One upside of it being the weekend and not spending all of it working on computer shit, is I finally get to dip my hands in the new Steam releases that just dropped early this week.
Metal Gear Solid is a game that I greatly enjoyed, but never really got all the way through since I had to borrow my brother’s copy. I haven’t played the original ‘Solid in about twenty years.
Breezing through the really short VR training pre-amble to see just how rusty I am, was a great feeling. Nailed most on the first go, just had to remember the speed difference between crawl and run. making it through the docks in the beginning in complete stealth was certainly better than I ever did as a kid when the game came out in 1999.
I really got into Metal Gear Solid after the dedicated VR Training missions disc was released. Out of 300 training missions, I think I had completed somewhere into the upper two hundreds. Basically everything except for the more challenging time attacks. In particular, I was fond of the simulations where you’re given a handful of weapons and get very creative in eliminating enemies that far out numbered the ammunition provided. Those were always the more fun “Who dares, wins!” simulations that left you breathing hard and finding unique ways to make the most of things. I guess, it would prepare me for how many times I’ve been jokingly told I have a roll of duct tape and a aluminum foil, only to have to make a satellite dish in twenty minutes 😋.
Curious about how well my memory has held up after twenty years. Good enough to be wandering around B2 thinking m “Hey, aren’t there claymores or C4 to kill you if you’re careless here? Ahh, it was pit traps. C4s for the walls.” Someways after the tank battle is where my recollections of the first game becomes more derivatives from reading the strategy guide twenty years ago rather than how far I got.
Metal Gear Solid 2 was the first in the series that I completed, and aside from the fun times mugging sentries for their dog tags aside, was enough of a trek that I don’t have as much interest in revisiting it as the first. Particularly due to some of the more annoying boss battles like chasing a fat man on roller skates around as he plays mad bomber.
Metal Gear Solid 3 is the one that truly impacted me, and thus, I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming remake. If they basically made the game the same thing but in the engine from MGS 5 and modern textures, I’d be happy.
In the mean time I’m enjoying the trip back to 1999s original entry in the Solid series of Metal Gear games. As such a fan of Big Boss, it’s especially a nice contrast revisiting it with Solid Snake and Meryl at the focal point.
In MGS, Snake is already the legend who defeated Big Boss twice and lived. We all know his attitudes and that reality always kills your expectations, if they’re not driven by the results. Meryl makes quite the foil, as the naive rookie yet to find her own path. It’s a dramatic contrast from Big Boss, whose naïveté paints the story of how his innocence is lost in MGS 3: Snake Eater, as he’s forced to define his own meaning to what it means to be loyal to the end. Becoming both the hero and the villain of future Metal Gear games.