I was born on a battlefield. Raised on a battlefield.

[Wools]

I really do love the series and although I hate the fan service and terrible writing, I class the original Metal Gear Solid and MGS3 as two of my favourites.

Metal Gear Solid has the best writing and a perfect mixture of serious tones and complete silliness that the series never quite recaptured in till MGS3. I love the Alaskan setting on this deserted island and the graphics that the PlayStation pulled off are still impressive.

MGS3 was the game I always wanted, survival out in a jungle where you’re placed down and then have to fend for yourself. There’s little handholding, the gameplay to cut scene ratio is perfect after the stop start nature of MGS2 and it still looks beautiful. I thoroughly recommend you pick up the Xbox 360 HD Collection as the camera can now be controlled and it’s been afforded a super slick frame rate and is now in glorious widescreen. A godsend for picking out enemies, human or creature!

The other Metal Gear Solid games are still good, but MGS2 is so full of waffle that it can become a bit boring especially as Kojima went to town with the sub plots. MGS4 meanwhile is a horribly flawed masterpiece. It has great moments that stick in your mind but it’s stuffed with characters, conspires and hidden meanings that you’ll have a job of deciphering it all. The new control mechanism is welcome but the gameplay mechanics have changed to allow shooting in plain sight to be an accepted tactic and this harms the game somewhat. What killed it for me was the terrible writing, Anime style fan service, the game not finishing anyone’s story and Kojima clearly not knowing when to say cut.

I played Metal Gear Solid because it was an espionage game where you played an ex special forces solider who crept into an abandoned facility and snapped necks to get things done. Along the way, the game surprised you by including a character rich story, playing with the idea of being a game by attempting to break out of it with the Psycho Mantis Boss Fight and other really neat touches.

Somewhere along the line, the central conceit of the game started to get muddied and the fan service, ridiculous story and long writing came to the front. If Kojima can get the series back to its roots, and allow the narrative and cool gameplay scenarios to bubble under the surface, then he could create something as special as the original.

[EvilBoris]

MGS3 is definitely my favourite, followed by Twin Snakes! (Screw the haters).

I've played MGS2 through several times but it goes a bit wonky near the end and you kinda lose track of what's going on. Lack of variation in environments was a bit of a killer.
I don't think anything could beat the lead up to their releases and the wow factors of their graphics for the PS2 games though, it was genuinely exciting when the release came, like having the next chapter in a book you adore.

MGS 1 is kind of timeless due to its beautiful simplicity. Although I'd rather go back and play TwinSnakes I will always remember the murky blockiness of the intro, Snakes featureless face and Meryl's Minecraft texture blood stain.

I think they had really nailed the cutscenes in MGS3, it felt proper epic. Going back to it recently it did seem like the codec conversations were far too overblown. I was sick to the teeth with people giving me philosophical lectures about the follies of war and the place of a soldier on a battlefield serving his country no matter the enemy etc etc
It was as if Kojima was trying to get across every argument for and against war in several muddled monologues.
It does also end with an absolutely cracker of an emotional ending, showing you how and why Big Boss turned his back on the US. Proper amazing is that.

As much as I enjoyed MGS4, I found it somewhat forgettable. Only certain scenes stand out in my mind.

[nakamura]

The voice acting and overall music in MGS was superior in every way to Twin Snakes.

[yvrmikiw]

cutscenes also. solid snake was more like a superhero than a soldier in the remake.

[koopatroopa90]

Twin snakes plays so nicely though, must have completed it around 50 times...

I rather like MGS 2, never found the cutscenes to be any worse than in the other games, if anything I remember mgs 3 being the worst for that, but then I haven't played it for ages so could be wrong.

[speedlolita]

The only reason I can think of anyone liking Twin Snakes more is that they didn't play enough of the first one.

[Neon Ignition]

That's mainly it, Twin Snakes looks better and plays better. There is a slightly better sound to the voice acting in the original MGS but I kind of like that Twin Snakes scripting is how Kojima preferred it rather than interpreted as was in MGS. That's not to say it's always better scripted than MGS but, though more convoluted at times, it fits in with the other 3 a little better as they're fully Kojimafied. The soundtrack to MGS does beat Twin Snakes but by and large most of the differences are minor enough that there's no real reason to choose MGS over it these days bar nostalgia.

[Golgo]

Reading these posts, I'm tempted to give MGS3 another chance. I didn't much enjoy it first time through. The tech needed to survey your environment was unwieldy and unhelpful, especially when combined with original top-down view. I appreciate the tech was more 'period'-accurate; but in MGS, really, what's the point in aiming for realism?

[Dogg Thang]

I still have much love for the original. I replayed it again about a year ago and, for me, it still holds up really well. It's so aware that it's a game and is very much built around that - the areas are built like levels to work with the gameplay and the radar mechanic. It's nowhere near as cutscene heavy as the later games, although there are a few ridiculously long codec conversations. The backtracking card bit I feel is a bit of a frustration but mostly I think the gameplay works really well.

Golgo, what you describe was my problem with MGS3 too. In that, the gameplay mechanics and level designs didn't quite seem to work as well. It's like it tried to lay out the levels more realistically and that didn't quite work with the camera and the sound mechanic thing. Although I know the camera was improved in later releases. Great story, although the cut scenes really began to take over in 3.

The first MGS just has the balance right for me. It's a great game from start to finish. Not perfect but the good outweighs its flaws in my opinion.

[nakamura]

The first 4 or so hours of MGS 3 I found insanely frustrating but after that I completely fell in love with it. I would highly recommend the 3DS version in terms of gameplay as it has 3rd person shooting and crouch walking, superb.

[Brad]

Reading these posts, I'm tempted to give MGS3 another chance. I didn't much enjoy it first time through. The tech needed to survey your environment was unwieldy and unhelpful, especially when combined with original top-down view. I appreciate the tech was more 'period'-accurate; but in MGS, really, what's the point in aiming for realism?

All MGS games are accurate military simulations, as used by the British Armed Forces. People laugh now but the first time a US Navy Seal has to fight against Laughing Octopus he'll wish he was British.

[Guts]

The thing with MGS3 is that you really should play Subsistence version of the game with the free 3rd person camera. I can imagine it being very frustrating with the top-down view.

[Neon Ignition]

Absolutely agree, I enjoyed MGS3 at the time but Subsistence is the definitive version of it.

[Wools]

That's mainly it, Twin Snakes looks better and plays better. There is a slightly better sound to the voice acting in the original MGS but I kind of like that Twin Snakes scripting is how Kojima preferred it rather than interpreted as was in MGS. That's not to say it's always better scripted than MGS but, though more convoluted at times, it fits in with the other 3 a little better as they're fully Kojimafied. The soundtrack to MGS does beat Twin Snakes but by and large most of the differences are minor enough that there's no real reason to choose MGS over it these days bar nostalgia.

I disagree as there is a clear difference between the original Metal Gear Solid & Twin Snakes.

Although Twin Snakes looks and sounds better technically than MGS, it does not mean it?s better artistically. I always thought that Twin Snakes was clean & sterile in the look of its environments, characters and art design. A game from 1998 cannot hope to compete with a game released in 2004, but MGS really does compete as there is so much detail and care in the wobbly textures, blurred visuals and blocky visual effects. KCEJ had taken the PlayStation to its limit and had years of polish put into the game that Twin Snakes always seemed lacking. If anyone was around at the time of its release, then you may remember that the aesthetic qualities of Twin Snakes was compared to the art design of P.N.03?

Also there was numerous shoe horning of the gameplay systems of Metal Gear Solid 2 back into MGS and not always for the better. The First Person Aiming and Dart Gun were brought across and with the level design being kept in place, making it easy to lock on and dart all the guards in the area, it made negotiating Shadow Moses a complete breeze and removed so much of the tension that made MGS what it was.

Finally my most major criticism was the change in tone of the story, by removing the original localisation and allowing the cut scenes to be directed with all the extravagant flair of an Asian action film where all the stunt performers are on wires. The original localisation was handled by Jeremy Blaustein, who decided to remove some of the most ridiculous moments of the script to improve the acting and tone down the story. This made the first game far more grounded and it remains my favourite MGS in story and script, without question this was down to Blaustein?s efforts. Kojima was noted to of hated Blaustein touching his work, removing him from later games and insisting that subsequent games were translated with his script intact. It says something that every other MGS has had worse acting and scripting without his involvement.

And regarding the love it, hate it cut scenes of Twin Snakes. In the Metal Gear Rex room, Snake is looking through a Door at Liquid Snake (Or was it Revolver?) and needs to get to the other side to see in. In MGS he hops across. In Twin Snakes, he summons the will of an Olympic Athlete who is possessed by a Cheetah and jumps over the door frame, around 7ft in the air?

It?s not a nostalgic decision to choose Metal Gear Solid over Twin Snakes, there?s some very good reasons why someone would not like the Gamecube remake.

[speedlolita]

Very well put Wools.

This thread is making me want to play MGS again.