I watched my brother-in-law play Metal Gear Solid when it first came out on PS and didn’t quite get the appeal, but I was a PC gamer at the time, playing Warcraft and Diablo games.

When MGS remake Twin Snakes came out on Gamecube I bought it and I loved it, but amusingly, I had almost the same experience as with the NES one. I had such a hard time wrapping my mind around the stealth gameplay that even after buying the strategy guide, I couldn’t get the hang of the game. I eventually sold it, because I knew no matter how much I enjoyed playing it, I’d never make it through the game.

Now, I don’t imagine I’d play Metal Gear on the PS3 or PSP, but if they remade Twin Snakes on Wii, tuned it up a bit and used the controller in a way that helped me understand my capabilities (wave Nunchuk to knock on a surface to draw attention, for example) I might give it another spin.

MGS1: Bad cameras can really kill a 3rd person game so I can see how this could sour you on that genre. Lots of bad guys to fight? Kind of a normal thing for games, I’d wager.

MGS2: Raiden is probably the biggest misstep of the series, but his place in the story of disposable supersoldiers, for non-anime people like me, is still important. Did we hate him for not being Snake? Yes. Am I happy to see videos of a good guy ninja superweapon, Raiden or not, tearing apart the genetically engineered metal gears? Definitely.

MGS3: I had a hard time enduring my-brothers-keeper ending of this game but the story really drove me on. I played through the last of the jungle in a decidedly non stealthy way to just get the heck past it.

MGS4: You’re off in uncharted preview-driven territory here my friend. I think the PMC postapocalyptic genetically engineered army motif is very compelling given current events, especially as it ties in to at least named events in the very early games, mentioning Outer Heaven at least. Again it’s the story that holds it together but strong sci-fi doesn’t hurt either.

In the end if it weren’t for such an interesting story and themes crossing all the games I wouldn’t be playing them. The difficulties of the externally imposed gameplay limitations are almost too much for me to bear.

Case in point: MGS:Portable Ops. I stopped at the first boss fight because the only thing more frustrating than the often unusual limits of Metal Gear Solid controls is having them on a PSP!

But I will finish it before I play MGS4 because the story is good, introducing Roy Campbell to Snake and chronologically following the story of MGS3, and its recruitment mechanic along with the squad configurations are really interesting to me from a design standpoint.

THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!

I FEEL ASLEEP!