Metal Gear MSX - Critical Restrospective

Welcome to the first in a series of reviews for Metal Gear. Today we'll be taking at look at the game that started it all, Metal Gear, released in 1987.

It’s been 31 years since the release of the first Metal Gear and since then the eight sequels and various spin offs that followed have cemented the series as one of the biggest franchises in gaming to date and that was no small feat. Each entry into this series greatly expands on the formula set up in the early games while some bring entirely new features to better enhance game play and overall player experience. Hopefully by the end of this marathon we’ll see just how much this series has grown over the years and ultimately how it became the monumental beast it is today.

Now before I get carried away I want to lay down some ground rules, the first being that I’ll only be reviewing the main games in the franchise minus Portable Ops, mainly because Peace Walker pretty much ignores the events of that game anyways. 

This also means that the Metal Gear Acid, Survive and the Ghost Babel series will also be left out, given that they take place in their own timeline and are not considered canon. However I am going to be reviewing Metal Gear Rising: Revengence. While it is a spin off I consider it canon as Hideo Kojima was greatly involved in developing the story.

Secondly I’m going to do my best to keep these reviews as unbiased as possible. It’s very easy for me to rhyme off praise for these games but that wouldn’t exactly be constructive criticism now would it? So don’t worry this won’t be a series of me saying, over and over, that these games are amazing.

Now there is a lot to cover in this series and absolutely no time to waste so without further ado, welcome to the Metal Gear Solid series.

In 1987 a game designer working at Konami named Hideo Kojima was put in task of designing and directing an action game for the MSX, a popular games console in Japan. Seriously the furthest into the western market this console got was Argentina and Continental Europe it never broke the mold in American but was massive in Japan and the go-to platform for Konami at the time. After brainstorming the best route to go with this, due to the limitations of the MSX, Kojima decided to focus the game on stealth and not pure balls to the wall action and from that Metal Gear was born.

Now while the Metal Gear Solid series has become synonymous for it’s over the top story lines and lengthy cut scenes the plot of Metal Gear is pretty rudimentary and now that I think about it so is the rest of the game, this game is essentially Metal Gear in its basic form. And that’s not a bad thing, considering this was the first in the series and released on a fairly under powered platform.

Box Art for NES Port

There was a lot this game got right but a lot it manages to miss the mark on. 

But before we dive into the game play and stuff let’s talk about the story and find out where this series began. So here’s your mandatory spoiler warning so... 

Spoilers.

The game opens with FOXHOUND agent Solid Snake infiltrating a fortress known as Outer Heaven. Once inside Snake receives a radio call from his superior Big Boss who tells him to find Grey Fox, another FOXHOUND agent who infiltrated Outer Heaven a few days prior but went missing. Before going missing however Gray Fox transmitted a two worded message that simply read, “Metal Gear.” Snake’s primary object is to find Gray Fox and learn about Metal Gear. Snake is also informed that he will be helped by resistance members Kyle Schneider, Diane and Jennifer. With his orders received Solid Snake commences Operation Intrude N313 and the game begins.

Solid Snake (Metal Gear)

After exploring the base for a while and rescuing a few hostages along the way Snake is told that the only way to get close to Gray Fox is by getting captured so he goes and gets himself captured, is brought to a cell in the basement and after punching a wall a couple of times finally meets Gray Fox. 

Gray Fox explains that Metal Gear is a walking battle tank capable of launching a nuclear strike from anywhere on the planet and that the only person who knows how to destroy the machine is its creator, Dr. Drago Pettrovitch Madnar. Fox tells Snake to go find Madnar and as he’s leaving the cell Snake encounters the first boss of the game Shotmaker.

Now normally a boss unit in a Metal Gear game usually has a detailed background that is somehow linked into the plot but in this game, bosses just appear, introduce themselves then you have a fight, they die and are never spoken of again. 

There will be more on that later.

Fun fact though, if call Diane during a boss fight she can give you tips on how to beat them. But earlier in the game it’s her brother Steve who answers as Diane is out shopping or in the shower.

Anyways Snake beats Shotmaker and makes his way to the roof where he parachutes down into the courtyard only to find that Madnar has been moved to building 2. So it’s off to building 2 where Snake finds Madnar in the basement except it’s not Madnar but instead someone waiting to spring a trap, Snake avoids the trap and discovers that Madnar is on the second floor. Snake finds the real Madnar only to be told that the good doctor won’t reveal how to destroy Metal Gear until Snake rescues his daughter, Ellen, who for some reason is also in Outer Heaven.

Snake makes his way back down to the basement, rescues Ellen and then goes back to Madnar who explains that to destroy Metal Gear he needs 16 sets of plastic explosives and has to attach them to the legs where the armor is weak. 

Snake then makes his way over to building 3 where Metal Gear is being kept. Around this time things start to get weird, Big Boss starts to give misleading information to you and before Schneider can reveal the identity of the leader of Outer Heaven he is cut short and you don’t find out what happened to him. Snake makes his way to the basement of building 3 where he finds Metal Gear and after a back and forth with lasers and explosives Snake destroys the tank and somehow starts the self-destruct sequence for Outer Heaven. Trying to escape Snake encounters the leader of Outer Heaven who turns out to be Big Boss. Snake kills Big Boss and makes his escape, Outer Heaven explodes and Snake comes home, job done. The credits then roll and afterwards a radio transmission comes in from Big Boss saying “it’s not over, we’ll meet again” or something along those lines.

Big Boss (Metal Gear)

And that is the entire story of Metal Gear, and as you can see compared to future games in this series, it is very, very simplistic. It’s straight to the point and easy to follow.

That being said after experiencing the rest of the series before this game I really loved the change of pace it brought. Sure the story beats are small and predictable, but at least they’re there and even though I knew exactly what was going to happen I still got a rush of excitement when it was all revealed at the end. The fact that a game released in 1987 can provoke that kind of a reaction in person playing this 31 years on, yeah that’s pretty impressive.

But that’s really all I can say on the plot so let’s move on and see how the game actually looks and plays.

Now I’m reviewing this game based on the version released with the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the PS3 so I can’t say how the original MSX version was but overall this game plays pretty well. Controls are easy to wrap your head around thanks to them being mapped similarly to later games in the series. So if you’ve played one of them you know how this one works.

First let’s talk game design. Now I don’t know what it is but I have such a soft spot for 8-bit games whether it’s the music, which in this game is amazing, or just the pixel art graphics I don’t know. For a game released in 1987 it looks amazing and the graphical upscale that came with the remastered version gives the colors a more vibrant and deeper tone, trust me this footage does not do it justice. That being said I couldn’t help but feel that as you progress further into the game every area just seems to blend into one. The same textures are used for every building and they all seem like the same place even though you’re moving from location to location. 

The level design is great in building one and is designed specifically to encourage the item progression system in place, more on that later. However as you move into building 2 things start to get tedious. Every room and floor in building 2 is littered with guards and traps and it’s near impossible to get through here without setting off an alarm. Building 2 is also made up of two elevators one that goes up and one that goes down so in order to progress you have to find the right elevator which can be a pain if you don’t have the right key cards, more on those later. 

The game is broken up into different screens, with each screen showing a new part to the current building you’re in. Each screen has its own guard patrols and traps. Now something that is kind of annoying but surprisingly helpful at times is the fact that these screens reset themselves when you leave. What do I mean by that? Well let’s say you enter a screen and there’s two guards in it. If you take those two guards out, leave and come back in they’ll have re-spawned. This can be annoying if you’ve just spent the last few minutes taking out the guards only to have them re-spawn straight after you leave especially if you have to back track, which there is a fair bit of in this game. That being said bosses do not re-spawn so thankfully you don’t have to fight the same boss twice, not that that would be a total issue, definitely more on that later. 

However this feature is most helpful when it comes to ammo and rations. If you enter a screen with either or both of these items you can collect them, leave and when you come back they’ll have re-spawned so you can pretty much keep coming and going from the room until you’re fully stocked. 

Metal Gear's core game play is based around stealth, puzzle solving and item progression. Stealth is pretty explanatory and I’ll talk more about it in a moment but the item progression essentially encourages you to make your way through the areas picking up key cards, weapons and other items which open up doors and help you solve puzzles. Each door is opened by a different card level, with a total of 8 cards in the game. If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid or Metal Gear Solid 2 you know about the card system and by Metal Gear Solid 2 the card system was streamlined to the point where you didn’t even need them equipped to open doors. In this game however every card is its own item and it’s not clearly shown which card opens what door so as you progress you’ll find yourself standing in front of doors trying every card to see which one works, this wouldn’t really be an issue only that these situations usually happen in the worse places imaginable, more on that later.

Puzzles in this game are pretty simple but at times actually require some thought and are kind of cool when you figure them out. Take rescuing Ellen Madnar as an example. In order to get to Ellen you have to go through this dark area and I mean literally you can’t see anything when you enter it, the only way to get through here is to find the flashlight on the upper floors and then equip it in that area. This is how the item progression helps with puzzles, where you literally need a certain item in order to progress. 

Pretty clever I must say.

Now stealth has you doing the usual avoid guards and cameras and try not to raise an alarm. This game introduces the cardboard box and cigarettes to help you get past cameras and lasers, both items still remained in the series right up to Phantom Pain. Avoiding guards is easy enough however that’s mostly down to the silly AI. Guards can see you but only if you’re standing right in front of them meaning you can get as close to guards as you want and as long as you’re not standing directly in their line of sight they won’t see you. 

Another staple feature of the Metal Gear series are the detailed codec calls that reveal details on the story or tips on how to solve puzzles. In this game the radio calls are not half as detailed. You can only call your buddies in certain areas and anywhere else just gets you radio silence. Big Boss fills in for the usual Colonel Campbell in this game giving the player information on certain areas and items but sometimes this is more annoying than helpful. Take this gas room you encounter early in the game, Big Boss doesn’t tell you that you need a gas mask until after you’ve entered the room because he “forgot to mention it” but you’re already losing health at this point. Also leaving these rooms forces you to equip a key card which removes your gas mask so you’ll be losing health while you’re slogging through your inventory looking for the right card.

Big Boss also informs you that Schneider knows where said gas mask and other items are but Schneider just gives you a general direction to go to find them which in a game that has no compass or map, basically no real way of knowing where you are just comes off as tedious and unhelpful. Big Boss also doesn’t tell you what Schneider’s frequency is and I’m assuming that it was originally included in the games manual.

Kyle Schneider (Metal Gear) 

That’s all well and good but I’m playing a ported version of this game 31 years after its initial release, and yes I know that all I have to do is whip out my phone and type a few words into Google and I’ll find it. But really the guys over at Bluepoint games could have programmed a few extra lines of text to make up for the information that was provided in the manual. I make it sound like I’m being lazy but doing this would help boost immersion and wouldn’t slow the pace of the game. 

And while we’re on the topic of tedious and unhelpful information, this game is also lacking in series amount of it. It doesn’t really explain a whole lot to you. For example while making your way through building 2 you have to get card 7 from a boss called Bloody Brad but Bloody Brad is only vulnerable to attacks from a Rocket Launcher. However the only way to get the rocket launcher is to call Jennifer and she’ll prepare it for you but this is never explained in the game at all and unless you call Jennifer by chance after getting her radio frequency you won’t be able to figure this out.

Unless of course you look it up online but we’ve been over that so let’s move on. 

The game also doesn’t fully explain the class system it has. The class system is pretty simplistic, rescuing hostages gains you a star and each star lets you carry more ammo and rations. You also can’t contact Jennifer unless you’ve reached the highest class so if you haven’t been rescuing hostages good luck getting past Bloody Brad. You can also lose a class rank if you accidentally kill a hostage and this is fine I never really got the urge to shoot a hostage during the game except towards the end when you’re fighting the boss Dirty Duck who has surrounded himself with 3 hostages one of which is Jennifer’s brother. Accidentally killing these hostages will lower your class, yet another thing the game doesn’t tell you, so you won’t be able to contact Jennifer and on top of that if you’re not class level 4 you won’t be able to carry the 16 sets of plastic explosive needed to beat Metal Gear so you can’t actually beat the game. I think the most annoying part about that is the fact that the Dirty Duck fight happens so close to the end and if you’ve been rescuing hostages all the way through there won’t be any more to free so your class rank isn’t going back up. 

And that’s a lovely way to bring up the bosses of this game. So remember earlier when I said that the bosses don’t really add anything to the story well the reason for that is the fact that there is no explanation as to who they are or why they’re here in fact the only boss who has a shred of character development is Big Boss and that is mostly down to the discovery of him being the leader of Outer Heaven. I’m going to assume again that some of this information might have been in the games manual but again we’ve already been over that. 

The boss fights in this game are also stupidly easy mostly requiring you to stay in one corner out of their firing line until it’s safe to poke out and fire back. And sometimes you don’t even have to move from that spot like in the Hind-D fight and the one with Fire Trooper.

Apart from Big Boss and Metal Gear itself the rest of the boss fights are pretty forgetful and one of those two I mention doesn’t even move. Metal Gear just stands there and lets you attack. Yes, even though it’s the first Metal Gear to appear in the series, the TX-55 Metal Gear stands perfectly still and is instead protected by these cameras that shoot lasers. I mean it’s not great but its leaps and bounds better than what players got in NES version of this game, where Metal Gear was swapped out for a super computer. I would talk about the other changes made to the NES version but I’d probably need to do another video for that so let’s leave it there.

Now I really am making it out that this game is more tedious than enjoyable to play but that isn’t the case in truth at times this is a fun game it’s just old and shows its age. Back in 1987 games weren’t as laid out or diversified as they are today so if you’re thinking about trying Metal Gear out be a little patient with it. That being said if I was to recommend this game to anyone it would have to be to a fan of the series as you really don’t have to play this title to understand the story going into the likes of Metal Gear Solid or pretty much any other game in the series and to be honest I really don’t see anyone that isn’t a Metal Gear fan playing this game, I mean, I’m pretty sure if I wasn’t a fan I would never have played this game. 

But taking myself out of that fan head space and looking at this game from a unbiased critical perspective I can see the potential this game had back in the day and to be fair this game does pioneer a lot of the features that would become synonymous with the series even if they’re a little tedious and not fully realized just yet. 

Overall I’d give Metal Gear a solid, no pun intended, GAG rating of 6 out of 10. It’s a little rough around edges but definitely worth the experience if you’re a fan of the series or just like 8-bit games.

And that is Metal Gear, it’s where the series began and to tell the truth back in 1987 I don’t think anyone thought this game would spark a franchise that would go on to be massive in the gaming industry.

Now a lot of the features I had an issue with in this game are mostly resolved to some degree in the next game but that’s best left for another day. Tune in next time when we’ll be taking a look at the second game in the franchise, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Until then I’ve been Sean, thank you very much for reading and if you’re going to take one thing from this review let it be this, for all your news, reviews, playthroughs and previews, 

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