Metal Gear Solid Delta review: modern visuals with old-school frustrations

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater seemed to be designed specifically for me, at the beginning. I played and loved almost all the entries of Solid metal series, and the original MG is one of my favorite games of all time. These strange furtive and third -person action games present bizarre characters and scenarios that have lingered in my memories thanks to a coherent mixture of complex political spying and ridiculous action sequences. The only entry that I never managed to play was Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

Delta is a modern remake of MGS3 This uses the same levels, kinematic, vocal lines and performance, which makes it ideal for those who loved previous entries. Unfortunately, after hours of play, Delta Often left me frustrated. You play as a novice version of one of the protagonists in the series, Naked Snake, who is completely not equipped to face the scenarios before him. It makes sense from the point of view of history, but it let me feel like playing with a hand attached behind my back. Nor did I have the advantage of nostalgia to see me through this hitchhill.

Despite its incredible visuals, it is not a overhaul to the extent of recent remakes as Resident Evil 4 Or Silent hill 2. This is a remake almost taken from the original Snake (So ​​as not to complicate the questions, we will not discuss the many different versions of Snake and which is the final version). This means that you experience it with warts and everything.

You can miss the equipment at crucial steps and the melee fight works when the game decides (I can hit flying creatures with a torch but I can’t stab a snake with a knife). Healing has as much meaning as reading tea leaves. I could not tell you how or why Snake manages to heal, although there is an entire mechanic intelligently dedicated to counter the broken bones, ball wounds, etc. The snake can use an enlightened cigar to get rid of leeches or bandages to stop bleeding, but they do not improve health bars as much as prevent them from degrading. I don’t know what raises his health bars.

The structure of the game explains why it feels dated. The levels are broken by frequent loading screens that show how small they are, which gives me the impression of going from a little fake together to another, rather than navigating in a dense jungle. To be fair, this is how the original game works and, as indicated, it is not an ascending remake. However, these small levels feel in contradiction with modern visuals.

I have no problem learning the systems of a game through tests and errors, especially when loading is a quick lightning (the PS5 SSD has undoubtedly recorded a lot of potential broken controller). But I constantly felt unprepared in Delta. The first hours saw me frequently recharge a level due to a sudden introduction of terrestrial mines, a distinct inability to see or detect enemies and boss fights without inspiration. All this threw me and made me roll my eyes when I had to come back. The game and I just didn’t click. The versions of Snake that I saw in the kinematics looked like a different character in my useless hands during the gameplay.

To be clear, Snake is incredible to control, similar to the snake in 2015 Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Painthe most recent entry in the series. He immediately responds to the controls, the directional movements are perfect, and the shots and the fights have felt well. It was also pleasant to hear the English voice of Snake interpreted by David Hayter, original of the series, whose hero of an exaggerated action growled again works perfectly. Its performance rides the line between the ridiculousness of quality B action films and the smooth and large budget productions of a John Wick movie.

Snake ends up starting to develop his large arsenal of gadgets and weapons, and learning when and how to use these different gadgets is part of the joy of the game. But I never had the impression of understanding how and when to use the different equipment, which goes from a sound detector strange to a crocodile helmet.

For example, moving through a base near the water means that you can put on a crocodile helmet pretending to be said animal, until you find a rim, climb on top and treat quietly with various guards. However, despite wearing the helmet, I was immediately spotted in a case, bringing a whole level of enemies to me. Another area forced me to sneak into a base, but it was surrounded by an electric fence and a terrestrial mine, which turned out to be impossible to spot because I had missed a terrestrial mine detector earlier in the game.

Until I got thermal glasses, spotting enemies was a nightmare. I found some success using the remarkable game camouflage system (which allows Snake to wear different outfits and body painting to blend into the immediate environment) which makes it almost invisible to enemies. This meant that if I stumbled on an enemy, I was more likely not to be immediately spotted.

The game calls for a slow and methodical movement on a ground that can be hostile, with above -mentioned mines, toxic animals, childcare dogs, etc., trying to find ways to kill you. The game looked more like a collection of puzzles than to environments fully achieved as in past games, and this structure simply never clicked with me.

History did it, however. It is a deliciously complicated mess that anyone played a Metal Gear The game will expect. Snake was sent to the distant jungle location during the Cold War to prevent a very large machine from harming the world. The representatives of the high-ranking government of Russia and the United States compete for power but prove to be vulnerable to a powerful military ramification which is trying to take control. There are beads, twists and turns and usual reflection on war, technology, conquest and the horror of power. Creator of the series – and the original SnakeThe director and writer – Hideo Kojima has been obsessed with these themes for decades. He was actually touching to see his name in the credits and displayed him in good place, despite his infamous repercussions with Konami.

Without the benefit of nostalgia, my perspective-that is to say someone who has experience with all the others Metal Gear Games but did not touch it – puts me in a strange space. The magnificent visuals and eccentric history make it appear as a perfect fit for me. But Delta Leave me frustrated by its helplessness (deliberately designed) and its old -fashioned structure. It let me want to be elsewhere rather than in the jungles with this bizarre serve beloved.

_{Metal Gear Sold Delta: Snake Eater Launches August 28 on PC, PS5 and Xbox.}