By this point I am probably beating a horse not just dead, but thoroughly decomposed as well.
A few weeks ago I excitedly bought Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. I have had my eye out for a copy for years and to finally find one in my GameStop's used Gamecube bin struck me as a fantastic find.
I had read some of the criticism of it, but I passed them off as mere nitpicking. After all it's freaking Metal Gear Solid. How can you go wrong with that?
Congratulations Konami for proving to me that you can in fact botch MGS. I don't think I have ever been so dissapointed in a remake as I am with Twin Snakes.
Why? There are a variety of issues.
The cutscenes for instance, are too over the top. People have cited this a lot before and the developers have responded that Snake basically becoming Neo in this game was a stylistic choice. The Metal Gear Solid games were already wierd enoiugh, I would at least like it to have some grounding in reality. Namely, I don't want half the action in the cutscenes to look like The Matrix.
The soundtrack as well took a hit. This struck me as particularly blasphemous. The tracks from the original MGS are bonified game music classic, and yet for some reason, several of the most endearing classics have been replaced. The Alert music for instance has been changed to some lousy rendition of the Sons of Liberty theme and the boss battle music has usurped in favor of some oddly upbeat crap that really downplays the seriousness of Snake taking on, oh I don't know, a freaking tank!
The most heinous offense comes from the gameplay, most namely the controls. The Wii in general had an odd controller. That said, it still managed to sport a number of games with good control schemes. The controls in Twin Snakes are so utterly muddled that controlling Snake is a downright chore. Aiming at someone in the PS1 game is easier then shooting somebody in the first person in the Gamecube game. At first, I thought it was just because I had grown use to the stellar controls of MGS4, but no, even after getting used to the Gamecube controls it still feels utterly awkward. Half the time when I die, it's because I'm so busy trying to remember what buttons I need to push that the guards have ample time to pop me off.
In short, Twin Snakes sucks and I warn anyone who comes across it randomnly to ignore the siren song of Metal Gear Solid and just keep walking. Feel free to buy my copy off of Amazon though. I could use the money to buy the original version for my PSP.
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I completely understand how you felt about the cutscenes being over the top and it not being as realistic as Metal Gear can be (which come to think of it is pretty out there). If you think about it though, the time twin snakes came out was pretty much the same time the Matrix became a hit, hence the popularity to the bullet time and kung fu-ness of Snake.
I remember someone defending it, however, saying that they mention it via codec in MGS that Snake's sneaking suit uses nano-machines to enhance his reflexes. I want to say that i do recall this and that is good defense to have the over the top cutscenes, but i don't wouldn't count on my word since it has been sometime since i played it.
Gameplay was awesome, i thought adding everything like the first person view and rail-hanging abilities from Son's of Liberty were a great addition, and the updated graphics made it all the worthwhile.
I will agree with you on the soundtrack though. The original soundtrack to the PSone version of MGS tranced me into the whole scenario, and Twin Snakes failed to do so.
I do that all the time.
Kojima wanted the Director of Versus to do the remake, and he meant it to be over the top. So when you say Kojima himself botched that, that's only partially true.
Also, the remake was better, outside of the Gamecube controller being a piece of shit. If you own the game on GCN, you can legally play it on your PC with a Dualshock: I'd suggest doing that. If you're interested in some Metal Gear discussion (particularly the exact same topic), I just recorded a podcast with the main focus on MGS (it's around 38 min in).
BUT the game was a pretty solid remake. I just wish it could have been a whole new story instead. That's what the Gamecube really needed with MGS. When Resident Evil was remade, they made sure to change a whole lot to keep it fresh and somewhat exclusive. The Twin Snakes didn't really deviate from the original and suffered indifference for it.
As far as a comparison to the original, I can't comment, but I think that on its on merit, it's an excellent game with high production quality, and on the gamecube no less. I definitely disagree with your recommendation to avoid it.
Haha, dude you're not alone. A lot of people do dislike it. Like I said, the GCN controls are a huge turn off for me: luckily, I own the game, so I play a modified scheme using a Dualshock.
As for the rest of your gripes, I see your points, but I feel differently. Generally speaking, everyone I know who played Twin Snakes first prefers it to the original MGS, and vice versa. The one you play first is the one you get attached to. This is usually the case with great games.
That said, is Twin Snakes was truly a great remake, it would probably get universal kudos the way that the GC Resident Evil remake does. So yeah, even though I don't share your complaints, I believe them to be telling of genuine flaws in the Twin Snakes' design.