Select Gaming Platform and game

Metal Gear (MSX)

Metal Gear MSX
Genre: Action
Perspective: Top-down
Gameplay: Stealth
Narrative: Spy / Espionage
Published by: Konami Ltd.
Developed by: Konami Industry Co.
Released: 1987
Platform: MSX

1986 year. Hideo Kojima settles in then still small studio - Konami, but dreams of a heap of money and full freedom of creativity are broken about a severe reality - he works as the designer of characters and "the scheduler", moreover and in development department under MSX, instead of under NES. MSX is a computer popular in Japan in the 1980s, technically less suitable for games than NES. Young Kojima was so embarrassed by the limitations of the parameters and the color palette of the first MSX that he even thought about leaving Konami - however, after working as an assistant director for a couple of projects (including Penguin Adventure), he remained.

In 1987, Kojima was instructed to develop something like Contra for the same MSX, and later for a more modern MSX2. But Hideo was not that simple! Inspired by stories of prisoners escaping from prison, he decided to develop not just a "stupid shooter", but an intricate and complex (but not over-complicated) game in which the player needed to hide and look for workarounds. So appeared Metal Gear - one of the first in the history of stealth-action shooters.

In 1987, Kojima was instructed to develop something like Contra for the same MSX, and later for a more modern MSX2. But Hideo was not that simple! Inspired by stories of prisoners escaping from prison, he decided to develop not just a "stupid shooter", but an intricate and complex (but not over-complicated) game in which the player needed to hide and look for workarounds. So appeared Metal Gear - one of the first in the history of stealth-action shooters.

Nevertheless, "stealth" as a fundamental element in the games was not there yet. The very fact that the player appears in the world unarmed, made a huge variety in the gameplay and caused interest. Nevertheless, the arsenal in the game is huge - pistols, submachine guns, RPGs, mines and grenades for secret attacks, as well as several types of key cards for opening different doors. No less interesting was the very existence of the plot in the "usual postrelushke" and so on. Here you and the drama, and the salvation of prisoners, and betrayal - the makings of both the artist and the poet-graphomaniac, hiding in Hideo Kojima, appeared as they could from the very first part, even on a technically limited MSX.

In general, the game instantly became successful in Japan, so in a couple of months the port for NES was written, and a year later there was a localized version for the US and Europe, which could not but please Kojima, who already became a very valuable employee for Konami. What pleased him much less, so it's Snake's Revenge, which was developed only in the US and, naturally, without the participation of Kojima. This happened in 1990, and when he heard that such a game exists in nature, Hideo immediately begged his team and began working on the second part of the series.