Solid Snake, the hero of Metal Gear Solid, may not actually be as recent a character as you think. His first game was actually on the MSX series of computers. These machines were a common standard of home computer, which were manufactured by several well known companies such as Sony, Pioneer and Yamaha.

Anyway, Metal Gear, release in 1987, was the first game to feature Solid Snake, and was the first real stealth game too. You had to infiltrate a facility called “Outer Heaven” somewhere in Africa, by avoiding the guards and finding codes to unlock doors and rescue Prisoners of War. The now familiar system of stealth was fully implemented even at this early stage. If discovered you would have to find a place to hide until the guards lost interest.


There was also a sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which was more of the same. However, these two games are important since Hideo Kojima, the creator of Solid Snake, used them to introduce characters and begin the storyline which would go on to form the core of the hugely popular PS1 incarnation.

Metal Gear Solid will be the first, and for many the best, encounter they had with Solid Snake. Snake has always been a real cool character, and one who has never been afraid to make his opinion well known. This PS1 game is responsible for kick starting the whole stealth genre, and without it we would probably not have games like Splinter Cell, certainly not in the form they are now anyway. When discovered by a guard, the music and alarms that would kick in really got the pulse racing, and when you had managed to avoid the guards for long enough the change in tempo really made you feel a sense of relief.

The sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, was released on PS2, and caused a huge commotion when it was first shown at the E3 exhibition in 2000. At that point nobody had seen a game with such astounding graphics and animation for the then new system, and many a jaw dropped as that first trailer was shown. When the game finally arrived, the graphics were there in all there glory, but the biggest bug bear of the first game returned in an even bigger helping. This, of course, were the cut scenes. Beautiful they may be, but when some of them lasted for 15 minutes or more, they could become a bit tedious. Worse still were the lengthy discussions over the radio codec.

Metal Gear Solid 2’s worst crime however, was that you only got to play as Snake for a brief period at the beginning of the game. Instead, you were forced to play as Raiden, a young soldier who’s sex was always being called into question. People bought the game to play as Snake, and many were disappointed by the fact that they couldn’t.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, redressed the balance, putting you back in control of a younger Snake, with the game being set in a kind of alternate version of the 1960’s.

The line isn’t ending there though, with Metal Gear Solid 4 due to be released on PS3. Again, the trailers look awesome, with you playing as a much older, more tired version of Snake. Let’s hope Hideo Kojima see fit to put in a bit more game, and a bit less cut scene next time around!

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