Potentially one of the most iconic franchises in video game history is none other than the Metal Gear Solid series, specifically due to the ones directed by Hideo Kojima. While the split between Konami and Hideo was a tumultuous one to say the least, it’s nice to finally see Konami take the time to bring some of the most iconic games onto modern platforms. While this collection mostly advertises that it only contains three games, it actually offers a good amount more. You are technically given seven different releases here, such as: “Metal Gear” (1987), The NES version of Metal Gear, “Snake’s Revenge” (1990), “Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake” (1990), “Metal Gear Solid” (1998), “Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions” (1999), “Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty” (2001), and finally my personal favorite, “Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater” (2004). I personally never got around to playing the titles released before 1998 and it was pretty neat to see where the series all started, but as we all know, this didn’t become one of Konami’s titular franchises until the Metal Gear Solid series began.
Given that these titles are decades old, I won’t go into much explaining the story to each, besides that these are seminal games in gaming history and are worthy of checking out if you haven’t already. The less you know, perhaps the better. As I began downloading this collection, I noticed that the collection is split up into separate games. It was strange that it all didn’t download at once, but you can select each specific game for download, I don’t know if this is because Konami plans on selling these games separately at some point, but the initial presentation felt a little messy. Upon actually booting the collection up, I could now select which game to play in a very unique looking menu. Aside from just the games there are a couple pretty neat little extras thrown in as well for the hardcore fans. There are a couple motion comics that were originally released on the PSP back in 2009 which were fun to rewatch after so many years. There is also a digital gallery that included screenplays and even pages of old school strategy guides from back in the day. There is even a selection of music tracks to listen to from all the games, unfortunately not the full soundtracks to each, but you get about twenty in total.
So now that we have these on modern platforms, how do they play now? Well, for better or for worse, they play exactly the same. They even look about the same as well. The resolution is capped at 1080p and there appears to be no sign of any kind of remastering done. In fact, for the first two Metal Gear Solid titles these are essentially ports from the “Metal Gear Solid HD Collection” which was released back in 2011. Unfortunately, it’s clear that the bare minimum effort was put into this collection. Konami has been doing a fantastic job over the years releasing collections with a lot of thought and care put into them, so it’s very surprising to see that the same amount of effort wasn’t necessarily put in for their most iconic IP. There have been better collections in the past which included more games, the fact that this collection is missing “Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes” is also very baffling to me. It’s difficult to recommend this title for the full price of sixty dollars, primarily due to the lack of effort that is shown. But if you’re a hardcore fan, you are still getting classic titles on your modern consoles, and that may be enough. There are trophies for each of these games, and that personally got me excited, but alas, the best I can score this is an eight out of 10 when this collection could have easily been a ten out of ten if there was a resemblance of love and care shown to these essential games.
8/10
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Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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