Engaging and immersing, though a plethora of poor design choices mar gameplay and detract from this remake's appeal.
Figuring that starting from the start would be the best way to appreciate this franchise as a whole, I decided to hunt down this criminally under-bought GameCube remake of the original (the game reportedly sold around 70,000 units worldwide, Source: VG Charts [1]), instead of playing the original for the PSone version for the simple fact that nearly the entire game had been remade, from cutscenes to gameplay. This avenue is equally enticing and depriving. While I get to experience the first MGS game, I do not have the chance to experience it in its original form. Despite this, I figured remakes was better than not, and I spent a lot of time hunting this game down.
And, after finding a cheap copy and playing through the game, I still wonder whether my diligence to seek this game out was worth it. Despite having experience what is considered by many to be the architectural founding the stealth genre (which, if you know your history, is a partial fallacy [2]), I felt rather cold and disappointed. I now wish I had more historical context in which to base the original PSone classic, but playing The Twin Snakes is mite bit disappointing. The aged mechanics are crudely mixed with many gameplay innovations found in Metal Gear Solid 2, and a failure to appropriately build The Twins Snakes around these new elements definitely weakens this game's appeal, especially when compared to the brilliant utilization of game mechanics in MGS2.
But weak implementation is Twin Snake's only major fault. The narrative has been re-stylized, and in some ways, it for the worse. The voice acting is better, the story is explained with more clarity, relationships are explored more thoroughly, several pre-game cutscenes buried in the opening menus elaborate on the game's colorful cast, but transforming the gritty MGS world into a Japanese action-extravaganza complete with slow-mo bullet-time effects chips away at the continuity of the franchise as a whole. Seeing Snake dive behind a boulder to dodge a tank shell is more interesting than seeing him do a back-flip over it. It detracts from the pseudo-realism of the game's structure, which places stealth over action. Rambo would have trouble navigating these corridors. The gameplay focus of the game, however, is a tricky subject to deal with.
The Twin Snakes basically gives you all the abilities found in MGS2 and throws you into the beautifully remastered environments of the original MGS. According to nearly all I've spoken too (and all the YouTube Let's Plays I've seen) confirm that practically nothing's changed, so all the previous tactics approaching the game's scenarios apply, on top of all the new strategies available to you thanks to the inclusion of many MGS2 elements. This makes for a breezy experience, but I still suspect that the blitzed youth of the current FPS-generation will find that the stealth-oriented, sneaking > shooting approach doesn't lead to as much payoff.
Granted, the thoughtless implementation of these MGS2 elements seem to promote bad behavior. Run n' gun is slightly more of an option thanks to First Person Mode, thought the MGS2 artificial intelligence patterns insures you that the guns-only approach suffers more than the game-approved stealth approach. Granted, the unchanged environments are relatively small, unlike those of MGS2, so dispatching guards with First Person Mode is an even easier challenge. Stealth and environmental navigation is also easier than before, thanks to the ability to hang off ledges and such, so the difficulty dips in that department as well. Cranking up the game to Hard, however, changes mostly everything. AI is much more alert, more cunning, and annoyingly aggressive (in a good way), and your character goes down in a few hits. This revival of challenge makes all of your endeavors more rewarding, and it adds layers of fun, excitement, and tension to the game. Lower difficulties are much breezier, and really detract from the tension overall, which the game utilizes for both gameplay enjoyment and (appropriately) the story.
But with gameplay gripes aside, the narrative, despite its flaws, manages to give the player enough emotional context and weight, despite creator Hideo Kojima's startling ability to obscure and muddle even the simplest tidbits of story information with bloated, filler-esque dialogue that flows with the finesse of a person trying to recite poetry after having their molars removed. It truly is quite painful to sit through dialogue that goes:
"You need to get card keys, Snake?"…………..
"Card keys?"……………
"Yea, so you can override the security systmes."……………
"Security systems?"…………..
The dialogue can really get weighty and pointless at times.
Which is so unfortunate, because when the game gets emotional, or when the stakes rise, you feel the situation escalate, you feel the weight behind the actions of the characters. The story twist, turns, surprises, enthralls, and entertains. You become engaged. Immersed. You participate in the kind of experience that gamers strive for; what we, as gamers, often hold as the basis for our love of games.
Here, I at least can understand why I love games and why I choose to engage in this rich, unique medium that has so much to offer. It's just a shame that this particular experience, The Twin Snakes, has so many quirks and design flaws marring the experience.
[1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/1333/metal-gear-solid-the-twin-snakes/