josemlopes said:
shrekfan246 said:
Hell, if anything, like most of those PS1 classics, it's underrated now because of all the people who look back and go "Ehhhh, by today's standards that game is a piece of crap." Especially since people are always calling Metal Gear Solid (the franchise) 'overrated', and it's always because of the excessive cut-scenes and exposition, which by now should be the one most notorious thing about the entire franchise in the first place.
But at that time there was already Grim Fandango, Thief, GoldenEye, System Shock 2, Hidden & Dangerous, etc (games that had a lot of depth). I get it that the game treats its presentation in a very polished way but still I dont see how everyone seemed to ignore its flaws over the fact that it was just a good story focused game on a console. Not everygame was Doom before that.
Metal Gear for me is kind of like Shenmue, yeah its good and somewhat fresh (by having an original take on something), but that doesnt instantly make it a masterpiece that has to be praised like hell.
I just dont see it has the revolutionary game that people called it to be, just the game that took the next step in the usual evolution of gaming, like GTA III being in 3D, or Halo with the 2 weapon limit and regenerating health, or Heavy Rain/LA Noir for the more dialog focused games, etc.
Grim Fandango - Adventure game on the PC with a heavy emphasis on dark comedy.
System Shock 2 - First-person Shooter/RPG Survival-Horror PC game (also, released a year later than
MGS).
Thief - First-person Stealth PC game (also, released a month later than
MGS).
Hidden & Dangerous (I'd just like to point out that I've never heard of this one) - Tactical First/Third-Person Shooter PC game, received rather poorly on consoles (also, released a year later than
MGS).
GoldenEye - First-person Shooter with stealth elements that popularized console multi-player, on the N64. This is the closest comparable one to
MGS, I think. But even then, it's remembered more for the multi-player than anything else.
Now
Metal Gear Solid - Stealth-Action Shooter Playstation game.
One of these things is not like the others.
People herald
Metal Gear Solid because it ushered in the new era. It's easy to look back now and think "Well yeah, it's pretty obvious they would do that." but back then, the sky was the limit,
especially for consoles. PCs had all of the insane depth in games, PCs were where the multi-player was at, PCs were where a lot of the more unique games were thriving because consoles were stuck with mostly platformers and a few racing/sports games or JRPGs. That's why
GoldenEye is remembered even though it's aged so horribly, that's why
Final Fantasy VII is so dearly beloved by a lot of people who aren't on this website, that's why
Metal Gear Solid was so revolutionary. AI that dynamically responds to what you do? Unheard of. Fully voiced cinematics and exposition? Never done before (outside of FMVs). Beautiful environments (for the time)? Just the icing on the cake. Completely fourth-wall breaking moments like needing to look at the game case to get a codec number, or needing to switch your controller port so you can hit a boss? By far different than what had been seen up to that point. EDIT: And all of it on a console, and all on one disc. Previous story-heavy games like the
Final Fantasy series spanned multiple discs.
Now it's no more revolutionary than, say,
Deus Ex: Human Revolution. But at the time there was
no game like it.
Look, I'm not talking about it through nostalgia goggles either. I only first played it a year and a half ago. The mechanics are clunky and unintuitive, especially compared to
Metal Gear Solid 3, the writing (as with every main-series
MGS game) could seriously use an editor, and the actual game itself is certainly short, taking place in a very small area that only feels larger than it is because of how open the terrain is. But it did a huge amount of things for gaming as a whole, and that it's a good game itself just adds to the impact.
