Together. It should be on PC too.
It may seem a bit irregular to write about a game pack for consoles on an overly PC-centered site, but there are ports and adaptations, so they are not too far from each other. I started as a PC-gamer,an I still avow myself one, but I never was stuffy enough to hate something just because… Well, you know your reasons. (Haters gonna hate anyway — Garcius)
Even in my ancient PC-days certain console games piqued my interest, although I could only dream about them. Then came an age of ports (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7-8), as well as the age of emulators. I would say there is no console emulator on PC I did not try. I grew up on classic PC games, but I was always seeking the extraordinary, and I was not interested only in PC games but Video Games in general, so I evidently got into the world of consoles too. To sum it up, I know almost everything from the ancients like C64, Amiga and Atari, through NES and N64 to PS2, Xbox360, PSP, Gameboy, DS, etc.
Well, consoles was always ruled mostly by the Japanese game market with two main streams. There are the brain damaged stuffs made only for Japanese people, and it is not a shame that they rarely appear elsewhere than East. And there are the big shots made for a western audience, for example the rightly appreciated Metal Gear (Solid) series.
When I tried Metal Gear Solid on PC (I played it through in 3 sessions), I decided I will never write console games off. Look, MGS1 was a console game, and it was ported to PC only because of its great success.
This article gives an overview of a game pack that can force whole planetary systems to their knees. The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection contains three full game giants with more than 100 hours of gameplay in each of them. They are excessively meaty, and till now, they were not available for such console big boys as Xbox360 and PS3.
But how this HD-thing made the grade? There were really screwed up setups like the Silent Hill HD collection that not just dug a grave for two classics in the series by being ugly and awkward, but the redub spat on that grave. So it is worth to be skeptic about this whole remake-reboot revolution, be it a movie or a game. If something is good, or let’s say, fucking good, then why should it be tampered with? Why should the nice remembrances of all the gamers be gotten out, wronged and killed? Of course, game industry recognized that some high-resolution textures won’t make a new game from the old one, so remastering reached new levels.
Moreover, everything should be upped to HD and re-released! I would be the flag bearer of this revolution, because I want to see the thousand years old classics on my shelf, in a playable and modern version. (On PC, most of the time this means that they make the old games playable on new machines. Well, bless you, GOG.com!)
One of the best examples is Grim Fandango, which was remastered and re-released for PC too, although the original news was about the PS4 re-release, causing anger and envy at the same time. I don’t know it yet, but if they did not change the music, the dub and the basic visuals, it would be a physical and spiritual impossibility to fail THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIMES. (Another good news; it was made by Double Fine — Garcius)
Back to MGS HD Collection! How did remastering succeeded?
Maybe MGS2 shows the least difference.
Of course, it is exceptional. The Metal Gear Solid got hyper-super high-res textures, but there is no FPS problem, the game speeds well, and they did not touch what was originally good enough. What’s more, there are some (dozens) extras in the pack. These classic games were not just revived, but they got a big general repair as well.
The Metal Gear Solid 2 was the black sheep of the series, and shamefully the last one on PC. This super long game is full of contents and spy gadgets, mixes action and stealth perfectly, and have the usual Hollywood story with poser characters and fine directing. I use these characteristics in the best meaning, because the father of MGS, Kojima taught us that East knows better what’s good for the West.
It does not save the world, but the change is spectacular enough.
The Metal Gear series is A-category trash in games, like Tarantino in films. A lot of people does not like these games, but every moment in them is cultic, so they are unavoidable. The directing is professional, the cutscenes are breathtaking, and you feel like watching a movie in which you are the main hero. Kojima loves to steal from the western film culture (the name Snake comes from Snake Plissken of John Carpenter‘s Escape from… duology), but he does it so elegantly that you feel it rather honorable than intrusive.
MGS 3 is a beauty. Those 10 years did good to it.
But the Sons of Liberty made a little but significant error. The gameplay, the complexity of the story and the characters are all perfect, there was a change. Luckily, the makers did not continue it: although it is called Metal Gear Solid, the main hero is not Solid Snake…
This was such a fail as if there was a Rambo movie about a pal of Rambo. It may be good, but the essence would be missing. Do not misunderstand; you can control Snake some times in the game, and he hes an important role in the story, but the developers wanted to introduce another main character, Raiden. He will be important too, but it is a luck we won’t need to play with him.
Why? Oh, why?
Except in the spin-off, Revengeance, which is reviled by hardcore fans. In this you have to slice everyone (and everything) with a cyber ninja Raiden. This game deviates from the series in almost every aspect, but it is still a brutal adrenaline bomb and action orgy. It is almost perfect; even in the shadow of the great predecessors it reached a score of 9/10, so my opinion is strictly subjective. Anyway, seen with the critical eye I must say Metal Gear Solid 2 is not a game you should miss out. It is thick and fine, unparalleled in the action-stealth genre.
Once the first two parts of the Thief series offered such a strong mix of story and atmosphere, and the third game was in their heels. The Splinter Cell and the Hitman series typically failed the grandiose atmosphere in which Metal Gear excelled.
GD gives you subjective opinions, but I don’t want to write some outpourings. For me, The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was one of the best game experience of all times, and with that I expressed my nonobjective love of this game by proper means.
In the Snake Eater every tiny particle of the Metal Gear essence was collected and combined. The storytelling of the first part got the new elements from the second installment, and they are larded with the strongest atmosphere af all. Jungle, tits, espionage, snake eaters, evil astronauts and other animals…
The Snake Eater is a ballsy jungle adventure, perfect spy game, and the coolest action orgy of the series. All of these are showed intelligently, and there is no self-praise. Let’s see the dry facts!
-The game was released 10 years ago, but it does not look much like it. It looks fucking good.
-Music, directing, atmosphere get an A-grade. (For example the Revolver Ocelot vs. Snake duels are jaw-dropping.)
-Sometimes the story is almost too complex, but it is super anyway. It is very enjoyable, and full of surprising twists.
-It has the best bosses of all the Metal Gears. The original first part had memorable bosses, but the most serious band appears in the third installment. Every one of them is a unique, exceptional character, and you have to defeat them in unique ways. The last fight is one of the most epic and touching main boss battle of the gaming world.
Well, this is not a review but a BUY THIS HD COLLECTION opinion, I won’t give you more details. If you are convinced by my very partial words and have one of the required consoles in your possession, do not waste more time, just buy it. But there is one more story…
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants” said Sir Isaac Newton humbly. And he was right; it is easier to build something fantastic on the foundations of a wonder made earlier. Well, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker does exactly that, but just as Newton, it did not just used the virtues of its predecessors, but exceeded them.
In spite of this, it was a bitch move against most gamers. A real white-hot dagger into the heart of those who were screwed up enough, like me, to buy a PS2 just for the sake of one or two such series as MGS…
Well… So, well…
The Peace Walker is a valuable, what’s more, the most content-rich member of the Metal Gear series, but it was released only for PSP, which platform is, let’s say, not full of good games, and I won’t buy it for one title. As a fanatic MGS-lover I could try this episode on a borrowed PSP a few years after its release. Incomprehensibly, even on this had-held console the game was better than Metal Gear Solid 4.
So, it is not a shame that I bought the HD Collection mostly because of the Peace Walker. It is worth a full new game’s price alone, but I got two remastered classics in the pack. Of course, compared to the original, the Peace Walker changed the most.
The PW deserves a review like its big brothers. In this combined article it is enough to tell you that the game is expanded with serious and complex base- and team-building that gives new depths to the series. Not to mention the multiplayer mode. The story is at the level of other MGS games, and it is supported with unique visuals (cutscenes and design).
Besides the above mentioned strategy elements the Peace Walker gives you the ordinary MGS gameplay. On PSP the control is a bit laborious and hard to get used to (but after you got used to it, it goes OK), but on bigger consoles it is more dynamic. I have to mention that there was a prequel for it on PSP titled Portable Ops, but it was not remastered.
Here, at the end of the article I compiled a timeline of the MGS games, because it is not a simple case. There are two Snakes in the stories, and there is more common in them than the name. Furthermore, Kojima cared not too much about time order, the developers did not force continuity.
1.) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (1964)
2.) Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (1970)
3.) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (1974)
4.) Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes (1975)
5.) Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain
6.) Metal Gear (1995)
7.) Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1999)
8.) Metal Gear Solid (2005)
9.) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2007- 2009)
10.) Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots (2014)
11.) Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2018)
—Árnyék—
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