Metal Gear Scanlon: The Twin Playthroughs - Part 01

Watching Drew play through the original Metal Gear Solid has given me the itch to play through one of the Metal Gear games again, but having just played through the entire series (from the MSX games all the through Peace Walker) back when The Legacy Collection came out, I decided I'd instead go through a game I haven't played in years: Metal Gear Solid - The Twin Snakes. As an unofficial companion piece to Metal Gear Scanlon, I decided I'd chronicle my own adventure through the 2004 GameCube remake of the original, recording my thoughts and pointing out differences between the two versions, as well as including a few of the cutscenes with notable changes in each update.

Because some people are likely experiencing Metal Gear Solid for the first time alongside Drew, these blogs will be completely free of spoilers for Metal Gear Solid or any later titles in the series. I will however be talking about the mechanics of Metal Gear Solid 2 and how they relate to Twin Snakes, as well as more nebulous concepts like atmosphere and style, just without any of the story context. Also, try not to look at the related videos for any YouTube clips I post, as they might contain spoilers. Now, with formalities out of the way let's delve into Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

Twin Snakes starts out with the same cold opening as the PS1 version, but with different choreography, music, and redone voice work. Twin Snakes is somewhat controversial within the fandom for its rerecorded voice acting. Many fans say the acting in Twin Snakes is terrible and doesn't hold a candle to the original. I will talk about any major differences between the voices in the original and Twin Snakes, and you'll get to hear parts of it yourself in the cutscenes I include in each blog post, but I won't be talking too much about the acting because it's subjective and also pretty hard to describe through just text. I will say I prefer the PS1 acting for the most part though.

Twin Snakes mixed things up a bit by showing Snake having to manually steer the SDV through an underwater laser field, after which he crashes into the wall, ejects, and starts to swim up to the surface. With that the scene fades out, and we are greeted by the title screen along with a remix of the PS1 title screen music. This is one of the few songs from the original you'll hear in this remake.

VIDEO - Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - Title Screen

Most of the options from the PS1 version are here, though the VR Missions are absent. The briefing cutscenes have all been redone in-engine, and are a lot less static as a result. Characters move around and gesture, which makes the 30+ minutes of briefing videos a bit easier to sit through.

When starting a new game you're given the same difficulty selection as in MGS2: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme, as well as a few options for the radar depending on your difficulty. Though the North American PS1 release had four difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme, the original Japanese release only had one difficulty, equivalent to the American version's Easy. The later Japan only re-release Metal Gear Solid: Integral added the Very Easy difficulty later found in Metal Gear Solid 2.

After a brief cutscene as Snake swings into the docks we gain control of him, and this is a good place to talk about the differences in gameplay. Twin Snakes doesn't just take the original Metal Gear Solid and make it look like Metal Gear Solid 2, it also incorporates the mechanics of Metal Gear Solid 2. First person aiming, enhanced guard AI, persistent bodies, holding up guards, evasion mode; every mechanical update from the sequel is in Twin Snakes. Despite this the level design is largely unchanged in Twin Snakes, with only a few minor tweaks here and there in order to better incorporate the new mechanics. You can also skip codec calls by pressing Y, and zoom the camera in during cutscenes with the shoulder button and move the camera around with the right stick, just like in MGS2.

The new controls are hampered a bit by the GameCube controller though. With one less shoulder button, no select button, and no pressure sensitive face buttons, a few compromises had to be made in order to fit every function. Additionally the face button layout isn't the same as the PS2 games, which can be confusing if you've spent a lot of time with them. A is the shoot/grab button, B is punch, Y is the action button, and X is the crouch button. The Codec is accessed by pressing Start and A at the same time, which isn't too bad, but pressing start by itself doesn't pause. Instead, you have to press Start and the B Button. Yeah, I don't get it either. Running with your gun out is done by holding B while holding A, as is locking on in first person. Lowering your weapon without shooting is done by holding Y while your gun is drawn, and then releasing the A button before letting go of the Y button. Once you get used to the control scheme it works pretty well, but it can be awkward at first.

In the Cargo Dock the only real difference is a few lockers placed in the upper left corner. Inside of one of them is the M9 tranquilizer pistol, a gun that completely breaks this game. Non-lethal and completely silent, you no longer have to learn patterns and slip by enemies without disturbing them. Instead you simply pop into first person and shoot a dart into a guards head, and they'll pass out. Even if another guard notices his unconscious buddy, he'll simply assume he fell asleep on the job and kick him back awake, and the guard waking up will have no idea what happened.

In addition to holding the most important weapon in the game, you can also use the locker to either stuff enemy bodies into or hide in them yourself. I decided to hide in the locker until the elevator came down, at which point I waited for the guard to move out of the way and hopped on board. At this point Snake takes off his gear like in the PS1 version, but it's shot a bit differently...

VIDEO - Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - Title Card Sequence

The late title card sequence is a good example of the difference in tone between Metal Gear Solid and The Twin Snakes. The PS1 version simply has Snake rip off his scuba gear off camera, stand up, and then turn around to face the player as the game's title card comes up, all underscored by synth music that sounds like it was ripped straight out of an 80's action movie. It's understated and moody, and that's what makes it cool. Twin Snakes on the other hand has Snake dramatically ripping off his gear as bumping techno music comes in. We get white flashes with sound effects as the game cuts to different angles and close ups, and then cuts to Liquid walking to the Hind D, who dramatically starts to turn towards the camera. The editing gets more frantic as the game cuts between the two Snakes, panning across the characters, zooms accompanied by the sound effects of jet planes, until the camera zooms in on Liquid's face, followed by Snake's, and then zooms out as the music reaches its crescendo and the title card appears above Snake.

While the original felt like it was trying to be subtle, The Twin Snakes is trying to be in your face as possible, and in going so over the top often ends up being ridiculous. Though the two games tell the same tale, the redone cutscenes directed by Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura give the remake a completely different tone. These cutscenes are the highlight of Twin Snakes, and I would definitely recommend you click on any video links in these blogs as I'll be including all of the ones I find the most stupid. Though this difference in tone makes it hard to recommend The Twin Snakes as a replacement to Metal Gear Solid, as a companion piece it is the most interesting part of the experience. Things are going to get really dumb as the action starts matching the editing. After that completely ludicrous late title card Snake contacts the Colonel over Codec, and is introduced to Naomi and Mei Ling, along with their new accents.

VIDEO - Introduction to Naomi and Mei Ling

When recording Twin Snakes, Naomi's British accent and Mei Ling's Chinese accent were both changed to generic American accents, though both are still voiced by the same actresses from the original. Naomi's new accent is generally hated among the fan-base, while Mei Ling's is more mixed, as a Chinese girl who was born and raised in America having a Chinese accent didn't make much sense. Love them or hate them, they are what they are.

The game moves on to Snake surveying the base for openings with his binoculars. This part stuck out to me because I remembered Drew saying the way the PS1 version had a short gameplay demonstration where Snake equipped the binoculars, looked around, and zoomed them in and out was a natural way of conveying information to the player. In Twin Snakes this is instead a normal cutscene, and thus players might not derive the same information they did in the PS1 version.

The front of the base isn't much different from the original. I ended up being caught almost immediately as I ran between the searchlights to grab the chaff grenades and was promptly spotted by a guard on the other side. Because the MGS2 style AI can see farther than their vision cones on the radar it was impossible to avoid being spotted as I reached the end of the helipad, so after being shot to death and reloading from the start of the area I promptly shot the guard from across the map. Twin Snakes had a lot of wide open areas, which paired with the tranq gun makes it trivial to take out guards from almost any point of view.

I tried going in the same entrance as Drew, but walking across a noisy grate alerted the guard sleeping in front of it to my presence, so I hid underneath the truck until he went back to his post and then, once again, shot him in the face with a tranq. This is going to be a running theme in this playthrough.

Not much to say about the Tank Hangar, other than the remix of the Tank Hangar song is nice. For the most part Twin Snakes has an original soundtrack done more in the style of MGS2's music, both in cutscenes and gameplay. Each area also has its own unique music for caution, evasion, and alert phases, unlike the original which had a single track for alerts and a single track for cautions regardless of the area you were in. Most of the original music in Twin Snakes is forgettable, with only a few exceptions, but it's by no means bad. Like the cutscenes, the new music gives Twin Snakes quite a different atmosphere from the PS1 version.

I tranqed the two guys on the ground floor pretty easily and headed straight for the elevator. The path to the DARPA Chief is pretty straight forward. Snake drops in on Anderson, and the two talk for a bit as the woman in the next cell eavesdrops in from the other room, at first putting her ear against the wall and then later starts pacing about the room while listening. At one point the guard overhears the DARPA Chief talking and comes by to tell him to shut up. In the original game Snake pressed up against the wall next to the door to avoid being seen. In Twin Snakes...

VIDEO - The guard checks in on the DARPA Chief

...Yeah. This is another running theme in Twin Snakes, and another thing that's controversial among fans of the original. While in the PS1 version Snake is just a really skilled solider/spy, in the remake Snake is some kind of Neo-esque superhuman who will show off increasingly ridiculous physical feats as the game progresses. Some people get angry when talking about Snake's portrayal in Twin Snakes, but I just find it hilarious.

The DARPA Chief eventually dies, prompting the woman in the adjacent cell to call for the guard. After beating him up off camera she opens up Snake's cell door and tries to hold him at gunpoint.

VIDEO - Snake and the female soldier face off

The ambush is made incredibly easy by, say it with me, first person aiming. After the initial group you can pick off each individual soldier as he runs into the room before he even has the chance to draw his gun. You can even shoot the guy who throws a grenade into the room before he pulls the pin. There's also a fire extinguisher on the wall you can shoot to temporarily daze enemies, but it's unnecessary.

Looking around the room at the scattered corpses and blood strewn everywhere, the woman runs off and Snake attempts to follow her. As he does, a man in a cloak and gas mask appears above her, and Snake has some kind of hallucination. After he snaps out of it, the woman begins to shoot at him.

VIDEO - Psycho Mantis Appears

At that's it! This blog had to cover a lot of the mechanical differences between the two versions, so future entries should be a lot more condensed. From here on out it'll mostly be boss fight differences and ridiculous cutscenes, with the occasional note about level design differences. I'm gonna try to catch up with the videos as fast as I can, at which point I'll try to get a new blog out a day or two after each Metal Gear Scanlon episode is posted. Enjoy!

NEXT PART - Part 02 - Flip Kickin' Concrete

The best part of Twin Snakes is the jet noises whenever someone flips (which is all the fucking time).

Particularly evident in the cutscene before the Grey Fox boss fight.

@corruptedevil: Yeah, all of the constant jet noises are great. There's one in the title card sequence video I posted, but I'm pretty sure there were some before that even.

@TechnoSyndrome said:

Yep, it's wall to wall jet noises. It's fantastic.

But yeah, most of MGS1's levels weren't designed with first person aiming in mind (you do eventually get the PSG1, but it's super loud). The tranq pistol completely breaks the game in most rooms (honestly, it did this in MGS2 as well, except they tried to make some of the interiors really tight corridors so you couldn't shoot a guy from a safe distance, or they made those guards that check in periodically so you shouldn't take them out). At least with the SOCOM you have to aim down the sights and it's hard to line up long shots sometimes; with the M9, you hold it to the side for no good reason and can clearly see where the laser pointer is.

Also, in the heliport in Twin Snakes, you can shoot out the spotlights. Obviously a risk without the suppressor on the SOCOM, but I think if you fire a shot from like the lower left of the map, they either don't hear it, or you can just hide in a corner and it's such a far edge of the area that no one really investigates you in time. Also being able to shoot out every camera in the game with a silenced SOCOM completely breaks MGS2 and Twin Snakes.

I like that Mei Ling's accent is basically nonexistent in Twin Snakes. There is literally a line about her parents being from Guangdong but Mei Ling herself was born and raised in America, so unless she lived deep in the heart of Chinatown and never went anywhere else in the city, how would she magically have this accent where it sounds like English is a second language? It made no sense in 1998, other than "let's give obvious Chinese character an obvious Chinese accent."

Cool blog duder! I played twin snakes as my first metal gear so it holds a lot of nostalgia for me.

I still want to go back and play the original.

Its really comical how badly the MGS2 mechanics break MGS1. Because of this its possible to beat the game in an extremely fast time. 1Hr 8min on Extreme is the fastest I've seen. I've done 1hr 20 minutes myself albeit only on normal.

I still prefer Twin Snakes, but that's just me. Nice write up.

@bigmess: Twin Snakes was my first Metal Gear too. Going back to it for the first time in years though and having played the hell out of the other games in the series, the flaws really stand out. Still love the goofy redone cutscenes though.

@shindig: you sound very angry and opinionated about these fictional characters

Twin Snakes was my first introduction to the series, and I'm still head over heels for it since the amped up ridiculousness is really what made it so charming, at least to me. Though the lack of backflips in the original has always kind of disappointed me since.

Also, the only issue I ever had with Naomi's accent disappearing is that Jennifer Hale also voiced E.E. in Sons of Liberty. It's pretty weird for those two characters to sound so similar, given their respective roles, relationships, and fates later in the series.

I'm doing this too! Except its my first time ever playing, just like Drew.

@hunter5024: Awesome! You playing Twin Snakes too, or the original?

@TechnoSyndrome: Twin Snakes. I figure since I'm watching Drew on the original, I can get the experience of that version, with the updated controls for my own playthrough.

I first played MGS back in '98 so I will always prefer the original. In Twin Snake's defense, though, it was kinda cool at the time after just having seen The Matrix (back when every single piece of media was copying it). I never took TS too seriously though, for me it's like a silly remix going back to the original game with MGS2 controls. I don't mind the changes because 1) it will never replace the original and 2) it's a pretty clear celebration of it.

I love the Twin Snakes and I think people that hate on it take the Metal Gear Solid series too seriously. I far prefer, say, the cyborg ninja cutscene in the hallway in Twin Snakes to the one in MGS1. I love MGS2 so having all the things they improved in MGS2 in MGS1 make Twin Snakes the better version for me. Either way they are essentially the exact same game, I don't see any one playing through Twin Snakes, hating it, then playing the original and loving it they're so damn similar.

MGS on PlayStation was the first MGS game I've ever played so no matter what I will still prefer it over the remake, even if I would play the game with the updated mechanics/controls. Then again the game will have to be tweaked somehow, since certain moments wouldn't work quite as well (like the Ocelot fight).

Good write up. But I can never accept Twin Snakes because the voices are different and I have all sorts of other complaints *grumble grumble*

I debated popping this in when the series started, but I started VR Missions instead. I regret nothing!

You know, after watching your title card link, I feel that it basically boils down the difference between the two games. The first is this slow build, with atmospheric music and a subdued, militaristic approach. Twin Snakes has slick camera cuts and bumpin' beats.

Next time someone asks which they should play first, I'll just post those two and say "pick one." Because that's the tonal difference that's hard to put into words.

I've played MGS for the first time some 6 months ago on the PSVita. It held up pretty good to my surprise! Controls felt fine to me and I liked that I had to figure some stuff out on my own (oh modern game design :/ ).
I pretty much cruised through the game, but the last part of it was kind of frustrating hard.

After that I bought the HD collection of MGS2 and 3. It was glorious, now I became a metal gearhead. :)

I did a walkthrough of MGS 1/2/3/4 on for my youtube last year, I ended up playing Twin Snakes instead of the original for my 1. As much as I like the game, I think the cutscenes are what makes me scratch my head. They kinda make Snake seem like a superhuman. Flipping backwards and landing on a missle thats just been fired, then jumping off it into the air?...yeah.

Really like the highlighting the differences. I remember when this game out, friend of mine loaned this to me "because it is so awesome you have to play it". I liked the MGS1 and had played tons of it - but the Twin Snakes seemed really bad to me. I remember getting to the Psycho Mantis fight and after that I quit. MGS:TS just failed visually and tonally. Everything looked cheap and too clean - original looks grittier and believable. Cutscenes really clashed with what you could do in the actual gameplay unlike the original. There was no subtlety - the craziness had no contrast and came off just looking like bad matrix wannabe. They even took away Meryl's guns !

I really love TTS, and prefer it to the original. Don't get me wrong, I played the original back when it came out(had it preordered), and I absolutely adored it. I still enjoy watching Drew play it and seeing the cutscenes again. But if I'm going to crack open some MGS1, I consider Twin Snakes to be the definitive version. It just feels infinitely more consistent with the rest of the series in terms of presentation and tone. Outside of that scene with Baker forgetting the Codec number. I will concede that is still a terrible scene in TTS.

I have to say, I played through Twin snakes for the first time when Drew and Dan started playing the original, without any prior experience of the franchise. And I have no idea why this became popular. Sure, the gameplay is alright, but the story and dialogue is one of the worst I've ever heard in any medium. It's without any grace, they just recite everyone's motivations directly to you. There's almost never any back and forth, it's just monologuing the background section of a character sheet to you, without even trying to incoporate it into something people might possibly say. They're constantly repeating information you already know back to the player, and you get whiplash because the tonal shifts are so jarring. At one moment they might justify gameplay mechanics with psuedorealistic bullshit, then they just say fuck it, and start breaking the fourth wall. After that comes a loooooong lecture about the dangers of nuclear war and globalisation, which feels like it's coming from a poorly written textbook, then you escape a place by a guard getting diarhhea and hiding under a bed. The entire conflict is based around a gross misunderstanding of a concept (genes) from the writers that it's not even funny. It just doesn't work on any level. It takes itself too seriously to be enjoyed as camp, It's too moronic to be taken as serious fiction, it's too poorly written to be enjoyed as a character piece (but lord knows it tries), and it's not meta enough to be a meta commentary.

The crazy cutscenes was the only thing that actually got me through the story, because the action was so ridicolous. I couldn't wait to see what dumb but great bullshit Snake would do next, and I don't know how I would handle it otherwise. It was the only time the game actually seemed to know what it was, and the craziness actually helped support some of the more outlandish characters and concepts (giant shamans and revolvermen, anyone?), and it breaks my heart that people actually consider it a detriment to the remake. I'll probably never play another MGS since they don't have this level of self-aware insanity, since I clearly don't "get it", but I hope I've at least offered an interesting perspective on franchise.

Please, do continue to enjoy video games.

Nah, its more about the writing. She seemed a more plausible scientist in MGS and her personality fit with the narrative arch she had going on. By 4 its all kinda thrown to the wind and the character redesign, like my choice of language, was unnecessary.

Man, I really want to play through the whole lot again.

Twin Snakes is like if Michael Bay directed Heat. Just no, don't ruin a classic.

Awesome write up! Lots of detail!

I feel like you can argue all day about the cut scenes and the voice work and if it's better or worse or whatever. But what you can't really deny is that the gameplay of MGS2 does not fit in the level design of MGS1. As you pointed out, the levels where not designed for first person shooting or for guards with longer vision cones, everything is too wide open!

One other thing I remember is that in MGS2, when you alerted guards, the attack teams would come in from the other rooms because everything is connected through doors. But MGS1 doesn't really work like that. Rooms are connected by things like elevators and vents. So attack teams don't really have anywhere to come in from, so they would just appear randomly. I remember multiple times I would alert the guards and run back to what I knew was a dead end or empty room to hide in a box or something and SURPRISE! A bunch of guards just spawned there. Didn't feel good...

@koolaid: The guards spawning out of a closet thing came up while recording Part 03, guys came down the stairs in the Tank Hangar even though there's no doors up there for guys to logically come out of. Maybe they crawled through the vent on the ceiling...

Wanna thank everybody who's been complimenting me on the blog, I'm glad people are enjoying them.

I remember I saw this jewel of a cutscene before I saw the game itself and completely turned my off on it.

Sorry, I can stomach those things in DMC (being about superhuman demons and stuff), but I could not stomach this in a game everyone was trying to sell me as one of the greatest stories in videogames (at the time)

Twin Snakes is worse for me in every way except graphics. They removed accents, added cutscenes to places that didn't need them, and then turned the existing cutscenes into fake Matrix rip off things.

@charlie_victor_bravo:

I always thought Meryl's weird circle gun-fu was from Psycho Mantis pulling her strings. Was he not controlling her when she fires at Snake in the original?

@bigmess: Well, Psycho Mantis is not an combat expert and in the original it is not clear if he is controlling her or just observing the situation. Taken that everything is "over matrixed", I would say that this was oversight from the people that made the port.