The Best of Metal Gear Solid

When it comes to the stars of video games, I think a lot of gamers think of the Metal Gear Solid series as iconic to the industry as a whole and for good reason: It was the franchise that established the Stealth Genre as a whole and it's effects are still felt throughout the industry's history, even today. Not to mention it also set the bar for storytelling in a video game, involving themes about war, trust, and life in a huge epic whose story spans nearly half a century.

Truly, the franchise has earned it's place among the classics in gaming, but which of these entries stands out? Well, to find that answers, lets break down the bests of the franchise into several categories: Graphics, Music, Gameplay, Story, and Overall. Now, as much as I'd like to include the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, I'm not going to; not because I think they're bad, they're just a pivotal to the main franchise as any other entry, but here's the thing: I never played either fairly, so it wouldn't be right for me to judge these games, so yea: Probably good games, I just haven't played them.

With that said, lets start with Graphics!

Graphics

Now, it would be easy to just say that MGS4 is the best graphically and move on, but lets look at this in a different light. Instead of just saying which graphics are technically the most developed, but which game's graphics were good for their time as well as how they've aged with time. That said, lets cover what I consider to be the weakest of the series: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Why do I put Sons of Liberty so low? While it is the first game to be on the PlayStation 2 and has upgrades over the original Metal Gear Solid such as moving mouths, I think that's the same reason I think it's the worse graphical: Because the technology was so new and while I shouldn't count that against it, it still had a year or two after the PS2 launch to improve. While it isn't the worse graphics for its time, I consider it one of the weakest in the series.

Next I'd have to put the original Metal Gear Solid. Why? Well, for it's time, Metal Gear Solid was a masterpiece in terms of graphics on the original Playstation and even now, it stands as a testament to the console's graphical power. However, while it certainly stands as one of the best graphical games of the playstation, the graphics themselves haven't aged very well. They're pretty easily very muddy in appearance with hardly distinguishable faces. It's almost something of a joke when one of the masks you can get in Guns of the Patriots is Snake's MGS1 face just to show how more advanced graphics have become.

But that leaves Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots against each other. So which is the better graphically? On a technical standpoint, Guns of the Patriots really shows off what the Playstation 3 is capable of, though the same could be said about Snake Eater with the Playstation 2. Both games also did amazing visually with both their character models and animations as well as their environments. It's tough choice, but I'm going to have go with Snake Eater, because while Guns of the Patriots is good, the character models just seem a little stiffer in comparison, not to mention that the hair and facial movements in Snake Eater seem more natural. This helps the performances of the various characters become more visual and the player can connect with them more. Best graphics goes to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

Music

Games can be as fun as anything, but without a good soundtrack, there's just something missing to make the game truly memorable. This particular award is very straight forward: Which entry had the better soundtrack? Personally, this segment can almost be summarized by separating the soundtrack itself and the game's overall ending music. What's at the bottom of the list?

This is actually a difficult choice because half the soundtracks I love and the other half I find to be just okay. In the 'okay' half are Sons of Liberty and Guns of the Patriots. Why? Both games soundtracks just weren't too memorable. I could only name a small handful of music pieces that stick in out in my mind for those soundtracks. Additionally, the ending music, 'Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday' from Sons of Liberty and 'Here's to you' from Guns of the Patriots are also very underwhelming. If one is the worse than the other, I'm going to say it's Guns of the Patriots. This is mainly because while it did have a few good tracks, like 'Desperate Escape' and 'Old Snake', the majority of the music, while doing its job in setting the mood for each scene, I could name twice as many pieces from Sons of Liberty that I found memorable, including 'Yell Dead Cell', 'Fortune', 'The Tanker Incident' and 'Father and Son', and between 'Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday' and 'Here's to you', 'Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday' is the better of the two songs.

So that leaves Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid for the music award, and both have plenty of memorable pieces. I think every fan of the series knows the general Metal Gear Solid theme and hold that piece with high regard, which is why I'm sure that a good number of them were very disappointed when that piece was missing from Guns of the Patriots. That said, which of these two really stand out. Personally, I have a very big fond spot for the original Metal Gear Solid's soundtrack, because it's just so memorable and recognizable, though I have to admit that as much as I love Metal Gear Solid's Soundtrack, there are a few flaws about it. The main one being a lot of the action sequence music sounds very similar. Just listen to these two pieces:





Sound very alike, huh? Whereas in Snake Eater, the soundtrack is wide diverse and where I usually enjoy more active musical pieces, a lot of strength in Snake Eater's soundtrack lies in the subtlety of it's softer music. The emotions depicted in these pieces can range from triumphantly heroic to creepy to sad and heartbroken. Really, Metal Gear Solid might be more memorable but Snake Eater honestly is the better soundtrack.


Gameplay

Next comes a very tricky part, because not only is this a award for what gameplay was the best, but which one was one of the most innovative. That said, I'm going to give fourth place to Guns of the Patriots, mainly because it didn't really have a lot of new features, other than the Mk. II and the Octo-camo, which was really just a more automatic version of the camo system in Snake Eater. It wasn't bad gameplay by any means, but really it was more a refinement of what the previous entries had laid out rather than a full on change of the system itself.

Next, I'd put Snake Eater in second place over Metal Gear solid. Mainly because where Metal Gear Solid was very well done for it's system, Snake Eater refined what was set out for it in Sons of Liberty, while adding new features. However, while the system was intricate and interesting, the execution was very stop and go. The problem is every time you had to eat something or treat wounds or even change your camo, and you have to treat your wounds a lot, you basically had to open the pause and open the menu to do what you want to do. While it had a lot of innovative things, and even provided the improved camera that we would use in Guns of the Patriots, the stop and go menu system really drags it down. That said, Snake Eater introduced the CQC system, which was a lot of fun and really upped how you could mess with your enemies.

So why is Sons of Liberty at the top of Gameplay? To be honest, I got to say that Sons of Liberty is the stronger gameplay. It took the gameplay advancements in Metal Gear Solid and vastly improved upon them, providing different methods to sneak around guards, including hanging on railings, disguises, and the now traditional tuck and roll to knock away guards that we've come to enjoy. Furthermore, one thing that really makes Sons of Liberty stand out was the level of destructability of the environment around the player, with the bar cabinet on the tanker being the prime example. Sure, it had it's weak moments, but each the franchise had them. Best Gameplay goes to Sons of Liberty.


Story

While the gameplay is something we've all enjoyed about the Metal Gear series, it's the story we remember the most about the franchise and each entry had it's good share of a story to tell. However, to get best story, it requires something of a finesse to creatively continue the story in the Metal Gear saga, while still being a story that can be watched on its own and enjoyable. That said, which is the strongest story?

To start off, I'm sure a lot of people are in agreement when I say that Sons of Liberty is probably the weakest story-wise. Though, it's something of a interesting take on the series, where Hideo Kojima took the expectations of fans and twisted them into something different. That said, it's basically a retelling of the Metal Gear Solid story, but with a few twists and turns that admittedly were a little confusing. However, I got to say that the worse thing about the game's story and presentation were the (ahem) cutscenes that were just really just very long codec calls, even when the contacting parties were standing right in front of each other!

For third place, I'd put Guns of the Patriots, mainly because a lot of the story elements, while being done a lot better than Sons of Liberty requires a lot of previous knowledge from the previous entries in order to fully understand and that makes sense since it's the wrap up of Solid Snake's story. There were many cameos from the previous entries and knowledge about Snake's relations with those characters were needed to fully appreciate those characters. Also, there's the whole 'Nanomachines did it' way to explain things, but lets not get into that.

Then that leaves Metal Gear Solid and Snake Eater to compete for best story and both stories are excellent, well-done pieces about war, nuclear weapons, trust, and conspiracy abound, that don't require much if any knowledge to appreciate the stories they want to tell, but which story was the stronger one? Both stories had a strong feeling of family, including Snake's relation with Big Boss and his brother, Liquid Snake, for Metal Gear Solid, and Big Boss' relation with the Boss. The relation in Snake Eater is much more deeply explored and gives a lot of insight about why the Boss does the terrible things she does and explains why Big Boss turns down the path he does.

However, where Cobra Unit were very interesting, they weren't explored very well, simply having the bosses show up, fight, and then explode! Meanwhile, all the members of Fox Hound were given great detail and gave their voices about what's happening in the plot, as well as give their reasons for why they did what they did, so I have to say that while they weren't given as much depth as the Boss, they still leave such a strong impression and making the story on it's own a remarkable piece that any can appreciate. Best Story goes to Metal Gear Solid.


Overall

Now, with all the categories covered, we come to the grand finish: Which entry had the best use of all it's categories and ultimately is the superior game. Rather than go through the worst to best, we'll go through each entry and talk about it's pros and cons and then decide a winner. That said, we'll start with entry one: Metal Gear Solid.

Twin Snakes, Remake of Metal Gear Solid

Being considered one of the best games on the playstation console, Metal Gear Solid really set the bar for a lot of things. Epic story, great cutscenes, and fascinating characters and boss fights. It also brought the stealth genre to modern day game, where the concept, while still partially used in earlier titles, was never the main focus. That said, the graphics have dated a bit and even still, certain sneaking luxuries that are common place didn't take root until Sons of Liberty. In fact, this led to the creation of Twin Snakes, a gamecube remake of Metal Gear Solid, except with upgraded graphics and manuevers. Despite those complaints, Metal Gear Solid really did set the bar in franchise and is considered one of the best games period.

Sons of Liberty had a lot to live up and while it's gameplay was certainly superior to it's predecessor, the game itself is considered something of a black sheep to most fans, mainly because of the sudden character change to pretty boy Raiden and the overly confusing (not to mention lazy presentation) story towards the end of the game. The game itself is still a lot of fun, but people are greatful for the ability to skip cutscenes.

Snake Eater took the complaints from Sons of Liberty and improved upon them, providing a better told story as well as a much more interesting story that Sons of Liberty's unresolved Patriots plot. The gameplay took what was in Sons of Liberty and refined it as well as added on to it, providing a interesting medical treatment system, a food eating system, and a camo system for hiding in certain terrain, but this somewhat drags the game down a bit because of the stop and go menu aspects of it. Regardless, a lot of fans praise this entry because of it's moving story about loyalty and love, as well as giving more insight to a character hardly seen after the first two MSX games, Big Boss, plus it's set in a game system that is well done, if a bit slow at times.

Guns of the Patriots takes everything from the previous games and refines them, while giving a few new things to play with, but ultimately, the gameplay seems something as a afterthought. Sure, it's still a lot of fun and some of the sneaking movements are helpful, but they feel like little quirks that we've done already, just a little different. The story meanwhile tries it's best to wrap up the Patriots plot set up in Sons of Liberty and further explored in Snake Eater as well as answer questions as to their ultimate goal, along with the happenings to each character in the franchise thus far. The ending cutscene, while possibly the longest in the franchise, is a nice wrap up to everything fans have enjoyed in the series involving Solid Snake.

So we've gone through each entry and which is the best overall? To be perfectly honest, I really want to call this a tie between Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid. The gameplay in Snake Eater, despite its flaws was a lot of fun and the CQC system provided endless amount of entertainment, while the story and presentation in Metal Gear Solid is the best and is something I could watch any time. That said, if I had to pick just one, it would be Snake Eater due to the fact that it has great gameplay, musical score, graphics system, all while still having a epic story to tell in one tight package.