Metal Gear (NES) Playthrough

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NintendoComplete

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Published on August 19, 2023 7:57:46 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQkITK5zCrg

Game:

Metal Gear (1987)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 1:48:02

8,573 views

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A playthrough of Ultra's 1988 action-adventure game for the NES, Metal Gear.

Metal Gear, originally created for MSX2 computers, marked the directorial debut of Hideo Kojima when it was released in the summer of 1987 (https://youtu.be/QVqZ4YMV2wE).

The NES port, released five months later, was produced without the knowledge or blessing of the original development staff. Kojima was incensed by the liberties taken with his work and publically decried the console version, declaring that it did not exist within the series' canon.

But regardless of his feelings on the game, Metal Gear for the Nintendo went on to sell over a million copies and served as many gamers' first exposure to the unique story, mechanics, and logic that would drive the series over the following decades.

Metal Gear introduces players to “Outer Heaven,” a small African territory ruled by autocrat Vermon CaTaffy. CaTaffy's regime has developed a revolutionary new weapon of mass destruction known as Metal Gear, an all-terrain, bipedal tank outfitted with a full nuclear armament and long-range strike capabilities.

Solid Snake, the newest member of the elite FoxHound unit, has been assigned the task of infiltrating Outer Heaven, rescuing prisoners of war, and destroying Metal Gear. With the fate of the free world resting on his shoulders, Snake must not fail.

Metal Gear differentiates itself from the typical action fare by shifting the game’s focus from shooting to stealth. While Snake can fly at his enemies with guns blazing, doing so will likely leave him badly injured or dead.

In most cases, Snake's best bet is to avoid detection by running past soldiers when they aren’t looking and by taking advantage of surveillance cameras’ blind spots. There are several items that can aid Snake in his sneaking, including infrared goggles (to see invisible laser tripwires), a suppressor for his pistol, and a cardboard box that functions as a makeshift disguise when Snake doesn’t have time to find more substantial cover.

Snake may be an army-of-one, but he maintains regular contact with FoxHound through his transceiver. Big Boss issues the orders and the others offer advice and tactical support. These short conversations provide Snake with important hints and tips on how to deal with his current predicament, and they move the plot forward at several key junctures.

The transceiver is a slick way of injecting the game play with a narrative without breaking the fourth wall, but the impact of the story is somewhat blunted by the poor translation. Characters spouting lines like, “You will need your gas mask in gas-covered areas,” and, “I feel asleep,” often break the suspension of disbelief needed in the telling such a far-fetched story, but it's still engrossing enough to pull off the surprise plot twist at the end.

Metal Gear‘s graphics, though heavily downgraded from the MSX2 version, are fair by 1988 NES standards, and the music does a nice job of accentuating the tense feel of the gameplay.

The game play mechanics and responsive controls suitably do their job, save for the few irritating instances when enemies spot you the moment you enter a screen. The binoculars can help sidestep this, but they're a total pain to use. The game’s difficulty level could also do with some balancing – Metal Gear is brutally difficult through its first third, but once Snake has ranked up a few times and stocked up on supplies, encounters rarely pose a threat.

Though it’s not without its flaws, Metal Gear stands as an innovative pioneer against the glut of Mario and Xevious clones that made up a large chunk of the NES’s library in its first few years, and it's still a game that's well worth playing.

One particularly funny thing that really dates it, though, is how you carry around a pack of cigarettes as a usable inventory item. I never thought anything of it as a kid since smoking wasn't a big deal back then. Everyone smoked, and even McDonald's had ashtrays on their tables. Different times, they were.

(My original playthrough of MG was seven years old and was badly in need of an update, so this is a brand new playthrough with much better video quality.)

You can find my video of Metal Gear's US-exclusive NES sequel here: https://youtu.be/-Rivs_6U69w?si=_Y5s3aydgFuARAaf
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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