Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Having played both the original Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Substance and now Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, I can safely say that this series is a high point in all the history of video gaming.

What makes The Twin Snakes so good?

Is it the over-the-top cut scenes, redirected by a genius in animation? Or maybe the new mechanics, added from the sequel? It could also be the enhanced AI, or even (and most noticeably) the improved graphics.

Well, it's all this and more.

The re-telling of the original Metal Gear Solid could have easily gone south. But when you think about the amazing company that was in charge of doing it and the experienced people involved in the project, you just know it's good - actually great.

Everything that has been changed from the original seems to have been improved for the sole purpose of showing MGS the way it was meant to be played and experienced and, in that respect, it works like nothing else. You'll quickly forget fighting the ninja and the bathroom scene of the original (for example); after you've seen them here. And the fact that enemies don't give up chasing you if you crawl inside a duct and actively try to flush you out by throwing grenades and spraying the whole area with gunfire makes the experience seem much more believable.

While it doesn't make you question everything and everyone the way Sons of Liberty did, its story is not nearly as hard to follow and proved ample room for excitement, adrenaline pumping and heart moving moments.

All in all, this is an indispensable item for anyone even remote interested in a fresh story with memorable characters and for all those Metal Gear fans that want to see Solid Snake as he was meant to be seen, from the beginning.

I feel Silicon Knights really did a great job with remaking MGS. With Konami's help, they took the story and characters from MGS and added updated gameplay taken from MGS: Sons of Liberty, a new and epic soundtrack and a great graphical presentation. Also, with the help of Ryuhei Kitamura (one of Japan's most gifted directors) they've created some of the most impressive real-time cinematics in a video game ever. The most impressive involving a certain Cyborg Ninja.

The graphics are more on par with MGS2 and in some places even better. Some textures look a lot better while some look rather plain. As for character models, they all look great except for one or two, but even then they are still very decent. The voice actors who did the original are all back (and even a new one) and of excellent quality like every other MGS game. Although they changed some of the characters accents and changed one characters original va they did just as great a job as in the original. Liquid Snake sounds even better this time around. Anyways, if you like Action/Stealth games then this is exactly what you want. The original MGS single handedly created the Stealth genre and after playing The Twin Snakes, it's easy to see why they remade such a great game. With one of the best and most intriguing stories and some of the most memorable characters in a video game ever, it's very easy to recommend this game.

9/10

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is an excellent remake of the original Metal Gear Solid. (For the following, note that I have only played the PC version of MGS, which is almost identical to the Playstation version).

That said, I have to admit I haven't so far seen much in the game that had directly benefited from the polishing. The original game was slightly ugly, but not *too* ugly - acceptable. We live in the age where improvements in game graphics are starting to become less and less significant. The cutscenes are more impressive, of course, but again, you can't leap much higher from the original. Epic is epic. The voices have been rerecorded, which has had some benefits, namely that it has eliminated a couple of rather annoyingly badly delivered lines (a few seem to remain).

A little bit more of humor has been injected here and there, which is always good - hidden bits of humor are always fun to find.

The only thing where the game has really benefited from is the AI. The enemy soldiers have suddenly started to feel like the IQ 180 battle machines they're advertised as. Once the alarm rings, it's very tricky to stay out of trouble. (I wish, however, they had made the "game over if discovered" option available right from the start for all difficulty levels!) The boss fights, on the other hand, so far have seemed a whole lot easier! Also, the tranquiliser guns are a good addition.

One thing that bugs me is the lack of the VR training missions. Due to them, the PC version was good for both longer play sessions (the main game) and short time fun (the VR missions). As it is, sitting in front of the game is very likely to take approximately two hours out of our lives.

In summary, it is a great port of the game, it works wonderfully on GameCube, plays better than the original, has smarter enemies, slightly better graphics, good new guns and items - but yet, there's something in it that makes me to say "it's *just* a MGS remake, nothing more". It is, however, still a classic that I can't be without.

MGS is certainly the best game of PSX. Then the genial Hideo Kojima(Creator of the first game) made a remake of the game to Gamecube. The Twin Snakes is a perfect game.It has fantastic graphics. It has dubbed voices and cool soundtracks. The gameplay is good with no mistakes.Twin Snakes has plus another gameplay than the classic.It has a First-Person view mode.But the gameplay of the First-Person View is very good. The Fun Factor is high in this game.The better part is the Dog-Tag collection(Gotta gettem' all!). The publisher of the game is Silicon Knights(a subsidiary of Nintendo), creator of Eternal Darkness.That's why the game has some insane parts like the battle with Psycho Mantis. MGS The Twin Snakes is the best Spy game in Gamecube. If you like spy games, don't miss it. 10/10.

Let's put it this way:

Metal Gear Solid (1998 Release): Good. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty: Better. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - BEST!

By fusing the game play of MGS2 with the original MGS, Kojima has gone and created the best game to come out on the Gamecube since Metroid or Zelda.

Having redone the art, cut scenes, voiceovers, and everything else, Kojima and the team at Silicon Knights have done an incredible job. Hopefully they'll do the next one like this...like bring out Sons Of Liberty to the Gamecube...