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Review: Solo Soldier: Episode One
Author: David Newton (DavidN)
Added: 31/01/2003
Overall:
Average:7.5/10

If you've played either of the MSX Metal Gear games, you know what to expect from this. It's a stealth game viewed from the top down.

The game starts impressively, with 3D-effect title screen and the title written in the Metal Gear Solid font, while music that sounds quite a lot like something from the original Doom plays in the background. The briefing screen, while also very well presented, has a few spelling mistakes - and I could be wrong, but shouldn't it be a "briefing" rather than a "debriefing"?

On the mission start frame, the player's arms can move around before the start of the mission. It needs to be fixed, but they return to their rightful owner when you press Shift to advance, so it's not really that much of a problem.

The graphics are very well drawn on the surface - comparable to SNES quality, although a lot higher resolution of course. I particularly like the various decorations around the walls and floor, but some of them can look a little blank. The "top down and slightly to the front" view allows you to go in front of walls but not behind them. The stairs later on in the game feel more than a little strange as you walk across them rather than down them (you'll see).

The stealth engine, which is of course the heart of the game, is good. The way it works is that when you are spotted by an enemy soldier (who have far better eyesight than their relations in Metal Gear) all the soldiers in the frame are alerted, making life much more difficult until you eliminate them all. The only major problem that I saw was that soldiers will try to walk through walls to get to you.

To eliminate these soldiers, you are provided with two weapons, the pistol and machine gun. The pistol has two modes of fire - a nice touch.

The structure of the game is linear, and you're prevented from going back frames. This gets around the problem of having to put more soldiers/items into the frame or delete them when you come back, but I found myself being able to walk off the frame back the way I came a few times.

It's got a few faults, but this is a very well written game, both in terms of storyline and programming. It's well balanced - not being seen is a challenge without being impossible.

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