What do people on here think of the NES Metal Gear games?...

[Lost Dragon]

UK Press never seemed to go wildly overboard with MSX/NES Metal Gear it has to be said.

 

1st time i spooted it was in The Games Machine, issue 2 for MSX...79% score.

 

Vampire Killer also reviewed on MSX same issue, it got 69%

 

So based on these 2 reviews i think MSX was just written off in my head :-)

 

NES version of Metal Gear popped up a lot later in issue 30, scored 70% reviewer moaning it was that months least favourite NES game, due to amount of 'trudging around' player had to do.

[+jeremiahjt]

UK Press never seemed to go wildly overboard with MSX/NES Metal Gear it has to be said.

 

1st time i spooted it was in The Games Machine, issue 2 for MSX...79% score.

 

Vampire Killer also reviewed on MSX same issue, it got 69%

 

So based on these 2 reviews i think MSX was just written off in my head :-)

 

NES version of Metal Gear popped up a lot later in issue 30, scored 70% reviewer moaning it was that months least favourite NES game, due to amount of 'trudging around' player had to do.

70% was the worst game of the month? Must have been a good month. Or they were selective in what the reviewed.

[7800fan]

Those who said MG were bad probably never had original instruction book or map to help them get started. It was hard to figure out blindly. This is why renting some NES games were bad idea back then, often worn out or missing manual.

[Lost Dragon]

@jeremiahjt:

 

The other NES games TGM reviewed same month Metal Gear was reviewed were:

 

Track+Field 2 91%

 

Life Force 88%

 

Double Dribble 79%

 

Cobra Triangle 80%

 

Mega Man 83 %.

[omegadot]

I never did mess with the MSX emulation during my time as a fan of the DCEMU scene. Haven't really messed with any of it after a revolt following the segagen crapstorm. Perhaps I'll take a trip down that lane again.

[atarilovesyou]

@jeremiahjt:

 

The other NES games TGM reviewed same month Metal Gear was reviewed were:

 

Track+Field 2 91%

 

Life Force 88%

 

Double Dribble 79%

 

Cobra Triangle 80%

 

Mega Man 83 %.

 

Well, at least they got a few right. I'll take MG over T+F2 anyday of the week and twice on Thursday. Double Dribble?...yikes.

[Lost Dragon]

A few more NES review scores from The Games Machine, so you can get a 'feel' for how they viewed the system:

Top Gun 65%

Rush 'n' Attack 81%

SMB II 92%

Ghosts 'n' Goblins 84%

Solomons Key 80%

Skate Or Die 80%

Zelda II 65%

Simons Quest 55%

T.Mutant Hero Turtles (we did'nt get Ninja over here :-( ) 86%

[7800fan]

Simons Quest that low? I wonder if it's because the whole game play is different from first Castlevania in that you can go either direction and some area has 3 exits. I know Zelda 2 got bad rap because it's different from original Zelda and because it's very hard at times.

[Lost Dragon]

If you look at the other key, multi-format magazines of that era, starting with ACE, who just had to be different and score out of 1000 :-)

 

 

Mach Rider 636

Pro Wrestling 794

Punch Out 792

Baseball 624

Top Gun 808

Castlevania 857

Goonies 673

Gradius 874

Life Force 740

Double Dribble 719

Track And Field II 813

Batman 890

Solomons Key 790

Zelda II 901

[Lost Dragon]

Then looking at Mean Machines which started out as a section in C+VG, before becoming a mag of it's own..it starts to re-review games originally covered at times, but scores the following (and scoring system used changes along the way, lol):

 

Pro-Am 6

Zelda 9

Punch Out 8

Pro-Wrestling 5

Mario Bros 80%

Nintendo Soccer 83%

Gradius 87%

**Super Mario II 97%, but then when re-reviewed in Machine Machines when it was a stand alone magazine, it was awarded 89%...no idea there :-)

Castlevania 81%

Top Gun 82%

Mach Rider 58%

Baseball 47%

**Double Dragon 83% (MS ver.reviewed alongside, gets 76%), again here new, lower score 2nd time around in M.Machines review, drops to 80%

Mega Man 89%

Wizzards And warriors 74%

**Life Force 87%down to 86% 2nd M.M review

Track+Field II 92%

Cobra Triangle 93%

Double Dribble 82%

 

Seems UK press really took to Double Dribble :-)

[Lost Dragon]

Last lot of Mean Machines and their varied scoring system :-)

 

Kid Icarus 68%

Metriod 80%

Metal Gear 52%

TMHT:The Arcade Game 64%

Xevious 65%

Smash TV 90%

Snakes Revenge 49%

Paperboy 30%

Rygar 70 %

Boulderdash 90%

kari warriors 48%

Ghost's 'N' Goblins 55%

New Zealand Story 79%

Bear in mind with a lot of the Arcade conversions, by time they arrived in UK on NES carts (expensive compared to C64/ZX Spectrum/Amstrad CPC games) we'd had them on other 8 Bit micro's a long time ago, so were often seen as too little, too late.

[CreeB]

I was 18 when I played this game. I remember it being kinda hard, to the point where I had to ask the Nintendo Power hotline for help in a few areas. And of course, I had a crush on Solid Snake after browsing the manual for the first time and seeing that lovely drawing of him smoking a cigarette. Oh, and I read the Worlds of Power novelization. Upon reading that Snake's real name was Justin Halley, men named "Justin" became a turn-on to me.

[Crazy Climber]

I played the original a lot back in the day because I owned it and that's what you did when you owned a game back then (even if it was just so so) but yeah,it was just so so. The sneaking around stuff was kind of fun, I remember when the truck starts moving (when you are looking around in it) I thought that was pretty cool. I got bored with it though and haven't made any real effort to go back and play it 30 years later so...meh...I never bought Snakes Revenge, looked dumb...

[Tanooki]

Older topic, but still relevant that's for sure.

 

I wouldn't rate either of them much at all kindly, and that's not looking at it just now, but also when I first tried in the back half of the 90s.  I got both the games but they were like $5 pick ups and just the game.  They made NO sense to me, but I also had no manual, no fold out MG map poster thing, nothing, no gamefaqs either at that time so no guide.  It confused me, repeatedly, until I'd get angry and walk away from it wandering around maybe minutes or for an hour plus and just eventually die and stopped caring.  The concept was sound and the story it tried to do so poorly translated was a good one to work with, but the mechanics and reliance on a lot of guessing mixed with things I didn't get with my copy made it a nightmare to find any joy out of them.  MG on the whole I liked the concept, story, would have loved books and a movie, but the series I really hated until I got Metal Gear Solid Integral for Windows in the XP era..that was a joy, as was the Gamecube remaster, and I even found solid design good elements to enjoy in that throwback of sorts GBC game too.  MGS on the whole has been more miss than hit, but stuff like MGS1 3 and Peacewalker I found enjoyable.

[+wongojack]

Since I posted in this thread 5 years ago, I have since played the 2 MSX games.  That experience definitely makes the NES game and my memories of it seem a bit worse.  The MSX music is also better.  I don't know why they changed that.

 

@CreeB the art for the NES version is like a complete rip off of the Terminator:

 

 

Edit - I don't think I knew about Snake's Revenge 5 years ago.  I still haven't played it and don't really have a desire to do so.

[CreeB]

13 hours ago, wongojack said:

Since I posted in this thread 5 years ago, I have since played the 2 MSX games.  That experience definitely makes the NES game and my memories of it seem a bit worse.  The MSX music is also better.  I don't know why they changed that.

 

@CreeB the art for the NES version is like a complete rip off of the Terminator:

 

 

Edit - I don't think I knew about Snake's Revenge 5 years ago.  I still haven't played it and don't really have a desire to do so.

I'm talking about the manual, with the drawing of Snake smoking a cigarette... eeeeep!

[Rhomaios]

On 5/18/2015 at 4:17 PM, Cynicaster said:

I don't know... I feel asleep.

How did this thread even show up easily enough to get bumped? Talk about your necromancy.

 

Anyway, I tried to like this post again before I realized I already did 5 years ago!

[Mikebloke]

While this thread has been revived I would say there is a group mentality of modern gamers looking less favourable at the nes games compared to the msx games. However, if like me you never knew what an msx was at the time and you had the nes metal gear games, it looked absolutely awesome. Nes has a select number of decent games, that we often forget about the trash that also came with it. I wouldn't regard the nes metal gear games as trashy, when you compare it with other nes games. 

[BydoEmpire]

I was intrigued by them, but never got into them.  I've never found the Metal Gear gameplay very much fun - whether on the NES, PS1, or Twin Snakes on the 'Cube. I know it's hugely popular and lots of people love the series, that's cool, but just not my thing.

 

[Edit] Haha, no idea this was such an old thread.  Honestly, I rarely look at the OP date.  It doesn't really matter, though, it's not like it was okay to talk about NES games in 2015 but not in 2020...

Edited December 9, 2020 by BydoEmpire

[carlsson]

I don't know if NES games are more criticized than MSX games, but in this case it is clear that the team porting Metal Gear to Famicom got three months to complete it and were told to make it as different as possible from the MSX2 game, despite working from original (Z80 ??) sources (on a 6502 machine). Basically with all the changes, it sounds like a different game that just happens to have the same setting and name as the original game. The fact it doesn't even try to be a 1:1 port is enough to review and criticize the NES version on its own merits, without the criticism has any relevance to Kojima's original game.

 

I'm sure this is the case for many other games being ported between systems as well, but then it is due to hardware limitations or simply the developers have missed finer details about the implementation, not that they on purpose are told to make it different (but still the same).

[CatPix]

We're pretty much on an Aladdin 16 bits game comparison, then?

Interesting.

It make sense to change the game due to limitations between hardware (NES having much less RAM overall, but the carts at this point included mappers with their own RAM, and possibly bigger ROM size? MSX games could use the keyboard in addition to the gamepads to provide shortcuts for items, etc... )but "making it different" is a weird idea.

 

For the other game, if I recall, the second NES game was developped without even any input from the second MSX game so they are obviously going to be even more different.

[+jeremiahjt]

On 6/16/2020 at 7:40 PM, wongojack said:

Since I posted in this thread 5 years ago, I have since played the 2 MSX games.  That experience definitely makes the NES game and my memories of it seem a bit worse.  The MSX music is also better.  I don't know why they changed that.

 

@CreeB the art for the NES version is like a complete rip off of the Terminator:

 

 

Edit - I don't think I knew about Snake's Revenge 5 years ago.  I still haven't played it and don't really have a desire to do so.

What are you talking about? Snake on the cover has gloves and Michael Biehn does not have gloves. Obviously not even close to each other.

[sn8k]

I have played every single Metal Gear game. Both MSX games...... Both NES games, and every thing after.

 

I dont get why MG on NES gets the hate it does. Its largely the same as the MSX version.

 

In the MSX version Snake swims up to the base, you're in. Save scientists, avoid traps, dodge giant metal burritos, pick up items/weapons, save grey fox, fight Metal Gear, escape the base on a time limit.

 

In the NES version, he's dropped into the jungle, briefed on the radio.... and has to find his way to the base while picking up weapons and shit along the way. Gets into the base....... and this is where the game is pretty much the same, save scientists, avoid traps, dodge giant metal burritos, pick up items/weapons, save grey fox, fight or blow up Meta...errr. ahem a computer, and escape the base on a time limit.

 

I kind of like the NES version a little better because thats the one I played the most. The whole section before the base isnt in the msx version. I like how you have to find the base first instead of just starting in it. It teaches you how to play and gives you a chance to get some of your first items before entering.

 

The MSX version is ultimately the superior version because it has the Metal Gear fight and ultimately makes more sense because of what the name of the game is. But I still like the NES game, it tells the same story regardless except he blew up a computer at the end which was kind of stupid but ultimately, for me anyway, doesnt affect how I feel about the game over all. 

 

Snakes Revenge in my oppinion is better than MG. Both versions. This game should be remade and officially be canon. It kicks ass.

[tripled79]

I feel asleep.

[Frozone212]

Take contra and strip out the guns, add a confusing layout and poor design choices (I.E enemies respawn offscreen, no actual Metal Gear boss) make your character super weak to bullets and slap a $9.99 label on it. You have just made Metal Gear for NES

 

I kinda like Snake's revenge though, even if it is a tad difficult