Summary
There were games that did stealth beforeMetal Gearand games that stuck to stealth afterMetal Gear. Yet without Hideo Kojima’s seminal sneak ‘em up series, the gaming landscape would be less special. Its sneaking gameplay, weird plots, meta fourth wall breaking, and more made it a unique experience.
This didn’t just apply to the main series though.Metal Gearproduced a range of spin-offs and side games that tweak the gameplay in their own way. They’re a mix of alternate timelines, non-canon events, possible epilogues, and some that are just pure gameplay. Out of the wide options, these are the best ofMetal Gear’s spin-off games.
7Metal Gear Online
The Series Goes Online And Breaks Its Gameplay In Half
TheMetal Gearseries has had some form ofMetal Gear OnlinesinceMetal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, which did away with the story in favor of players operating in teams to out-sneak their rivals. LikeGrand Theft Auto Online, they’ve taken on a life of their own, even after their servers have been shut down.MGO1&2live on through emulation and fan servers, complete with updates made by the community.
Still, they’re low on the list because they require the main games on top of all that finagling to play today. The only version still officially running as of this writing isMGS5’sMGO, which still offers plenty of fun outside Konami’s FOB mode money mill. It even allows people to play as Ocelot and Quiet, complete with their own quirks like dual-wielding pistols and invisibility, which can really turn the tide in their favor if used right.
The PSP isan underrated handheldwith some solid official titles, and strong enough to handle unofficial ones through hacking and emulators. Even so,Metal Gearfans must’ve been surprised when its launch title,Metal Gear Acid, wasn’t strictly a stealth game like the later entryMGS: Portable Ops. Instead, it was a turn-based trading card game.
The player’s deck controls all their actions. Taking out enemies, getting past surveillance cameras, fighting bosses or other players through the multiplayer mode relied on using one’s deck wisely. The higher the cost of a card’s use, the longer they’d have to wait for their turn. It was good for what it was, though it wasn’t what most people were expecting.
5Metal Gear Acid 2
Taking on Technological Mysticism With A Deck Of Cards
MGA1also had its own weird story involving cover-ups, false identities, and a plane getting hijacked by puppets.Metal Gear Acid 2somehow made it weirder by having a false Solid Snake, a character referenced inMetal Gear Solid 2’s Snake Tales mode, and a research facility obsessed with the Kabbalah. That’s just the tip of the iceberg too.
Otherwise, it offered the same card-trading gameplay as the first game with some quality-of-life improvements. Players could sell off duplicate cards to earn cash to buy new ones, and players could move over items to pick them up. It also has a tutorial mode for newbies, where they can test their decks against Liquid Snake and Vamp of all characters.
Kojima’svisual novel gameswere marketed as their own thing, but by lore, they’re spin-offs from theMetal Geartimeline. InPolicenauts’ case, every game up toMetal Gear 2: Solid Snakeis canon to it as their events turn up as background detail. For example, it introduced Meryl four years before she turned up inMGS1. Except she says she helped Snake out inMG2. Either there’s a time paradox or it’s a very alternate timeline.
The story focuses on Jonathan Ingram, a man who was frozen in cryosleep after a space accident. Rescued twenty-four years later, he tries to make a new life as a P.I., only to witness his ex-wife’s murder. Intent on avenging her, the trail leads him to the space colony Beyond Coast, where he learns more about what happened to him, and what happened to his family, friends, and former colleagues in the Policenauts while he was on ice.
3Snatcher
An Alternate Timeline Where Metal Gear Ends And The Robot Menace Begins
That said,Policenautsdoesn’t diverge as much asSnatcher. Made soon afterthe originalMetal Gear, it ends the stealth series as soon as it began by having the world suffer a lethal pandemic in 1996, one year after Snake would’ve stopped Big Boss in his debut outing. Once the disease is stopped decades later, a new threat emerges in robots that kill people and take their place, acting like body-snatching Terminators.
It’s up to Gillian Seed to stop these Snatchers, using just his pistol and his robot buddy Metal Gear. Known in-game as a robot navigator, it was modeled afterMG1’s titular robot and later served as the basis for the MG Mk2 inMGS4. Other references include descendants ofMG1’s characters (Dr. Pettrovich-Madnar), place names (the Outer Heaven nightclub), and organizations (FOXHOUND).
2Metal Gear Solid (Game Boy Color)
The Series Returns To 8-Bit In Style
If the visual novel games feel a step too far fromMGS’s gameplay, the Game Boy ColorMetal Gear Solidgame (akaMetal Gear: Ghost Babel) will be much more familiar. Snake is still aided by Colonel Campbell and Mei Ling over the Codec, yet it isn’t a squished-down version of the PS1 classic.
It’s a separate sequel toMG1, where Snake returns to the remains of Outer Heaven to stop a new group of terrorists and Metal Gear Gander. The game is broken up into stages with rankings à laPeace WalkerandMGS5, and it does a great job of combiningMG2’s gameplay withMGS1’s additions.It even has VR Missions, which reference a certain new soldier called “Jack.”
Yes, GBC’sMGSreferences Raiden, who’d later polarize fans when he suddenly took center stage inMGS2without anyone outside Konami and their close sources knowing about it. He’d grow on them later, asMGS3would joke about him via the character Raikov, andMGS4would turn him into a cyborg. His acrobatic moves made people wish they could play him.
A wish thatMetal Gear Rising: Revengeancegranted. Despite nearly being canceled after Kojima Productions couldn’t finish it, they called in PlatinumGames to turn it into the action game people know today. Its tongue-in-cheek attitude, memes (“Nanomachines, son!”), and smooth gameplay has helped it endure in the public eye for over a decade and counting.
