Metal Gear Solid

Pros • great motion-captured animation • lots of cool gadgets and weapons • Impressive graphics	Cons • Frustrating camera placement at times • Save game a little quirky • Story wanders a bit
Bottom Line With a name that sounds more like an adult film star than an action hero, “Solid Snake” makes the jump from console to PC in this faithful conversion of the original. Metal Gear Solid for the PC is a near-identical translation of the original, with a few things added and a few taken away. Resolution can be increased from the standard 630x480, but it only smoothes out the edges and doesn’t increase the poly count or improve any textures. Pioneering game elements, like a camera that swoops to look down a corridor when Snake’s back is to the wall, and the ‘surprise’ icons that blink into view above an alerted guard’s head are all included and add much to the enjoyment of an already proven game. Lots of great spy-gear and weapons, and even a cardboard box for camouflage, allow Snake to infiltrate Shadow Moses Island and stop FOXHOUND from using Metal Gear to launch a nuclear weapon. Some of the cinematics (all generated by the game engine) are a little long and the dialog tends to drift away from the focus of the game, but the action-oriented scenes are intense and presented with a very movie-like dynamic camera. Fighting some of the bosses can be frustrating, thanks to a mostly overhead camera view, but each one has his own special bag of tricks that you’ll have to draw upon to think your way through rather than just blasting away. The total amount of gameplay is quite short, with about half the game spent in cut-scenes or two-panel radio communications, but memorable enough that you’ll be eager to play the VR missions included in the PC release that PlayStation owners had to pay extra for. Fans of heavy action-oriented games like Quake3 may be put off by the longer non-interactive parts of the game, but fans of heavy story-driven (Vampire The Masquerade) or stealth games (Thief) should feel right at home.

With the competition heating up in the console market, especially between the soon-to-be-released PlayStation 2 and next year’s Xbox, it’s surprising that Microsoft Games would release a port of one of the best PlayStation games on the PC. With that in mind, it’s even more surprising that Microsoft didn’t improve the game to show just how much more the PC is capable of. Instead, it’s an almost identical conversion of the original, with a few simple additions like the ability to increase the screen resolution, play in first-person mode, and to save at any number of Continue Points.

Metal Gear is the codename for a portable nuclear launch platform that has been captured by a group of terrorists. As ex-operative Solid Snake, you’re sent in to Shadow Moses island in Alaska’s Fox archipelago to stop Next Generation Special Forces, led by members of your old group FOXHOUND, from launching the device. Kill the bad guys, rescue the hostages, and get the girl. Pretty standard stuff for a genetically altered super-spy.

The gameplay is what separated Metal Gear from other PlayStation games and it’s PC twin is no exception. Stealth is the order of the day, with many of the missions geared specifically towards sneaking past guards and cameras to locate mission goals or items you’ll need in other areas. You’re also more than well equipped to handle any alerted guards with an assortment of heavy artillery including pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles, several types of grenades, and even C4. If all else fails, a quick headlock with a little extra pressure will dispatch any unsuspecting or sleeping guards. Once alerted though, guards from anywhere near your position will come running and your radar will not function, so you’d better find some decent cover and wait for things to quiet down. Health is maintained by ration packs scattered around the installation, but your store is limited and they aren’t that plentiful, so you should save them for the main bosses.

Each boss in the game presents a unique challenge; but once you discover their weakness, defeating them is not as difficult as you first thought. This is a very effective way of making sure the levels aren’t impossible to complete, but limits the game’s replay-ability somewhat. Also, the overhead camera is at its worst and most frustrating position here, showing almost nothing of what you need to see in order to fight effectively. It’s about as limited as the camera in The Phantom Menace and would have benefited greatly from dropping the perspective a bit and pointing it outward so you could see farther ahead. There are other times in the game when the camera fails too, like in the outdoor area before the sniper alley that makes the level unnecessarily difficult and takes a bit of fun out of the game.

During the course of each mission, you’ll receive hints and instructions through your communications link. Each member of your team has a separate frequency, but fortunately once they’re tuned in you won’t have to remember them. You can also call them up at any time for further instructions, but sometimes they’ll just ramble off quotes from Shakespeare or get all preachy about nuclear war. Perhaps because the console is a TV-based appliance, console game players are more willing to sit and watch or listen to the game in longer non-interactive sessions (much like a TV show) than PC-based gamers. I found some of the cutscenes so long and unrelated to the game that I skipped out of them entirely. It would also have benefited greatly from the ability to skip ahead if you finished reading the radio dialog caption before the actor finished speaking (like in Vampire: The Masquerade). The voice acting is superb though, and the in-game generated mini-movies are very well directed and make effective use of the camera. The motion-captured characters also look very realistic and some of the movements are quite stunning given the graphic limitations.

Since you are the world’s best secret agent, you’ll need a lot of gadgets to get through your adventure in one piece. Standard operating equipment like infrared glasses (which actually appear on Snake’s face when in use), thermal lenses, binoculars, and gas masks all make their appearance. Other handy items, like cigarettes for detecting laser fields and electronic pass cards are also available, but the coolest by far is the cardboard box. Select it from your inventory and Snake disappears inside a standard brown shipping carton. You can still move around, and even see Snake’s feet poke out under the box as he runs around. If a suspicious guard gets too close, he’ll use his gun barrel to flip the box over and reveal Snake inside. It’s hilarious and one of the most unique and memorable situations in any game.

Although it could have been improved upon for its PC debut, Metal Gear Solid is still one of the best action-movie games on any platform. Some frustrating camera placement and a save-game that takes some getting used to take very little away from the excellent sneak-and-peek gameplay. With tons of hi-tech toys and firepower at your disposal, completing the missions isn’t difficult, but the bosses will take some thought and planning if you want to have any health packs or ammo left for the next one. A near-exact copy of the original, Metal Gear Solid has finally made it to the PC and was well worth the wait. Who knows, maybe Microsoft will even port Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to the PC. Eventually.

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