory, and their own clear reason for wanting to fight Snake, and this was a pretty big revolution at the time, you had video game bosses who not only tested the player's skill but also had clear and big narrative reasons as to why they challenged the player, and you learning about their backstory was esstentially the player's reward for beating them.
One thing that is hard to divorce from when discussing MGS is the presentation and style for the time, the game features many, many, many in engine cutscenes, and this was unprecedented for the time, since a lot of games either relied on FMV sequences to tell their stories or lots of textboxes, when there were in engine cutscenes, they never lasted very long. This might be the biggest contributing aspect that MGS did for the gaming industry for better and for worse. There is lots of voice acting and dialogue in the game.
Speaking of the voice acting and dialogue, while the latter isn't the greatest since Snake our badass cold blooded hero can spend an awful lot of his time asking pointless questions, it is heavily carried by the former.
MGS might just have some of the best voice direction of any game at the time. David Hayter's performance while over the top never goes into full blown over the top like he does in later games, it manages to sound "just right" in this game.
Paul Eiding and Jennifer Hale are the highlights here and does a good job at selling the material. For example, Roy Campbell would have very long pauses and long silences when withholding information from Snake. Naomi Hunter when confronted with questions that contradict what she previously said about her history, she starts sounding nervous and insecure, my favorite scene in the series where her and Solid Snake are talking to each other about Big Boss and Frank Jaeger, she sounds geniunely shocked and confused over the idea that a man she spent so long resenting was saying so many kind things about Frank.
The story, presentation, and voice acting are still good about MGS. The gameplay however while not outright bad generally hits the realm of, "being challenging enough to the point where it doesn't play itself, but nothing remarkable in terms of game design".
I'll give MGS credit, unlike say Uncharted and David Cage games, the former doesn't feel like it's in control of itself when playing but at the same time, coming from someone who has played a number of games over the years, the gameplay in MGS is really nothing more than a vehicle for the story and a vehicle for people who might not play games that much to experience that said story.
The first example to illustrate my point is the stealth mechanics, while other games around the same time had much superior stealth systems like Tenchu Stealth Assassins and Thief the Dark Project, MGS' stealth mechanics can feel rather rudimentary even when compared to the former.
The radar system that the player is given might as well be where the actual gameplay takes place, you don't even need to pay attention to the 3D environment that the game is rendered in. Just look at the radar at all times and you can mostly avoid detection outside of that occasional moment where I ran on some loud floor and I got spotted and getting spotted isn't a big deal either since guards have a short attention span and will stop searching for you pretty quickly. This might be okay for someone who doesn't actively play stealth games, and for a "baby's first stealth adventure," MGS can work extremely well for that but for someone who wants to find more demanding stealth experiences MGS' stealth sits on the realm of, "just entry level and decent enough to the point it doesn't actively hinder the my consumption of the story."
Then there is the exploration and level design of MGS, which once again is just decent enough to the point where the game is moderately engaging before I view the next story cutscene. In terms of moment to moment stealth level design, it's not terrible but nothing standout either. You will rarely if ever use mechanics like making noise to lure a guard over to you that much in the main campaign, and you can generally just get by using the radar system to see holes through guard patrols to get by. The Docks and getting inside Shadow Moses Island are the most open levels in the game and the rest of the game is mostly very linear like dodging ghosts in Pac Man but a lighter version of that.
Then there is the resource and exploration aspects but compared to other games on the PS1 that attempt this like say Medal of Honor, Resident Evil and Syphon Filter, the exploration aspect especially of someone who has played games with exploration can feel pretty hollow. In MGS, as long I am actively looking through all doors at all the areas in Shadow Moses Island before the Communications Tower, I will generally always have everything I will need to find to get past the game's challenges, where in Medal of Honor and Syphon Filter, you will need to actively observe the environment to progress and missing anything will not allow you to progress, in MGS especially coming from someone who plays a number of games featuring the idea of exploring, just having the basic mentality of, "look at all the previous locked doors for items," was enough to get by.
The game has a characters telling you where to look for items if you do get lost which tells me this was made for people who were probably new to games not knowing to look everywhere.
Then there is the biggest issue with the game and that is the structure and pacing. MGS is a very unevenly paced game.
For example, the game is maybe a stealth game about 50% of the time and most the stealth takes place early on in the game, everything before reaching the Communications Tower for the first time. Once you do that, the game repeats all the stealth challenges you did previously where you have to backtrack for a sniper rifle, then back track to the Communications Tower again after Snake gets captured and from then point on the stealth is very light which mostly just consist of throwing chaff grenades at cameras, and the rest of the game is just action sequences, boss fights and cutscenes. Guard evading becomes too few and far between.
This is what I mean when I say MGS is a stealth game 50% of the time.
There isn't much in the way of situational depth provided on the two runbacks to the Communications Towers outside of the part where you fight the tank where you have to use chaff grenades and a mine dectector.
Ideas get thrown in and then get thrown out like puddles making noises, guards seeing footprints, non human enemies, sniping only be using on Wolf and so on.
All of these issues I have tells me that MGS was meant to be primarily consumed for it's story and if I was someone who was doing that, then these problems I mentioned wouldn't stand out to me very much.
I will give the game one example where it does handle situational depth well even if it is nothing standout, that is the Liquid Snake boss on top of Metal Gear Rex, I did like how you have to manage 3 things at once, first you had to look at the timer as well as take out Liquid's health bar before it goes down as well as avoiding fall off Rex, I did wish the game had more moments like this in place.
Then there is fact that much of the action oriented parts of the game are challenging due to the lack of a free aim and dodge command, but this is a PS1 game that is incredibly forgiving barely any large run backs to challenging parts of the game and the only geniune annoyance regarding content repeating is not being able to skip cutscenes that happen during boss fights.
I have been complaining about MGS' gameplay, but it goes back to what I said about how the gameplay manages to be challenging and engaging enough to the point where it still feels like I am playing a game and not just a wannabe movie but when I look at the gameplay in isolation, it just sits on the realm of just being "decent enough".
Overall, while MGS excels at voice acting and story presentation while telling an interesting tale, the gameplay just sits on the realm of being, "challenging and engaging" at a service level and is primarily meant to be consumed for it's story. The gameplay while nothing terrible just isn't anything standout. The gameplay was just "okay at best" now and even for it's time.
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