Reflections

Someone on the local forum made an interesting remark upon trying out the new Metal Gear Solid Essential Collection bundle, presumably after not having played them for a while or probably not at all as i were to guess. While Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 still looked great, he nearly "puked" while he saw the original Metal Gear Solid for the PSOne. Unfortunately, this is the grim reality that technology advances in the video game industry has spoilt us all and most new comers are unable to tolerate older games with graphics that hasn't aged well.

Gametrailers, in light of the upcoming release of MGS4 has just started their Metal Gear retrospective which is a great introduction and reflection of the series, something both new comers and long time fans will enjoy. The first part released, covers the events of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 as well as the non-canon Snake's Revenge. kojima took great efforts to include these games in the recent Subsistence collection as they probably meant a lot to him and his career. i can't help but to feel that many who purchased Subsistence never even bother to give these retro games a try, given their outdated graphics. However, the great thing about video games is that watching them is usually just as exciting as playing but video games are meant to be played. kojima himself even stressed this point in the foot note of the third disc of Subsistence, featuring the movie-cut of Snake Eater's storyline.

For me, Metal Gear 1 and 2 were the highlight of the Subsistence package and though i have yet to try out the free-camera in the actual Snake Eater mission i have completed both Metal Gear 1 & 2. I'm just wondering how many others did the same?

Metal Substance

The Metal Gear hype machine is nearing in full swing, what with the release of the final installement of Metal Gear Solid only two months away. I picked up a copy of the recent Metal Gear Solid Essential collection (thanks andy!) and PTOM tribute issue to Metal Gear. Having played and owned the first edition of these Metal Gear installements, it's nice to finally own a compilation of the director's cut of the games so i can play it over again in the future. The sad reality is of course, i most probably won't get a chance to play Metal Gear Solid 4 when it's released later this year as i have yet to get my Playstation3. Not that it's much of a disappointment as i never saw myself as such a big metal gear head, surely not big enough to purchase a Playstation3 just to play it.

The truth is i'm not abig fan of convulted storytelling in video games and the Metal Gear series is notorious for that. The only Metal Gear storyline i thoroughly enjoyed was Metal Gear Solid as i love the theme of liquid versus the solid, the light versus the dark. I liked it so much that i went to great lengths to acquire the Gamecube-only remake as soon as i got my Nintendo Wii. While the subsequent sequels had all been great, the first Metal Gear Solid was the one that truly lived up to it's hype, it remains to see if the truth can be said about this new Metal Gear. However, the new Metal Gear sequel has just about the worse box art in the history of Metal Gear games, a 3D image of Old Snake mug ravaged by the horrors of war and nicotine......very nice Konami.