The Twin Snakes

I remember getting to play Metal Gear Solid and Thief: The Dark Project around the same time, and falling hard for this new style of stealth-based gameplay. Why not reward players for avoiding fights, instead of starting them? Coming up with cunning ways to trick and outwit your opponents without the use of force seemed like a high concept, something the PC needed desperately to rejuvenate a tired genre. I only spent a couple of late evenings with MGS on a friend's Playstation back in University, but the challenges of Garrett's adventure kept me up nights (the best time to play it) as soon as I got my hands on the full version. Incidentally, both Metal Gear Solid and its sequel were ported to PC - but there's really no need to go further, as they were mediocre console ports with gargantuan install sizes and ridiculous system requirements.

So what would possess Nintendo and Konami, with the help of Silicon Knights, to team up and create a remake of a game that's barely 6 years old? The Metal Gear franchise had been gladly taken up by the Playstation, and given the hype surrounding Snake Eater and the series' rabid fan following, I would hardly think a remake would have been necessary to increase awareness. Perhaps this is me being overly optimistic, but I see this as a way of Konami testing the waters (so to speak) before committing to any future projects on the Gamecube as I explained in my earlier post about Castlevania. In simplest terms, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a graphical and usability upgrade to a classic game.

What I remember most vividly about the original is the number, length, and depth of the cutscenes throughout the game. Indeed, I recall asking the first time I played, "Do you actually get to play in this game?" Metal Gear Solid was equally about creating an engrossing game, as it was about creating a believable and solid story. Alas, if you've played the original, The Twin Snakes adds no new surprises - all story elements are left untouched. Thus, the magic of playing through this incarnation would be to see the spectacular graphics if anything else. Curiously the original was contained on two CD-ROMs; this version, too, takes up two Gamecube discs. The effort that went into the sounds, voice acting and amazing score makes itself known as early as the beautifully scripted opening scenes - I was already captivated by the time the new "The Twin Snakes" title came across the screen, in the same manner as a well produced Hollywood film. Even the game's menu screen, cold and dark with snakes emulating a DNA chain - as trivial as this sounds - evokes the same type of stylish design as Metroid Prime's.

In the face of these excellent cutscenes, the game still uses talking "sketches" of the main supporting characters when you use your codec radio transmitter in game. I hate to nitpick on this small detail, but this was something that bothered me when I played the original. Why not have 3D animated busts, or add further realism to the codec tuning interface and show nothing at all? It would certainly add to the game's atmosphere of mystery and intrigue.

One thing I like about MGS is the difficulty level - it remains consistently challenging. With very little interaction around the cutscenes, every game sequence was made to count. Save points aren't an issue, as you can pretty much beat every new area in a few tries and autosaving takes care of the rest. I'd be careful to call it seamless, but the game does a pretty good job of convincing you that you're the one moving the action along in your favorite espionage thriller. Due to these bursts of strenuous and calculatingly paced gameplay, it seemed that much more rewarding to watch the cutscene that followed. The AI has improved: the guards are very sharp, and ruthless in their tactics. In most stealth action games a stray bullet in a closed room wouldn't make a difference. In The Twin Snakes, I was in one room early on in the game while well hidden and no guards in sight, and accidentally let a shot loose from my pistol. This caused the alarm to go off and a host of support guards quickly found my hiding spot, and made extremely short work of Solid Snake. Until you get your hands on the heavier weapons you have no chance against the guards unless you take them out individually, and the radar comes in quite handy for this. When attacking multiple targets, the new first person view (I hear this was cribbed from Sons of Liberty) makes this really easy. The top down view during combat in the original Metal Gear Solid was extremely unwieldy even with the laser sights.

To be fair, after playing Zero Mission I'm starting to expect a lot from remakes, as I'm sure many other people are. But it still would have been nice to insert some additional content into the game, maybe a "lost level" or two that bridged the familiar ones. Perhaps the story lies in too delicate a balance for this kind of manipulation, though, and I can respect the developers for that. On the whole I'd call it a great package if you haven't played the original. Minus some minor tweaks this is essentially the same game, so don't expect anything new here. If anything, this Gamecube port conveniently gives me an excuse to add it to my collection. Having never owned a Playstation, I kind of missed out on getting to know those revolutionary first-generation titles that have formed the genres of today.

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