For anyone not familiar with Metal Gear Solid

[SlightlyJames]

So I saw a post on reddit just now suggesting a good way to become familiar with Metal Gear solid in time for the release of The Phantom Pain. There are some really well made "movie" versions of each of the games that are a great way to get up to speed with the story.

There are two games relevant to The Phantom Pain: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Snake Eater, as I'm sure plenty of you will have got tired of hearing by now, is probably the best of the series. It's a wonderful story that even now can bring a tear to my eye.



Peace Walker is the most recent full scale Metal Gear story and is a direct sequel to Snake Eater. It was originally a PSP game which is why the game has comic book style cinematics.



In total the two "movies" last 7 and a half hours, not exactly a brief summary but I'd have to stress that these stories are far more effective when experienced, rather than recapped, Snake Eater in particular. Beyond that if anything's still unclear, ask me! I love the chance to talk some Metal Gear!

The Phantom Pain is just over a week away and my excitement continues to boil over, I know a few of you have expressed some form of interest in the series or said they could never get into it. @Locke, @Circled Square, pretty sure @Everlong said something about it at one point. How about some @Messiah, @Hanley! or @EmperorWu?

I need some more Metal Gear friends.

[Circled Square]

Okay fine fuck it you win I'm going to try and get these games.

edit: wtf i can't find it anywhere if you know what I mean

[SlightlyJames]

Okay fine fuck it you win I'm going to try and get these games.

I fucked up tagging your name so I edited it and by the time I did you had already replied.

edit: wtf i can't find it anywhere if you know what I mean

Just watch the videos in my post!

[Circled Square]

Okay fine fuck it you win I'm going to try and get these games.

I fucked up tagging your name so I edited it and by the time I did you had already replied.

I'm going to have to buy it, Jesus. On steam, perhaps?

[SlightlyJames]

^ The older entries in the series aren't on PC (MGSV is, though) that's mostly why I just posted the "movie" versions. Also because they're only a ~7 hour investment and the game comes out in just over a week.

[Circled Square]

Damn. I'll watch them. Would have liked to play it.

[SlightlyJames]

Damn. I'll watch them. Would have liked to play it.

If you're set on playing them, the easiest way is probably the HD Collection (On PS3/360/Vita I think). Or if you've got an original Xbox or a PS2 sitting around for just Snake Eater. The movies are good, though. As a massive fan I'd say they're an alright way to experience the story without pouring in more hours than most are likely to have.

[Hanley!]

Definitely won't be watching the movies, as one of the things I disliked about Metal Gear Solid was how much time you had to spend watching rather than playing. I've played the first game and enjoyed it, but for some reason never felt the need to get the other games in the series. I've seen a lot of the second one though, and heard about the series non-stop for years because my soon-to-be sister-in-law is a big MGS fan. She's particularly attached to Snake Eater too.

I'm currently going back and trying some N64 games that I missed out on (Majora's Mask at the moment), but maybe after that I'll go back and give the Metal Gear Solid games a try. Though I don't have the means to play MGS5 when it's released anyway, so I'm in no real hurry.

[SlightlyJames]

@Hanley! Understandable man! It's a pretty common sentiment about the amount of codec and custscene in some of the games, they actually deliberately wrangle that in as a plot point in MGS2 (that game is meta as fuck). Playing is definitely the best experience but like I said before, I figured folk would be more likely to watch than play as it's much less of a time investment (plus it removes the need to actually obtain the games).

For what it's worth, The Phantom Pain is going to be significantly less cutscene heavy and looks the most tight gameplay wise of any in the series. It's actually coming out on Xbox 360, you have one of those right?

[Hanley!]

I do have a 360, I didn't realise that it'd be coming out on that. Might give it a shot then, but probably not until the price comes down a little. I've got other games to play and a wedding to save for.

[SlightlyJames]

@Hanley! From a gameplay point of view, if you want to know if you'll dig The Phantom Pain you could give Ground Zeroes a try (after catching up on the story of course). It's the prologue to The Phantom Pain and takes place directly after Peace Walker, there's one map in the game with a handful of missions to be done that demonstrate quite well the kind of open world gameplay that MGSV proper will feature.

It's a bit bare for some people but I have 40 hours in it, I'd say there's a lot of replay value to it. The game is currently £15 on Amazon. (If you happen to have Xbox Live I believe you should have the game for free at the moment, or is that one for the Xbox One? I'm not sure).