Current Events > Metal Gear ranking

(+) Yeah! (+)

Solid 1: Still the best. Gameplay is dated but if you can get used to it, it works really well. It actually plays a lot more fluidly than its sequels because it's not bogged down with first-person aim. You can even shoot while running, a feature I always loved but they removed starting with Solid 4. Great bosses, great music, good story, incredible VA for the time, kept it light on the lore (relatively speaking) to maintain an element of mystery, and of course the cutscenes that revolutionized video gaming. Liquid's big monologue is easily the best dialog in the series, and hell, he's also the best villain.

Rising: Loved this game. Easily the most fun gameplay and best bosses in the series, a killer challenge on the high difficulties and yet the flow is pretty much perfect at times when you totally just zen out and kill everything in like a second. I totally dig its embrace of its own narm, since this was really the only way to make a Raiden game after 4 without being cringy af. Dripping with style, and has a pair of story DLCs, which were greatly appreciated since I couldn't get enough.

Peace Walker HD: I hear the control in the original was bad but I had no problems with it in the HD version. The comic-style cutscenes were a great move--so so so much more expressive. Loved the added management/business sim too. Also Heavens Divide is the best MG song. But it did also have its share of problems, like hit and miss characters, bosses that are uninteresting and take forever to kill and why in the world can you not crawl.

Ground Zeroes: Gameplay-wise, it was fantastic. Story-wise, it was ok. The obvious disadvantage is it being one really short mission that ends on a cliffhanger, but since there are several side missions, this more or less amounts to a story problem. I also felt like the gameplay just wasn't designed for such a small space. Enemies can see you from much farther away than is fair, and you can't even take advantage of reflex mode with the tranq gun because of it. Plus, you virtually can't use a sniper rifle or recoilless without getting spotted.

Solid 2: Hoo boy. What we have here is a masterpiece in the art of being not-fun. It's an interesting (and horrifying) commentary in equal parts impressive and frustrating. AI is too smart, it's a stealth game with often nowhere to hide, it has an intentionally bad protagonist, and yes, all of these things are done to make a point, which was well-received. While this does not make a good game, it does earn the game a few places in the ranking.
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The Phantom Pain: Had some great moments but overall had the MGS2 problem, on accident. The gsme contains hours of dialog explaining stupid crap like the parasites, and even makes the entire world revolve around them, in exactly the way the series was never supposed to do anything. Gameplay would have been killer if they didn't have that awful heroism system that punishes you for having fun, or simply didn't let you extract tanks and APCs. They were a PITA in PW but at least they gave you a reason to go wide open on them with all your guns instead of becoming a missed opportunity should you choose to fight them. The open world really added nothing except making the one boss fight amazing and a lot of busywork. The whole game gets in its own way. And there are plot hiles, too. But that said, I didn't hate it. It just had lots of problems. I loved the good parts of the story, and the cinematography (for lack of a better term) was probably the best in the series.

Solid 4: It was pretty close between this and TPP. Both had killer high points and abysmal low points. Ultimately, what 4 does well, TPP does better but also what 4 does poorly, TPP does worse lol. So it largely came down to the overall feel. I do like that the game doesn't punish fun like TPP, actually has boss fights and feels a lot more focused.

Solid 3: Don't kill me please. The main problem is abysmal control. The L1 button, which was lockon in 2, now makes Snake point his gun off in some random direction instead of toward enemies, if you try to crawl into a wall, Snake repeatedly oscillates between prone and crouch for some reason, and just try doing all the CQC moves. I dare you. The Cobra unit is the absolute craziest group of villains in the series by a long shot--which is quite a feat. Also, the camo swapping sucks. It does get better as it goes, and I like the supply shed mechanics that never returned. This is definitely a great game, just one in a series of games that I mostly liked more.

Metal Gear 2: So let me throw this out there: for a 1990 game, this is absurd(ly good). I literally could not believe this game was as old as it is when I first played it last year. That said, it is more or less ancient, and being constrained to two dimensions with discrete camera is a problem. To the modern audience, Adventure elements typical of the era feel out of place in an action stealth game without the clever story tricks S1 used to make it work.

Metal Gear: I mean, it's frikkin old. Both versions are good--MSX and NES. But it's very dated. Very very dated.
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No Twin Snakes?
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@Garioshi
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SocialistGamer posted...

No Twin Snakes?

Nah. I don't consider it a main entry, like I don't consider Snake's Revenge or Portable Ops main entries. But it was good.
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1. MGS 3: Snake Eater
2. MGS 2: Sons of Liberty
3. MGS 1/The Twin Snakes
4. MGS V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain
5. MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots
6. the rest
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Solid 3 is best
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You gonna extract him?
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BlueBoy675 posted...

You gonna extract him?

Side note, it irritated the hell out of me when Miller would chime in with a throwaway line like this while you were trying to listen to an intel tape.

Code Talker: Hamburgers are the pinnacle of nature. By accepting nature's boun--
Miller: HE'S COMING TOO?
Code Talker: And that's why preservatives are not only acceptable, but a celebration of the natural order.

RAAAAAAAGE
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Delet this
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You absolutely got the top 2 right

I wouldn't put Peace Walker that high but I more or less agree with the rest with maybe a shift or two

Bump
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I prefer the 2d ones over the 3d.
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Now rate the Metal Gears themselves.

Snatcher's Metal Gear is #1 obv.
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I cant rank the MGS series unless I separate them by story and gameplay rankings tbh.
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Where is Metal Gear, Snake's Revenge and the GBC one as well?
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tbh, I think that MGS is my least favorite in the series.

IMO: MGS 4 > MGS 3 MGS 2 > MGS V (despite its flaws, I still really enjoy it) > MGS.

I haven't played the others besides Rising, which was amazing, but it's too different from the main series to fairly rank it among them.
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ledbowman posted...

1. MGS 3: Snake Eater
2. MGS 2: Sons of Liberty
3. MGS 1/The Twin Snakes
4. MGS V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain
5. MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots
6. the rest

this only maybe switch mgs1 and 2, but they are close. And there is a pretty big dropoff between mgs1/2 and mgs5
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That's a really weird ranking. I been playing Phantom Pain again and holy shit is the gameplay amazing.
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Lost_All_Senses posted...

That's a really weird ranking. I been playing Phantom Pain again and holy shit is the gameplay amazing.

it is, but thats never been the draw for mgs games for me.
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I also agree the first Metal Gear Solid is the best in the series, and I also love Liquid but I put him right behind Solidus for best villain. Like, Liquid is absolutely the best traditional villain in the series because he's the ONLY traditional villain in the main games. He's a right bastard. He's suave, charming, he may as well be a Bond villain.

I'd put MGS2 after that. For the longest time it was my favorite game in the series, but the shift in the community along with the breaking of tradition starting with Ground Zeroes and continuing into Phantom Pain really, really made me disillusioned at Kojima and so I wanted a game that had the least amount of his influence and/or watermarks and that's why I cling to the first MGS so much. It was a relatively straightforward adventure with David Hayter's best performance for the Solid Snake character and the series' best music. Seriously, "The Best Is Yet To Come" and the alternate version that's instrumental is heavenly.

After that, Snake Eater is in third place for having the best gameplay in the series. I know a lot of people consider Phantom Pain to have the best, but Snake Eater had the best approach to it IMO. Your entire environment was against you, and you had to not only defend yourself from enemies but animals and whatnot. You could suffer broken bones from too high a fall, etc. Stuff like that really put me into the game. I don't remember if Phantom Pain allowed for nearly the same amount of stuff, and I don't think it did.

Then MGS4, and then Phantom Pain. It's extremely rare for me for a series to be best to worst in the exact order they came out, but that's the case with this series.
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Musourenka posted...

Now rate the Metal Gears themselves.

Snatcher's Metal Gear is #1 obv.

SWN.

In terms of power level,

Sahel > Excelsus > (I forget; does Arsenal count? I think it has to walk...) > Ray > Rex > D > TX-55 > ZEKE

If we're counting other large mecha (not counting Walker Gears and UGs),

Sahel > Excelsus > Arsenal > Ray > Rex > Peace Walker > D > TX-55 > ZEKE > Shagohod > Those crappy Ray knockoffs at the end of S2

UGs:

Boss-version GRAD > Plasma Cutter Ray > MASTIFF > RAPTOR > IRVING(Gekko) > FENRIR > normal GRAD > Slider > DOOMP

... Did I miss any?
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solosnake posted...

Lost_All_Senses posted...

That's a really weird ranking. I been playing Phantom Pain again and holy shit is the gameplay amazing.

it is, but thats never been the draw for mgs games for me.

That's why you gotta step back, accept that it's not what you expected/wanted, then go back and enjoy it for what it is. That's what I did. Plus it pretty much has the same amount of story content (probably even more with all the tapes) just with a shit ton of semi repetitive gameplay. I say "semi" because you can tackle missions in such different ways it's kind of up to you just how repetitive it is. However, the mission objectives are objectively repetitive. And the locations get super repetitive if you want to do everything. But the enemy placement changes do a lot.
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Musourenka posted...

Now rate the Metal Gears themselves.

Snatcher's Metal Gear is #1 obv.

REX for life. There is no better.

Okay, RAY's pretty cool too.
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UGH, rewatching some of the scenes from MGS1 might actually make me go out and buy a PS Classic.
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Unpopular opinion:

I hated Peace Walker but thought portable ops was awesome
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Turbam posted...

Unpopular opinion:

I hated Peace Walker but thought portable ops was awesome

I never played Portable Ops but always wanted to. Peace Walker was okay, the format it had was totally appropriate for a handheld.
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