The Metal Gear Solid franchise is one of the biggest in modern games. Having claimed popularity with the original Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation, the series has seen numerous outings across a variety of formats. However, there are a number of Metal Gear titles that didn’t quite achieve the notoriety of the mainline entries in the series. And we’re not talking about Metal Gear: Revengeance here.
The Metal Gear Solid series was created by now infamous game auteur Hideo Kojima. However, when the series began it looked very different to how it does today. Limited hardware and an unknowing audience led to simpler games. Furthermore, it’s easy to spy the games which Kojima wasn’t involved in. Below you’ll find Chit Hot’s picks for seven of the lesser known Metal Gear Solid games.
Metal Gear
Let’s start at the beginning. While fans of the series will be very familiar with its origins, there are many who aren’t. For gamers less involved with the ins-and-outs of the industry, it’s easy to believe the series began with Metal Gear Solid. However, it actually began over a decade prior, with Metal Gear.
Developed for the MSX2 and ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Metal Gear laid the groundwork for what was later to come. The player controls a military operative codenamed Solid Snake. Your objective is to infiltrate an enemy base while avoiding visual contact and direct confrontation with patrolling guards. If the player is seen, the game enters “Alert Mode”, and Snake must escape from the enemy’s sight in order to resume infiltration. Sound familiar?
Metal Gear has seen many re-releases in the decades since its debut. In fact, it’s set to be included in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection, so there’s no excuse not to go back to the series’ roots.
Metal Gear: Ghost Babel
This one is more of an oddity. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (simply known as Metal Gear Solid in the US) was released for the Game Boy Color in 2000. The game uses a top-down perspective, and retains the staples of infiltrating the enemy’s stronghold while avoiding detection from guards or surveillance systems. Despite launching after Metal Gear Solid, the game is set in alternative continuity set seven years after the events of the original Metal Gear.
The game was very well received at the time of it’s debut. However, it’s all but been forgotten by many. To this date, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel has not received a re-release on any subsequent formats.
Metal Gear Ac!d
The best-worst spin-off the stealth action series has seen. Players either loved it or hated it (personally, I was in the former camp). Metal Gear Ac!d was a PlayStation Portable (PSP) game launched in 2005, and in 2008 for mobile phones. It took the stealth action gameplay and turned into stealth card battling. Yep, it was different.
The player would customise the deck of cards between each round, with the majority of the cards based upon elements spanning the entire Metal Gear series. Familiar weaponry, characters, and even the Metal Gear itself appeared in the game. The player’s hand can consist of a maximum of six cards at first, increasing as each battle progresses. The player chooses the cards that provide the desired action – move, shoot etc. – balanced by a points system determining which/how many cards can be used each turn. There was a lot of strategic depth in Metal Gear Ac!d, and while it wasn’t groundbreaking it performed well enough to warrant a sequel.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
At the time of Metal Gear Ac!d‘s release, it was assumed that the PSP hardware simply wasn’t capable of delivering true Metal Gear Solid games. However, 2007’s Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops changed all of that.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops draws heavily from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It used the camera system from the Subsistence edition of the game, but added in the Comrade System. Instead of the solo missions of previous Metal Gear Solid games, this unique PSP release opted for a squad-based approach. Snake has to recruit allies and form a team of trained specialists. Before each mission, the player must compose a four-man squad. Each member of the squad has their own strengths and weaknesses; while some units are best utilised on the battlefield, others may specialise in producing items, healing allies, or providing intel for each of the game’s maps.
Metal Gear Solid Touch
Now we’re truly getting into the weeds. Metal Gear Solid Touch is a third-person shooter for iOS. Despite having very little in common with the game, Metal Gear Solid Touch is based on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It was released on the App Store in 2009, though is no longer available.
In Metal Gear Solid Touch, the player navigated through several missions based on stages from Metal Gear Solid 4, each introduced by brief text summarising the story so far. The player uses touchscreen input to aim, fire, and zoom in or out with a sniper rifle. They could also remove their fingers from the screen to get behind cover and avoid enemy fire. The game played more like Virtua Cop than a Metal Gear Solid game.
Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops
Another attempt to cash-in on the acceleration of smartphone gaming, 2012’s Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops never made it out of Japan. In fact, it was shut down just one year after release.
A free-to-play game monetised through microtransactions, Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops stood out from other social games because it featured full 3D graphics. Like other Metal Gear Solid games, you would navigate stealthily around a battlefield attempting to stay out of sight. Boss fights however, played more like a card game.
Snake’s Revenge
As so we start as we finish. Snake’s Revenge is a game of legendary reputation to the core gaming audience. However, for the uninitiated, you may not think it’s a Metal Gear game at all.
Debuting in 1990 for the MSX2 and NES, the player’s objective is to infiltrate the enemy’s stronghold while avoiding detection from enemy soldiers or surveillance devices. So far, so Metal Gear. The player had to defeat a certain number of enemy soldiers in each area to progress to the next. Oh.
Developed specifically for the western market, Snake’s Revenge did not receive the acclaim of the original title. So much in fact, that it’s often considered the illegitimate child of the Metal Gear franchise.
And so that’s Chit Hot’s picks for seven of the lesser known Metal Gear Solid games. Are there any oddities we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
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