Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
North American cover art
Developer(s)	Silicon Knights Konami
Publisher(s)	Konami
Composer(s)	Norihiko Hibino Steve Henifin Toshiyuki Kakuta Shuichi Kobori Waichiro Ozaki
Series	Metal Gear
Platform(s)	Nintendo GameCube
Release date(s)	NA March 9, 2004 JP March 11, 2004 PAL March 26, 2004
Genre(s)	Stealth action
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	BBFC: 15 CERO: 15+ ESRB: M OFLC: MA 15+ PEGI: 15+
Media	2 × GameCube Game Discs
Input methods	GameCube controller

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a stealth action video game developed by Silicon Knights and Konami that was published in 2004 for the Nintendo GameCube video game console. The Twin Snakes is a remake of Metal Gear Solid, developed and first published by Konami in 1998 for the PlayStation.^[1]

The Twin Snakes features graphical improvements over the original, new cut scenes written and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, and gameplay functions originally introduced in the sequel Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The game also includes a revised translation with re-recorded voice acting using most of the original English voice cast.^[2]

Gameplay

Snake fires at Gray Fox from a first person perspective.

For The Twin Snakes, Metal Gear Solid's gameplay was altered to resemble that of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. While all of the original areas and enemies were kept, new ways for the player to combat them were introduced, such as the ability to shoot using first person view.^[2] Enemy AI was also improved, giving enemy soldiers the ability to communicate with each other and detect the player more intelligently.^[3]

Development

The Twin Snakes was first announced in 2003 by Nintendo of America, confirming that Silicon Knights would be developing under the guidance of legendary developers, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.^[4]

Although The Twin Snakes was largely developed at Silicon Knights, its cut scenes were developed in-house at Konami and directed by Japanese film director Ryuhei Kitamura, reflecting his dynamic signature style, utilizing bullet-time photography and choreographed gunplay extensively. Kitamura created many of the games cinematics to look identical to those in the original Metal Gear Solid, but upon inspection Hideo Kojima had him redo them.^[5] The game's composition duties were split: some of the in-game music was handled by Steve Henifin and Silicon Knights' music staff, while the rest of the music (in-game, menus and cut scenes) was handled by Konami's music staff, including Metal Gear Solid 2 co-composer Norihiko Hibino.

Release

The Twin Snakes was released on March 9, 2004 in North America. It was originally to be released in November 2003, but was pushed back, along with the other versions.^[6] The European date was pushed back several weeks and was repackaged with artwork to make up for the delay.^[7]

In Japan The Twin Snakes was released on March 11 alongside an exclusive Premium Package. The box includes the game itself; a platinum-colored GameCube adorned with the FOXHOUND logo; a 44-page book titled Memorandum containing production notes, sketches and photos; and a GameCube disc called the "Special Disc" containing an emulated version of the Family Computer version of the original Metal Gear and a trailer of The Twin Snakes.^[8]

Voice acting

The voice acting was re-recorded, with most of the original voice cast from Metal Gear Solid returning in their original roles, with the notable exception of the voice actor for Gray Fox, after David Hayter persuaded Konami to have the original voice cast reprise their roles.^[9]. The main reason for the re-recording, according to an interview with Hayter, was because the increased audio quality allowed by the Gamecube picked up outside noise from the original recordings, that was inaudible in the Playstation version. In the original game, Gray Fox and Donald Anderson were both voiced by Greg Eagles. In the remake, Eagles reprised his role as Anderson, but Gray Fox was voiced by Rob Paulsen. Unlike previous MGS titles, no Japanese voice-overs were recorded for The Twin Snakes. Instead, the Japanese release used the same English voice acting as the North American and European versions. The revised voice acting is used in Metal Gear Solid 4 during Snake's reminiscence as the voice-recording used in the original game was not recorded in a sound-proof studio.^[9][10][11] Also, both Mei Ling and Naomi Hunter speak with American accents in The Twin Snakes and Metal Gear Solid 4, whereas in the original Metal Gear Solid, they spoke with Chinese and English accents respectively.

Cast

Reception

Much like the original Metal Gear Solid, which received excellent reviews from critics, The Twin Snakes also received an 8.8 and 85 from Game Rankings and Metacritic,^[12][13] respectively. IGN gave The Twin Snakes 8.5 out of 10, praising its superior graphics and likening the presentation to epic movies.^[14] GameSpot gave it an 8.2 out of 10 or "Great" on their scale,^[3] Eurogamer rated The Twin Snakes as 8 out of 10 and Gaming Age gave it a "A-" rating. American gaming magazine Game Informer gave The Twin Snakes a 9.25 out of 10, citing its improved gameplay and graphics, and also its faithful retelling of the original Metal Gear Solid story.^[15]

Despite receiving generally favorable reviews, The Twin Snakes has also drawn criticism. According to GamePro, the game has a "flagging framerate and bouts of slowdown that occur when too much activity crowds the screen."^[16] The new gameplay elements from MGS2 have also been criticized as unnecessary, as the level design is virtually unchanged from MGS1,^[16] and even "spoil the challenge ... and completely ruin at least one boss battle."^[17]

The January 2009 issue of Game Informer placed The Twin Snakes at #11 on their list of "Top 25 GameCube Games".

Footnote

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

• Official Website (In English and Japanese)