Developed/Published by: Konami
Released: July 7th, 1987
Completed: 10th May, 2015
Completion: Finished it.
Trophies / Achievements: n/a

I’ve been meaning to play through the entire Metal Gear canon chronologically for a long, long time. Probably because I own almost every game in the series bar a few non-canon entries? And so I’ve started by finishing this, Metal Gear for the MSX2.

I’m not particularly familiar with the MSX despite being a huge, huge fan of 1980s computers—I grew up with an Amstrad CPC 6128, so just about as obscure—so Metal Gear is the first game I’ve “played” on one (well, emulated, via Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence on Xbox 360).

If you’re wondering, an MSX2 is… very much a 1980s computer, apparently. Metal Gear is simplistic and “of it’s time.” Graphics are repetitive, animation limited, input clunky. It’s not worlds-away from something you’d imagine playing on the Commodore 64, maybe, and certainly not massively steps ahead from the much derided NES version (and I’m always surprised by how clunky a lot of the NES’s games are.)

Pretty much, Metal Gear is this: you wander about a military complex, releasing POWs, picking things up, avoiding or killing enemies (stealth works, if rudimentary—and if you get caught, you usually only have to run off the screen) until you eventually finish it. It’s actually not too punitive compared to a lot of these early games; you can stack up loads of health and ammo by repeatedly re-entering certain rooms, there are no mazes (thankfully) and not that many “why would I know to do that?” puzzles (though there are definitely more than enough to make it worth looking up an FAQ when stuck.)

I’ve been doing the podcast Loose Cannons for a few months now (look this isn’t a pointless plug, stick with me) and one of the things we’re trying to explore by looking at the output of a movie studio, Cannon Films chronologically is what you can learn from the early releases that informed their output from then on; for example, Cannon’s early distribution of cheap erotica leading it to produce some itself. Here, I look at Metal Gear, which is a canon Metal Gear game, and there’s really not much to say. In fact, if you read the story synopsis on wikipedia you come away with more. At best, there’s one moment of fourth-wall breaking, I guess.

Metal Gear is an 1980s computer game. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just of it’s time. The end.

Will I ever play it again? I have no reason to, and no one else has any reason to ever play it, I’d probably say. Which sounds harsh! It’s not actually bad. It’s just… old.

Final Thought: I’m not going to bother playing Snake’s Revenge, because it’s non-canon. I’ll be back with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake at some point in the future. I’m looking forward to it, as it’s from three years later and post-Snatcher, which means big changes, I bet.