Not even similar to
Snake’s Revenge
Snake's Revenge was what many thought to
be Metal Gear 2 in North America.
Officially, it is not, it is just a "military
game" that happens to share some character
names and game play elements with the
Metal Gear universe. Hideo Kojima wasn't
even involved with Snake's Revenge and it
did not see a Famicom release in Japan
either.
That explains a lot.
The true Metal Gear 2, subtitled Solid
Snake, was released in Japan for the MSX2
computer. What is here is completely different than what many retro gamers in North
America are accustomed to. Metal Gear 2:
Solid Snake is more different than Doki
Doki Panic was from either the original
Super Mario Bros or Super Mario Bros 3.
The story goes that Kojima didn’t even
intend to
create a sequel to Metal Gear
but after finding out that Konami had
released
Snake’s
Revenge
without
consulting him on it, and a little prodding by
an
associate, Solid Snake was born.
Changes that you can expect in this official
sequel include, well, everything. While
the view of the action is the same, the
guards received an upgrade in their vision
capabilities and now weapons have a lot
more information available.
Snake is able to climb through ventilation
ductwork, much like you see in the movies
and he can equip additional items such as
cigarettes (not sure why other than looking
“80’s cool”). The enemies now patrol multiple screens, can turn their heads to change
their field of view so you have to pay
attention
and
there
are
more
communications with team members in
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
As mentioned earlier, there were re-releases
of these games on newer consoles but they
feature some editing to various things in the
game. Cigarettes in the newer versions
deplete Snake’s health and most of the
character portraits were changed to match
the other games in the series better (Snake
looks more like modern Snake for instance).
These changes may seem small but to
purists, they are still changes and to some,
not worth being implemented in the game.
Forget Snake’s Revenge even was released
and just play this version and enjoy it as
Kojima intended.
15
CARL WILLIAMS
Forget Snake’s
Revenge and
check out the true
Metal Gear 2:
Solid Snake