Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid is a stealth-based third-person shooter released for the PlayStation on February 26, 1999. It was published by Konami, and directed by Hideo Kojima. .

Plot

On the fictional off-shore island close to Alaska, named Shadow Moses, a nuclear disposal site is taken over by Next-Generation Special Forces, led by Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot. The game's protagonist, Solid Snake, is called in to stop the terrorists using the Government's weapon which is housed there, as well as rescuing a DARPA Chief and President Baker of ArmsTech. The weapon is Metal Gear, a nuclear-equipped walking tank.

Snake tries in vain to rescue the two men, who are meant to have keys to stop Metal Gear, but both seem to die of heart-attacks. Snake finds out the way to deactivate Metal Gear is to use cards given to him by Baker (before he died) and to insert them into the computers next to Metal Gear itself. However, Snake was tricked. Ocelot, an expert in torture, had accidentally killed the DARPA chief whilst trying to force out information regarding how to activate Metal Gear, thus they didn't t receive the "key", so they could not start Metal Gear. Decoy Octopus, a master of disguise, pretended to be the DARPA chief when Snake arrived, and told him how to deactivate Metal Gear, when in fact, because it was not yet active, inserting the cards as he suggested would activate it.

Naomi, a woman who assists Snake via CODEC, reveals to Snake that he is carrying a virus called FOXDIE, deesigned to kill people with certain genetic sequences. Unfortunately for Solid Snake, Liquid Snake tells him that the two of them are clones of the legendary soldier Big Boss, as are all of the Next-Generation Forces, meaning that Snake has been killing his "brothers". Therefore, Solid Snake has the same DNA as the Next-Gen forces and is vulnerable to the virus that he is carrying.

Having been tricked, Snake activates Metal Gear, controlled by Liquid Snake, but manages to destroy it using his STINGER missile launcher. Afterwards, Snake receives a CODEC transmission from the Government, saying that a nuclear strike is being planned to hide all evidence of the event, including killing the clones of Big Boss. Everyone tries to escape from the compund and Liquid eventually dies from FOXDIE, after a car chase. At the end, Snake does not now how long he has to live.

There are two possible endings. If Snake submits to torture earlier in the game, Meryl dies and Snake escapes with Otacon. If Snake survives the torture, Otacon's fate is unknown and Snake escapes with Meryl.

Remakes

Metal Gear Solid: Integral / Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions

Integral was a release of Metal Gear Solid for the PC. The game introduced a "Very Easy" difficulty setting for the main game as well as a photography mode, but the most notable improvement was the inclusion of a disc containing 300 VR missions . Although it was only released on the PC in Japan, it was released as an expansion pack for the original PlayStation game in the US and UK. In the US, it was named Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions and it in UK, it was named Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions .

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes

Twin Snakes is a remake of the original game, but for GameCube featuring much improved graphics. Snake was also given new abilities, which he had in Metal Gear Solid 2, including being able to hang from ledges and shooting from first person view. The cutscenes and audio were re-written in many places.

References

Citations