Metal Gear Twin Snakes Adapter Talks Future

Thanks to Game Informer for its interview with Silicon Knights' founder Denis Dyack, following this week's release of fairly well-received GameCube Metal Gear Solid remake, MGS: The Twin Snakes. Dyack says of the game: "I think we've met the watermark and I think gamers are going to be happy and looking at the responses so far... we think people are fairly pleased", and looks forward to the next Silicon Knights project, suggesting wistfully: "We'd really love to make a hardcore dark Zelda, but at the end of the day, that's something that needs to be discussed with Mr. Miyamoto and his group and that's his baby."

Comments

Re:Dark Zelda

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Nintendo console Zelda has had dark tones to it.

Zelda 1: Ganon and all the bosses are uniquely intimidating. Level design is such that you can anticipate boss encounters (map & compass), raising anticipation in the player. Dungeon music is hauntingly melodic, and some dungeons are just difficult enough that players can actually fear for their character. Dropping to one heart causes a low-life tone to sound repeatedly, raising player anxiety. Classic dark game in every way.

Zelda 2: Dungeons and bosses are still intimidating, but in a less charismatic way than in Zelda 1. Relies more on difficulty than Zelda 1 to set dark mood.

Zelda 3: Excellent use of music and sound effects. Goes back to Zelda 1's formula (not just in player perspective), but improves on every aspect of the original. Includes a whole dark world to explore, which incorporates both familiarity and enough unknown elements to keep the player interested. Great game.

Zelda OOT: I don't know what you're talking about, this Zelda had its dark moments all over the place. The kidnapping of Zelda, the revelation of Ganon, the huge dark dungeons with freaky music, the oxygen/heat timers, the twisted/corrupt future full of walking undead, the mysterious backstory of Sheik, the revelation of the Sages, etc. This is a very serious game throughout many major story points of the game.

Zelda MM: This game is so serious and gloomy that it's been described as depressing. Nobody has ever called Majora's Mask an overly whimsical game. I love it, personally, and it's the closest we've seen so far to a dark Zelda. Unlike Ocarina of Time, the player gets a sense that he is completely on his own for the majority of the story. Termina is a far more depressing place than the Hyrule of Link's youth in Ocarina, that's for sure.

Zelda WW: When I finish this game (have had to stop mid-game due to a move), I will have comments on it. But there is no sign that Zelda has all of a sudden become a walk through the park, thankfully.

If you ask me, any Zelda game that might take itself more seriously than Majora's Mask does would have to be extremely well done, otherwise it could be seen as an awkward attempt to "extremify" the series. That would be a major backfire.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

[Vexware]

If you take a look at the game's different reviews, you will notice that the average critics' score is 84%. Now I do not want to sound like some kind of demented fanatic - I know that 84% is a good score -, but in my opinion, the game really is underrated for what it is in terms of gameplay, longetivity, graphics, and story. I know I sound kind of biased, and as a fan of the PlayStation edition I'm sure I am, but surely Metal Gear Solid deserves more than that even as just introduced to new players.

Firstly, such an amazing gameplay surely deserves a bit more acclaim than it is currently getting. Some will call it 'out-dated' - those are the people who haven't really played the game but just checked the original release date and wan't to sound as if they know something about it. Great gameplay is never out-of-date. Metal gear Solid was, and still is, a game that you could play for days on end simply because the gameplay is pure fun; there are so much ways to play through the game, and now, the game has all the best things from its sequel: amazing AI, new moves, first-person-shooting, and general increased environment interactivity. I could already play the original game for a long time without even getting near the pit of boredom; now I have even more ways to play the game, more diverse ways to get through it. How could that possibly not make this gem shine even more?

Sure, once you will have played through the game a few times, you will be able to finish it in less than a few hours, but just being able to play through it in so many different ways will be what will make you come back to playing it over and over again. I just do not see how you can get bored of Metal gear Solid.

Silicon Knights have greatly updated the graphics, and it is a real pleasure to play through the game with 'next-generation' graphics. It makes the gameplay even more pleasurable, even more enjoyable. Some people say that 'gameplay is more important than graphics'. Metal gear Solid: The Twin Snakes has both great gameplay and updated graphics; what more could one want?

As for the story, well this is where the opinions are more diverse. The game is basically story-driven, and that is a bit of "the problem". Players of the original edition will remember hours upon hours - literally - of CODEC conversations, about nuclear war, government, terrorists and discrete love twists. Some will love the story, and I belong to that batch, but some will just want to get a refund because they asked for a game and not for a movie. The game's story is a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it - but you'll just have to do with it, because you can't skip the nigh-on 30 minute conversations, which you can probably do without. It seems Silicon Knights has not added a skip function, from what i have red in the reviews, and this is a feature they should not have overlooked, because of all the complaints when the game came out, most were about these "hellish" conversations. You will have been warned; if you wan't non-stop action, you will be somewhat disappointed.

All I have to say is, beyond the long conversations which cut the gameplay every so often - depicting a story you may love to follow or love to hate -, if you do not buy this game, you will be missing out on a gem of gameplay, one of the pioneers of the "stealth'-em-up" revolution. In my opinion, this will be a future 'must-have' for GameCube owners, and the memories which will be forged will be worth much more than the scores the reviews give to the game.