Control:  
Let's get it out of the way right now- I hate the controls of this game. I mean, pressing Start and B together to pause? You really have to fight the controller to play Twin Snakes, and that's just not acceptable for such a high-profile release.

Right before this game I had played James Bond: Everything or Nothing, and the controls to that game felt totally natural, despite "on the job" training in various vehicles. If you want Bond to look at a wall, you walk him up to it. If you want him to put his back against that wall and creep along to the corner, you hit Z. In Metal Gear, Snake automatically turns around to hug the wall, then to walk to the corner you hit L or R, while still holding the control stick in the direction you started with despite it switching to a different camera angle when you're against a wall. If you have a button to press on that wall, you'll need to be hitting Y as you approach it, not once you get to it, or else Snake'll turn around and you have to try again. Confused? So was I, and I think so was Snake.

One time I had knocked a guy out in the bathroom (not a word!) and I could see on my radar a guard was approaching the facilities. So I hid my first guy in a stall so he wouldn't attract attention, and then I planned on getting in the other stall to hide, only whenever I approached it Snake turned around and faced the other way. To make matters worse, the camera switched from over-head view to looking at Snake at face level, and then back to the ceiling when I stopped hugging the door. This kept happening and the guard finally arrived and started shooting, so I had to fight back. The whole point of an espionage game is that you avoid killing people (which was a tough habit to break after playing Bond!). No, that stall wasn't locked, I just needed to press Y before I got to it. True, it's more realistic that you'd reach your arm out to do something, or that you'd turn around when you reached a wall and not just stare at it, but that's just not how it works in videogame land.

The Y button is an all-purpose interactive button. It lets you interact with many environmental situations (like hanging from a ledge, not recycling bottles or cleaning streams). The problem is there seems to be an arbitrary timing involved with the Y button. You don't want funny timing for a button that's already context-sensitive. If there's a box you want to stand on, you have to stand still and face the box and hit Y, but if you're running at the box and hit Y when you get to it, Snake will just run in place until you stop him.

Now I know that first-person views were added to this game in the remake form, and that the original didn't let you look in first-person mode, but why give me such an advantage by letting me LOOK where I'm shooting instead of, say, watching the radar and shooting off-screen from a bird's eye camera view, but then force me to be stuck in one place while I'm shooting? If I have a clear line of sight to my target, they have one to me. It's really counterintuitive for this super spy to expose himself (not a word!) to his enemy every time he wants to take one out. Oh, and there are no lock-on targets that let you hide while they shoot back but still keep track of them. Maybe they made it like that to discourage you from fighting- after all, you should be sneaking, but when you have to fight, you have to, and Snake can't.

Gameplay:  
Best I can figure, they don't want you playing the whole game in first-person view since it would detract from some of the spy elements, but then that means that those spy elements are artificially created! The game's own limitations are creating its tense moments.

For example, if you can stand directly in front of your enemy and look at them in first-person mode, but they can't see you because you're out of their little sight radius, what's the point? For a game that's supposed to let you feel like a real spy, it's a let down that it's just a longer version of the bit in Ocarina of Time where Link has to sneak past the castle guards. Just stay on the opposite side of the box they patrol and you're fine.

As for the story, who cares? When the game gets to a plot point it spends about 10 minutes of your time with confusing and inconclusive dialog. While it's going you just want to play the game, and when it's finally over you just want to turn it off.

Most of the dialog is bravado military jargon that seems like it was included to make the game seem believable, but all those terrorist names, like Psycho Mantis, are just too silly, as are their super powers, to keep this game anchored in reality.

While we're on the subject of dialog (which really belongs in the Sound section, but you can see how annoying it is when I go off on a tangent, much like the never-ending in-game movies when you want to be playing), why does Snake have to use lame pick-up lines when he talks to the female characters? Whenever he does that I can just picture some geeky 12-year-old boy playing his Playstation, thinking Snake is the coolest guy in the world and how much N64 sucks with all its fun games that don't say stupid things to women.

The best part of the dialog is skipping it when it's going on forever between Snake and his radio frequency buddies. You can read it at your own pace if you don't want to hear them talk. The problem is it doesn't give any indication of who's talking, like this would:

Snake: Hey baby, maybe I'll pick you up Saturday night after I stop the terrorists.

Girl: Tee Hee!

In the game you wouldn't know if Snake or the girl was talking when you skip over and just read the conversation, so you can feel free to just assign the lines to either character.

Sound:
Uh, the music is ambient. No complaints here, it fits the game.

A lot of time was spent recording dialog- it's a shame I can't skip over and read all of it.

Multiplayer:
No Multiplayer in this game, although I'd love to see the death match where you can't walk and shoot at the same time, or if you keep it in the default bird's eye camera, you have to guess where your opponent is and shoot off screen.

OVERALL:
This game needed much more than a graphical upgrade to compete in today's market. If this was good on the Playstation, it has not aged well. I would highly recommend getting the latest Bond game instead. He may not act like a real life spy, but it's way more fun to play.

A lot of other people really like Metal Gear Solid. I usually don't do this, but I would suggest reading more reviews and doing research on the game to decide if it's right for you before you buy it. Or, you know, just rent it.

 

The Lowdown on  Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes Aesthetics: Average Control: Terrible Gameplay: Terrible Multiplayer: Sound: Average Innovation: 3/6 Lasting Appeal: 4/6 Rating Explanation Overall: Terrible! "For use as a Coaster, Frisbee, or for Skeet Shooting Only"