Metal Gear Solid

The Metal Gear​ series is a critically acclaimed series of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. In the series, the player takes control of a Special Forces Operative (Solid Snake in most games) repeatedly facing off against the latest incarnation of the eponymous superweapon "Metal Gear": a bipedal walking tank with nuclear launching capabilities. The series is famous for pioneering the stealth game genre, for its lengthy cinematic cut scenes, intricate storylines and its exploration of the nature of politics, warfare, environmentalism, censorship, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, loyalty, reality, subjective vs. universal truths and other philosophical themes. The series has achieved great success, selling more of 50 million copies as of 2010.

Games

The original Metal Gear, designed by Hideo Kojima, debuted in 1987 for the MSX2 computer platform in Japan and Europe. A heavily modified port produced by a different team was released briefly after for Nintendo's Family Computer in Japan and its counterpart, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), in North America and Europe. Konami then decided to produce a sequel for the NES, titled Snake's Revenge, which was also done without Kojima's involvement and released in 1990 in North America and Europe. One of the designers who worked on Snake's Revenge became acquainted with Hideo Kojima and asked him to do a "real Metal Gear sequel". Kojima accepted his request and began development on his own sequel, titled Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, released in Japan for the MSX2 in 1990.

After Metal Gear 2, Hideo Kojima worked on other projects (notably Snatcher and Policenauts) before directing his third Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid, which was released for the PlayStation in 1998. The success of Metal Gear Solid inspired a series of sequels and a prequel on the PlayStation home consoles as well as several portable games. Metal Gear Solid was followed by Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the prequel Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for PlayStation 2. The series storyline was finally concluded in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for PlayStation 3.

Expanded versions and remakes of the games were produced as well such as Integral, Substance and Subsistence. Several portable games were also produced and are mostly set outside the series' main storyline. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel tried to convey the features of Metal Gear Solid to the limited Game Boy Color. After that several games were released for Sony's PlayStation Portable. Metal Gear Acid and its sequel used turn-based strategy-mechanics in a heavy departure from the series' style. With the release of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops for the PlayStation Portable, the series 3D-action formula was first conveyed on a hand-held console and featured, unlike all previous hand-held games, a canonical story.

On May 18, 2009, a teaser site for the following installment in the Metal Gear series was uploaded by Kojima Production. The site has so far consisted of a series of countdowns leading to several flashing letters and the images of two characters looking like a middle-aged Big Boss and a cyborg Raiden. An article published in the July 2009 issue of Famitsu PSP + PS3 covers the content of the site and features an interview with Hideo Kojima. The interview, revealing too many details, is heavily censored and was published that way as a request by Kojima, who is directing and designing the new game. Famitsu is to publish the full interview in its following issue. The new game was eventually revealed to be Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which was announced on June 1, 2009 at E3, during the Microsoft Press Conference. During the Sony Press Conference, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was announced and confirmed to be directed, written and produced by Hideo Kojima; it will not be a spin-off game.

At E3 2010, a demo entitled "Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater - The Naked Sample" was shown for the Nintendo 3DS. The official E3 Kojima site later released screenshots and official art for the demo. Kojima did state however, that this was not a preview for a full game but just a sample of what could be done on the 3DS hardware.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising Trailer - E3 2010

Metal Gear Solid was my favourite game of that era.. what a classic

Rising is gonna kick so much ass

I still need to work my way through 2-4. Have you played them all? How would you rank them?

Yep, played them all and pretty much hung on every moment of each. My favourites in order are 4, 1, 3 and 2, but, as is always the case with such a story-heavy series, you'd be better off playing through them in order if at all possible, as important elements from previous titles show up throughout.

MGS2 was a real 'love it or hate it' experience, and if any game in the series does put you off powering through the whole saga, it'll be this one. In my own humble opinion, it's something of a flawed gem, very much storyline-driven with a heavy emphasis on 'bait and switch' and those much-maligned cutscenes. They were used to tell a good story and always felt relevant but they were also quite lengthy and very numerous, which was never going to be everyone's cup of tea. In spite of the brutally uncompromising and occasionally trippy nature of it all, I enjoyed the gameplay and the epic/preposterous (delete as appropriate) story arc so much that I was willing to overlook Kojima's excesses.

Snake Eater was in many ways, the absolute antithesis of MGS2, with tons of hands-on stuff and a relatively firm grounding in reality. The main focus is on camouflage and surviving by foraging for useful items, and though the game's much-vaunted "close quarters combat" system is far from perfect, it's also crammed with genuinely scary moments and memorable boss fights. The first time I fought "The End", I honestly thought my game was broken.

 

Which brings us to MGS4. You know, I hesitate to call it a masterpiece simply because it feels like I'm setting it up for a fall, but I just loved every minute of the damn thing. Once again the cutscenes are fairly lengthy, but this time it's because the game represents the end of Solid Snake's story, and thus every loose end they created in the previous games had to be tied up. And as you can imagine, that's a lot of loose ends. As a stand alone title, MGS1 is difficult to top but I found 4 the most enjoyable - it was just so packed with history and evocative moments that as a long time fan I couldn't help but be awestruck. You just have to play it.

And on a side note, I'm a bit surprised to see Raiden as the main character in Rising. He became quite the hate figure after the second game.

Thanks for the rundown

I already have 2 and 3, and a PS2, so I'm all ready to go. Just gotta find the time to get to them. Might have to make them my next undertaking..

Hopefully I didn't ramble on too much or state the obvious - I actually spent a couple of weeks revisiting the first three games in preparation for MGS4, so it was all fresh in my mind.

I struggle to think how you could end a series more definitively than MGS4 did, but there's apparently a fifth game on the way...

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive...-confirmed.aspx

i think a lot of these franchises are starting to milk the products. i understand that its a cash cow, but when you tell me its going to be the final installment. then 3 sequels are scheduled for releases...

i think a lot of these franchises are starting to milk the products. i understand that its a cash cow, but when you tell me its going to be the final installment. then 3 sequels are scheduled for releases...

 

I share your concerns but I'd still welcome the chance to play a fifth game, as long as it's done right.

 

Additional (and slightly gross) trailer from 'Rising'. It's long been said that Kojima loves his cutscenes - this time he may have taken it too literally.

 

It's long been said that Kojima loves his cutscenes - this time he may have taken it too literally.

I hope that slicing mechanic is as fun as it looks

Metal Gear Solid 5 revealed?

Whatever the current plan is for the fifth game, I hope it's a prequel. To pick up after the events of MGS4 would be doing the previous game a massive disservice, it was such an ideal way to bring the series to a close. I think what I'd really like to see would be the old Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, but remade with the MGS4 engine. After all, how many people would have played the original NES games?

I would cool down on the MGS5 rumor. Konami can barely get a release date for Revengeance and now we're already talking about MGS5? And if it was a prequel, who would it be for? Metal Gear Solid 5: Snake Swallower starring Solid Snake and Grey Fox?

On 6/26/2012 at 8:11 PM, VampireHorde said:

I would cool down on the MGS5 rumor. Konami can barely get a release date for Revengeance and now we're already talking about MGS5? And if it was a prequel, who would it be for? Metal Gear Solid 5: Snake Swallower starring Solid Snake and Grey Fox?

 

Snake Swallower is probably a more plausible title than Revengeance, which (lest we forget) is actually going to be the name of a real game.

 

Granted, MGS5 may be little more than a twinkle in Kojima's eye at this point, but I don’t see the performance of Revengeance having so much as the slightest influence on its release. Revengeance is an unknown quantity that promises to occupy a different genre, and the fact that it's been built solely around the MGS saga's answer to Jar Jar Binks is, if not a commercial death sentence, then certainly a disadvantage. It could hardly be seen as a stretch to imagine any chapter of Snake’s story generating a hell of a lot more interest from the fans.

So, 'Revengeance' (cringe) finally landed. Truth be told, I've started to think of it as more of a back burner title than a must-have in recent months, though I'm sure I'll be picking it up sooner or later. Anyone planning to give it a shot?

Trailer for 'The Phantom Pain'.