Seeing as today is the Launch of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, i thought id look back at the first Metal Gear Solid, the way i remembered it

I remember it well, back in March 1999 i had a great birthday, the only thing i was looking foward to was the one game that was hyped so much back then, Metal Gear Solid.

I knew that there were previous Metal Gear Solid games on the older consoles but they did not interest me as much as this one did.

Lets start off with the story. You play as Solid Snake, a retired solider who is needed to stop the terrorists from taking over the world with nuclear weapons, your main enemy is Liquid Snake who is a genetic copy of Snake. Stretching over three disks the story is conveyed really well. You come across bosses at the end of each level such as Ocelot, Raven, Metal Gear Rex and Phsyco Mantis to name a few. Typically you have a love interest called Meryl who has a spitfire personality and is a real help in the game. As you progress through the game you have to save her, how you do this was very difficult for me at the time.

You get up to a certain part on the second disk where you have to be ‘tortured,’ basically you are electrically stunned and you need to resist this by button mashing your O button on the PS controller, if you survive this you get the opportunity to see a different ending after you defeat Metal Gear Rex. However if you dont then you just fight for your good old country and the not so good ending.

In Gameplay terms, Metal Gear Solid is a great game, Konami chose to go for the over the shoulder high above the head approch for the camera angles and this worked perfectly. Stealth is the main key in this game, trying to avoid gunfire unless absolutely necessary. You get to hide in cardboard boxes and sneak along, although the enemy A.I is really sharp. You get to choke enemies while they aren’t looking and then drag them to a safe place where their allies wont see them.

I think the levels are very linear and impossible to get lost, in most games being linear is not a great thing but Metal Gear Solid is one of the few exeptions as stealth takes up the time and makes the levels last a bit longer, when you add the radio conversations with Otacon and Meryl and the Cut-Scenes that are frequent you could get the game completed in about a day.

I got upset in the game when the story got to its climax, When Grey Fox tries to help you and dies in the process. I kept playing the game over and over to get the best ending and tried to not get noticed at all so i guess you can say that the replay value is definately there.

How did the media take to this game? In the U.K, Metal Gear Solid got 10/10 in the OPS magazine and 5/5 in the CVG magazine. It topped the charts for several weeks and was one of the most rented games of all time.

There was a soundtrack for this game and one of the most powerful ballards was “the best is yet to come” which was the games end credit songs. This for me cemented the games as one of the best of all time.

A must own game for a gamer.