Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Solid Snake on GameCube, the result of collaborative work between Hideo Kojima Shigeru Miyamoto. Will the Twin Snakes be a match made in heaven?

	Version GameCube	Developer Konami / Nintendo	Publisher Konami	Genre Action

By Neil McPhillips

Cast your mind back to the late 1990s, a golden era of games that gave us our first proper taste of what 3D could be. We saw such classics as Panzer Dragoon Saga, Super Mario 64 and of course, Metal Gear Solid - a game that helped take gaming to a whole new level. Boasting a complex and adult story that rivalled many of Hollywood's big budget offerings, MGS took the gaming world by storm.

Jump forward a few years and it's now the sequel that blows the world away with its story, visuals, music and cinematic quality. It's no surprise that Metal Gear Solid 3 is soon announced, but despite the series' huge fan base calling for a remake of the first, it's still just a pipe dream. Well that was until 2003, when Konami and Nintendo made the shock announcement that they were to work together to bring Metal Gear to the GameCube!

It took a while for the full details to be revealed; first we got a title with some concept art followed shortly by some screenshots but it wasn't until E3 2003 that we saw it in motion. I remember my eyes being as fixed on the Nintendo press conference stage just as they had been when I first saw MGS on my friends 14 inch bedroom TV, memories of the awe I felt and thinking that we would never experience better came flooding back to me. If you too felt strongly about the first MGS back then I have little doubt that the remake will shower you in fond memories but will the warm glow ware off before or after you play it?

Here's a breakdown of what we know about so far...

The remake of MGS is a three-headed project that comprises of a team who thanks to Konami PR have been given their own code names:

1. The Snake - Hideo Kojima and his team at Konami offices in Tokyo
2. The Dragon - Ryuhei Kitamura, a Japanese action movie director famous for his films Versus and Alive.
3. The Knight - Canadian Developers Silicon Knights responsible for the psychological horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanities Requiem.

The Snake

Overseeing the project and taking on about forty per cent of the workload is the original MGS team, which hopefully means we'll see the same level of quality we always have in their games even though they aren't doing the whole thing. Having the team on board was an essential factor to the games future success, can you imagine the fan response if Hideo Kojima wasn't involved!?

The Dragon

It's undeniable that Konami has made a name for itself by making cinematic games, so hiring movie directors to help take things a bit further seems like a logical step for them. Konami fans may remember an early PS2 title called 7 Blades that enlisted the services of Haizo Hayashi another decorated Japanese movie director; unfortunately for them it never saw amazing sales despite its unique style. A few years later Hideo Kojima goes to see Alive at the cinema and decides that he must work with the films director Ryuhei Kitamura on a game so when he was asked to remake MGS he found his chance. Obviously the story of MGS is already there so Kitamura was asked to redesign all the cut scenes using his eye for action. Taking control of all the cuts scenes is a huge responsibility in a Metal Gear game as they usually make up about fifty percent of the game so we've been told that everything is being redone from the voice acting to the motion capture. I am worried that the game may ditch the realistic military style it adopted in MGS2 in favour of a more unrealistic movie action, time will tell.

The Knight

It is odd to see the crown jewel in Konami's collection handed out to another developer and even more odd is the fact that the developer isn't Japanese. The reason stated for this decision was something along the lines of Konami not having enough experience and time to make a Cube game and with MGS3 on the horizon it's quite believable. Thanks to Silicon Knights close relationship with Nintendo they were lucky enough to be first choice, which in turn makes us western gamers first to receive the game due to the fact that it is being made in English then transferred into Japanese. With Eternal Darkness we saw that they had skill in design and could handle the Cube hardware so it will be interesting to see how they cope with such a highly anticipated game with a reputation for quality.

At last year's E3 and ECTS Konami had a small playable demo set up that showcased the first section of the game, luckily we were there to hog the demo unit and hold up the line till we were asked to leave quietly. The first thing we noticed was the speed and how there was a lack of it, it's hard to say if that was just an early development issue or not but I found Snake moving like a drugged-up elephant. Having played the second in the series most recently I was expecting the same level of fluidity but found the game to resemble the first MGS, why is that a problem you ask? Well that was good a few years ago and while the first game was one of the best of its generation I'm afraid it hasn't stood the test of time and that is exactly the reason why we are getting a remake. I truly hope that the speed issue has been worked out before release especially since they have a more powerful machine to work on.

Visually the game is an obvious advancement from the original with the textures being ramped up and the character models being totally redone but I found it to be inferior to the visuals of the now two-year-old MGS2, Liquid and Solid Snake's models especially seem to lack the expected level of detail. I can't help but feel that the game has taken a more western direction with its graphical style which worries me as I found the visual quality in MGS2 to be some of the best seen in a game to date. Luckily though it's not just the visuals that have been ramped up, we're also seeing fully redone sound effects, voice work with all but one member of the cast returning to take their part and the inclusion of Dolby Pro Logic sound for a true cinematic feel.

While next to nothing has been added to the level structure you can guarantee that the gameplay has been totally changed with the inclusion of Snakes skills from MGS2. With the ability to roll, hang and go to first person view for shooting and peering round corners you'll be able to fully control your environment but if the enemy AI isn't advanced suitably to match you could find the game becoming a cake walk.

With all the recent Metal Gear games we've seen the story takes centre place but don't expect any new content to shock and amaze in that department. Consider it more of a director's cut featuring a few deleted scenes.

The Extras:

Supposedly the game has been complete for a while now so why was its release date pushed back? The official reason given was that they needed more time to tweak and add some extra content; I can only presume that someone had doubts on whether or not an almost exact remake of the game would sell well. So what will we see added to the game? I would image that the most obvious extra will be the inevitable MGS VR Missions that rear their head in almost all the releases in the series, which for some will be a welcome addition. In interviews the developers have hinted at some well-hidden Easter Eggs they are adding in but I'm afraid we'll all have to wait a little bit longer to see them, although I'm sure we could hazard a few good guesses… maybe we'll see the return of the developer ghosts with the inclusion of some famous Nintendo faces?

With the release date currently set in March we don't have to wait too long for our first proper playable experience but I must say I was expecting the Konami hype machine to have started by now. Either way a slightly more Americanised or rather a more Canadianised Snake is on his way and while it isn't a new chapter in his saga it should be a great fix to get us by while we wait for the third instalment.