4/5 ★ – nalbis's review of Metal Gear Solid.

the DNA for the subsequent 3 decades of the medium can be found right here. seeing cinematic technique injected into low-poly visuals is so fascinating, it's reached a cultural threshold-point where the graphical limitations of the time feels more like an aesthetic choice. i love the crunchy textures, the geometric shapes of the environments, the pixelated coms face animations. the storytelling has this wonderful novelty, the retrospective view on kojima's writing style and that heavy influence from films like john carpenter's ESCAPE FROM LA — it's all such a treat, the brooding expositional line delivery, the implied history, the leaning into self-awareness; the cliché of it all. it's very "movie" but it's also deeply "game" if that makes sense. it wears it's influences proudly, and it's own influence on games as a whole is so apparent, especially playing this unfiltered by personal nostalgia for the first time in 2025. i would be lying if i said i didn't have my frustrations. brutal, unfair GAME OVER's were around every single corner. felt less "on my toes" and more like the game was intentionally placing things to piss me off. repeating large sequences in their entirety from the smallest mistake. but, also, just the impossibility of figuring out what to do and where to even go. the age that shows here is both in the game and myself; i at 28, don't want to be clunkily backtracking, spending hours figuring out that one very unclear item use, to trial-and-error my way through a confusing boss-battle. but 8-year-old me playing this on my PS1 might have happily done this shit all day long. it really is in that specific class of bullshit video game, everything is an opportunity to throw a mechanical puzzle at the player, either you have to do something the game has introduced, or you have to just try anything you might imagine could ever possibly work — like of course i didn't think to switch to controller port 2 to beat that one boss, who would? all of this is to say: despite my overuse of google when i felt like i couldn't quite pick up what the game was puttin' down, i still really adored this from an artistic perspective — absolutely loved the earlier stealth sections too. meeting my companions, sneaking through the base slowly, crawling in vents, dodging simple guards, that was a blast. geared up for 2.