Despite a poor port this is still one hell of a game
The game is broken up into 2 sections the tanker chapter and the plant chapter where you play the two characters Snake on the tanker and Raiden on the Plant chapter. The game also features more than 200 VR levels which are just like MGS1 but they can get a little repetitive so they shouldn’t have added so many. One last feature is the Snake Tales they are 5 separate stories not at all related to the Sons of Liberty story and can be challenging and enjoyable as you play Snake in different situations
The games overall structure is brilliant, the storyline flows along but is very complicated probably one of the most complex storylines in a computer game, it is even more dense than some Hollywood movies so if you tend to skip clips in game you will be very disappointed when you finish it even though some of them can be more than 30 minutes long
The gameplay is very well done you have a variety of move like hanging, choking, rolling sommersaults, hold ups and hand to hand fighting not to mention the vast arsenal of weapon you pickup in the game from a SOCOM pistol to a stinger missile launcher. But the main concept has not changed, stealth is the key so run and gunning moves are not cleaver. But don’t worry you still get you action segments in the game with boss battles and some ambushes from enemy soldiers As for the PC port it isn’t as good as MGS1 but when you can iron out all the bugs and configure it properly it will run perfectly on any midrange PC as its requirements are not that high but sadly it will not run under vista at the moment with the Vista beta drivers from Nvidia.
So Substance on the PC is a superb game that should not be missed and the added extras are fun to play with when you need a break from the games long and confusing (but very well written) story. But be warned when playing any MGS game you have to watch just as much as you play so if you don’t like cutscenes in computer games its not for you.