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I have a love-hate relationship with the Metal Gear Solid (and by proxy, the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2) series. I totally love it (and own a ton of rare loot from the franchise) but hate that Metal Gear Solid V was unfinished and we’ve never had a new (Metal Gear Solid Delta doesn’t count since it’s a remake) entry in the series for…how long has it been now? Since 2015? SINCE 2015?!
Holy shit, that’s a long time in video game years! I didn’t even realize it’s been that long! I thought it was 5 or 6 years ago…max!
While it’s inevitable that a new Metal Gear Solid is incoming (the financial and critical success of Metal Gear Solid Delta all but confirms it), for now, we only have Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 to hold the line till then.
Is it enough to tide us over during what will probably be a years-long wait though?
What is the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2?
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 is a compilation of 3 games from the Metal Gear Solid series. It is primarily developed by Konami (with a handful of other studios assisting) and also published by the same. It is available right now for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch consoles.
Our review code was provided by the super folks over at Konami! Thanks so much!
I’m running the game on our trio of gaming rigs, with the specs as listed:
Desktop 1 –
– MSI B550M Mortar WIFI
– AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with NZXT Kraken X73 RGB Liquid Cooler
– MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G
– Teamgroup T-Force Dark Z 64GB DDR4 RAM
– Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD
– NZXT C1200 Gold ATX 3.1
– Lian Li LANCOOL III RGB case
Desktop 2 –
– MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
– AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L Core ARGB cooler
– Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB
– G.SKILL Trident Z5 NEO 32GB DDR5-6400 RAM
– Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD
– Corsair RM850x PSU
– Lian Li LANCOOL 207 Digital
Notebook –
MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V
– Intel Core i9 14900HX
– NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
– 32GB DDR5 RAM
– 1TB SSD
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 packs Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD and, as a bonus, Metal Gear Ghost Babel (aka Metal Gear Solid GB). This marks the first time Metal Gear Solid 4 has been on any console other than the PlayStation 3. Technically, it’s also the same situation for Metal Gear Ghost Babel (only for Game Boy Color instead), but we don’t really care about it.
The collection also packs a mini-soundtrack (ignore it, it’s useless) and screenplay and Master Book (think of it as reference material that deals with the overall MGS universe) for both MGS 4 and Peace Walker, and the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database app, which was a PS3-only app. Basically an interactive encyclopedia for all things MGS (up to MGS4), it is unfortunately not updated, as entries post-MGS4 aren’t recorded in it.
It’s still a great bonus, though, because there’s no way to get it apart from downloading it waaaaaaaaay back when it was available for the PlayStation 3. If Konami makes a Silent Hill Master Collection, I really hope they bring back the Silent Hill Experience too, which was kind of like the PSP version of this, just for Silent Hill.
It’s a huge deal that Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally unleashed from its PlayStation 3 shackles.
Back in the day, Konami and Kojima made a big deal about the game needing the PS3’s power, leading everyone to assume the Cell processor was the reason it was so difficult to port. Turns out, the real problem was much simpler: storage.
The PlayStation 3 used Blu-ray discs, while the Xbox 360 was stuck with DVDs. Konami allegedly even had MGS4 running on the Xbox 360 as a test, but the space limitations of DVD eventually put the kibosh on that.
That’s ancient history now because finally…finally Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is playable on something other than the PlayStation 3.
While the PlayStation 3 was the only platform the game originally released on, it wasn’t a release without technical issues. There were insane installation times that were mandatory. For every chapter. It was ludicrous. On top of that, the game had intense bouts of slowdown whenever a lot of effects were happening on-screen. Dust, explosive particles…you name it. If it kicked up a fuss, the PS3 would throw a fit.
It was obvious, despite Kojima and Konami saying otherwise, that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was too much even for the much-vaunted PlayStation 3.
It’s not anymore.
It’s finally time for Metal Gear Solid 4 to shine.
And holy shit, does it shine.
No slowdown. No stuttering. No load or installation times.
This is Metal Gear Solid 4 as it’s meant to be played. Even better, it’s playable on platforms superior to the PlayStation 3, which means enhanced (for the most part anyways) textures! Still, for everything that’s improved for the game, Konami hasn’t touched the gameplay itself.
The version of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots here is essentially as it appeared back on the PlayStation 3. That means the story and all are unchanged. And yes, that means Chapter 3, the stupid tailing mission in Eastern Europe, is still the worst thing that’s ever been in a Metal Gear Solid game.
Octocamo is still the best thing to come out of the camouflage system in the series. I love it. No fiddling with changing uniforms or facepaint (like in MGS 3 or Delta) to match surroundings. Just lie down and the suit handles the rest. I really, really, really missed it in Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Yes, even counting Portable Ops Plus.
Muddy visuals, dim lighting, confusing objectives and boring gameplay…Everything came together in a perfect shitstorm that made anybody who played it think – ‘What the hell was Kojima thinking? Did nobody playtest this section?’.
Thankfully, its suckiness made Act 4 (which is the best part of MGS4) even more spectacular, so perhaps it evens out. Nope, no it doesn’t. Not one bit.
Ironically, Metal Gear Solid 4 has perhaps the lamest opposition in the entire series: the Beauty and the Beast Corps. Or, as Drebin calls them, the Snakehound Unit.
Based on Metal Gear Solid’s FOXHOUND archetypes, each member of the B&B Corps is a sexy female traumatized by an aspect of war. And therein lies the problem.
It’s a shallow approach to a very real issue, made all the more trite and pandering by the fact that the game constantly sexualizes the very trauma it’s trying to highlight. Tight-fitting suits that leave nothing to the imagination. Provocative poses. Camera angles that would make porn directors blush. It’s hokey and corny. I honestly didn’t like it in the past and don’t like it any more now.
Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a nun compared to the ladies here. Makes you wish for simpler times, eh?
Unfortunately, that brings me to Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD.
And what a damn mess it is…
A port of the HD version released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, the version available in the collection for the PC is…how should I put this tactfully…a piece of shit.
How in the hell does a game originally meant for hardware that today’s smartphones can emulate have slowdown issues on anything other than a system packing an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 or an AMD 7900 XTX?
I’m serious.
The MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V laptop I have is running an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Notebook GPU and it still has slowdown during the later missions of the game.
How is there slowdown?! How?!
It boggles the mind when this very machine can run modern games like Dead or Alive 6 Last Round or The Sinking City 2 with no issues! Yet there’s stuttering and framerate drops in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD.
Put the technical issues aside, though, and Peace Walker is decent, if too much a product of its target platform.
Being made for the PSP meant that a lot of corners were cut. Missions are short (some can last a minute or two), enemy AI is practically non-existent, and the story is told via comic book cuts (just like the MGS Bande Dessinée motion comics) with QTE elements.
It is an interesting experimental entry, though, because you can see Kojima prototyping features that would eventually become central to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Kidnapping recruits for MSF, assigning teams to boost production and security, creating Mother Base…these features all emerged first in Peace Walker before getting their console debut.
Finally, the last (and most overlooked entry) is Metal Gear Ghost Babel.
Unlike all the other games in the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection series, this one is the sole entry (so far) that isn’t canon. It’s an alternate-universe version of Metal Gear Solid, but instead of Snake infiltrating Shadow Moses Island to take on FOXHOUND, this time Snake goes to Africa to infiltrate a fortress called Galiwade.
It might be made for the Game Boy Color, but holy shit, does this game live up to the Metal Gear Solid moniker. The view might be top-down now, but the focus is still on stealth. Snake retains most of his moves from the PlayStation original, like being able to knock on walls to distract and crawl on his belly.
It’s a surprisingly feature-complete game, even with rudimentary cutscenes and dialogue via CODEC. If there’s one Metal Gear Solid game that punches above its weight class, this might just be it. Emulation for the title is solid, with none of the issues present for Peace Walker. Control is spot-on too and is easy to get the hang of too. Even the chiptune music and sound effects are memorable.
It might be a bonus entry in Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2, but it’s a more competent port than Peace Walker is for sure.
Overall, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 is a much lighter collection than the first volume, but it has one hell of a trump card: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I have no idea why Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Portable Ops Plus and the Metal Gear Acid duology games are missing.
Perhaps Konami didn’t want to bust their budget after investing so much in getting Metal Gear Solid 4 to run well.
I really hope Konami is planning a final Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 3 for those games, because the Metal Gear Acid games are stellar offshoots of the franchise.
Come on, Konami. You’ve given us MGS4.
Now give me Metal Gear Acid.
The Bottom Line.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 is a weird one.
On one hand, finally getting Metal Gear Solid 4 off the PlayStation 3 is a huge deal, and the game runs beautifully here. No installs, no slowdown, no stuttering and no PS3 nonsense. It’s glorious to finally play MGS4 without being shackled to Sony’s old hardware.
On the other hand, Peace Walker HD is an absolute mess. How a PSP game can struggle on an RTX 4090-equipped laptop is beyond me. Ghost Babel, meanwhile, is the surprise star of the collection, proving that you don’t need fancy hardware to make a damn good Metal Gear game.
It’s a lighter collection than Vol. 1, and the omissions of Portable Ops, Portable Ops Plus and the Metal Gear Acid games are disappointing. But MGS4 alone is a pretty compelling reason to pick this up.
Just don’t expect Konami to have fixed everything.
And please, Konami…give us Vol. 3. I need my Metal Gear Acid.
TLDR:
MGS4 is finally free from the PS3 , Peace Walker disappoints and Metal Gear Ghost Babel holds up surprisingly well.
The Technoverdict: Get it ASAP
The Good:
- Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally here and very playable.
- MGS 4 Database is a cool forgotten relic.
- Metal Gear Ghost Babel is still fun after all these years.
The Bad:
- Peace Walker has massive technical issues.
- Missing some games.
- Extras could be better.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
