When i was very young, 12 years old, i came home from school and found this game installed on my home desktop computer, one of my brothers had installed it. It was the year 2003 approximately. Today, 20 years later, I played it again and it blew my mind again. The story, the music, the characters, the setting...everything. Because of Hideo Kojima, after this game, the rest seemed very bad to me. Thanks to GOG for bringing back this masterpiece and so many memories.
It's truly not perfect, but such a great core game and excellent bringer of nostalgia that I couldn't knock it down to 4 stars despite the issues.
If you use the "extra executables" to open the DirectX settings and crank up anti-aliasing, this game looks fantastic! Some low res textures (faces, mostly) aren't great, but so much of the geometry looks really great and the swimmy textures common on PSX games are largely improved or resolved entirely.
There are a few control issues, nothing game breaking. Mapping my Xbox One controller buttons meant reassigning every button because they were all wrong. There are also a few weird issues with aiming pointing in the wrong direction when you bring up your weapon, or pointing at the sky when aiming on the stairs in the tower.
Finally, it sucks that the framerate is stuck to 30, but it really doesn't impact anything (trust me, I have a 144hz monitor, so framerate matters to me). However, the framerate TANKS when there is optic camo on screen - Otacon's, Grey Fox's, the 4 in the elevator, and worst of all, Snake's on the second play through (sacrificing Meril). That one definitely needs resolution because my i7-9800k and 2070 Super should not have issues emaulating a PSX game :)
I must admit that after reading the reviews I was a little bit skeptical about purchasing this version because of how lazy the port is, but I've been looking for a legal way to play this masterpiece without having to buy a PlayStation.
Although it's not perfect, it's more than enough to relive this masterpiece.
The game was much clunkier than I remembered. Last time I really played this was when it came out on PS1. That feeling of clunkiness mostly comes from not having access to mechanics introduced in MGS2 onward. In general the sequels are way better in every aspect (except for excessive amount of cinematics, perhaps), but they all build on top of what came before them - this gem of a game.
Is it perfect? No. It can even be quite frustrating at times for the wrong reasons. But is it worth a play? Absolutely. It still has a boatload of charm. Just remember, it's much closer to the original Metal Gear in terms of mechanics, than to MGS5.
I had seen a few speedruns of MGS and have always know about it. I finally bought it and It did take me over 11 hours to complete but I loved every minute of it. The corny script and the bad AI made it a great classic experince. Do yourself a favour and give the game a go.
