Poll: What is your favourite Metal Gear Solid game?

[Ambient_Malice]

Peace Walker is the best all-round game in the series. It was the first game to abandon "gimmick" boss battles, which was a huge step forward for the series. And while Phantom Pain was good, Peace Walker had better feeling weapons and somewhat better storytelling. MGS V only has one or two moments to compare to Peace Walker's string of brilliant ones.

I found it rather bemusing how the MGS V soundtrack was almost identical to the CoD: Advanced Warfare one in a lot of areas, to the point they may as well have been interchangable.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

If 5 would have kept up the story aspect, I would say MGS 5 is my favorite. However, we all know how that turned out. Fantastic gameplay with sprinkles of story.

But as an overall package, I'd still have to go with MGS 3. It easily was the height of the "traditional" MGS formula, and added some mechanics that later games tried to emulate.

And the story was equal parts absurd and engaging. The sense of style it's characters and cutscenes went for was a perfect match. It certainly had some of the most memorable boss fights as well, though The Pain was a bit dull.

I couldn't bring myself to like Peace Walker. I mean, it had all the bit needed to be a good MGS game, but I feel was overall limited in scope, which is obvious since it was on a handheld. I preferred MGS: Portable Ops.

 

[pequod]

Snake Eater of course.

3>2>1>4>PO>V

and let's not even mention peace walker

I find it interesting how polarising Peace Walker is. I've only played the 360 port, but I personally enjoyed it. What are your reasons for disliking?

All the interesting, innovative and personal boss fights were replaced by tanks and mechs. The guy saying this is a step forward doesn't know what he's talking about. Gameplay in general was mediocre by MGS standards and areas were small and lacked the focus on early titles, nor having the open world scope of V. Like V however, the game is far too padded out with poor filler missions, which means it lacks the urgency and pacing of early titles. The fulton system and constant soldier collecting cheapened the whole infiltration experience too.

Beyond that the story is relatively weak, characters all annoying or uninteresting, and the plot revolves around a character who has long been killed off and forgotten. And this is just a personal point, but it's also one of the ugliest games i've played on console. Horrendous aliasing. It's only tolerable to look at on a small handheld screen.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

All the interesting, innovative and personal boss fights were replaced by tanks and mechs. The guy saying this is a step forward doesn't know what he's talking about.

Personally, those "personal" boss fights were something of a stain on Metal Gear Solid's design for years. It's no coincidence that Phantom Pain also moved away from boss battles. They're something of a relic, plus they force the storytelling down a road of "meet, character, kill character, rinse, repeat".

 

[fenrizz]

While I love Metal Gear Solid, and it had a huge influence on me, Snake Eater is my favorite.

It's just something about that game.
The cold War, spy movies, James Bond.. The game has everything.

 

[Kyrian007]

When I first played MGS 2 I remember thinking, "MGS is my favorite game of all time... if only we could have THAT game with THIS gameplay." And then, on the Gamecube they gave us exactly that with Metal Gear Solid the Twin Snakes. And that is my favorite. All the amazing story of the original with the gameplay and engine of the second. And they redid some of the cutscenes to make them more over the top and bombastic. Which some people complained about, but I thought the changes thematically appropriate from the creator that gave us rollerblading fat bomberman, a bee guy, and motorcycle kung-fu. After those, complaining about "that's so unrealistic" is a very stupid complaint.

And so that is my favorite, The Twin Snakes.

 

[Raven's Nest]

MGS3. Story and gameplay.

I can understand people saying that MGSV has better gameplay, but I disagree. SNIP

Absolutely agree with you. Beyond graphics, gun play and physical controls I don't really see what MGS5 has going for it. The story elements are virtually non-existant, hampered by a severe lack of pacing. Big moments as they occur in the game just feel completely flat as by nature of the base-building and upgrade hunting mechanics I seemingly care far more about abducting soldiers with good stats and micromanaging things than actually playing the story. That is a tragic betrayal of the entire series. At the moment I have just finished act 1 and I can't bring myself to come back to it.

It almost feels like Hideo just gave up on the whole series around the time he made Peace Walker (which I had to finish by watching the story on youtube).

MGS3 on the other hand was a masterpiece and deserves victory in this poll and all the praise discussed.

Honourable mention to MGS4 as well for being a truly awesome game in its own right. I only recently acquired a PS3 and finally got around to playing it last October or so, it was still better than most games released in the time since it was released.

 

[jhoroz]

I'm going to echo everyone who has said MGS 3-the perfect package of gameplay, story, music, atmosphere and boss fights. Phantom Pain may have the best and most modernized controls, but it's actual mission design, level design and pacing is all over the place. I actually think Ground Zeroes's mission presentation and single base you have to infiltrate in it is better than anything in Phantom Pain. From the lighting, atmosphere, side ops (that have more interesting mission design than Phantom Pain's MAIN missions, let alone its side ops) to the methods of infiltration, to all the optional things you could do and collect. NOTHING in Phantom Pain reaches the level of quality and polish of Camp Omega. Like I was baffled how much more engaging Ground Zeroes was when I randomly decided to boot it up after selling Phantom Pain.

 

[Willinium]

*Stares at the poll looking for Metal Gear Rising* . .. . . The game I love is not here so I must go with Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I'm a massive MGS fan but I'm always surprised whenever I see people citing Snake Eater as the best honestly. That game never really clicked with me so much as it apparently did for others.

I mean I can literally remember pretty much every location in the original game and most of them in 2. But then Snake Eater came along and in my mind it was one big blur of generic location, relatively minimal real improvement in the gameplay (compared to the jump made between MGS1 and MGS2) and a total lack of any wow factor aside from one or two boss battles. Compared to...say...MGS4 or even the original MGS1 there was nothing about it that floored me and the whole thing just felt very tame and subdued.

Not that it was bad, I enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed any of the games and the character development was excellent and absolutely vital for the series but I still don't see how people put it as the pinnacle of the lot.

 

[stroopwafel]

MGS1, 2 and 5 are my favorites. MGS1 blew me away when it was released b/c it had a lot of novel ideas like stealth gameplay and movie like inspirations(remember this was like 1998 Not to mention I really liked the story which was this odd mix of anime influences and more grounded subjects but told in a clever way. MGS2 was the most philosophically interesting and really just a kind of deconstruction of the previous game. MGS5 raises a new standard for open-world stealth gameplay. It's unlike any open-world game I played and a similair novelty as MGS1 was.

I enjoyed MGS3, but it was very straight-forward and didn't really introduce anything new. Peace Walker was kinda meh. And MGS4 *sigh* was a bloated mess. Seeing Raiden return as a 'cyborg ninja' with a big cock(after his poor reception in MGS2) was almost like Kojima giving his fans the finger.

 

[COMaestro]

Having been on a Metal Gear kick the past year or so, I've replayed all the Metal Gear Solid games (and just plain Metal Gear games) except for 4 and Portable Ops, though I intend to get to them later (and I've never played The Twin Snakes). I've still got to give my vote to 3, though I love them all for various reasons.

Definitely one of my most beloved series in gaming.

 

[visiblenoise]

I think MGS3 was the most balanced of all the games, but ultimately I voted MGS2 because I really liked the crazy story and the relatively simpler gameplay that came with the more urban environments.

 

[FoolKiller]

I picked Twin Snakes... because VR missions wasn't there. That was a fun game.

But back to twin Snakes... It's 1, which I love, just better