The Metal Gear Game Series and How It Has Changed in the Last 25 Years of Development
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Metal Gear game series, and for good reason too, as the franchise has come a long way since it first released in 1987 on the MSX2 computer based system. The Nintendo 8-bit version soon followed and was literally an instant hit. castlevania. It put stealth oriented games on the map and basically upstaged most military type games out at the time. The supposed follow up called Snakes's Revenge was meant to be a sequel to the first one, and was meant for a North American and European market, but after producer Hideo Kojima had found out about its production, unbeknownst to him, he decided to produce one for the Japanese market, and called it Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake for the MSX2 system, which was superior in various ways.
This was the last Metal Gear game to be developed in the usual sense all the way until 1998 when the series shifted and became known as Metal Gear Solid. After the release of the PSX, the series plunged into the 3D realm and new special effects, music and 3D elements revamped the game to a whole new level. To this day it is hailed as the best Solid game out there. It's a genuine classic game fans still enjoy today. From that point the next iteration was Sons of Liberty, which was redone on the Xbox and called Substance, mainly because fans complained that there was too much stealth involved in Sons of Liberty and not enough "Substance", hence the name.
GameCube fans soon got in on the action when the release of The Twin Snakes took to the scene, borrowing elements from Sons of Liberty in the process. A follow up to Sons of Liberty then came out called Snake Eater, and featured a new style and graphics not scene in the Metal Gear world before. Here is where it gets interesting though, a new Metal Gear game currently in production as we speak called Ground Zeroes, actually takes place after Snake Eater, and BEFORE the next Metal Gear title called Guns of the Patriots, which sports an ever aging Solid Snake on the scene. Confusing isn't it? Well, perhaps after Ground Zeroes makes its final release you can see how the storyline will fit into that time frame.
Two other hand held games that deserve a mention include a really odd card based games called Acid and Acid 2. No stealth action here, let alone in your face combat. In Acid you use cards to determine the next move and how the game progresses, something that has never happened with Metal Gear before. You also have Portable Ops, and Social Ops which has yet to be released and they are based on the same concept. Although not quite as popular as the console based titles, the hand held versions, aside from Peace Walker which is action and stealth oriented, have been a success with fans. Currently in production with Ground Zeroes, we also have an entirely new saga arising, which is ironically called Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. I believe this finally marks the end to all of the years of playing with Solid Snake and sneaking around killing soldiers as we've done so for so long. Solid Snake's time is coming to and end, and Raiden is the new kid on the block, using futuristic technology like a high powered plasma sword and various other gadgets at his command. Of course, now that the old Metal Gear game series is ending, where will Rising take us?, why into a new realm of another 25 years of action we hope.
