Metal Gear Solid was a decent stealth game, but an all time horror game

In the wake of publishers adopting NFTs and predictive language programs so flimsy that even 1998 Kojima would have laughed you out of the room for daring to call them actual AI, you fools, you complete donkeys, Konami’s infamous pivot-to-pachinko seems almost quaint now. Perhaps embarrassed by the relatively small amount of egg on their face compared to some of their more ridiculous contemporaries, Konami have decided to come crawling back to try and buy our collective forgiveness by way of their second-only-to-Squeenix PS1 back catalogue. Well it won’t work, you swines! What’s that? Suikoden remasters? Well, it still won’t work! Metal Gear Solid on Steam, you say? Balls. Balls and zounds.

MGS1 has, of course, been available via GOG for quite a while now. It’s a noble, if barebones port, but it does mean I have Snake-related options besides dusting off my PS1 classic, which is currently doing a bang-up job keeping a dodgy table bang-upright. Either way, I’ve found myself on a bit of Metal Gear kick recently. Phantom Pain, for all its narrative faults, holds up still as a cracking stealth sandbox rivalled only by Hitman. And MGS1 is still dramatic, still goofy, still alternately comedically overwrought and genuinely touching. But most of all, it's still haunted by the same ghosts that dwelled inside it all those years ago.

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