Topic: Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes

[ThePerm]

They should really re-release this on Switch. My GCN copy was stolen. I'd buy it again. It's $160ish on ebay.

[ejamer]

This would be a great Switch remaster. Even if they didn't do anything significant to the game other than making it available again, it would be a huge win. Twin Snakes had a little bit of silliness that could be dropped, but outside of that minor complaint was straight up a great game.

(Also, really not worth $160.. holy moley. People on eBay are crazy.)

[Mop it up]

Where are you getting $160? I checked eBay just now and I see copies having sold for between $40-60. Which is still not cheap, but not outrageous.

Too bad the used copy I have has a reproduction case, so it's probably not worth much.

[ejamer]

Where are you getting $160? I checked eBay just now and I see copies having sold for between $40-60. Which is still not cheap, but not outrageous.

Too bad the used copy I have has a reproduction case, so it's probably not worth much.

Oh - maybe ThePerm was talking about sealed copies. Those seem to be the only ones listed for super high prices.  As you say, normal used copies seem to be going for much, much less.

Still, a re-release would improve accessibility and likely wouldn't cost much more than used GameCube copies. Would be pretty cool.

[Ian Sane]

Twin Snakes was one of those games where once I started it I couldn't move on to something else until I beat it.  That doesn't happen often and it usually involves a rare combo of the game being fantastic, the difficulty fitting my skill level so I don't get frustrated and stuck, and the length being short enough that I don't lose interest or have real life stuff interrupt my playthrough.  Though that was my first experience with Metal Gear Solid and if I had bought the game for the PS1 that version would probably have done the same thing (I didn't get a PS1 until well into the Gamecube life cycle).  I don't recall anything specific about Twin Snakes that pushes the original game over the top as a must play.  The graphics are better, the cutscenes have some Matrix like stuff that you may or may not like, and gameplay elements from MGS2 have been introduced but the game hasn't been rebalanced to accommodate that.  I would think of it as a lateral movement - it's a good alternate take on MGS and you can play either version to see what the fuss is about, and if you really dig it you can try out both.  But it's not the definitive version that replaces the original.

But a re-release would be welcome.  It actually seems more like the version that a publisher would want to be available today since its graphics are more modern and fit better with the rest of the series.  Now are there rights issues?  Konami owns the IP but Nintendo helped fund the game so a deal needs to be worked out by the two of them.  Silicon Knights developed it but I don't know if that is an issue or not.  They were a Nintendo second party at the time so presumably the rights are Nintendo's but I'm not certain of that.  And SK doesn't exist anymore so if they own the rights to the code who knows who has it now.  This might be a Goldeneye scenario where the IP holder, publisher and developer are all separate entities that need to play nice with each other.  And since Konami can re-release the PS1 version of MGS till the cows come home they probably don't care that some alternate version is now obscure.

[Spak-Spang]

I remember when the game came out it was heralded as a great game, I played both the original and this Gamecube version.  I could tell that the game's level design was much better but also easier with the added first person mode.  It seemed like the perfect blend of stealth and playability.  I would like to see this game come out again.  Or you know a new game.

[Adrock]

I remember The Twin Snakes getting a lot of flack for its cutscenes despite Vamp literally running on water then vertically up a pillar, retroactively attributed to nanomachines or some other such Kojima Nonsense®. When Snake Eater came out and The Pain was controlling hornets, everyone should have just accepted that this stuff just happens the Metal Gear Solid universe.

The Twin Snakes was a perfectly good remake for its time but probably hasn’t aged well. Snake is so unrelentingly stupid in that story. I get that Snake is meant to be the avatar of the player so NPCs feed exposition and world building to the player through him. Having been established as a seasoned spec ops agent, he just looks and sounds like a total putz. “Security cameras?!” Really, Snake, you’re shocked that a secret government blacksite where a nuclear-armed bipedal tank was developed and tested would have the most basic of security measures?

Adding Sons of Liberty gameplay mechanics kind of broke the game. At the same time, the games are so old now, anyone playing The Twin Snakes for the first time wouldn’t be affected by the changes in the same way. If Konami cares about preserving the story, it’d commission a full remake. It doesn’t so that won’t happen. That said, The Twin Snakes is a perfectly good way of experiencing the story for canon junkies.

I prefer The Twin Snakes because Rob Paulsen was a much better Gray Fox and more importantly, Cam Clarke dialed it up as Liquid Snake. It weirdly feels more in line with the rest of the series than the original.

[ThePerm]

I watched a movie by Ryuhei Kitamura not too long ago called Downrange. It was fun.


Maybe Konami can get Capcom to remake MGS?

[Ian Sane]

I remember The Twin Snakes getting a lot of flack for its cutscenes despite Vamp literally running on water then vertically up a pillar, retroactively attributed to nanomachines or some other such Kojima Nonsense®. When Snake Eater came out and The Pain was controlling hornets, everyone should have just accepted that this stuff just happens the Metal Gear Solid universe.

I think at the time though those complaining about the Twin Snakes cutscenes were also complaining about, well, everything with MGS2's story.  I don't think anyone who was complaining thought Vamp's nonsense was hunky dory.  If anything they probably saw MGS1 as the less silly game (I was going to write "more serious" and then realized how stupid that sounds in a game where you fight a physic) and were annoyed to see it get "tainted" with changes.

The MGS series is basically comic book level storytelling so my feeling is that when it's being cool from the perspective of my inner 12 year old, I like it, and when it's not, it's dumb and comes across like a clueless college freshman trying to be intellectual.