What can I say about Metal Gear Solid? It’s my favorite game series of all-time. The first game here has a deep but entertaining story. The gameplay has many elements, but above all will be using puzzle-solving skills and utilizing stealth. The graphics may not have aged too well, but the actual game itself will help you see past that. One great thing about this version is that it includes all of the bonus VR missions and the playable first-person mode that were not available on the English PC version. If you’ve never played MGS 1 before, you certainly owe it to yourself to give it a try. Now on to my thoughts about the port itself. As many have stated here, it is almost a carbon copy of the original North American PC release, albeit with some compatibility patches to make it run on modern Windows operating systems. The sound seems to be about the same, if not a little bit clearer, but not enough to notice a big change. The graphics look fine when upscaled to the highest resolution, and the PS1’s warped walls effect is not to be seen here. The controls out of the box were a little bit messed up for me, but after 2 minutes of configuration, all of my keys were A-okay and I even managed to bind my wireless Xbox One controller’s buttons to reflect the PS1 controls to a tee. I’ve just made it to the Cyborg Ninja fight and have experienced zero issues. After installing the game on my secondary laptop, I noticed that GOG cloud saves also work like a charm with this game. I did not need to use a fan-created third party patch at all to get everything working smoothly. In conclusion, the best way to experience these games (MGS 2 and MG included) with no need to configure controls, video settings, patches, etc. is the MGS Legacy Collection on PS3 or the HD Collection on Xbox 360. That said, I strongly urge you to play on PC if you want the most customization and the highest scalability. Plus, buying these titles shows Konami that we still love Metal Gear. :)
