(Played Metal Gear Solid Integral, part of Master Collection Vol 1 on Switch, with English voice-over plus subtitle and Japanese interface. This version’s original release allows owners of Japanese PS1 to play in Japanese text while listen to English voice-over. “Kill screen” says 8 hours and 47 minutes on Easy, or the default for the Japanese release.)
Xbox’s so-called “reset” under Asha Shrama involes massive layoffs starting in summer, 2026. Yet, with all the expanse saving justification, “Hideo Kojima’s” expansive OD resumed its production after the untimely passing of one cast member. One has to wonder if Kojima’s Hollywood partners prevented the already expensive project from cancelation. Breach of contract suit filed by this lot can cost a lot more. So, this is good a time as any to look back on the game earned Kojima some English-speaking allies.
1998’s Metal Gear Solid is quite an oddity. Some of its designs were ahead of its PS1 time before they became standard for the 21st century. The game contains the vibe of 1990s’ “VHS future” my 36 years old mentality is rather fund of. The mixture made it the best among things branded “A Hideo Kojima Game” before its creative lead went off to the deep end since 2001’s Sons of Liberty. Here are the reasons why.
Student becoming teacher
In the year 2005, a commando code named Solid Snake was forced into going up against his old unit Foxhound. Led by a man only known as Liquid Snake, this special unit outfitted with lethal freaks took over a nuclear weapon storage in Shadow Moses and made demands to the US government. It seemed only Solid Snake can stop them, but he soon enough found himself in a labyrinth of intrigues.
A film franchise called “Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007” inspired Metal Gear game series very heavily. So, it’s funny to see the former taking cues from the latter in the 2020s, in both interactive form and otherwise. 2021’s No Time to Die took the gene targeting Nanobots, visualized radar with details and firefight up a tower. Even before that, Ben Whishaw as Q since 2012’s Skyfall looks, sounds and feels suspiciously like Hal “Octacon” Emmerich voiced by “Christopher Fritz”.
IO Interactive’s First Light has a snowbound penultimate chapter. From high-tech diving gears to a half-built giant mech, it’s almost 1998’s MGS with backtracking and boss fights cut out. One got to wonder if Raymond Benson (a novelist wrote several James Bond books and one Hitman tie-in novel for IO) passed something to Eon Production (the cinematic shepherd of Bond before THAT Amazon) after he wrote 2008’s MGS English-language novelization.
Of course, this is just on the surface as MGS did reflect real anxiety people had back in the late 1990s. The game has an unsettling atmosphere, I dare say, none of its sequels recaptured. Not even the fourth act in MGS4. Take the hangar of Metal Gear Rex for example, the utter darkness surrounding the mech provides dread in a way the sequels’ similar levels cannot match. Well, as many problems as I have with Death Stranding, only its snowy mountains are this awe-inspiring in terms of “A Hideo Kojima Game”.
Tactical Pac-man
The PS1 generation was a time when Japanese developers just loved to come up with their own name for video game genres. Some, like Survival Horror made for Capcom’s Biohazard/Resident Evil, sticks while more, like MGS‘ Tactical Espionage Action, didn’t. People seem to prefer the simple word Stealth while other aspects like relatively generous checkpointing and melee strike defaulted to right face button were taken up by all sorts of console Shooters since the generation after PS1.
MGS1 is no shooter. Its handling of small arms fills the description of “spray and pray” but not “gun & run” with the left fact button, the one to grab and choke enemies when unarmed. Such design is likely to discourage armed confrontation while encourage stealth and avoidance. The MSX influence of scope screens ahead is still here, as the top-down game perspective and mini map are both limited enough to allow top face button for first person perspective to be the most effective way for looking ahead.
Solid Snake can equip an item on the left and a weapon on the right at the same time. Items include Ration for healing, key cards and all sorts of wearables. Weapons include 3 types of small arms, 2 different rocket launchers and several explosives. The game is under the action adventure umbrella, and such limitation makes it closer to the point-and-click variety.
Unlike the sequels’ weird obsession of non-lethal warfare, MGS1 does not look down on players for committing virtual killing. Choking an enemy combatant to death lowers Alert to Evasion while knocking them out is all too brief only useful for legging it. I mean the bosses’ last words are considered the best writing in this game, so discouraging killing would have felt extra deranged and unhinged here.
The only time Hideo Kojima cleaned up some of his acts…
“One watch more than one play in ‘A Hideo Kojima Game’” is always true. Take the Ocelot fight to save Kenneth Baker in this game for example. Yours truly finished that during commute home, so Ocelot’s hand got cut off as I past one station, then Baker’s final words on nuclear material unaccounted for did not finish until three stations went by, Not to mention, Mr. Permeant Hard-on’s life bar automatically grows longer after a boss fight certainly does not swing from Solid Snake being a dick joke.
Still compared to Solid Snake dissing VR training in MGS2 after it and Policenauts insisting on teaching its readers about the Moon after it, 1998’s MGS1 contains the least amount of bullshit among things branded “A Hideo Kojima Game”. The patting here being backtracking is at the very least interactive. While Switch screen went dim during cut scenes, it went dim less frequently compared to the sequels. The camera works are simple and effective, not needlessly fancy like in the sequels.
If one wants to experience the platonic idea of “A Hideo Kojima Game”, MGS1 is the only way to go.