15th February
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing this week. This week, Ed decides to replay the entire Metal Gear Solid series ahead of the Snake Eater remake; Tom gets really scared playing the Dead Space Remake, which is starting to become something of a theme; and Bertie – that’s me – extols the power of fantasy escapism.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.
Metal Gear Solid, PS1
Maybe it’s the impending release of the Snake Eater remake but I had a sudden urge to replay Metal Gear Solid last weekend. Well, the entire series actually, though the first three are most easily accessible in the Master Collection. And while I say replay, I first played Solid 1 in the GameCube Twin Snakes remake, so now was a chance to play the original properly. It’s not chronologically the first, but it’s the best starting point right?
What really struck me is that Metal Gear Solid is a bit basic. In gameplay terms at least. The game’s idea of stealth is moving a dot past coloured cones, running past enemies and shooting them off screen. The story is mostly told through streams of text-based Codec conversations. The world is only a handful of screens long. And there is some utterly egregious backtracking to pad it out further – do I really need a sniper rifle to save Meryl? Does this key really need multiple temperature changes?
And yet! And yet. I still love this game, I really do. It’s just so iconic. It’s testament to Kojima’s vision – and probably the series’ best storytelling, with its twists and double crossing – that it transcends such simplistic gameplay. It’s a game built on standout moments that are still memorable decades later: from fourth-wall breaking “packages”, to mind-reading bosses, to thwarting torture with ketchup, and so many other surprises. And it’s all elevated by Kojima’s eye for cinematography and the way he builds up to dramatic moments – the long lift as ravens squawk, hinting at the boss battle to come, or Otacon warning of stealth suits gone missing… Where could they be?! I’m glad the rest of the series beefed up the gameplay stakes considerably, but the tight focus of this first game still has the highest narrative stakes for me. An utter classic. On to the next!
Side note: does anyone else find Metal Gear Solid faintly terrifying? Perhaps it’s the washed out colour palette, the rising tension of its stealth gameplay, or the way the (!) alert sound effect makes me jump out of my skin? No, it’s definitely the Codec calls with those sketched character portraits. It’s like they’re staring right at me.
-Ed
Dead Space Remake, PS5 Pro
Is the Dead Space remake too scary for me? I’m still working my way through, but I am finding that my play sessions are ending a little earlier than my free time allows, simply because I can’t deal with the tension any longer.
The game repeatedly uses a mechanic where you must disable power in the room you are in to power an area elsewhere, and this results in the lights going out where you are standing. Every time I know there’s going to be a horrendous noise to signify a monster is on its way, probably more than one, and yet every time I am shocked by what happens and end up firing wildly into the air having suddenly forgotten how to use a controller.
I’ve lost count (I lie, I never started counted, but that’s not a phrase anyone uses) of the times I’ve heard a monstrosity behind me, turned to have a look, then turned back to run away, only to have another hideous creature leap out of a vent in front of me. The playbook of scares isn’t that big, but it’s used so well it really doesn’t matter. Tune in next week to find out if I carry on or find something more sedate to play.
-Tom O
Avowed
There’s a lot to be said for escapism in games. My partner is a big fan of The Witcher 3 – she’s mildly obsessed – so I naturally assumed she’d be hyped for Cyberpunk 2077 when it was nearing release. But when we watched a presentation of the game at EGX 2019, held in a small cinema-style room, she came away unimpressed, and I couldn’t work out why.
It had everything to do with the game’s setting, I discovered. Whereas in The Witcher 3 she was transported to a game of wide open fields and thick forests and uncluttered horizons, in Cyberpunk 2077 she felt hemmed in. Cemented in. The city seemed to press in around her. And she didn’t like it – that wasn’t a place she wanted to be.
I think about that a lot these days – I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it before – and it was front of my mind recently playing Avowed. And I tell you what: that game absolutely nails it. The last time I felt this about a game was probably Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, funnily enough, which shares the same world. It’s the spirit of adventure those games capture that makes me giddy. It makes me feel like a little kid again, reading Treasure Island, dreaming of tropical getaways. Fantasising.
Now I know exactly what my partner means.
-Bertie
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