Summary
- Metal Gear Survive lacks the essence of the franchise, leaving fans disappointed with its lack of place in the canon and repetitive gameplay.
- Metal Gear Acid diverts from the usual action gameplay, incorporating turn-based strategy and trading card mechanics that may confuse some players.
- Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions offers a wide variety of scenarios for players to hone their stealth skills, with 300 unique missions to keep them busy.
Metal Gear is unquestionably one of the greatest video game franchises of all time. The franchise’s tactical espionage action meshes beautifully with Hideo Kojima’s utterly wild yet poignant, heartfelt, societally relevant, and thematically sound story. Solid Snake carries a franchise on his back, every arc narratively or thematically tying into the story he kicked off when infiltrating Outer Heaven in Metal Gear for the MSX.
That said, Metal Gear is a franchise that is more than the sum of all its parts. Certain games are indeed masterpieces in the medium, while others leave quite a bit to be desired at times. At its core, Metal Gear is inconsistent, but its best outings are among the gaming industry’s greatest achievements.
Updated August 25, 2024, by Jake Fillery: Every Metal Gear game is a rather extensive task, and there have been well over 20 releases in the Metal Gear series. What makes the best Metal Gear game stand out is its devoted fanbase, stellar gameplay, and unforgettable narrative. Yet, how does every MGS game rank against each other? After all, there have been some releases too obscure for Western markets to know about, and others that have been swept under the rug.
Collect Digital Trading Cards Online
- Platforms: Android, iOS
- Developers: Konami Digital Entertainment
- Released: 6 December 2012
An exclusive Metal Gear title to Japan, Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops was a new game for smartphones that included plenty of re-enactments from famed Metal Gear Games, Snake Eater, and Peace Walker. With the game being somewhat reminiscent of the gameplay featured in Metal Gear Acid, players could expect a title that relied on digital trading cards for items, weapons, and characters.
These cards featured iconic characters and objects from the series, and the collecting desire would attempt to provide addiction to players keen on the series. Yet, the game barely lasted a year, and its exclusivity and lack of importance to the series as a whole had the game forgotten in the past.
Another Mobile Game That Doesn’t Control All That Well
- Platforms: N-Gage
- Developers: Ideaworks Game Studio
- Genres: Stealth
- Released: 11 December 2008
Taking place between the first two Metal Gear Solid games, Solid Snake and Otacon indulge in their continued mission to stop the development of new Metal Gears. This 20th-anniversary game saw the series come to mobiles, where players would be tasked with using their keypad to control Snake and make use of their digital camera for Snake’s camouflage sneaking suit.
Whilst the game is rather ambitious for the early use of mobile games and their software, it still wasn’t enough to sustain lasting fans of the series, and those more familiar with AAA titles. The game itself lacked the importance of Metal Gear Solid in terms of story and gameplay, and thus, it was a forgettable entry that lacked the boss fights of the overall series.
Metal Gear Solid 4’s Story Is Told On Mobile Devices With Touch Controls
- Platforms: iOS
- Developers: Kojima Productions
- Genres: Third-person shooter
- Released: 18 March 2009
Lacking the depth of the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid Touch was another attempt for the series to capitalize on mobile devices, and it did such by mostly retelling Metal Gear Solid 4 from the hands of players. There isn’t much to expect from this title, and players can control where Old Snake shoots simply by touching foes on the screen, and that’s about it.
There is a notable lack of depth and mechanics that makes Metal Gear Solid Touch a memorable title to experience, and for fans both casual and hardcore, it’s one worth skipping, and another game that remains as lost media thanks to player unawareness of its existence.
Use The FOX Engine To Survive Weird Monsters
When making a Metal Gear games ranked list, it’s rather expected to see Metal Gear Survive at the bottom of the pile, and not just because it was created after the split between Kojima and Konami using the beloved and shelved FOX Engine. Part of the mixed feelings from Metal Gear Survive comes from its seeming lack of place in the canon, and it mainly uses the MGS name for recognition, as it certainly doesn’t feel or act like such a title.
Within Metal Gear Survive, players are tasked with just that: surviving. The gameplay can get repetitive, stab and poke at weird zombies with a spear, and use crafting and management to build walls and other mechanics that aren’t explained rather well. It’s not atrocious, but it’s not Metal Gear.
A Strategy Card Game Set In The Metal Gear World
Metal Gear embraces full turn-based strategy mechanics for this title. The turn-based tactic style of play is a far cry from the usual action gameplay fans expect from this series, and the fact that these tactics are overlayed with a trading card-based system to control movements and actions might confuse players unfamiliar with the genre of gameplay, and dishearten those who just want a full Tactical Espionage Action game from the Metal Gear series. Yet, there is still fun to be had here.
As a long-standing & expansive franchise, Metal Gear has had a fair share of notable retcons since its debut in 1987, and these are the biggest.
The game may have done well with critics, but some fans of the main series found the entry not to their taste. By all means, Metal Gear Acid is not a bad set of games, it’s just that it’s not what players expect when they embrace a new title following the tale of Snake, but that’s not to discredit the PlayStation Portable title.
20
Snake’s Revenge
The Non-Canon And Obscure Sequel To Metal Gear
- Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
- Released: April 1990
- Developer: Konami
- How Long To Beat: 6 Hours
A rare addition to the Metal Gear franchise, and one barely mentioned due to its obscure release to Western markets, Snake’s Revenge is a direct sequel to the NES version of Metal Gear, and the first, but not last, game in the series that was created without the involvement of Hideo Kojima. There’s a good reason that Snake’s Revenge isn’t canon, but that doesn’t mean the game is all bad. After all, it helped inspire Kojima to make Metal Gear 2, and thus decanonize what would have been the actual sequel in a different universe.
The American exclusive Snake’s Revenge is actually a pretty underrated classic on the NES. It harbors a title as one of the hardest Metal Gear games with its 8-bit graphics and difficult scenarios, but to those seeking a challenge and to see a different outlook on a pre-MGS Snake, it could be worth a look.
Metal Gear Invades The Strategy Card Game Genre
Building upon what worked on Metal Gear Acid, the sequel managed to establish the Acid series as a Metal Gear franchise that could exist outside the mainline games. The same turn-based strategy and trading card game style of play returned for the sequel, but this time, there are far more cards than before, and a far more fleshed-out style to play that Metal Gear fans should actually check out.
if players enjoy the strategy genre, and collecting famed cards from the Metal Gear series to deal damage and engage in battle, then this game is definitely worth the 30-hour trip. It’s far easier to get into than the previous entry into the Acid series, and there’s nothing more satisfying than collecting and winning at the same time.
An Overwhelming Amount Of Stealth Virtual Reality Missions
Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions (or Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions as it was known in PAL regions) was a spinoff game that was essentially an expansion of the original MGS1. It was based on the third disc of Metal Gear Solid: Integral, a Japan-exclusive release that also featured alternate costumes and producer commentaries. Beyond this, it was largely identical to the original Western release, so North Americans, Europeans, etc., weren’t missing too much.
Besides, given how important stealth is to the Metal Gear series, being able to hone one’s skills across a wide variety of scenarios went down well with many fans. While there’s not a story to speak of, the game offered 300 unique missions from sneaking to murder mysteries to keep players busy for quite some time. Some of those later challenges can be incredibly difficult for those without Big Boss’ soldier genes.
Metal Gear Hits The Portable Market In A Less Refined Entry
Of all the semi-canon/non-canonical games, Portable Ops stands out on something of a pedestal. Its marketing heavily stated it was a canon entry before Peace Walker came along and made it more questionable. It still looks, feels, and sounds like Metal Gear Solid because the game heavily lifts themes and moments from MGS1 and 3.
It twists them in a way that’s entertaining enough to play, but it’s largely derivative of the older Solid games. For example, Big Boss takes on his old unit in FOX like Solid Snake would with FOXHOUND in MGS1. The future Grey Fox makes his chronological debut as an experimental soldier, like he would when he’d become a cyborg in MGS1. It’s still fun, though it’s much less refined compared to its predecessors and Peace Walker.
Portable Ops Plus
A standalone expansion of Portable Ops, this version of the PSP game focused on online play, in which players could create unique characters for the series, and enjoy a bout of new multiplayer maps, modes, items, and even weapons. Whilst this version of the game does not require the base game, it doesn’t come with the same campaign and instead replaces it with infinite missions with four different difficulties.
An Incredible Sandbox For A Demo Of The FOX Engine
Metal Gear Solid 2’s Tanker chapter is considered by many to be a massive highlight of the game, if not, it’s the better half in terms of level design. It’s a playground for Snake mechanically while also successfully kicking off an incredible story. Ground Zeroes was going to be that for The Phantom Pain, though more by Konami’s choice than Kojima Productions.
Instead of being a free demo, it was a single-story mission with a considerable amount of side content that was still horribly overpriced. Camp Omega is an amazing battlefield and the build-up to TPP is eerily cool, but it’s all too short as it is just a single mission that teases what the future will offer. It may have been better off as a flashback mission in The Phantom Pain as originally designed, as it’s more easily found combined with the rest of MGS5 nowadays.