Stealth games are one of the most popular genre for gammers to play. The object is not to see how many enemies you can kill, but how long you can go without being detached. Most games in these genre are horror games, but the game that started it all was actually a military style game with a plot that could have been a summer blockbuster. Released in 1998, Metal Gear Solid spawned an entire franchise, but also the modern video game.
A renegade group of enhanced soldiers named FOXHOUND has seized a nuclear disposal site called Shadow Moses. They have hostages and the giant mecha Metal Gear REX which they will use if their demands are not met. Solid Snake is forced out of retirement to infiltrate the island and stop them at any cost. He will discover that old allies are alive, revelations lurk around every corner and he might have been sent here for reasons other then what he was told.
Stealth is what Metal Gear Solid is all about. Prior games might make you think you need to find the nearest shotgun and start blowing people away, but Snake needs to remain unseen and undetected if he wants the mission to succeed. There is nothing more intense then hiding around a corner and praying that the guard is not going to spot you. You can use a variety of items in order to aid you, including the famous cardboard box. The red exclamation point is here too, one of the underrated jump scares of video games.
This was a game that changed the rules. While stealth game-play was a pretty new thing, it was also the cut-scenes that made Metal Gear Solid unique. These were simply not just a few lines of dialogue to get to the next game platy section. Effort was put into them and the total running time is over 3 hours for all of them. Considering that there are games that have less hours in game-play time, this is a impressive feat. The voice acting, all lines have them, puts real emotion into the story.
Metal Gear Solid was one of the earliest games that showed you could put effort into the game-play, story, cut scenes and graphics to make the most complete experience. Hideo Kojima, the developer, stated that this was game was created with the goal of being the best game ever. The team put in work learning about how different weapons and tactics looked from experts. There is so much detail here that even the desks are all different.
Metal Gear Solid is regarded as one the best games, but it is also one of the most important. It has a combination of both gameplay and presentation. Gamers saw that they could have both without a drop in quality. This attention to having the best product you could create would follow the series through it’s many sequels. To date, there has not been a movie adaption announced. We don’t need one, just play the game.
