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The officially fake Metal Gear NES game from Konami that folks completely forgot existed! Watch the latest Just Bad Games ep, ad free exclusively for Patrons!

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Metal Gear: Snake's Revenge - Just Bad Games

This is "Metal Gear: Snake's Revenge - Just Bad Games" by Rerez on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Comments

Kyle Olson

A couple things that I think are oddball modern opinions: 1) The NES metal gear was a weak game Just because it was a "rushed port" according to Kojima and it's not as good as the MSX version doesn't make it bad. Most cross platform games were developed in a similar fashion at the time. Kojima expecting to be involved would not have been reasonable, whether it was Konami, or a company like Capcom, or an American game company. While Kojima had talent, and Konami has had a questionable reputation, I have to wonder if he was cut out on all the NES work because they thought he would sabotage it with perfectionist demands. The original Metal Gear was a game designed specifically for the strengths and limitations of the MSX. It was going to be a problem even with more time spent (if Kojima is really telling the truth about the time). But what came out was not so bad. When judged by the standards of NES games, Metal Gear pretty good and very unique. I personally think it's one of the best games on the system, and I played pretty much everything notable back in the day. The bad dialogue never mattered that much. All NES games had this. Metal Gear had more because it had more dialogue. The game did a better job having a narrative than most NES games. I learned about a year after playing the game there was a missing Metal Gear at the end, but without knowing you don't care that much. In the story you've still fought the thing. In general, the idea that Metal Gear on the NES was bad is a modern creation. 2) Metal Gear was responsible for Stealth Gameplay As much as I enjoyed Metal Gear, it was largely a dead end for stealth action. Metal Gear's Stealth is as mechanical as the Boos in Super Mario World, and largely less interesting. It's more like a laser beam than stealth. While interesting, it did not lead to a trend in gameplay except in the few games whose names started with "Metal Gear". In 1998, Metal Gear Solid brought the idea back on the PlayStation, but the first Solid's stealth was still just as mechanical. While it mentions stealth, it's much more like a puzzle game. There is one game that's responsible for creating the largest portion of the template for modern stealth, and that's Thief: The Dark Project also from 1998. Thief had light level and sound level and natural cones of vision. There are games that added common systems later (like Assassin's creed), but Thief is the root of this tree, not Metal Gear. Even Metal Gear uses a system much more like this than an old Metal Gear game. Also, I never liked Snake's Revenge. It was a big let down that missed the point, but "Just Plain Bad" is a bit much. It hardly matters that it's not canon, and at the time of release in the US we didn't care a bit about the canon. The Metal Gear canon only makes sense in the world of video games where details are more important than plot or logic. Judged as a NES game...Snake's Revenge is probably above average for the NES.

darkest hour

#1 isn't an "oddball modern opinion" even back then the NES Metal Gear got plenty of deserved criticism(AVGN mentioned that as a kid he honestly did not like it at all). It may not be on the same level of bad as say Jekyll and Hyde but it's still from from a great game, at the very least it's a heavily-flawed one. "one of the best games on the system" LOL whatever drugs you're on I definitely want some! The bad translations are annoying as hell and they do matter because they can actually lead to you getting confused at what to do next. Even you don't know about the titular robot missing, the climax of the game is still prety underwhelming. Saying that MGS did not serve as an inspiration for other stealth titles is just flat-out inaccurate. I would say it is a very bad game and it not being canon does not magically exempt from any and all criticism, "above average" my ass.

Kyle Olson

AVGN didn't like plenty of games. He didn't get a lot of stuff. Elements like the keycard game they mention are much worse now than they were then. The ending was pretty standard for a NES game. The point is that it's only a serious problem you aren't fighting a metal gear if you know about the other version. (The Metal Gear is the MacGuffin and rendered in the game's art). I didn't "magically exempt" MG or even Snake's revenge from criticism. It's an imperfect old NES game. Even the most loved games have flaws. You want a real serious Metal Gear NES flaw from then? The passcode entry screen was the worst on the NES. But if you think MG was even Average, you should really check out the NES library again. Metal Gear had depth, and a story which most NES games did not have outside of "save the princess" type cutscenes. It had more interesting items than most NES games had. And it was different. There really was not another game like Metal Gear on the NES. Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid (1) used a simplistic stealth system similar to Castle Wolfenstein from 1981. Most later games, including Metal Gear sequels, switched to a system based on Thief: The Dark Project. Games quickly dumped the linear old fashioned system for Thief's ideas. Few games after Metal Gear implemented a Stealth System like Metal Gear Solid. Part of that was because the MGS system did not work for 3rd person games with free cameras, unlike Thief's natural cones of vision, natural light, and natural sound. That's why MGS is not the game which influences the stealth genre.

darkest hour

it is a pretty average game and you're naive if you think MGS had no influence on stealth games that came after it.