Metal Gear Solid: Downloaded this on the PSN cause I figured it was time I finally played this classic or something, especially with Metal Gear Rising looking like a Metal Gear game I could actually get excited about ("its being made by the same guys who made Bayonetta, and seems to have similar gameplay? HELL YES!"), I figured I should familiarize myself with the lore some, so yeah.'
Anyway, completed. Overall, game feels very much "For its time." It did a bunch of unique things and was a new kind of game from what I can tell for its time, but overall the game shows its age. Combat is stale, which normally isn't such a bad thing since the game encourages you to avoid it as much as possible, but when the game has forced combat sequences or, say, boss fights, it really highlights it. Bosses are just not fun. They're boring monotonous fights that basically come down to figuring out how you hurt them and how you avoid taking damage, then repeating it about 10 times. Gray Fox was the only dynamic fight, I felt, as he kept changing his moves every bit of damage he takes, but he was boring for other reasons. Game is ESPECIALLY bad when it forces First Person perspective fights (see Stinger or PSG), as not only does it have unintuitive vertical angle ranges, but every-time you're hit, it completely screws your aiming. Sure, maybe its realistic, but regularly, realistic DETRACTS from fun. Also its just not very smooth transitioning from overhead to first person on the fly just to move.
Stealth stuff was decently done, to its credit, and that's what the game builds itself on, so points for that. Plot...is very much a case of "EXPOSITION!!!" Codecs were cool at first, but by the end I was getting "GET ON WITH IT!" vibes, and villains have way too much ranting for their own good. There's like 5 MASTER SCHEME reveals (which are meant to be twists and the twists themselves aren't bad mind) all with FULL 5 MINUTE SCENE EXPLANATIONS, and by 3rd, its annoying. To say nothing of Liquid Snake's end game rants...all of them. Its very much a game that "says 10 words when 2 would suffice" and its beyond "Fleshing out characters" as really, the character is well established, now its just "I'M TALKING FOR THE SAKE OF TALKING!!!" At least plot scenes can be skipped so dying doesn't hurt in that regard...Codecs can not. You can get through dialog fast, but if its a long codec, that's still a lot of text to skip through.
I know, there's some nice ham to be had when villains go into monologue mode...but that usually only works when there's one master scheme reveal. Again, Metal Gear Solid has multiple so it defeats the purpose, so its not longer "ham" and now "useless padding."
I suppose the game is decent enough, but its a combination of 'Not entirely my kind of thing" with not having aged too well, I feel. Wasn't unplayable or anything, but compared to other contemporary big games like SotN or MMX4, I feel it didn't hold up to the "Nostalgia Test" as well.
One last comment:
How in gods name is this an RPG? Like...at all? It lacked like every single quality of an RPG I can think of outside of "overhead camera" which is more just a trend (one which is often NOT used in 3D RPGs, albeit this predates most 3D RPGs.) And to think, I've seen people say the game is "like Final Fantasy." And even if they were referring to plot...no, it really isn't.
Mind you, MGS not being an RPG isn't actually a point against it so much as a huge O_o reaction when it comes to people that claim it is one. SotN is bad enough in this regard, but at least that game had qualities that are associated with RPGs (RPG style stats, equipment, and leveling all come to mind.) MGS didn't even have as much as SotN and that says something.
...and yes, I do plan on getting MGS HD Collection just because its 3 games for $40, so I can't see this being a bad deal, if at least one of those games ends up decent (and from my understanding, MGS3 sounds like its an improvement over original in most ways?)
