With all this hype surrounding V, and this likely being the last "real" Metal Gear, considering the current situation between Kojima and Konami, I figured now was as good a time as ever to finally jump in.
With all the praise that has been heaped on this series, I always longed to get in to Metal Gear. Unfortunately, I never had a PlayStation growing up (N64=>Gamecube=>360), so I was always on the outside looking in. Fast-forward to June, when I picked up a PS4 for Arkham Knight along with a year subscription to PlayStation Plus. The free game was Ground Zeros, which I download cause why not? It's free. Didn't really touch it to late last week, and man, it was pretty good.
Like I said, Ground Zeros is my first MGS, so I had no freaking idea what was going on, or who these characters were (even Big Boss, who I had mistaken for Old Snake). Initially, there was a lot frustration as I ham-fistedly tried to Master Chief my way through (I'm not much of a stealth game guy). After a bit of trial and error, I learned the basic ins and outs of "tactical espionage action," and found sneaking about, covertly taking guys out and generally avoiding detection to be very rewarding. The visuals were fairly pleasing, the cutscene were every bit as well done as I expected given Kojima's reputation and zealous love of cinema (especially the scene towards the end on
), and god damn if I haven't had "Here's to you" stuck in my head for the better part of a week. Sure, it was short, and I saw a lot more of
than I ever wanted to, but overall a really enjoyable experience that was not like any game I've ever played before. As often happens following the completion of an enjoyable game, I got the itch to play some more.
So with less than a month left till MGS V launches, I decided the only logical course of action was to try and plow through the whole series. My initial attack vector was to just play all the games (excluding the 8bit entries, which I would just read about, and MGS4, as I don't have a PS3) in release order. However, this proved extremely frustrating as I had a great bit of trouble adapting to the relatively primitive control scheme of MGS1. In hindsight, playing the "latest and greatest," with all it's control and gameplay advancements, was probably a mistake. Time being so short, both in terms in the amount I have to play games and how long there is till MGS V is released, I decided to change my strategy.
The way I figure, MGS3, Peace Walker, and Ground Zeros are the minimum needed to play and appreciate MGS V on more than just a superficial level. So after receiving the HD Collection this afternoon, I began my first ever playthrough of MGS3, which, if the comments on the first page are to be believed, should be a magical experience. Now, over the 10+ years since MGS3's release, I've seen some spoilers, here and there, so I have vague idea of what's going to happen. However, it's a testament to the game that, despite my knowledge of some of the major plot points, the story so far has still had a great deal of tension and emotional weight. Furthermore, the game, as you would expect, just plays a lot better than MGS1. Here's to hoping that MGS3 continues to live up to legendary status.
And at some point, probably after a re-release of MGS 4 on the Super Duper MGS: Legacy Collection that we all know is coming, I'll play through MGS1,2,4 to get Solid Snakes story.
Edit:
I would recommend just watching this. Where ever you left off.
http://youtu.be/9Cy7E76mBL0
Cool. Keep this in mind if time runs short.