bit-tech Shopping: Konami Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (GC)

• Action/Adventure
• Simulation

Rating: 6

Time with product: 3

Strengths: Good graphics and story

Weaknesses: Lack of lock-on targetting

Summary: I've never played any of the other Metal Gear games, but I have an enthusiastic friend who has informed me about the over-arching plot. So when this title had a price drop to Greatest Hits status I decided to give it a whirl. Meh. The graphics are pretty, and the story is good. I especially like the cutscenes. However I find that I just don't like the sneak-em'-up genre. The lack of a lock-on targetting feature was irritating and contributed to my general feeling of disatisfaction.

Rating: 4

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Updated to play like Metal Gear Solid 2, detailed character models

Weaknesses: Completely ridiculous cutscenes, decreased quality of voice acting despite retaining the SAME voice actors.

Summary: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was a big disappointment for me. Considering I hold its source material in such high regard, I was expecting terrific results.My main complaints relate to the way in which the story is told. This is why I enjoyed the original game on PlayStation 1 so much. While some of the situations in the original Metal Gear Solid were far-fetched, the game was presented in a way in which gave it real-world believability despite having largely sci-fi elements.This isn't true with the updated GameCube release, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. They brought in a new director to work on cutscenes and the results are ludicrous and embarrassing.Several cutscenes completely took me out of the mood of the game with their superfluousness and The Matrix-like presentation. The one that stands out the most to me has the game's hero Solid Snake able to perform a backflip off of a missile travelling in his direction at several hundred miles-per-hour. This bit of direction was not in the original game and seems to be added for the sake of perceived "cool factor" by the director and for that reason alone. It adds nothing to the story and only has a negative effect on Snake's characterization. A large theme to the story is that while Snake is the best at what he does and was genetically enhanced to be so, he's still only one man, with the same feelings and desires as any other person. He should not be doing backflips off of short-range missiles like he's the freakin Flash.The other area which disapointed me greatly about The Twin Snakes is the voice direction. It may be because I'm so used to the delivery in the original game, but the voice direction seems to me nowhere near the quality as it was in 1998. One obvious example of this, is the character Mei Ling's voice actor. No longer does the character have the Asian accent she had in the first game, despite having the same voice actor. Why is this? From what I hear, speaking with the accent hurt the actor's voice. Whatever the case may be, it detracts from the character's personality as an American-raised girl with Asian roots and very much interested in retaining that part of her identity.While it's nice being able to play MGS upgraded with the MGS2 engine (or something very close to it), the reduced quality of the presentation makes me reach for my copy of the original PS1 game instead.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3 Months

Strengths: Graphics

Weaknesses: slightly old gameplay

Summary: This was the first time that I played a metal gear solid game, so the fact that it was a remake of the first one really didn't bother me too much. Much of the gameplay unfortunately did feel a little outdated. I could tell that a few years ago, it would have been a fantastic gaming experience for me, but too many games have taken the ideas from this one and refined them. If I didn't know it was one of the first ones, I would think it was simply an uninspired game. If you didn't play the first one when it came out, you might not really enjoy this game too much. I think it really is just mainly for nostalgia nowadays, but there is nothing wrong with that. The game did inspire me to try Metal Gear Solid 3, so that was really a good point for me. I'm going to give this a four because even as I played it for the first time, I could tell it was a classic, even with all the little frustrations it has.

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Story, Gameplay

Weaknesses: Lengthy cutscenes, May not be enough for longtime fans, short game.

Summary: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes marks a collaboration between Nintendo, Konami,and Silicon Knights. Konami originally released a variant of this game as a seminal title on the original playstation in the late 90s. This collaboration is Silicon Knights second and final game on the Gamecube, following up on their excellent Eternal Darkness. This game is a reimagining of the original game, changing stuff here and there with upgrades to sound and graphics. MGS: TTS is an interesting game that throws back to the old MGS games, adding some new and creative concepts. The game forces a certain perspective for most of the game, the player can't always necessarily see what is going on, and this can be trying. The game does offer a radar that helps, but is often little consolation when an off-screen enemy kills you. That is part and parcel of MGS, so that goes with the territory. Most of MGS is designed around your infiltration as "Solid Snake" into a secret military base and accomplishing your mission. This gives the player a variety of tasks and choices when it comes to evasion and engagement of enemies as well as some engrossing puzzles. MGS: TT serves up a top notch presentation, in a very movie like unfolding of the games story and plot. The music and sound effect are quite well done, and very much important to the gameplay. The graphics while much improved over the original Psx version of the game aren't nearly as accomplished as the top gamecube games. The main complaints with MGS: TT are those that you will hear in various degrees with all mgs games: short length, story preachiness, and cheesy voice overs. Then again, many of these things are lauded, as MGS does take a interesting look at global conflict, and the voice overs are better than 90% of games. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a good game, especially at current price points. It is a short game, filled with lengthy cinematics. But it is also a tense game filled with an exciting and compelling story, interesting gameplay, and great presentation.

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Graphics, voice acting, storyline

Weaknesses: Too many cutscenes, length of game.

Summary: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a remake of the game which was originally released back on the Playstation in 1998. The game is really the first stealth action type of this genre (i.e. Splinter Cell) and while others have improved on the graphics and actual gameplay, they don't top this game in story line. The actual fighting in this game isn't the best due to the inability to lock on to a target, but doesn't significantly distract from the actual game play. The cut scenes are really amazing to watch and greatly help the story, but at times distract from the game since you're not playing for such a long time. If you've played this on the playstation, it may not we worth it to pick up, but GameCube owners should definitely check it out as its one of the best games of this type on the platform.