![\"Damn,](\"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-content\/gallery\/screenshots-and-renders\/damn-my-goggles-fogged-up.jpg\"\n\t\t "\\"Damn,")
\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \nI picked\u00a0The Twin Snakes<\/em>, which is a remake developed for the Gamecube, over the original PS<\/abbr> version of the game after\u00a0having been told\u00a0that the controls would be more user-friendly. Maybe my understanding of the term is flawed, or maybe I’m just not enough of an action buff, but, personally, that’s not the first epithet that comes to my mind. It took me about\u00a0five\u00a0resets to get through the first area of the game, simply because of the clunkiness of the controls.<\/p>\n \n\t\t First of all, the governing idea behind the gameplay is stealth: you’re in control of one guy versus an entire base of baddies, so the idea is to either create diversions to avoid combat completely, or to knock people out with a tranq gun and stow them into storage lockers, rather than spray everything with bullets. And to try to hide if you are spotted. However, there are several impediments to this. The onscreen radar is tiny, and in situations where there\u2019s a walkway guarded by a surveillance camera overhead, for example, it\u2019s practically\u00a0impossible to make out the camera\u2019s field of vision from below. Which, of course, makes avoiding it particularly problematic.\u00a0Another hindrance is the almost preternatural hearing prowess of the enemy soldiers, especially when coupled with metallic floors and the wonderful<\/em> precision of the Gamecube joystick.<\/p>\n Be that as it may, gameplay difficulties are largely compensated by the storyline and characters, and the entire presentation of the game, which feels like an interactive action blockbuster, something the MGS series is now famous for. The single defining characteristic of The Twin Snakes<\/em> is its ability to be deadly serious and completely ridiculous at the same time. And that is actually a quality. Without going into too much detail (to avoid spoiling the fun…and also because it tends to get rather intricate), it involves a special agent of the US military, codenamed Solid Snake (yeah, I know…), who is dispatched to single-handedly stop a terrorist operation by a special forces unit gone rogue. Combine this with extremely hammy voice acting (looking at you, Liquid…and Snake too), overdramatisation and (sometimes odd) humour, and you have a load of epic nonsense. ‘Epic’ being the operative term.<\/p>\n Examples abound. Take Snake himself, for example. Yes, he\u2019s a badass who can take out an entire military facility and a nuke-laden super-tank all on his own; something which, by the way, he has already done twice beforehand, in the two Metal Gear<\/em> games, developed for the obscure MSX2 system (and thus, largely inaccessible outside of Japan). But then, despite these past heroics and his battle-hardened veteran status, he comes up with the following gems:<\/p>\n \n\t\t Campbell: \u201cDestroy Metal Gear!\u201d Anderson: \u201cThere\u2019s a PAL code.\u201d Otacon: \u201cYou can call me Otacon.\u201d And so on. That nanomachine injection he received before the mission\u2013which, among other things, was supposed to improve his mental abilities\u2013may have had reverse effects. Maybe he weathered one too many explosions. Or maybe he should get his ears checked. On a different note, I was surprised at his readiness to hit on just about anything with a pair of boobs. Before playing the game, I figured he\u2019d be more of the \u201coutta my way, woman\u201d kind, not the \u201chey babe, how you doin\u2019?\u201d one, and certainly not the \u201cgetcha hands offa my ladeh!\u201d one. I didn\u2019t expect him to become such a sucker for Meryl. And I certainly didn\u2019t expect the astounding display of terminal cheesiness that was the \u2018proper\u2019 ending of the game (\u201cthe caribou are beautiful in the spring, Meryl\u201d). That was in a league of its own.<\/p>\n \n\t\t Two other beautiful examples of epic nonsense can be found in the fights against Revolver Ocelot (seriously, what the hell\u00a0is up with the code names?!)\u00a0and Psycho Mantis (I rest my case). The first one, a cowboy-styled maniac gun virtuoso who has just tortured a poor guy within an inch of his life and rigged him with explosives, introduces himself by going: \u201cRevolver\u2026*twirls his gun*…*twirls it some more*\u2026*flips it over his shoulder and around his back*\u2026*twirls it for another minute or so*\u2026Ocelot\u201d. Talk about delayed exposition.<\/p>\n \n\t\t The other, a creepy, unnaturally pale, emaciated, mind-reading, telekinetic freak, completely shatters the disturbing aura that\u2019s been building up around him by going \u201cyou seem to like The Legend of Zelda<\/em>\u201d (the game checks the other saves on your memory card to do that), breaking the\u00a0fourth wall and smattering the entire fight with references to the game\u2019s developers, such as the infamous Hideo Blackout.<\/p>\n \n\t\t Some more examples include Meryl\u2019s 180\u00b0 turn from \u201cI wanna be a soldier! And I\u2019m not interested in men!\u201d to \u201cWar is bad! Snake, I wub u!\u201d within about 30 minutes (if that), or the over-the-top theatricality of the second confrontation with Sniper Wolf, complete with mournfully howling lupines. There are also multiple allegiance-reversals throughout the game, poor Otacon’s embarrassing introduction, Johnny Sasaki’s no less embarrassing but less pity-inducing one, the ‘ghost’ pictures (an Easter egg which features allegedly scary pictures of people in bad gory makeup), and the buildup to the final boss fight, which reaches interstellar proportions by the time it rolls around (*cue Jack Black voice* “It was destinyyyyy!”).<\/p>\n \n\t\t\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n<\/a>Secondly, maybe it’s just me, but I had a hard time getting used to some of the button combinations.\u00a0I almost had\u00a0to take notes when I first tried\u00a0to hold an enemy up. It doesn\u2019t help that, being a completionist, I simply had<\/em> to go dog tag hunting; for those who aren’t familiar with the game, it involves shaking down or killing certain specific enemies to acquire their dog tags (simply for collecting purposes). Another manoeuvre I was never able to master is the ‘jump-out shot’. Finally, clunky controls also contributed to making the fights with Vulcan Raven and Liquid Snake particularly painful. The latter’s highly infuriating fisticuff technique (“I’m gonna hit you…NOT!”) certainly didn’t help.\u00a0Also worth noting is the fact that the game rewards you with a codename upon completion, based on various statistics (time to complete, enemies killed, rations used, times saved, etc.). So you’re having a bit of trouble, like I did, you could end up with something silly like Elephant or Hippopotamus. On the other hand, if you absolutely rock the game’s socks, you could end up \u00a0codenamed Big Boss.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n
\nSnake: \u201cMetal Gear?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSnake: \u201cPAL code?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSnake: \u201cOtacon?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n\n \t<\/a>\n\t\t <\/div>\n \n