People Who Took Effort in Making a PC Port of a Game

Most PC ports of console games, well ummmm...suck (excluding the games that come out with multiple systems when they release). Come on Final Fantasy VIII, good graphics, but they lowered the quality in the backgrounds, so it looked a little funny. Now here comes Microsoft and makes an excellent PC port of Metal Gear Solid (the Zelda or Half-Life of the Playstation). I spent hours playing Metal Gear Solid on the day I got it. Not only that Microsoft included VR Missions with MGS. It was much wiser releasing VR Missions with MGS instead of making it an expansion pack. Anyway, in the following I will break up the game into parts so you can see it's full awesomeness.

History
OK here's a little history of the Metal Gear series. The first Metal Gear game was released in 1987 for the Nintendo console and was called...Metal Gear. It was one of the first games that required you to not kill your enemies at first sight and to sneak around them. The game also had a strong plot like the Metal Gear Solid. I don't wanna spoil it for you, but it's in the manual if you wanna read it. Then a sequel came around called, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake also was released for the Nintendo console.

Now the great thing about Metal Gear Solid is that it refers back to those two games, and even includes characters from those two games.

Gameplay
This is the biggest chunk of the game...gameplay. The game actually requires you to sneak around your enemies without being seen. The good thing is that you have a radar that shows the enemie's line of sight. It's pretty funny because their line of sight is about 10 feet. It still is pretty fun though. The guards are pretty smart though. If you make any noise at all (making splashing noises in the water, walking across noisy grates, or knocking on a wall) the guard will walk towards that noise. Sometimes you need to lure your enemy so you can get to one point though. Also if you make any footprints in the snow, the guard will follow the footprints up to wherever they end. Say the guard finds you. He will alert his friends through radio and they will come to hunt you down. They don't really search as well as they could, you could just hide under a tank and they wouldn't look there.

Now there are many weapons to use at your disposal. Handy dandy hands. You can punch people, flip them over. If you get a little good you can go up behind an enemy and break his neck. Sometimes the hands are the best weapon. Then there's the trusty SOCOM. A pistol with a laser sight on it. Later you can find a supressor (silencer) so no one will hear you. If the pistol does nothing for you, there's the FA-MAS. A rapid fire machine gun. It comes pretty useful, but is a little loud. For those people who like explosions, there's the Nikita missile launcher. I radio guided missle launcher, that let's you control where you want the missle to go. Another type of missile launcher is the Stinger. It is a missile launcher that shoots at any target. It requires you to lock on in a scope mode. Then there's three types of grenades. Chaff, frag, and stun. The chaff grenade disables any electronic equipment (mainly surveillence cameras). The stun grenade, well stuns enemies for a little time. Then there's the frag grenade. 5 second fuse. At the end of the 5 seconds, it blows up. For those sniper wannabe's...er...sniping people there is a PSG-1 Sniper Rifle. Unfortunatly you need some Diazepam to calm yourself down so you don't go shaking all over the place. There's claymore mines, but they aren't very good. They're mines that explode. The last weapon is a C4. Just plant it, and explode it whenever you want...oh yeah.

In the VR Missions, there are over 300 missions. Some of them are pretty challenging. Especially the Mystery Level 10 (heh heh heh). But there is more than VR Missions. There are mystery levels. You have to use clues to find out who killed someone. There's the Ninja levels, where you take control of the Ninja/Grey Fox. Unfortunatly there are only 3 of those missions, but there still pretty cool. Trust me the VR Missions will keep you busy for quite some time. It even has a little percentage to say how much you've completed.

In the items department, there's a few. For fun, there is a camera, so you can take pictures of lazy guards. There's your cigerettes. Not very useful, but you nevre know when your gonna need them. Night vision goggles. So you can see in the dark. Infrared goggles, so you can see any enemies heat source. Your scope, also known as high tech binoculars. There's rations. They bring your health up, depending on how high your health bar is and how much you're damaged. Then there's two special items you can get, depending on what ending you get. You think I'm gonna tell you and spoil the game? Yeah, that's what I thought. There's more items like ketchup and stuff like that, but I would ruin some of the game.

Finnaly there's your Codec. A radio machine that you can use to get your fellow buddies advice. It also adds to the storyline. In some way, or another...

With everything above, you can see that much effort was taken into making this game. It was made with care...like mom's cookies...errr...umm...yeah.

Storyline
I'm saying it right here, I'm going to say as little as possible. Playing Metal Gear Solid has the strongest storyline I've ever seen in a game. It's like being a in a movie. With you being the main star. Also something I might add, if you look on the back of the box and see "multiple endings" don't go,"Oh my god there's multiple endings, there must be like a hundred." There's only 2. Anyway back to the storyline.

You must invade an Alaskan nuclear disposal facility, to rescue two hostages. That's about it for the main part. Once you get later in the game the storyline get's stronger, with betrayal, treachery, death...like a really bad soap opera. It even refers back to some of the stuff from the original Metal Gear games for more effect. Like someone you killed in Metal Gear 1 and 2 was Big Boss. Big Boss was a very strong soldier. The terrorists wanted the remains of his body so they could make stronger soldiers. Also one of the people you killed (Grey Fox) comes back and he's alive...OH MY GOODNESS! You end up having to fight him.

Anyway there's members of Foxhound that you must fight once, twice, or trice. The members are (in order of when you fight them) Revolver Ocelot, Vulcan Raven, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, and Liquid Snake. There is another character, Decoy Octupus, but little is needed to be said about him. Each character adds something to the story and makes it even stronger.

The storyline is very strong. It's like a movie. Once you beat the game, you get a special mode that shows the movies and Codec sequences in the game. Grab the popcorn and get the soda's. It's pretty fun to watch. One minor problem is that it's about 4 hours in sequences.

Sound
Pretty good sound. Not horrible, but pretty damn good. They have actors do the voices for the characters. Only a few of them have been in movies. Like David Hayter (Solid Snake) was in X-Men. And also three of the people were in Dr. Doolittle. Anyway. The sound is pretty real. It's really good if you have good speakers. Crank it up all the way and you'll feel like your in a movie theater, except with a smaller screen. The sound is very excellent and I've found no problems with it.

Errors
I just added this for info for people and the fact that Microsoft has such a #@$%ty support site. If you have problems loading MGS or VR Missions (throws you out on the desktop) and you are running Windows 98, I know your cure. Press CTRL-ALT-DELETE and close a program called Windows. Don't worry your comptuer will not crash. So far to my knowledge, I don't even know what it does, if it has any purpose. I've also had this problem with The Sims...but oh well.

Graphics
Now Microsoft Direct 3D support to MGS. Boy oh boy does MGS look sweet. There are a few graphical errors with MGS but not enough to worry about. The best thing is that you feel more like your in a movie with these sweet graphics. Microsoft enhanced everything so you don't have PSX quality backgrounds with high-res characters (ahem...Final Fantasy VIII) The graphics aren't as good as some of the games out right now but they sure make an effect.

Well then...
Well this is the part where I wrap up this awesome review...sniff...sniff... Metal Gear Solid is definitly a game to own. It will be worth your while. Something I might add is the I beat the game on easy in two sittings. About 8 hours of gameplay. Once I beat it, I got a score of how well I did. You get a code name based on how well you do. It is an animal. Note: Ocelot, Snake, Wolf, Mantis. The highest is Fox. I got Puma. Whatever that means you can call me Maniac Puma...yeah right. Anyway, this game is worth getting and is one of the top games of this year...err...last year. HAHAHA...laugh with me...HAHAHA...come on...HAHAHA...I don't hear you laughing...HAHAHA...that's the spirit.