Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 Review – A Legendary Return

It’s 2008 and Konami has just dropped a bombshell of a PlayStation 3 exclusive: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The impact of Hideo Kojima’s series finale was immediate, and made all the more impressive given it released in a year teeming with huge blockbusters like Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Fable 2, and Fallout 3 (to name a few). As the years have passed, Metal Gear Solid 4 has remained locked away on the PlayStation 3, with the complexity of the platform’s Cell architecture leading many to believe this cinematic achievement would forever be trapped on dated hardware. Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 finally breaks this title out of its prison, bringing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots to modern platforms for the first time ever, alongside Peace Walker and the Game Boy Color spin-off Ghost Babel. While Vol. 2 is composed of fewer titles than Vol. 1, the value of MGS4 simply cannot be understated after nearly two decades.

If it’s not obvious yet, Guns of the Patriots is the undeniable star of the show here. We can now experience Old Snake’s final mission once again, elevated by 4K support and a smooth 60 frames per second. This updated performance fundamentally enhances all areas of the game. Gone is the prolonged installation segment where Snake casually smokes a cigarette—the once visually stunning scene can still be accessed via an in-game easter egg—and the tactical espionage action is more responsive. Even moving between areas is much faster. Visually, the game shows its age in its environmental geometry, but it manages to hold up surprisingly well overall. The textures look sharp, and even small details, like the text on Snake’s OctoCamo suit or his pre-touchscreen era iPod, are given added attention thanks to modern displays. There aren’t any over-the-top updates or additions, however, outside of a slightly altered codec call. It is largely just as you remember it (except Metal Gear Online has sadly not returned).

Old Snake, New Tricks

The gameplay itself balances traditional stealth with aggressive action, and either approach is viable. That said, Solid Snake’s accelerated aging means open conflict puts more of a strain on his body. Stamina drains quickly and the demands of battle whittle away at the Stress bar—a quick cigarette or zoning out to some relaxing tunes on the iPod offer quick fixes from these ailments—but the stealth systems provide brilliant alternatives. The OctoCamo suit is a fantastic piece of equipment, allowing Snake to press himself against or lie flat on any virtually any surface and the suit automatically copies the pattern to blend into the environment. There’s little else as satisfying as slithering past PMCs while completely camouflaged, and maybe dropping a Playboy magazine to distract one of the hostiles for hell of it.

The story is a wild ride that ties up decades of complicated lore, throwing nanomachines, private military economies, and supernatural events at the player in equal measure as it plays out 8 hours of cutscenes by the end of it. It requires a lot of prior knowledge to understand, but even with that info on-hand it still manages to be convoluted in the traditional Kojima way. Snake’s last outing travels to locations like Eastern Europe and a massive battleship; it sees the face-off against the bizarre Beauty and the Beast Corps and old rivals; and it throws in a soldier with irritable bowel syndrome. There’s a lot to wrap your head around as 20-minute cutscenes break up the gameplay segments to dump all manner of exposition and twists on the player.

There’s more to this collection than Metal Gear Solid 4. When it’s time to take a break from the heavy cinematics, Peace Walker offers a different structure. Originally a PlayStation Portable title, this game takes Big Boss to Costa Rica to build a mercenary army. The story is more contained. A girl named Paz and a professor named Galvez ask Big Boss for help, and this sets off a chain of events that eventually bridges the gap between Snake Eater and The Phantom Pain. Because of the original hardware limitations, the game ditches full 3D cinematics, opting for fantastic stylized, comic-book animated panels that give the game a unique visual identity.

Retro Haven

Peace Walker changes the core gameplay loop by offering short, bite-sized missions rather than one long, continuous narrative. Big Boss infiltrates areas, knocks out enemy soldiers, straps Fulton recovery balloons to their backs, and sends them flying into the sky to join the army. Between missions, players manage Mother Base where kidnapped soldiers get assigned to different teams tied to different weapons and gear. It creates a highly addictive loop, and it feels incredibly rewarding to watch the base grow. As the base develops, even more content opens up, including a Monster Hunter tie-in mission and the Outer Ops deployment minigame.

The transition to a big screen highlights a few flaws, though, just as they did when Peace Walker first made it’s jump to the TV in the HD collection. The sneaking missions feel a bit easy because the enemy artificial intelligence is fairly simple. It’s hard to harp on it too much knowing the limitations of its origins, and even more difficult to call attention to the negatives because of Peace Walker‘s entertaining cooperative multiplayer. Players can team up with three other people for main missions, or up to six for versus modes. The addition of friends makes the brief missions an absolute joy, allowing us to engage with the Metal Gear Solid experience in a whole new way. The entertainment value is more than enough to brush aside the clunkiness of the dated controls lifted from the PSP.

The final game in the collection is an unexpected treat, and one many likely haven’t played. Ghost Babel originally launched on the Game Boy Color in 2000, and it has never seen a re-release until now. This non-canon story follows Snake as he infiltrates Central Africa to stop a guerrilla group called the Gindra Liberation Front from using a stolen Metal Gear prototype. It uses a 2D top-down perspective, looking very much like the original NES games. The pixel art looks crisp, and the stealth puzzles offer a simpler alternative to the massive 3D environments of the main titles. It is a fantastic bonus that highlights a forgotten piece of franchise history, even if it’s far from the main draw of the second collection. Konami also packed in extra digital goodies. Digital screenplay books, strategy guides, and the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database app are all included. These extras provide background information on characters and hidden game mechanics, and they offer a fair amount of reading material.

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 Review Verdict

[Editor’s Note: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 was reviewed on PC, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]