Metal Gear Solid was a bit of a revelation for me when I played it back in the day. Some time around 1999 (probably) I used essentially all of the pocket money I had been saving up for years to buy a used playstation from someone. This playstation had a modchip and I got a bunch of burned games along with it, although the person in question had printed out covers for the games and put them on the cases. One of those games was Metal Gear Solid. I didn’t have any particular interest in it at this time and I actually tried to play it once, but had no idea what I was doing, got quickly discovered and killed by the enemies and decided that I didn’t really like it. I was 10 at the time (if my memory of 99 is correct). Fast forward two years and I gave it another try. I remember the situation, because it was during my birthday. Back in those days it was common to invite your school-class for some kind of birthday party and in addition I also invited a few friends who were not in my class. One friend, who was my best friend at this time stayed the night (his father was much more protective than my mom, so this was a pretty rare occurrence). That evening we decided to give the game another go. This time it clicked. I think it helped that we were two people as we could discuss with each other, eventually figuring out how one was supposed to play, how one was supposed to hide etc. I remember the excitement of discovering the entrance to the base utilizing the binoculars, getting there unseen and finally getting inside. The gameplay was exhilarating in a way that was very different from any other game I had played until then. It took me a long time to beat it that first time. Over the next week or two, I would invite my friend to come over after school whenever possible so that we could continue the game. I think that I was mostly the active player, but he had plenty of advice. He also nailed the button mashing required for withstanding the torture scene which I could never do.
I really enjoyed the story and was into all the weird conspiracy stuff, whacky characters and zany yet somehow serious plot. I remember understanding it all quite well, so I guess I must have been better at English at the time than I currently remember myself as being. One part of the game that was very frustrating is when you are told that a certain codec number is on the back of the CD case. I thought for sure that it was some in-game item and I spent hours hunting for it in order to find this stupid codec number (remember I also didn’t have the original CD case). Of course if I had thought even a little bit about it, I could have just tried every possible frequency in like 10 minutes, so that was pretty stupid. Eventually I looked it up online.
When I bought a PS2 around a year later, I got one which was packaged with Metal gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (it even had a special box), not because I was extremely interested in the game, but it was a good package deal and as I liked the first one I did want to play it. Metal gear Solid 2 ended up being one of my favorite games of all time. To this day, probably due to familiarity it is still the one in the series I enjoy playing the most. The gameplay felt like a refinement of MGS1 in every way, but still fundamentally similar, unlike say MGS4 which felt very different to me and not in a way I found enjoyable. The story took everything I liked about MGS1 and turned it up to 11 and I loved it when I was 13. The Patriots, the crazy ending I liked all of it. I have replayed MGS2 quite a lot of times since then and I still like a lot about it. I think some of the sillier elements that I may have taken more seriously at the time work in a different way for me now. Aside from the ending which is super interesting and which many essays have been written about, another thing I enjoyed about the game was the characters. I remember being very emotionally affected by Hal and Emma’s subplot, although looking at it now it does have a whiff of the “Introduce female character and kill her off in order to make the male main characters feel sad” trope. I still overall enjoy this aspect of the game though and think Emma is a pretty good character in her own right.
I don’t like MGS3 as much as many people, but I still bought it as soon as it came out, played through it and enjoyed it. I haven’t played it since and I think I might like it more if I were to play it again. But overall I doubt it will ever feel as special to me as MGS2.
I didn’t get a PS3 until the first slim was out which is not much a of a loss as many more interesting games were available at that time. I did the same with the PS4 and will probably do the same with the PS5 if I ever get one. MGS4 was one of the two games that made me decide to get a PS3 (the other was Disgaea 3, I guess I also knew that FF XIII was coming at some point). I really enjoyed it as an experience, but as I touched upon earlier, I didn’t enjoy the gameplay as much. I guess it felt more like a shooting game to me than the earlier entries. Not sure why, I think maybe because shooting was a more viable strategy against normal enemies? The story is very indulgent and it does feel like it has a bunch of retcons of stuff from MGS2, but to be honest I don’t remember it clearly enough to express any strong opinion on this. Another game I should replay at some point.
I have not played MGS5. One of the things that appeals to me about MGS 1-4 (particularly 2 which I know inside out at this point) is that it is a relatively short, focused experience which tells a cool story, with some interesting gameplay. This makes the games quite replayable and makes for a good first-time experience. MGS5 as fas as I can tell is a much longer open-world type of experience, with less story segments. It might very well be good, but it seems like it is lacking some of the core design that appeals to me about the MGS series, even if the stealth gameplay is good (as most people say). However, I am open to be convinced that I should play it or any of the MGS subentries for that matter.
I have played Metal Gear Rising. It is such an over-the-top game which is even siller than the mainline MGS games and I absolutely love it for it. Strangely I generally suck at action games like Bayonetta, DMC etc. but somehow I got on OK with MGR. After dying what felt like 100 times to the first boss (the wolf) I somehow got the hang of it and never had any problems afterwards aside from the final boss, but that was minor compared to the first boss.
Despite many references to the “sillines” of the games, I love them and I think they also tackle quite serious themes in interesting ways. In fact I love this blend of seriousness and silliness although I understand it is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think it is one of the underlying reasons why many accuse Kojima of being a terrible writer recently, the other being backlash to how much praise he got in the early 2000’s, some of which was definitely a bit much.
