Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is an excellent remake of the original Metal Gear Solid. (For the following, note that I have only played the PC version of MGS, which is almost identical to the Playstation version).

That said, I have to admit I haven't so far seen much in the game that had directly benefited from the polishing. The original game was slightly ugly, but not *too* ugly - acceptable. We live in the age where improvements in game graphics are starting to become less and less significant. The cutscenes are more impressive, of course, but again, you can't leap much higher from the original. Epic is epic. The voices have been rerecorded, which has had some benefits, namely that it has eliminated a couple of rather annoyingly badly delivered lines (a few seem to remain).

A little bit more of humor has been injected here and there, which is always good - hidden bits of humor are always fun to find.

The only thing where the game has really benefited from is the AI. The enemy soldiers have suddenly started to feel like the IQ 180 battle machines they're advertised as. Once the alarm rings, it's very tricky to stay out of trouble. (I wish, however, they had made the "game over if discovered" option available right from the start for all difficulty levels!) The boss fights, on the other hand, so far have seemed a whole lot easier! Also, the tranquiliser guns are a good addition.

One thing that bugs me is the lack of the VR training missions. Due to them, the PC version was good for both longer play sessions (the main game) and short time fun (the VR missions). As it is, sitting in front of the game is very likely to take approximately two hours out of our lives.

In summary, it is a great port of the game, it works wonderfully on GameCube, plays better than the original, has smarter enemies, slightly better graphics, good new guns and items - but yet, there's something in it that makes me to say "it's *just* a MGS remake, nothing more". It is, however, still a classic that I can't be without.