Confession time: I’ve never actually played any of the Metal Gear Solid games. Well, to completion anyway; I own a copy of MGS2: Substance for the Xbox, but I’ve never actually played it past the the first level. I got confused towards the end of it, and I just never picked it up. When Konami announced Metal Gear Solid Touch, I thought it would be a great way for me to finally get into the MGS franchise.

I knew they’d worked hard on it, because they mentioned how Kojima actually scrapped the entire game and started from scratch halfway into development. Konami said it wouldn’t be a lot like the console games, and I didn’t expect it to, but with such a great legacy, how would Metal Gear Solid Touch live up to the Metal Gear games before it? Would it finally get me into the Metal Gear series? Hit the jump for the full review.

Metal Gear Solid Touch is set up like a shooting gallery, where you’re ducked behind a barrier, only to come up often to shoot strategically placed PMC soldiers, Haven Troopers, and Gekkos before they shoot you. The game gives you a life bar to make things fair, and adds a circular meter around your enemies’ heads, which is like a countdown until they begin to fire at you. It starts off in the yellow, and makes it’s way to the cautionary red, when you should probably begin ducking behind the barrier.

The controls are super simple- drag your finger across the screen to move the aiming reticule, tap the screen to fire, pinch your fingers to switch to the sniper, spread your fingers to move back to your M4, lift your finger to duck behind the barrier. They’re easy to pick up which makes it a simple game to pick up at any time. One thing I didn’t like about the controls was how sluggishly the sniper reticule moved. It’s easy to move the M4 reticule from one side to the other, but it takes a couple of drags with the sniper to aim at someone across the screen. This can easily be fixed by zooming out THEN moving, but it’s still a hassle to do so. It also took me a while to find out how to pause the game. Turns out that you just have to turn the screen from a landscape position to a vertical position, but Konami didn’t bother to mention this in the explanation of controls.

Some of the first things you’ll notice about the game are its graphics. They’re fantastic, especially for an iPhone game, and rival anything you’d see on a PSP or DS currently, but this could be because the models barely ever move. Snake only tilts to aim, and the PMC troopers only move when they fall. One of the second things you’ll notice is that there are missionaries in the game. You probably shouldn’t shoot them. I learned that the hard way.

MGST takes you into 12 missions across 2 acts, and Konami’s promising the addition of 8 more levels soon, too. The game has a story that (according to Konami) is similar to that of MGS4, even though the story is in no way essential to the plot. As a matter of fact, it’s all presented through text-based cutscenes that can be easily skipped. If you’re still annoyed by the story, you can play the Survival Mode of the game, which is just a straight shooting gallery, where you play until you lose. The main mode of the game has a rather lengthy boss fight at the end of the game with Raven, and it’s one of the only two boss fights in the game, the other being one with Laughing Octopus. The boss fights are confusing at first, as you have to figure out how to defeat them on your own, which is a nice change of pace from the usual “shoot the giant red spot on their chest” boss.

The UI of the game is very clean and minimal, with only a lifebar, a timer, a counter of remaining enemies, and a label showing which mission you’re in, tucked away in the corner. One of the cooler parts of the game is the way you procure extra life and different weapons. By shooting yellow chickens placed across the map (yes, chickens) you can get more life, and shooting green little frogs gives you either a rocket launcher or invisibility for a short time, though it’s much more common for rocket launchers to be present when Gekkos or helicopters are attacking you. It’s a case for PETA for sure, but still very useful.

If you get sick of the game, you can always take a look at some of the extras the game has. For those of you like me that don’t know much about Metal Gear Solid, the game has the entire history of Metal Gear Solid so you can catch up, complete with art from the games. There’s also Drebin’s Shop, which allows you to buy 3D art of characters for the Drebin Points you’ve accrued over the course of gameplay. Unfortunately, that’s as far as it goes for the game’s extras, and the 3D art is kind of lame.

Overall, Metal Gear Solid Touch is a great game, even if it’s not a lot like other Metal Gear Solid games. The shooting gallery format works great with the iPod touch/iPhone format, and the lack of an important story means more gameplay, less winded cutscenes. At $7.99, it’s a biiiiiiit pricey for a shooting gallery, but still something any iPhone owner should check out.

Tags: iphone, iPod Touch, kojima, Metal Gear Solid Touch, Review

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• Konami Pushes Metal Gear Solid 4 Back Again – Spring 2008 Expected Release

6 Comments » Sam Naylor on March 30, 2009 6:14 am Looks more like a baby duck than a chicken in the screenshot… wakash on March 30, 2009 6:59 am wtf!? you beat me to the review cuz i just downloaded it the other day and beat it today!! it was a pretty cool game..can't wait for the update..my fave game on the iphone thus far..and yes they do look like baby ducks rather than chickens hahaha valleyshrew on March 31, 2009 5:44 am How can you not know that that is gako?! Sunny had a gako egg timer in mgs4. In MGO gako (and Kerotan which is the frog) is used in the rescue, capture and team sneak game modes. Demi Adejuyigbe on March 31, 2009 7:45 am Like I said, I have never played any of the Metal Gear Solid games. Thanks for the correction though, I'll fix that. Binkery on March 31, 2009 4:10 pm Yes this game rocks on the iPhone :) Sure it's not like MGS but this is a mobile phone after all. Never played any other MGS games though… you should at least nab the best of the series and I'm sure you can get it cheap as it's MGS the first one. Either PS1 for retro gaming or get the updated GC one. Either way it's one heck of a game E.A. on April 17, 2009 2:46 am this game was such a disappointment because I actually played MGS4, it had deep gameplay and very good story IMO, this one is just an arcade game with the MGS title in it thats just me though RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.