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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 19</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">New!!</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The Archives have been cleaned up, fead links fixed, and printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments <a href="../../../index.html">on the front page</a>!</font></p>
              
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../columns.1"><font size="-1">Pad 
          Happy</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          Solid Gameplay:</font></p>
        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#0022A8">(or, 
          how I loved to stop worrying and love the interactive movie)</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          </font></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="mailto:nickf@saqnet.co.uk">Nick 
          Ferguson</a></font></font></p>
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The subtitle on the game’s 
          CD case is ‘Tactical Espionage Action’. This is a pretty accurate description 
          of the gameplay – you have to be ‘tactical’ to navigate some of the 
          trickier levels, making good use of the items you’ve been given so far 
          and judging whether it’s worth sticking your neck out for extra ammo. 
          Likewise, the sense of ‘espionage’ is the most authentic in any game 

          so far, thanks to the realism of the near-futuristic hardware you are 
          given. The satisfaction of putting your tools to use never gets old; 
          playing with the binoculars, night vision glasses and infra-red goggles 
          (plus the ‘hidden’ camera) is just incredibly <i>cool</i>. When you 
          get caught out, the ensuing ‘action’ is as fast, frantic and bloody 
          as you could want, with some nifty bullet and explosive effects as well 
          as plenty of arterial spray from some of the more powerful weapons. 
          Groovy!</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Being a third-person (most 
          of the time) game, it’s fortunate that the roaming camera is highly 
          effective. Most of the time it’s located in a three-quarters overhead 
          perspective. This has the effect of enabling the player to move with 
          relative ease through the immediate environment, but limits your distance 
          of view in any one direction. A remedy for this is a single button press 
          away - holding the ‘triangle’ button slips you into a first person view 
          mode. You aren’t able to move Snake around like this (quite possibly 
          a limitation of the 3D engine - there has to be a reason why the PlayStation’s 
          notoriously warping textures behave well in this mode) but you can look 
          all about you. One great touch is that if you’re wearing a gas mask, 
          or hiding under a cardboard box, your first-person view will be viewed 
          through an appropriate matte, like the cheesy &quot;binoculars effect&quot; 
          in the movies. Another great feature of the camera is that when you 
          come to a corner, you can lean against the wall and the camera will 
          shift down and ‘peer’ round the corner for you. With such an emphasis 
          on stealth, the ability to keep the enemy in view without being seen 
          is crucial and it’s just another reason why Konami have created one 
          of the best 3D camera systems in any game, ever!</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Metal Gear Solid’s</b> 
          levels are in many ways reminiscent of the dungeons of the <b>Zelda</b> 
          series. Bad guys regenerate, certain items will re-spawn occasionally, 
          and it is common to find doors that will remain locked until you gradually 
          upgrade the security clearance of the key card you find early in the 
          game. This game mechanic in particular is similar to the <b>Zelda</b> 
          games’ habit of showing players glimpses of areas inaccessible until 
          later in the game, when the object required to allow you access has 
          been obtained. Individual rooms will also function as puzzles in their 
          own right – one section of the game has you puzzling how to get across 
          an electrified floor and the solution is quite ingenious. Unfortunately, 
          <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> is a tad hint-happy. It’s as if the designers 
          are anxious for you to get on to the next stage of the game – a thoughtful 
          gesture, but the hand-holding can occasionally be frustrating and annoying, 
          like someone telling you about the good bits of a movie you haven’t 
          seen yet.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Another similarity to <b>Zelda</b> 
          is the health system – when your energy bar is reduced, you die and 
          then restart on the same level you died in, and with your equipment 
          and ammo at the levels they were when you entered. There are no ‘lives’ 
          or any other real penalties, effectively you just re-do the rooms again 
          and again till you get through. Perhaps the designers decided that sending 
          players back to their last save point was an artificial way of lengthening 
          the game’s life span, or that treading old ground would break the flow 
          of the game’s story? Whatever, it saves players the hassle of continually 
          saving the game - even if it means you get through an already rather 
          short game more quickly than you might otherwise.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The <b>Zelda</b> comparisons 
          continue! Like Miyamoto’s classic Gameboy version of <b>Zelda, Metal 
          Gear Solid</b> makes no apologies for being a game. Characters will 
          refer to specific buttons on your joypad, instruct you to &quot;look 
          at the back of the CD case&quot;, congratulate you on &quot;being a 
          gamer&quot; and knowingly warn against &quot;cheating by using auto-fire&quot; 
          during one particularly gruesome session requiring some fevered button-bashing! 
          By constantly drawing you (as the <i>player</i>, as opposed to the on-screen 
          character) into the game, <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> leaves you feeling 
          involved, even during the numerous lengthy cut-scenes with little or 
          no interactive content. It’s also testament to the complex and genuinely 
          engaging plot that the urge to skip lengthy sequences of dialogue is 
          absent, even when all critical information has been divulged.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aaaaah, the cut-scenes. Real-time 
          3D, overlaid with CD-audio. Snoozeworthy? Wrong<b>! Metal Gear Solid</b> 
          has some of the best cut-scenes I have ever seen on any machine, ever. 
          They are dramatic, exciting and visually powerful in a way that the 
          most exquisitely crafted FMV is often not. Technically, they are some 
          of the most impressive 3D sequences I have ever seen on the PlayStation, 
          incorporating motion-blur (which hides the notorious PlayStation jaggies) 
          and color filters (for certain dreamlike flashback sequences). In one 
          sense, the game does suffer from a critical divide between the ‘you-have-control’ 
          and the ‘sit-back-and-watch’ sections. However, there is something inherently 
          more immersive (and impressive) about intros and cut-scenes using the 
          in-game engine as opposed to (yawn) streaming video. It’s certainly 
          less jarring as a player to see crucial events related in this style. 
          If your goal as a developer is to convince players they are immersed 
          in a world which is responding to their actions and not the pre-determined 
          machinations of the programmers (hey, that’s the ‘interactive’ idea 
          we were talking about before), it’s pretty annoying to show some glorious 
          pre-rendered FMV footage then dump players back into the world of your 
          game’s real-time engine. You might argue that a real-time cut-scene 
          is no better – the player has no real influence over it either – but 
          I believe the dislocation effect caused by jumping to FMV sequences 
          and back can do serious damage to the illusion of participating in an 
          interactive environment. That’s the purist in me talking – the truth 
          is, I like a juicy, well-done FMV sequence (try <b>Resident Evil 2</b> 
          or <b>Ridge Racer Type 4</b>) as much as the next gamer! Actually, <b>Metal 
          Gear</b> does have a couple of FMV sequences, but – in perfect keeping 
          with what I just mentioned – these are intended to relate the world 
          of the game to the player’s own reality and so their use is entirely 
          appropriate here.</font></p>
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      <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"> </font></i><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
        Pad Happy logo illustrated and is &copy; 1998 Dan Zalkus. Pad Happy is 
        &copy; 1998 Nick Ferguson. All other content is &copy; 1998 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
        productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so 
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