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Snake's Revenge
By Steve Kilpatrick

The History of the Gear
The Metal Gear series started out on the MSX. Don't worry if you don't recognize that name, you aren't alone. It was a Japanese system and since you are reading this English text there is a good chance you didn't have one(gotta love that logic). The guru that brought you the Playstation's Metal Gear Solid was the man on bored for this MSX classic known simply as Metal Gear. Never fear. For once we Americans(my apologies to non-Americans) didn't get a watered down version when the game was translated. In fact when the original Metal Gear was ported to the NES the only changes made were enhanced graphics, tighter control and the infamous all-too-perfect translation. By all standards the U.S. version of Metal Gear was a better game than the Japanese version.

Sadly, Konami didn't have the guts to do it twice and though Americans got a sequel to Metal Gear before the folks in Japan, we got the short end of the Metal Shtick. Japan got Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. we got the watered down, over actioned, " how many idiots does it take to pull a bad plot out of their butts?" Snake's Revenge.

Basically, Japan got a true sequel, while we got a sequel that was "Americanized". Americanized is a nice way of saying that a company took something good and screwed it up by trying to make it marketable to a demographic. Nintendo of America did the same thing with Mario Two that Konami did with Metal Gear Two. except I liked Mario Two.

Solid Poop
What do you think of when you think of Metal Gear? Stealth, right? You think of slinking around in a paper box, avoiding detection, ambushing baddies and all the while being cool as a cucumber. Well, in Snake's Revenge you can forget all about that. Stealth has been put on the back burner in this game in favor of a more fast paced action style of game. This one plays a bit more like a top down Contra instead of Metal Gear. The designers were so blatant when they eliminated the emphasis on stealth that Snake wears a bright orange-red jump suit in the middle of a lush green forest. CAM-OU-FLAGE.

Konami also decided to avoid making you search for bullets or a gun. This time you don't start out quietly wielding your fists. You come in to the picture popping off rounds and running around in a flaming red blur of bullets and gayety. On the bright side you don't have to worry about as much poorly translated dialogue. Not that you get a ton of great stuff in return. There's just so little story going on that there's not much dialogue at all.

Umm. It looks nice.
If I say nothing else nice about this game I must admit that it looks really crisp. The characters are well drawn and I noticed very few glitches. The sound is also very nice in most places. There is a bit of collision confusion when you try to avoid spot lights (Spot lights that appear in the middle of the day I might add) which cause lots of soldiers to run around shooting at you, but with all the things that I didn't like about the game that is a minor gripe. Let's get to the real problem.

Liquid Story.
I don't even know where to begin. It's awful from the beginning. First of all the action takes place in "Ishkabibil". What kind of name is that? I swear that when I typed that in not only did my spell check protest but it started laughing. I thought my whole computer was gonna blow up when I mentioned the name of the main antagonist. are you ready for this? His name was Higharolla Kockamamie. To top it off according to the manual Jennifer-X(god I hope that wasn't a Gen-X pun) is related to Ginger from Gilligan's Island. Things get much worse, but I don't even want to talk about it. Let's just say that only the gameplay could save this one from the horrid story and the gameplay stinks.

Bottom Line: There are two major elements that we look for in a Metal Gear game. We want a great story and we want super stealth gameplay. This game didn't have either, and when you don't have either you aren't Metal Gear. I have to think that the Snake in this game was an impostor. The only "REAL" snakes involved in this ill thought out sequel were the snakes at Konami, who were too busy trying to cash in to make a decent game.

My Score: D-

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