I’ve just paid £8 to play Metal Gear Solid 1 for the first time ever, via a second hand PSP

[Calashnikov]

Never played a Metal Gear Solid game other than Ground Zeroes and the demo of Snake Eater on 3DS. It’s the one sacred cow games series I’ve just never got round to, but tonight after tanning a bottle of wine I took the notion to dig out my second hand PSP which I bought a few years ago from the Trading folder in order to give it a go (shout out to the PSP seller who sold me it and forgot to delete his classic Nuts / Zoo era massive tits wallpaper, whoever he was).

 

It’s a 700-odd MB file and it’s taking 1.5 hour odd to download, and sometimes the PSP can’t connect to my Wi-Fi for some reason, but other times it does. 
 

Let’s see how this goes.

[Calashnikov]

I even had to dick about with Safari’s settings on my iPhone in order to buy the fucker from the PlayStation online store. The PS store on my PS4 wasn’t even showing MGS1 for PSP when I searched for it. 
 

I feel like I’m dabbling in some ancient dark magic, casting spells in forgotten tongues in order to exhume this thing from the dead.

[Calashnikov]

This attached image here is like an 8th of the size of the game file and it uploaded here in half a second.
 

[Sarlaccfood]

Shit I didn’t know you could still get psone games on the PSP. I thought they closed all that part of psn down?

 

 

[Calashnikov]

My PS4’s store would have you believe that was the case, 1 puzzle game aside. But accessing store.playstation.etc via iPhone allowed me to search it out. Who knows why? I also had to change some Safari app setting or other in order to cart and checkout, which seems to be an issue for anyone who tries to buy stuff from there on their phone. My details have no doubt been ramraided and I’m haemorrhaging tens or hundreds of pounds as I post.

[Klatrymadon]

Yeah, you can still buy everything that hasn't been delisted, just not through the PSP itself. It's a shame because finding games on the website can be a nightmare! 

[Calashnikov]

The PSP’s internet connection conked out when the game was halfway through a half hour install, after completing the 1.5 hour download. Now the audio is fucked and I can’t figure out a way to restart the install without having to delete the whole file and restarting the entire download. I’m gonna be sober, asleep and totally not arsed to even play it by the time it’ll be good to go, which should be about 4am. Belter.

[squirtle]

You're in for a treat. I played it again recently and it still stands up. Amazing game. 

[Paulando]

2 hours ago, Calashnikov said:

The PSP’s internet connection conked out when the game was halfway through a half hour install, after completing the 1.5 hour download. Now the audio is fucked and I can’t figure out a way to restart the install without having to delete the whole file and restarting the entire download. I’m gonna be sober, asleep and totally not arsed to even play it by the time it’ll be good to go, which should be about 4am. Belter.

This is Kojima fucking with you. It’s all part of the game. You’re gonna shit a brick when you get to Psycho Mantis.

[gossi the dog]

2 hours ago, Paulando said:

This is Kojima fucking with you. It’s all part of the game. You’re gonna shit a brick when you get to Psycho Mantis.

 

Edited due to possible spoiler

[Mike]

Imagine getting to play MGS1 for the first time.  Enjoy every brilliant second. 

[Spacehost]

Great, now I'm charging up my Vita so I can play 1/2/3.

[Calashnikov]

I might nail a PS Now subscription so I can play the 2 & 3 HD collection once I’m done with 1.

 

I do actually own a copy of MGSV and have done for several years (that’s how I managed to play Ground Zeroes) but I’ve been putting off playing it because I was pretty sure I’d get more out of it had I played the rest of the series, which may or may not be true, I dunno.

[Ninja Doctor]

I’ve never played more than about an hour of MGS. 

[Spacehost]

2 minutes ago, Calashnikov said:

I might nail a PS Now subscription so I can play the 2 & 3 HD collection once I’m done with 1.

 

I do actually own a copy of MGSV and have done for several years (that’s how I managed to play Ground Zeroes) but I’ve been putting off playing it because I was pretty sure I’d get more out of it had I played the rest of the series, which may or may not be true, I dunno.

Ground Zeroes/ The Phantom Pain are sequels to a PSP game that's a sequel to another PSP game that's a sequel to MGS3 and slightly related to MGS4, but really you've got two continuities, the Solid Snake Saga (Metal Gear/ MG2/ MGS/ Sons of Liberty/ Guns of the Patriots) and the Big Boss Saga (Snake Eater/ Portable Ops/ Guns of the Patriots/ Peace Walker/ Ground Zeroes/ The Phantom Pain). In today's TED talk I will explain how you will feel ashamed of your words and deeds when you discover the true reason behind

[Captain Kelsten]

Just play Metal Gear Solid 1 and ignore all the rest. It's by far the best of the bunch, a stone cold classic, whereas all the others would have withered on the vine if they weren't badged as Metal Gear games. 

[Spacehost]

You should definitely play Sons of Liberty because the flapjaw worm a back flip in Hari-Kari space. You should definitely play Snake Eater because it's one of the best action games ever made.

[probotector]

Damn I’m so jelly but you need to play it on the big screen with sound!

 

Fucking love the game. I think I’ll play through it again at some point this year  

[Steven]

Play the odd numbered ones as they are some of the best games you can play.

[squirtle]

Metal Gear Solid 3 is so good. So, so good. It starts off so slow and hard and impenetrable then there's a moment where it all clicks and it builds to one of the best finales to any game ever. 

[Spacehost]

I can't believe the final run of MGS3 from when you get captured was in a game released in 2004 or whatever. It's astounding. I also don't want to spoil it, but ugh. So good.

[Spacehost]

Anyway, I have questions about how our neophyte will handle this game. Full game spoilers

Spoiler

Will he know about the CD case thing?

Can he work out how to beat Cyborg Ninja and Mantis?

Will he manage to survive the torture or are his thumbs not up to the task?

Will he do the Sniper Wolf second battle cheese?

This is like being in the playground in 1999 again.

[MW_Jimmy]

I played MGS1 for the first time last year and recorded a podcast of my experience with it:

 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Lb6BcWk8vpm4UtYT0SR0Q?si=iy9TdeVvSFijqJad6PzzkQ

 

TLDL: I loved it (even though I knew about it's most infamous scenes). It's probably one of a very small selection of PS1 games that stand the test of time.

 

[BitterToad]

15 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Just play Metal Gear Solid 1 and ignore all the rest. It's by far the best of the bunch, a stone cold classic, whereas all the others would have withered on the vine if they weren't badged as Metal Gear games. 

 

This is wrong;

 

1's great, it's probably aged a bit but will still be more than playable .

2's a plot bloated but brilliant masterpiece that questions the very nature of sequels and predicts a lot of where we are today with data/governments. It's also full to the brim of quirk and anime madness. 

3's a different beast, Kojima's Bond movie, a proper mood of a game and one of the best pure stealth experiences out there.

4 is like the guy who made 2 completely forgot every point he made and decided to go back and explain literally every story thread in painstaking, quite boring detail. It has some good bits, both in terms of gameplay and story, but is pretty stupid to the core and far, far, far too long. It ends on a 90 minute cutscene that is pretty much awful from start to finish and explains away a lot of what I loved about all 3 of its predecessors. 

5 is the best combat sandbox of all time attached to a brilliant drip feed of new stuff so that your experience constantly evolves. It takes the idea that GTA3 gave us, of complete freedom and choice in how you tackle missions in a video game, and truly delivers. It's a bit long and doesn't really end due to internal conflicts with Kojima and Konami, but what is there is quite simply one of the best in the medium. Also story wise there's not a lot there outside of the first hour and what there is doesn't make a huge amount of sense due to the aforementioned conflicts/politics. If you came away from 4 thinking it was the best of the bunch you'll probably be disappointed, but if you're a sane, rational human being, the gameplay will make up for any slight shortcomings in the plot. 

 

If I can offer you one piece of advice it's take your time. Not in a patronising "enjoy every experience to the full" kind of way, but I just want to encourage experimentation. The Metal Gear Solid series is my favourite of all time, not because of the wacky plots and brilliant characters (both do definitely help though...) but because of how much bizarre shit Koji has filled his games with. Certainly from 2 onwards there are so many mad little gameplay quirks and systems that fit in perfectly and can go completely unnoticed if you just rush through. 5 is the absolute best example of this but they all have fun ways of playing with guards and finding fun stuff if you experiment. 

 

Anyway, enjoy Calashnikov! You've got a lot of absolutely brilliant, mind boggling madness to come. 3's probably the best in the series, but 2 will always be my favourite due to years in my teens spent messing around on Tanker finding every little nook and cranny of awesomeness on there.  

[the_debaser]

It stands there at the pinnacle of PS1 games along with Ridge Racer Type 4. 

[squirtle]

1 hour ago, Spacehost said:

I can't believe the final run of MGS3 from when you get captured was in a game released in 2004 or whatever. It's astounding. I also don't want to spoil it, but ugh. So good.

Indeed. I remember doing the whole thing in one sitting, starting one afternoon and just kept going. I was an emotional wreck by the end of it. 

[Kryptonian]

Was the GameCube version better? I can’t remember the differences. Any way to play it besides on the original console? Just being lazy not setting it up again and it didn’t look great on my TV last time I tried 

[squirtle]

1 minute ago, Kryptonian said:

Was the GameCube version better? I can’t remember the differences. Any way to play it besides on the original console? Just being lazy not setting it up again and it didn’t look great on my TV last time I tried 

People didn't like TTS, but I love it, even though some of the mechanics brought in from 2 do make it easier than the original. I just love the fact it dials the anime up to 11 and then some. 

[Spacehost]

13 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

Was the GameCube version better?

It's a dick-swinging Hollywood remake of the original with some of the systems from the second, a humourless and flat retranslation of the script, cutscenes directed by a humanoid bag of cocaine, and you can hear the voice cast's annoyance at Konami trying to pay them their off-union 1998 salaries to redo all the voices.

 

It's a fun oddity, like the colourised version of Casablanca or that US live action version of Fist of the North Star.

[Soulstar]

4 hours ago, Mike said:

Imagine getting to play MGS1 for the first time.  Enjoy every brilliant second. 

 

I haven’t yet played this either aside from the demo of the first game when it was getting released. Always wanted to get it and missed it. Because I’d the nature of me wanting to play them in order stopped me from getting any others, I haven’t touched a single one.