Summary
The remake I always wanted. Be ready for the the greatest action soap opera around!
The Good
Most players came to "The Twin Snakes" after having played the original "Metal Gear Solid" for the Playstation or its PC port. Most reviews for this game usually compare it to the original and state what has changed to the good or to the bad in this remake. I look at this game from a different angle, because I never completed the original "Metal Gear Solid". I played it for about an hour and just wasn't interested enough to continue.
I usually don't accept such a term as "outdated graphics". Some games in my collection date as early as 1985. But there was just something that repelled me in the graphics of the original "Metal Gear Solid". I know most people find them great, but there was something strange in them, something unnatural and unclean. I am generally not very fond of early 3D, but the graphics of "Metal Gear Solid" were somehow particularly unappealing to me. That was a rare case in my game-playing "career" that I rejected a game partly because of its graphics.
But what really put me off the game was its difficulty level. Okay, so I suck at stealth games. I don't have enough patience and my nerves are probably not strong enough to stay quiet, not to move when I shouldn't, and watch every step I take. I must say that I found the gameplay concept very interesting, but the whole business was just too hard for me. In fact, no kind of gameplay interests me so much that I would play a game only for it. My top priorities are style and story. Of course, there are genres I like more than others, like role-playing, but I would never play a role-playing game just for the sake of it. And such arcade-style difficulty as in "Metal Gear Solid" simply annoys me and detracts me from the game, even more so than for example in platformers or other arcade-based games. I wanted to play the game for its story, just like it was the case with
Metal Gear Solid 2.
And then I heard that "The Twin Snakes" had just those two features I wanted the original to have: graphics to suit my taste and a lower difficulty level. Not only there is a
Very Easy difficulty level in "The Twin Snakes", but the Easy level is in fact easier than it was in the original, not only thanks to much clearer graphics, but also to some great gameplay enhancements from "Metal Gear Solid 2". They don't sound like much, but believe me, I was not the only one who got frustrated from the original "Metal Gear Solid", and those additions do make a difference. The most important enhancement was the first person aiming, which made the game so much more enjoyable. I also couldn't believe it when I heard the tranquilizer gun, my basic weapon in "Metal Gear Solid 2", was not available in the original "Metal Gear Solid". Now you can snipe guards from first person perspective, and see them falling asleep in front of your eyes. You can also do some other moves, like hiding in lockers, dragging guards' bodies away, or hanging from ledges, but overall those additions were not as important as first person aiming.
As for the graphics, I found them absolutely great. Character faces don't look funny anymore. The problem with early 3D graphics is that they often unintentionally give the characters a comic look. In "The Twin Snakes", the characters look appropriately realistic. The graphics might not be as detailed as in "Metal Gear Solid 2", but generally they look as good as there. But of course, when talking about the graphical improvement in "The Twin Snakes", the first and most important thing to mention are the cut scenes. Those cut scenes became a sort of the game's trademark, because neither the original "Metal Gear Solid" nor its sequel had anything similar. There were many cut scenes in "Metal Gear Solid 2", some of them very long and dramatic, but nothing comparable with the pure cinematic quality of the cut scenes in "The Twin Snakes". If one thing can be said against those cut scenes, that would be the exaggeration. The technical craftsmanship behind them is so high that the director often overuses the technique, throwing in one effect after the other, where maybe a simpler scene would suffice. But if you don't mind that, you are in for a visual feast like never seen before in a video game. Forget
Max Payne with its bullet time - the greatest implementation of
Matrix spirit is "Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes"! You'll see Snake and his opponents performing the most impossible saltos in the air, avoiding intimidatingly huge bullets, narrowly escaping death. No need to say those cut scenes are technically immaculate and the camera work is fantastic.
An interesting feature is the usage of live videos. There are three or four of those in the game, and they appear during long speeches, when the narrator wants to illustrate or to emphasize what the character is talking about. I must say I found those videos very appropriate. They are something like the humorous "this is just a game" reminders - they are spontaneous effects that drastically change the atmosphere. Of course, the result is just the opposite from the humorous comments. Those videos stress the serious side of the game. I loved the beautiful ending video with all those animals. It was pretty symbolic, too, if you paid close attention to the plot and the characters. As for other necessary atmosphere-boosting ingredients, they are there as well, including some very good music and excellent sound effects.
The gameplay additions of the remake come on top of the already very solid (sorry for the bad pun) basis. Much has been said about the unrealistic elements of Metal Gear gameplay - such as, for example, the inability of soldiers who are not visible on screen to see you. Those complaints miss the point, because "Metal Gear Solid" is obviously not a simulation game, and thus is not obliged to strive for convincing realism. The feeling of hiding, the fear of being discovered is there, no matter it is not like in real life. The concept behind this gameplay worked already in early Metal Gear games for MSX, and it works also in those modern incarnations. Instead of blindly killing everything that stands on your way, you must first of all care for not being noticed, and dispose of your enemies in a discreet way. For those purposes you have all kinds of neat tricks, such as putting guards to sleep, crawling, hiding under boxes, hiding in lockers, disabling surveillance cameras with special bombs, sniping, and so on. At the same time, if you are discovered, not all is lost, because you are skilled in hand-to-hand combat and can also use a variety of weapons. It is weird that games like
Deus Ex are praised for being pioneers in the field of flexible gameplay, while in fact "Metal Gear Solid" allows you just that - the gameplay can be customized to suit your needs, more often than not there is more than one solution to a problem, and you can decide whether you leave a trail of corpses behind or complete the game without a single kill (except for the bosses). I love this kind of moral alternative. Of course, this freedom cannot even be compared to the one offered in RPGs such as
Ultima series or
Fallout, but for an action game, this flexibility is certainly a big plus.
The gameplay never becomes monotonous, there is diversion at every corner, and every next location offers a different kind of challenge. There is plenty of versatility in the game. Firstly, boss battles are all completely different - in one of them, you and your opponent just shoot at each other, in another you engage in melee combat, another one is like a sniping mini-game, and so on. Those battles follow anything but the "take your biggest weapon and shoot until one of you dies" concept. In regular gameplay there is as much variety. At one point you'll have to deactivate lasers (there are three different solutions for this problem); in another place you'll guide a remote-controlled missile through narrow corridors to blast security system; yet another part requires you to blow up walls to find a secret opening. Even though most of the locations look pretty similar to each other, you always have a feeling of something different awaiting you. The attention to detail in the gameplay is great, there are some absolutely delightful non-obligatory possibilities and plenty of stuff to try and to experiment with, some of which you are not "supposed" to do. For example, at one point you acquire the handkerchief of a girl who likes wolves very much; when you meet wolves, you can use this handkerchief, and they won't attack you. But of course, you can simply kill the wolves. Or you can put them to sleep and see how deceptively cute and cuddly they look.
But all this stuff is not what is truly important in the game. The greatest step "Metal Gear Solid" made towards a possible new generation of games was the newly defined balance between gameplay and story. Before this game, a story was considered an addition to the gameplay, something to reward the player for his efforts, something to embellish a game. Or, there were totally story-driven games (Japanese adventures) where the gameplay was almost neglected entirely. "Metal Gear Solid" changed this concept. If before the story served the gameplay, in "Metal Gear Solid" the gameplay serves the story. The story was always considered a frame for the picture that was the gameplay; now, the gameplay itself became the frame. A story, no matter how interesting an involving, was like an excuse for whatever the player had to do in the game: hacking monsters, solving puzzles, leveling up, planning a strategic move, or whatever. Now, the gameplay is more of an excuse for the long cut scenes. Like I already said in my review to
Metal Gear Solid 2: this is almost a new genre, a game-movie. "Metal Gear Solid" is the one that started it.
Of course, this is first of all achieved by quantity, not necessarily by quality. There are so many cut scenes in the game that they become a world in themselves. If you "cut out" all those cut scenes out of the game, you'll be left with a very long movie. The length and the cinematic approach to those cut scenes is another thing that gives them so much weight. Many players simply refused to accept that kind of entertainment, since gameplay mattered to them more than the story. "Metal Gear Solid" suggests to reconsider this approach. What if the story becomes the absolute focus of the game, while gameplay still remains far from being neglected, but just, so to say, "reduced"? I can understand this new approach disturbed many players. But to me, it was like a breakthrough. This is just the same as my own position towards gaming. This is what I want to see more in games. For this I'm very grateful to the creators of "Metal Gear Solid".
Naturally, the storyline of "Metal Gear Solid", being the central aspect of the game, also becomes much more vulnerable to criticism than a story that serves just as a "decoration". Any story consists of two main aspects: the actual plot, which doesn't depend on details or the way it is told, and its implementation - in dialogues, cut scenes, and so on. It is not always so that both those aspects are of equal quality. For instance, the plot line of
Final Fantasy VI is very primitive and not particularly interesting. Try writing the story summary down or telling it to somebody else in your own words, and you'll see what I mean. It becomes great, however, when it is filled with details and coupled with emotions that are evident in the dialogues, the music, etc. On the other hand, the story of
Xenosaga is very complex and intriguing, but its implementation still leaves a lot to be desired (at least in the first episode). "Metal Gear Solid" falls under neither of those categories - both in its main plot and in the details it has a lot of great stuff to offer, as well as a lot of weaknesses to spot.
The main plotline of the game - such as you would describe it to your friends, and such as it is written down in your mission logs - is absolutely brilliant and has all the right ingredients for a suspenseful, rich story. It starts very modestly, like another boring "good super-agent against a bunch of baddies" kind of tale, but don't be fooled by the unspectacular beginning. If you like suspenseful plots, you are going to love the one of "Metal Gear Solid". While not as crazily complicated as in, let's say,
Xenogears, or even its own sequel, it is just enough to provide numerous "what the..." moments, and to hold the suspense until the very end. Be patient and play the game until the end. It is remarkable how it explains everything and digs out sub-plots that have seemingly disappeared during the course of the game. Nothing is the way it seems to you. And everything makes sense once you reach the end and the last piece of puzzle is revealed. Seriously, no matter its flawed implementation, the actual storyline of "Metal Gear Solid" is very well thought-out, very suspenseful, very complex, and at the same time very logical and clear in its own way. If you concentrate on this storyline and follow it once again from the beginning to the end, you will see it contains quite a lot of interesting ideas and has a rather profound content. In this way, the creators of the story also paid a lot of attention to details. The hero of the game and his adversaries all bear names of animals. The final live video shows animals in Alaska. This is not just a mean to simplify the characters or to make their names sound more "cool". It is an essential choice that is closely connected to the game's story, to its main concept - not really a philosophy, but a kind of statement, approach to the world and to the life. Looked upon in this way, the names of the heroes become symbolic, not only in the most evident way (like Vulcan Raven liking ravens or wolves coming to see Sniper Wolf), but also in another, less obvious one, which is understood only if you complete the game, think about it, and realize what it was about.
Now to the implementation of this plot. In a typical Japanese manner, "Metal Gear Solid" tries to be larger than the world itself. The amount of various stylistic directions it has is astounding. Start playing "Metal Gear Solid" and you'll be soon shocked (possibly unpleasantly) by the impossible mixture of styles crammed into it. You'll have dry, emotionless espionage action; boring, yet essential "scientific information"; ridiculously cool and overblown action scenes; sentimental dialogues; occasional educational material; pseudo-philosophical speculations about mankind and the world. I personally had great fun with this diversity, in my opinion it constitutes the most charming and appealing aspect of Japanese games and Japanese art in general. See my review for
D2 for a more elaborated opinion. It is just strange and unfair that while classic products of Japanese art, like for example Akutagawa Ryunosuke's short stories or Akira Kurosawa's famous movie "Rashomon" - which is based on them - are haled and revered everywhere precisely for that diversity (and rightfully so), the moment it comes to games, this style is being regarded upon as pretentious crap. It should have actually been the other way around, games being a much younger art compared to movies, not to mention books, and also a much more problematic phenomenon thanks to their interactive nature. I mean, come on, whoever watched "Rashomon" should know it is a short soap opera with over-the-top action scenes, light supernatural elements, and flat philosophical conclusion. And yet it is considered a classic everywhere, because it was excellently made, fun to watch, and you could feel the effort and the emotion behind it. What about some credit to "Metal Gear Solid" for the first real attempt to impersonate this spirit of Japanese art in a cinematic stealth game?
Like in Japanese RPGs, the "meat" of the story is in its characters. Usually the biggest effort is put into the depiction of "good guys" - your party members. "Metal Gear Solid" concentrates more on personal stories and characterization of your enemies. In "Metal Gear Solid", there are no true "good guys". The hero, Solid Snake, is certainly a person you can associate with and understand, but almost every other character - mostly an enemy - also makes you care for him, his point of view being sometimes even more clear and convincing than the one of Snake. This is done with purpose - in a certain sense, the game is conceived as Snake's path towards his own self, his finding the goal in life. Therefore, almost until the very end of the game he is not sure about anything, and what he says reveals a certain immaturity and even emptiness of his nature. "Metal Gear Solid" avoids black/white characterization. At the same time - and this I liked particularly - it also avoids taking the responsibility away from the characters, including the supposedly evil ones. The "villains" in the game are anything but flat stereotypes, most of them even evoke a kind of sympathy. But you never feel that some "outer circumstances" justify their hatred. You always have a feeling that Snake's way is to be preferred - even though in reality he does not prove anything, he has nothing to say after hearing out the personal stories of his enemies; but you feel a certain trust in him, you want him to find himself and to show an alternative to the ways of Foxhound members. It is hard to explain, but play the game and you will understand what I mean. You won't necessarily find the characters lovable or get attached to them the way you are to your favorite heroes of Japanese RPGs, but it is obvious a lot of effort was put into characterization.
The game also spots a peculiar sense of humor that is not quite evident. Perhaps it is not everybody's taste, but it is definitely there. The scenes with Otacon, for example, are to provide a certain comical relief. Sometimes the game will wink at you in quite a grotesque way. For example, at one point Snake is captured and is told to "put down his controller". Then Snake turns to you (staring right into the camera) and nods with his head. Such weird little half-jokes are not really necessary, but at times they get pretty amusing. I particularly liked the part where Psycho Mantis "reads your thoughts" - in fact, he checks what games you have saved on your memory card.
The Bad
To sit down and to start bashing "Metal Gear Solid" is easy. You mustn't be a sharp-witted intellectual to notice that "Metal Gear Solid" is very much over-the-top in almost everything it does, in particular the story, which results in a level of "cheesiness" rarely seen in other games. That goes beyond saying - the creators of the game obviously didn't try concealing it. The question is rather: do you like this style or not? For those who can't stand B-movies, light action pseudo-sci-fi, TV soap operas, or any other related stuff that was the source of inspiration for Metal Gear Solid, the game is obviously not worth playing. The "tactical espionage action" gameplay was decidedly not conceived as the focus of the game, but rather as a vehicle that entertains you while you are not watching the movie. This is not a "spy-simulation", nor it is a philosophical essay. Accept it as it is, judge it for what it is - and you'll see that criticizing it won't be as easy as it seemed.
The true problem of "Metal Gear Solid", as well as of its sequel, is the balance between styles. I already mentioned in the "Good" section the weird style mixture implemented in this game. While I generally enjoy this stylistic chaos very much, I can't say the transitions were particularly smooth in this case. More often than not one style outweighs the others for a long time; the result is a kaleidoscope-like diversity, where styles follow each other, without necessarily being merged. Sometimes the transitions are downright awkward, an occasional sentimental conversation or another "I'm-in-a-game" joke can almost ruin a genuinely dramatic moment. Sometimes, on the contrary, a much needed comic relief doesn't come, causing a feeling that the game takes itself too seriously. This bad balance has something to do with Kojima's general approach to game script, which he often simply abuses for declaring his beliefs or for throwing in another "bit of education". What serves in the game as the narrator's comments is usually the most damaging part. Characters just stop talking with each other and instead start addressing the player, in a boring, serious tone of a school teacher. This is where the game suffers most, it is surely irritating to see Kojima's ideas show almost everywhere you go, without even bothering to disguise themselves. I guess he simply couldn't do it in a less blatant way. On the other hand, I found
Snatcher and
Policenauts more acceptable at expressing ideas discreetly. Then again, they were hardly as "epic" as "metal Gear Solid". I don't know how much was Kojima involved with either of those games, it might also be not his fault, so it is hard to say why exactly "Metal Gear Solid" became so unpolished and irritating in this aspect.
What severely undermines the game's reputation as a brilliant B-movie thriller is its lack of humor, and the inconsistency of its dialogues. Unlike such stylistically similar games as for example
The Space Adventure, "Metal Gear Solid" has very little humor beside its amusing, but silly and infantile references to itself being just a game. Most disappointingly, the "super-cool" hero Solid Snake, who is supposed to be a careless, womanizing wise-cracker according to the standards of the genre, appears just too melancholy and serious in a Japanese way in the game. It doesn't mean he is not an appealing character - on the contrary, but somehow I expected him to be a bit more witty.
The dialogues really vary in quality. While some conversations are well thought-out and intriguing, many of the game's dialogue is just badly written. Typically for Japanese games, the characters have the stupid and annoying habit of repeating the last word or phrase of what they just heard. You've undoubtedly heard and seen it in many other games, but "Metal Gear Solid" almost breaks a record here. Also quite typically, the dialogue is crammed with overused "scientific" mumbo-jumbo:
Ocelot: We needed the key card.
Snake: The key card?
Ocelot: To deactivate the Metal Gear Rex.
Snake: Metal Gear Rex?
Ocelot: The most deadly and effective weapon of the new generation. It uses the complex DNA-based PAL structure of the genetic nuclear VGA devices stored in the BIOS MobyGames database information.
Snake: MobyGames database information?
Ocelot: Yes, Snake!! You are just writing a review for the game "Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes", you see! The GameCube remake!! You won't escape, I'm controlling your mind through the left Ctrl key! You are finished!
Snake: Finished?
Ocelot: Finished entirely!
Snake: Finished entirely?
Ocelot: Yes!
Snake. Oh... then I shall kill you, Ocelot!
No, it's not
that bad, and it doesn't come in such quantities, but there is enough "corn" in the dialogues for the largest breakfast ever. Sometimes those dialogues affect the gameplay in a weird way. For example, Psycho Mantis' reading of your memory card was actually quite amusing, and there the joke should have ended, but the obligatory controller-unplugging was too much, it destroyed the joke by applying it in a serious way, during a dramatic boss battle.
Other examples of bad dialogue include occasional unnatural and stupid remarks common to B-movies: for example, Snake sees a girl lying in a pool of her own blood and asks "Are you okay?". Yeah, sure, I'm okay, this is just a new method for losing weight! There are even whole characters whose dialogues are marked by a banal stylistic choice - for example, the poor Mei Ling was destined to be some sort of an idiotic encyclopaedia with a "quote of the day" for every occasion:
Snake: Mei Ling, are you there? I'm being tortured!
Mei Ling: Poor Snake! Confucius said: "A wise frog always remembers the worm". That means that if you feel bad, just think of something good! See? Good luck, Snake! Stay alive for me!
By the way, the voice acting is not as good as they say it is. It is not terrible, but I've encountered games with much better voice acting. Anything coming from LucasArts or Red Company would confirm that. In fact, the voices were just too distinct and clear, lacking warmth and emotion. Despite that, I liked Snake's voice - got already used to it. Ocelot was very good, too.
One thing I wish they would present differently is the very beginning of the game. Nothing indicates the complex plot you are about to experience. The game starts like a bland "spy simulation": you are given boring instructions and begin a typical anti-terrorist mission. Why not to make a colorful intro with some suspense thrown in, to make the player feel this is going to be an interesting story full of plot twists?
The gameplay is also not without its problems. While generally very fun, addictive, and entertaining, the gameplay at times had a certain artificial flavor. Gameplay segments were interrupted just too often, not only by cut scenes, but by switching from one type to another. Often the game felt like a collection of mini-games: in this part you must bypass the lasers, in the other deactivate the alarm, in the third to kill a boss with a specific weapon. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but some players might be annoyed by the lack of general gameplay flow and by the constant interruptions.
The Bottom Line
"Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes", just like Metal Gear Solid series generally, is a game that depends on the player's personal viewpoints and priorities more than any other. It even depends on whether you approach it in a cerebral way - analyzing it - or in a "sensual" way - playing it. When I'm not playing it and just try to form and express my opinion about it, I can't help noticing its flaws and am ready to proclaim it an overblown, overhyped action soap opera with a rather corny content. But when I was playing it, words could not describe my enjoyment. I didn't want to put the controller down. I had that bittersweet feeling "Is that all?... What a pity!" after completing it. I was having fun, I was interested, I was thinking, and I was feeling. And believe me - I have played many games, and I have also read many books, for that matter. So let's just cut the so-called "intellectual analysis" and say it once again plainly:
there are no good or bad genres, there are good or bad games. Yes, "Metal Gear Solid" is an action soap opera. And it is a great one at that. And it is
fun, damn it, and that's what matters. And it is not just a mindless, stupid kind of fun: no matter how clumsily and naively "Metal Gear Solid" does it, it still touches topics that could have been easily left out of a game - topics that go just a little bit beyond "tactical espionage action". I'll have a soft spot for Metal Gear Solid series even when newer, more profound and sophisticated games come. It's the thought that counts. And in our case, also the effort. And the sincerity.
