MGS PS1 Review
Metal Gear Solid was Hideo Kojima's first shot at the metal gear franchise, and his first attempt was a masterpiece.
Metal Gear Solid takes place on a terrorist military base where a super nuclear weapon, metal gear, is being held by the terrorists. It is up to Solid Snake to shake off the many plot twists along the way and save the world. The story in MGS is possibly one of the best ever written for a video game, especially a playstation 1 game. The cut scenes in the game are pretty lengthy, and the voice work is perfect making for a movie like experience.
The gameplay in MGS involves sneaking past genome soldiers and upgrading snake's keycard to access higher security doors. Along the way are some tricky boss fights, which are all memorable and some of the best in any game. All the encounters in the game with bosses and regular soldiers are tense and will keep the player on the edge of their seat. One of the few problems I had with the game was the somewhat suspect control scheme. The square button is used to fire weapons, and I plainly was just not use to that(never owned a ps1). The circle button as the action button was a little confusing also, and it felt awkward using the control pad to move. The biggest complaint I had was the difficulty of aiming the guns so they actually hit someone. The sometimes frustrating difficulty of the game was my only other complaint.
The graphics in the game are good, but they are not great. At some points I felt like I was playing a ps2 game, but at other points I felt like I was indeed playing a ps1 game. The background and area graphics are great with rich textures, but the character models are horrible, even for a ps1 game. Because of the quality of teh game the suspect graphics dont even play a part in scoring the game. As mentioned earlier the sound in the game is A+, mostly led by superb voice acting and sound effects.
Overall I really enjoyed playing MGS, and I will go back and play it again. I got this as part of the essentials collection, which may possibly be the best gaming deal ever. If you do not own the collection go out and get it now!!
