With the news of Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain coming to Steam, plus just following Phantom Pain in general Metal Gear's been on my mind a lot lately, so I was curious how other people think the games stack up to each other. I'm only talking about the "main" games, as it's hard and irrelevant to compare games with completely different styles of gameplay like Rising or Acid. My list would go MGS3 > Ground Zeroes > Peace Walker > MG2 > MGS1 > MGS2 > MG1 > MGS4
Metal Gear Solid 3 is my absolute favorite due to the combination of story and gameplay. Everything about the mechanics from CQC to having to eat to survive combine to make this the most interesting Metal Gear to play.
Ground Zeroes is short but I think mechanically it's the most fun the series has ever been, so Phantom Pain has the potential to usurp Snake Eater as my favorite. Even in the small handful of missions included I managed to put well over 50 hours into the 360 version of Ground Zeroes.
Peace Walker I was down on at first, but as I played the game I came to really enjoy the mission based structure and base management aspects, and playing through the game co-op for the first time recently has been a lot of fun. The story is complete junk unfortunately, but the thing that keeps me coming back to Metal Gear games is the gameplay, not the story.
Metal Gear 2 I didn't play much of until recently when Legacy Collection came out and I replayed all the Metal Gear games, including playing through MG2 for the first time. I was surprised by how advanced the gameplay in Metal Gear 2 is for the time, and ended up fairly high up on my list.
Metal Gear Solid 1 I don't have much to say about, other than it's ridiculous how similar it is to Metal Gear 2. Both games have sections that drag, but I find MGS1 drags more than MG2.
Metal Gear Solid 2 fleshes out a lot of the mechanics from MGS1, but unfortunately the Big Shell is a really uninteresting and repetitive environment that just makes sneaking dull. I love the batshit insanity of the endgame, but it doesn't make up for the way the majority of Raiden's section drags along.
Metal Gear 1 I have the least to say about. It's primitive compared even to the other MSX Metal Gear game, but still fun.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the polar opposite of 3. Both the worst story and gameplay in the series make it my least favorite entry. Though the controls were the best they'd ever been in the series, the level design in this game is just terrible. I can almost have fun at points in Act 1 and 2, but the majority of the game just feels poorly designed, and often like I'm not even playing a stealth game. On top of that the story is just offensively bad, and it's upsetting that this is still the canonical end to the series. (Well, the main story at least. Metal Gear Rising happening afterwards is pretty fantastic.)
So how about you guys? How would you rank the series, or at least the games you've played?
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