This is not a stealth game.

And I hate that!

Metal Gear Solid quickly became a standard for the stealth genre. It paved the way for deep stories, characters, and other mechanics. From stealth to action, MCs to secondaries, and even villains shine! But none of that worked for me.

Solid Snake sneaks his way into an isolated military camp on Shadow Moses Island, Alaska, that's currently occupied by a terrorist organization. Snake is here to keep FOXHOUND, a rouge US Military mercenary group, from firing a nuclear weapon. During this event, he discovers a woman named Meryl, his CO's niece, along with an assortment of other interesting characters. Along with FOXHOUND units, the voices in Snake's head...codex are brilliantly thought up people. As he makes his way through the facility, shadows of his past show up to haunt him once more.

Snake can infiltrate in a number of ways. He can hide behind, under, and out of sight from the soldiers and cameras, or he can try to shoot his way through. Regardless of how he handles the grunts, he'll need to deal with the high ranking soldiers of FOXHOUND by explosive means.

And that's where I start to have issues. I assumed MGS was a stealth game. You could play the entire game without being spotted and be rewarded for it, including bosses. I was wrong. Every named character must be faced in some brand of head-to-head conflict. All of these fights were also boring. You're either chasing around someone or standing in place. It's the repetition that made me bored. There's also a handful of areas where the common rabble will spot you, no matter what. Killing them is oddly tedious, not satisfying, nor does it even matter. I probably shouldn't have done this, but I compared MGS to Dishonored a lot. The way Dishonored deals with full stealth and murders has weight on gameplay and plot. In Metal Gear Solid, though, it means nothing. Considering you're obligated to kill people, it's best it shouldn't. But therein is another flaw.

And when you do open fire, aiming kinda sucks. You get a red dot sight, but controlling it can be cumbersome. For starters, you can't move. Snake grows roots when he shoots. And enemies have i-frames when they fall down and get back up. So the automatic gun is totally worthless!

The story and characters are a cool part of Metal Gear, but I found them too much. Snake's primary character trait is being a cold womanizer, which is novel, I guess. His sidekick exists through random exposition. And many of his codex cohorts do, too. And they all have an assortment of twists that they're involved in. Hideo Kojima sure loves his plot twists. It's almost comical how many there are in such a short time. There's even a twist that undos a twist. So much point!

The rest of this can be a summary, so let's get to the numbers.

Plot: why? Snake is rad enough, as are the members of FOXHOUND. But even M Night Shyamalan would suggest cutting back on big reveals. Too many just dilutes the product, and they become meaningless. Also, the final boss dies four times... 5/10

Gameplay: repetitive. Either use of the questionable sneaking mechanics or the terrible shooting plays. There are also boring boss fights. They make the game uninteresting. 4/10

Art: the same. Everything looks the same. Walls, enemy soldiers, and...uh... The models look good, but the lack of faces throws me off. 3/10

Sound: the only thing MGS has for it. The voice acting, even by modern standards, is very good. The music works, and there's enough variety to give it points, even if it's because there are not THAT many tracks here. 10/10

Charm: whatever. The facility is boring, and I hated four of the eight hours it took me to beat the game. But the Codex crew are fun to interact with, the way so much commentates on your playstyle, and the multiple endings are good enough. 6/10

And now we've come to the negatives. There's a record amount here.
There's too much backtracking in this game. Need a sniper rifle to save someone? Go back to the start. Need to get warm or cold? Go back three spaces. It's tedious.
Snake sticks to walls too much. This is most notable during the terrible, awful, boring tower section.
Boss battles are too long and too boring.
Stealth is optional, but shooting isn't tun.
The amount of items you can collect is outrageous. It fills up your inventory and bogs down the menu when you need to find it.
If you die, the game makes you wait until your friend finishes screaming your name five seconds later. Just let me reload faster!
Finally, I had to redo a boss fight because saving is fishy. When you save, it only saves from when you entered the room. It doesn't keep what you did or found. So loading just takes you to when you changed maps. I'm giving this a negative two, but it should be more.

A few of those negatives could be overlooked if I was having fun. And some of it might be my fault. I was expecting a full stealth game, so I didn't kill anyone until late in the game and reset when a camera caught me. None of that mattered, and I felt it. And maybe don't play the game if you have the flu. Anyway, MGS's negatives total -17.

All of that makes for a final score of 11/50. I was flustered far too often and for way too many reasons. I did not have fun. The story was alright, but I learned it's just the same thing as Metal Gear II with new names. And Metal Gear II was just Metal Gear I with new names. And the twist to undo the last twist just makes a twit. Metal Gear Solid is very boring and repetitive in every aspect. I don't see the charm, and I think Kojima is a joke. Actually, a part of me thinks Metal Gear Solid is a parody...

Sadly, this means my "Greatest Games Ever" saga ends with a wet fart. I am disappointed. I found some new "gems" in this side quest, but I also added several new games to my pile of crap. Ultimately, I enjoyed this diversion. It opened my eyes to the past a bit, and I want to play some more games with friends. At the very least, I can appreciate Smash Bros' roster more. Sorry if I rated your favorite game so low. I hate that I hated it too.

We'll return to our regularly scheduled stuff soon. I gotta test some things for work, and I might want to finally finish Dragon Quest VI for the DS as well. And get over this flu bug.