The world and his wife. living outside the wild outlands of Europe have been playing Metalgear for months, but just in case you didn't know how good it is, here's our PAL review.What Hideo Kojima and Konami set out to do was create an action game with the feel of a movie and posing a more intelligent challenge to the player. They succeeded spectacularly in every department, with a gorgeous-looking game, brilliant characters and something genuinely original in the way of gameplay.
You are Solid Snake, a hard-bitten special operative impassively facing your latest mission - to infiltrate the Alaskan base of the nuclear terrorist group Fox Hound, and halt their plans to launch a nuke on the capital in 18 hours. As a former member of the group, you know its six captains well, particularly the ringleader Liquid Snake.
From the beginning, you are plunged into an immersive movie experience, with real-time cutscenes taking up a good ten minutes of the start. The main elements of play are introduced cleverly, without breaking the illusion of plot. You learn how to communicate via your satellite phone, which has different frequencies for different operatives who offer you assistance. You can ring them for help, or await calls which point you in the right direction.
The game puts you in the unusual position of being unarmed at the start, and you are forced to advance by stealth, which is the main characteristic of Metalgear. Like Activision's Tenchu before it, the restraint you have to show by using stealth tactics makes for a really satisfying and exciting game experience. Each guard has a field of vision which is clearly shown on the radar, so you have only yourself to blame if you are detected. Guards can also hear within a certain radius, so you must avoid hard surfaces or puddles. You can also use sound to create a diversion - a risky tactic this.
The tension mounts as you slip past edgy guards or dodge surveillance equipment. If you are detected all is not necessarily lost. Firstly, you must get out of direct vision of the guards. If you can evade them for a certain amount of time, they will give up looking for you. Maybe not entirely realistic, but it gives you some leeway to make mistakes.
Most of the game is viewed from a top-down perspective, but the flexibility of 3D lets you look through the eyes of Snake at any time. Occasionally the view will change, like when you are pressed against a wall, in an air duct or chilling out inside your cardboard box (uh-huh). There are some really cool devices to pick up, like the brilliant imaging goggles or the way cool binoculars with zoom function. All the environments are fantastically detailed.
Metalgear is distinctive in that the game is woven around the story, rather than the opposite way around. The story sections are all portrayed using polygons, but look as slick as any FMV. Occasionally it's quite funny - the wobbly bum close-ups in the prison block should raise a titter - but it's always gripping.
From the PAL point of view, nothing is amiss. The speed is not that important in a game of this type and the translators have kept in the bits Konami might have been tempted to censor. Snake still has his ciggies.
