Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

The Good
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is an amazing addition to the Metal Gear franchise. It is a remake of the first 3D Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid, for the Playstation. Every cutscene and dialogue bit spoken has been completely redone, along with the graphics and music. At least an hour has been added to the game by cutscenes, which is awesome, seeing as how the original MGS was only three hours long. The graphics are better than MGS2's, as are the story and gameplay. Almost every thing is improved, and it all looks and feels amazing.

The Bad
The cutscenes now feature strange slow-motion, bullet-time effects in almost all of them (a trick straight out of The Matrix). Almost every bullet fired during a cutscene goes in slow motion. Snake is also a lot more agile this time around - He does backflips and somersaults even more than Raiden (MGS2), often when not even necessary. For example, when Snake is listening to Ocelot and Liquid talk about Metal Gear in the Underground Base outside the door, he moves to the other side of the door. In the first game, he just ran quickly across. In The Twin Snakes, he does a flip over the door. .... It's a bit over-the-top, but he is genetically enhanced, after all. Even so, this is often funny to witness, and at times, very cool (an example being the cutscene before the Raven fight). Also, the gameplay that was so crucial to survival in MGS2 usually doesn't serve much of a purpose in The Twin Snakes. In fact, you can probably go through the entire game without having to use almost any of the new gameplay features.

The Bottom Line
This game, despite its shortcomings, is astounding. The gameplay update is well-received (though not as well needed), and the graphics update is simply stunning. No Gamecube owner should go without The Twin Snakes. If you've never played a Metal Gear, this is the one to play. If you've played all the Metal Gears, you should still play this one. It is the best by far. I recommend it to any and every gamer out there.

The Good
Ok, for this review i ASSUME you have played the original ps1 version or pc version. If not, read a review of them first...

Right, lets go! This game is absolutely fantastic. I enjoyed the story and the gameplay A LOT. Everything blended perfectly and was an absolute joy to play again and again.

You see, Metal Gear Solid is neither a film or a game, its a good mix of both. The gameplay is more of a "Fill the gap" between the next exciting chapter of story to behold. And the gameplay is a lot of fun. The stealth aspect is not entirely realistic or anything, it's not re-creating the world of a spy here. The whole game is crafted to show it's characters and story and levels. There is nothing stereotypical here at all. which is why the series is so popular.

Many games have tried and lead the story on their characters. some work well, some perfect it (final fantasy series) and have the player depend on the reaction of the character to take you through the rest of the game.

All the voice acting is great, some sound a little cliched, but it's all part of the Metal Gear Solid world. Much like Star Wars, you couldn't NOT have a funny moment or strange accent or two could you? Metal Gear takes everything with a pinch of salt. Reality takes a back seat for the first part, but to zip up the tension the plot becomes longer and more reality-serious featuring things about nuclear attacks (very relevant for today) and cloning (also very relevant for today). The story poses a lot of questions and the whole thing is taken out by this character Snake.

Snake is one great guy, he has a great depth, you love his voice but you also can't understand him sometimes. But, still it's almost as if he's a great friend of yours, stuck out here against all the odds. Oh, and the odds are obviously "It's either YOU alone save the world.. OR the world ends".

This game features almost exactly the same everything as the other game. But this time they didn't just port it over to the gamecube, they totally did it again! re-recorded the voices (which sounds better this time). And everything is pretty much the same, same story, same outfits, same weapons (with an exception of the m9 tranq gun). Everything is different though, its like looking at metal gear 1 via a dvd player and not traditional video tapes. All of the controls are better, the movement is better, the abilities are better, the music is really, really great and the cinematics are inspired art-forms or high-octane eye-candy! The cut-scenes are worth seeing by any old metal gear fan. They are all added and re-directed and there are a lot of very exciting scenes (some are totally astounding). Some though are a little over the top, Snake spends a lot of his time flipping around in the air and doing "Matrix" style stuff. But it's all good. Just remember you are in the world of metal gear again and you will be thoroughly treated.

The Bad
The new features are fantastic, sniping from first person with handguns etc and using lockers and dragging bodies in a variety of ways is all great fun and adds a lot to the gameplay. But it all seems a little pointless to have (except the first person shooting views). For example, why would you want to hide in a locker when you don't really need to? The game is structurely the same as it was when you couldn't do all this new stuff, the enemies patrol the same kind of areas etc.. so you can just get by without using the new abilities just fine. I would of love to seen some more use of new abilities here, especially using enemies as body shields and hiding in lockers. And maybe some more new locals too. And maybe a new boss to fight or an extended boss fight or something. SOMETHING which isn't directly converted.

The Bottom Line
This game is pretty much the same as the original version, but this is the version it SHOULD of been. The dated graphics are not up to class of the voice acting it had and the story which was being told. I found the old meal gear was like watching puppets act out a fantastic story. You just blurred the faces with your imagination and instantly the game became enjoyable... But this time the game impresses you throughout. I love all of the characters. This is so much more fun than getting a bunch of dvds and having a weekend in. The quality of this game and the story and everything is fantastic.

Ok, one of the only things which kind of bugs me about metal gear is the way Snake is the legendary hero, but seems pretty clueless to what is going on around him. He constantly asks questions about a question which was just answered.

But it's these reasons which bring a warm smile to my face and i think "oh yes, metal gear is back!"

The Good
Looks amazing! The detail on the backgrounds and character models is great, speaking of the character models, there smoothly animated and move very fluently. The music in the ending is very good and really tops the game off (apparently it's called "the best is yet to come)". Down to the game play, well the controls fit well, even though some commands require multiple button presses (such as running with a aimed weapon) lots of mechanisms from metal gear solid 2 have been bolted on such as first person mode, new weapons, and moves. These new additions don’t make a big difference in the way you approach the game but make it more varied than the 1st metal gear solid. The cut scenes have been redesigned and they look really astounding, on a par with the matrix with all the slow-mo bullet time and bloody action. The story is also another good point, it twists and turns like a screw, and is very involving and deep thanks to the interesting and varied characters, as all of them have a past and reasons to be doing what there doing.

The Bad
First of all its too easy , you can just go through and kill guards just using the first person mode, so the first person mode makes it to simple and you can leave there bodies where they lie, there’s no need to hide bodies in lockers, there is also no need to hide in lockers or hang off edges or do almost any of the new metal gear solid 2 additions as the original metal gear solid wasn’t design for them in mind, so the new moves are only of any use if you decide to go out of your way and use them, making them redundant and not worth the time or the bother. Of course another thing is the fact the codec messages are incredible boring and muddled and tend to just drown on like some old crusty history teacher. And also the thing that really cripples the game is the fact that there are no extras, I mean what! The secret stuff you do get is fun for while but gets boring, the only other stuff is a boss rush mode and a new costume which are silly. Come on silicon knights where’s all the VR missions form the original! Also like the metal gear solid 2 you can collect dog tags, unlike metal gear solid 2 you get no reward for collecting them, so what’s the point!? This lack of long term love really, REALLY rubbishes the game. Another thing is that it’s a six year old game rehashed and the plain fact it could have been soooo much better.

The Bottom Line
You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth.

The Good
The game is faithfully recreated, this time with better graphics, and the addition of some new abilities, and some amazing new cutscenes.

The Bad
A few of the cutscenes are a little over the top, and all the original voice acting was redone, so some of the accents are gone, and some of the actors have been replaced. It kinda takes away from the experience if you've played the original. There aren't many extras, so if you played the PSX version, you'll know exactly what to do, however, the very different controls will give you a little bit of a challenge.

The Bottom Line
Almost perfect, and still surprising the second time around.

The Good
A true meaning of a remake, you can expect as much extras and pushing to the limits as you got from Resident Evil remake. I suppose I would be nagging a lot if I wouldn't have this pretty little package called GC to be able to play this game. But then again, it would be pointless to say that big portion of why I got it was this game's title. I kid you not when I say this game is a point of envy for any MGS or such game style fan that lacks the GameCube.

For those that got into MGS universe from MGS2, this will be a great way to complete the story without folding back to outdated graphic of PSX version of Metal Gear Solid. Graphically this game is at least on the level of MGS2, so you can understand why there is no need for any pre-rendered cutscenes in this game. Speaking of cutscenes, they're plenty as well, and the direction of them is amazing, every detail is carefully thought through, adding a humorous hex or two on top of all that. Of course, if you saw that 27 mins VS trailer like I did, you pretty much spoiled 80% of the game for you (what can I do, I'm so feeble-minded when it comes to cinematics, someone please restrain me next time).

Gameplay is now enhanced to that of MGS2 (with a little less moves, I think), so you won't have any trouble shooting and aiming in first-person perspective like it was the situation with the original version. But again, there will be so many cutscenes and dialogues that you will barely have any time to test all the goods. And prepare to fight the bosses quite constantly, you'll be lucky if you run to a regular soldiers here and there, mostly during the warming up mission start.

The Bad
It would be unfair to pinpoint any small glitches on this game. It's so full of details and you can get some neat results if your mind's creative enough.

The Bottom Line
A neat touch to bring back the roots of MGS franchise up on the level of an action movie and to hold along with MGS2 and incoming MGS3. Meet the Snake's truest self, and immerse yourself in a story full of twists and intrigues to get a closer connection with the sequels. There is also neat very extensive briefing you can watch, as well as read about Snake's first missions... now those two would be great to see as remakes one date. It is really bad for those that do not have GameCube and cannot play this game, but it is even worse to won a GameCube and not have this game.

The Good
Basically, The Twin Snakes is the game Metal Gear Solid could have been if PlayStation was not so underpowered. I'm not saying original MGS was that bad; I played it on PC and it looked okay. But it was probably a good example of a gamemaker's vision exceeding the limitations of the hardware: The game had lots of engine-based cutscenes and you couldn't get enough detail out of the thing to make it really cool. That's not a problem in The Twin Snakes: Cutscenes really shine here.

I also like how MGS2 play mechanics have been added here - not that they really add much to the game, but they add stuff that counts.

The Bad
One of the things I liked was that the original cast had a chance to remake their lines. It really showed. Lines that were weakly delivered in the original are now great. Generally, this has succeeded well. Yet, this could have needed just a little bit more improvement in certain areas.

The remade music is good, though in certain cases it doesn't set the mood as perfectly as it did in the original. Okay, maybe it's just me, maybe I just have trouble adjusting. The new music isn't awfully wrong, anyway... Glad that some of the original tracks are still here, like the end music.

I kind of lament the lack of Integral/PC version stuff, like the VR missions. Now, the package just has the main game, which isn't replayable indefinitely, just in small doses once you're first done with it.

The Bottom Line
Basically, here we have Metal Gear Solid, one of the greatest stealth games ever. Er, make that cutscene-fest which actually has pretty darn good gameplay moments.

Then, on top of MGS, we get new cutscenes, new music, actual motion capture acting, new engine that looks just as good as MGS2, new cutscenes, lots of new game mechanics lifted from MGS2, and new cutscenes. Well, the new cutscenes are just re-thought-of cutscenes from the original, pretty well directed this time.

Does it work? Well, to be honest, it works pretty well, just not as well as it may sound on the paper first. But even ignoring small flaws that could have been averted, this still is a remake worth the Metal Gear Solid name.