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.