User Rating: 8.6 | Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes GC
Metal Gear Solid was easily one of the best games to come out on the PlayStation, now over 5 years later the game has been updated for a release on the GameCube. Using MGS’ story and MGS2’s gameplay and modern graphics Twin Snakes turns out to be a great game for the GameCube. There are three major new features for the GameCube version of MGS: the graphics, the gameplay, and the cinematics. When it first came out a few years back on the PlayStation MGS was a rather impressive looking game with good-looking characters and some nice environments as well. While the game still looks good today it really hasn’t aged quite that well, so the facelift that is given in Twin Snakes is quite refreshing. The areas look pretty nice, though there’s really nothing amazing to be seen it does look quite good. I particularly liked the outside areas where the snow was falling. Graphically it’s more or less on the same wavelength as MGS2; they both out do each other in certain areas. The enemy soldiers look a lot better in Twin Snakes than they do in Sons of Liberty, whereas certain characters like Ocelot and even Snake himself look a bit better in SOL. Since MGS is only around 5 years old you may be wondering ‘just how necessary is this remake?’ To some people it may seem like a silly idea remaking a game that’s not that old. But I’ve gone back and attempted to play the original and it’s really just not as fun as it once was. There’s so much that you’d want to do that isn’t part of MGS’ gameplay. So, fortunately, Twin Snakes adopts MGS2’s excellent gameplay. Now you can aim in first person view to pull off strategic shots instead of just shooting straight ahead in the original. At times this makes things more easier like when you first meet Meryl and the two of you must face a volley of guards outside the prison cells, it’s much easier to switch to first person and pull off head shots. Boss fights are made easier because of this also as you can now shoot Ocelot in the head to cause more damage, but really he was never that hard to begin with. Thankfully the AI has also been taken from MGS2. In the first game if you were spotted the enemy would yell out “There he is!” and immediately the alarm would sound and you’d be pursued. This time around the enemy must make radio contact for help, so before he does so you could knock him unconscious or shoot out his radio so he can’t call for help. You could also shoot their arm and leg so that they can’t shoot you and can’t run away. But the enemies also make frequent reports to their boss so if you take them out the boss will question why he hasn’t received a status report and will send a unit in to investigate, so you have to be careful and rely on stealth to get through many areas. Snake also has his roll move from MGS2, which is helpful in knocking down guards and quietly rolling over floors that make noise. You can also hang off ledges and increase your grip meter, though there aren’t many times in the game where this really comes in handy. Another cool feature is that Snake can now peek out around corners and jump out take a shot and hop back behind the wall, this is really good if you get in a fire fight with some guards. You can also sneak up behind guards and hold them up, aiming at their head or crotch to make them dance and maybe toss you some rations or ammo. The M9 handgun makes its way over from MGS2 and is good for giving guards some beauty rest. There are also some lockers added to certain areas where you can store asleep or dead guards or even hide yourself. The gameplay is just really great and adds a lot more value to the game. For this Metal Gear remake on the GameCube Japanese film director Ryuhei Kitamura has come onboard to direct the cinematics. If you’ve seen his film Versus then you know he definitely has some style. The shots and cuts he uses are very cool. Like when Snake and Meryl first meet and Meryl pulls her gun on him and Snake has his hands up with his back facing her, the camera goes to the side to reveal that Snake has his socom pointed at Meryl, it just looks really cool. Some of the scenes are very much like The Matrix, you’ll see bullets flying and being dodged, but in my opinion it just looks better, it’s really cool. The first fight between the Ninja and Snake is really awesome. There’s also a good amount of blood in this game, for example when the Ninja is in the hallway fighting the guards he cuts one in half and his blood sprays all over the place. You’ll see blood stain the walls and the Ninja is quite drenched in blood as well. Blood and gore is another thing you’ll find in a Kitamura movie. Aside from the M9 and the PSG1-T all the weapons are the same. You’ve got a pretty good assortment from grenades, C4, claymore mines, two missile launchers, and an assault rifle. But most of the time you’ll want to use either the M9 or socom as both have a silencer that is less likely to attract enemies. For those like myself who’ve spent a great amount of time playing MGS2 the controls on the GameCube will feel a bit awkward at first, particularly since the face buttons on the GC controller aren’t pressure sensitive. But it doesn’t take long at all to get used to it and ends up feeling quite nice. It is kind of lame that you have to press Start and A to bring up the codec, it could have just been Start by itself, you can press Start and B to bring up a pause menu with map, but it’s pretty pointless. Especially with the implemented gameplay of MGS2, Twin Snakes just isn’t very hard. Metal Gear itself puts up a pretty tough fight on the PlayStation game, but it’s rather easy to dodge the missiles and take it down on GameCube. However you could up the difficulty to hard or extreme if you believe it’s too easy for you. For those who have played both the PlayStation original and MGS2 you really won’t be seeing a whole lot of new things here. It won’t be like the Resident Evil remake (where everything was about 70% new), you’ll pretty much know what’s around every corner. Most everything is the same including enemy and item placements and boss strategies, for example in the fight with Psycho Mantis you can still plug your controller into slot 2 (or 3 or 4 if you like) so that he can’t read your mind. Those who’ve played the first game will have a sort of strategy guide mapped out in their heads and could probably finish it in one sitting. Of course for those who haven’t played MGS before this will be completely new to them, a new experience that they definitely should have. They’ve actually gone and re-recorded the dialogue for this game. Aside from Mei Ling and Naomi losing their accents the dialogue is almost exactly the same and it wasn’t really necessary for it to be redone, but oh well, another paycheck for David Hayter and company. That being said it still does sound really great, as does the music and sound effects such as gunfire and explosions. There are a few cool easter eggs in the game as well. If you look around you’ll occasionally find a poster for a Konami or Silicon Knights game. Also if you have a Eternal Darkness save on your memory card Psycho Mantis will mention that you like the game when he reads your mind (whereas on the PlayStation game he mentions if you have Symphony of the Night save data). All the unlockables from the PlayStation game including the bandana, stealth camouflage, and Snake’s tuxedo have made their way over in Twin Snakes. Also the dog tags that enemies drop when you hold them up from MGS2 are in the game, unfortunately you don’t seem to collect anything by obtaining them. Since many fans prefer the story of MGS to that of MGS2 this will probably become the favorite for many gamers out there. And the story is really cool. A government spy called out of retirement to take on some terrorists who are threatning the White House with nuclear weapons. If you’re into this kind of stuff then it’s really cool. The plot is much better than many of the spy movies that Hollywood produces. Needless to say this remake of Hideo Kojima’s classic is a very successful project. It does very well at blending the aspects of both MGS and MGS2 to create the Twin Snakes. If you’ve never played a Metal Gear game before then definitely pick it up because you’re in for a real treat. And hardcore Metal Gear fans should check it out too because it’s just simply a great game. A classic reborn on Nintendo’s GameCube.
