Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on Xbox 360 – The DVDfever Review

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection: Back in the day, the Metal Gear Solid series was never really my sort of thing. I later got into – and thoroughly enjoyed – the SOCOM games on the PSP. Add to that the Hitman series and my love of stealth games was born.

There are three games in this package and they are as follows:

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Players take the role of a one-man army determined to stop a deadly high-tech weapon from falling into the hands of a highly elite resistance group known as Dead Cell. Playwers must utilize their skills in stealth, weaponry, and counter-terrorism to fight off the competing powers. Progress through a twisting storyline and eventually face the gigantic war machine, Metal Gear Ray.
  
• Metal Gear Solid 3: In the struggle to achieve world peace and world dominance in the Cold War period, rivaling governments are secretly developing weapons technology that could threaten the future existence of life. Destined to be the first, a race ensues to become the ultimate nation. A special elite tactical soldier is summoned to penetrate deep in the heart of enemy territory and obtain Intel about “Metal Gear”, a prototype weapon with nuclear capabilities. This is your mission and you must infiltrate alone. As “Naked Snake,” you must outsmart enemies with camouflage, close-quarters combat, stalking, interrogating, climbing, hunting and treating injuries in this critical chapter of the Metal Gear saga.
  
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: The era is the 1970s. Big Boss has stations his “Soldiers without Borders” in Columbia, South America, where he was approached by a visitor from Costa Rica, (a nation without a military). In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a mysterious armed force seemed to be engaging in suspicious activities. Players take control of the famed Naked Snake at a critical junction in modern history.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was fun for a while, but I did find it annoying that there’s no proper camera for it, only a Resident Evil-style fixed point camera unless you hold down the first-person-view button. I’d rather be able to toggle that.

In addition, I found it tricky to get used to the controls and often threw myself into a cardboard box for no reason or fired off a shot when I wanted to conserve my ammo. It’s also ridiculous that you can’t grab the weapons of soldiers you kill or knock out. As such, I soon got fed up with this entry in the series and moved on to No.3.

For those who do enjoy it, there are some extras for you under the ‘Special’ option:

• Basic Actions: teaches you how to do specific things, such as covering yourself with a cardboard box (presumably not by accident), and knocking on a wall to attract the attention of a guard who won’t leave his post.
  
• Previous Story: Read Snake’s story in the New York Mirror
  
• Photo album: Nothing here, so I guess this will fill up later.
  
• Dog Tag viewer: Your save games

And there’s also ‘Snake Tales’, which is some more backstory about our hero and mini games.

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Metal Gear Solid 2: First gameplay footage (720p HD)

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When it came to Metal Gear Solid 3, at least that one had more freedom of movement around your environment and I get that all 3 games are stated as being in HD, but they don’t *FEEL* particularly HD. Yes, there’s blade of grass moving in MGS3, but we had all that in the original Halo on the Xbox, so it’s hardly an advancement.

This entry also includes the original MGS 1 and 2 games and, in fact, I think I got more of a buzz playing those than the games I was meant to be playing, even though I wasn’t really sure of what I could and couldn’t always interact with.

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Overall, I have to say that I found the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection rather uninvolving and, I guess Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is on disc 2, but I had enough with the first two games, quite honestly.

In this review, I’ve uploaded a number of videos which are as follows:

Metal Gear Solid 2: First gameplay footage (720p HD)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Olga boss battle (720p HD)
Metal Gear Solid 3: First gameplay footage (720p HD)
Metal Gear Solid: The original 8-bit game – First gameplay footage (720p HD)
Metal Gear Solid 2: The original 8-bit game – First gameplay footage (720p HD)

Visit my DVDfeverGames Youtube channel for many more gaming videos.

Important info:

• Publisher: Konami
• Price: £27.90 (Xbox 360, PS3)
• Players: 1 offline
• HDTV options: 720p/1080i/1080p
• Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes

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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	6 6 6 3
OVERALL	5