Metal Gear Solid
I think this MGS (aka Ghost Babel) is to Metal Gear as Link’s Awakening is to Zelda: a unique and incredible little portable summation of everything good about the series. Pity it’s such a black sheep. Also, please ignore the last paragraph of this article as it was penned well in advance of E3 and thus before we knew about Peace Walker. Eh heh.
11 thoughts on “GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 11.4”
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This entry is excellent, but it stings. I got Ghost Babel for $10 at a walmart, and lent it to a friend in High School. It was the last time I lent out a game, because I never got it back, and I am still haunted by my stupidity.
I just moved recently and found my copy of Ghost Babel. I remember being so into that game for the reasons you mention. A serious story and so many options available to tackle the challenges, it remains one of my all time favorite games.
I picked this game up when it first came out and enjoyed it immensely, until I got to the colored box/conveyor belt part. What makes it worse is my favorite part about the Metal Gear games has always been how Snake is a genetically engineered super soldier surrounded by cybernetic drama queens, and you spend so much time sneaking around in cardboard boxes and getting peed on by wolves. This game sullied the box!
The conveyer belt sequence evokes the same irritation as Zelda DX’s dopey bonus dungeon: OK, we get it, everything is no longer green, well done, let’s move along to the good parts now. Fortunately the rest of the game is uniformly brilliant, so it’s just a speed bump. And, unlike most Metal Gear games, it means the obligatory annoying crappy part is front-loaded rather than lurking toward the end.
I’m sad that I never got to play through this game. I always wanted to buy it, but I had passed on the GameBoy Color completely, instead waiting for the GBA.
I’m flattered that you used an image from my old MGGB article.
As for Peace Walker, I think it remains to be seen whether it’ll be “a true Metal Gear adventure”; after the ordeal of Portable Ops, one can never be too sure.
“being set sufficiently far in the future to avoid nonsensical millennial panic, didn’t do much to mark the occasion within the game fiction.”
Didn’t the Patriots use the software patches that fixed the millennium bug as a trojan horse to get surveillance software on every computer? I remember MGS2 making a big deal about something like that and groaning at the time.
There’s a much more in depth review of this in the Gamespite archives.
Yes, it’s linked in this article. This one was written as a part of a larger publication and was not intended as a comprehensive analysis.
In my opinion possibly one of the top 20 Game Boy games ever made. It’s sad that the game got ignored even as it got perfect 10s from EGM and IGN. Sadly, I could never actually beat the Metal Gear fight in this game.
The fact that it borrows heavily from Metal Gear 2 is one of the most important parts about Ghost Babel. The reason the MGS1 formula works so well in 2D on an 8bit platform is because the formula IS 2D and essentially 8bit.
If you guys loved this game, then I’m sure you’ll love Metal Gear 2, which is my second favorite game in the Metal Gear canon next to the tie that still rages on with me between MGS3 and 4. If this game is the Links Awakening or whatever of the series, then Metal Gear 2 would be the Link to the Past or Final Fantasy VI.
I would probably give MGS3 the win over MGS4. As compelling and emotional as the story of the death of Snake was, I was far more fascinated by MGS3’s story: the birth of a villain.
Ghost Babel was an awesome swan song for the Gameboy, but I couldn’t help but think at the time that it would have made for a legendary killer app had it been a GBA launch title. Being a GBC game at the end of the console’s lifespan was probably a big reason why it got completely overlooked, regardless of the pedigree.
So as long as we’re making Zelda-Metal Gear analogs, is Snake’s Revenge akin to Zelda II?