Most Bizarre Metal Gear Games

Using Metal Gear as the norm when judging what is bizarre is a difficult task. We’re talking about a series that has cyborg ninjas, cloned super soldiers, giant mechs, and a character who replaces his severed arm with a dead character’s limb. Believe it or not, some games go even further than that.

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For the most part, the games below are bizarre more for their deviations from the gameplay norms than for their stories. Some of the plots still feel out of left field, even for the Metal Gear series. Many of these games still have their fans, while a few are total outcasts most players would recommend skipping entirely.

Stealth With Cards

Stealth

Digital Card Game

Systems

Released

March 22, 2005

ESRB

Mature 17+

When Sony brought the PSP to life, many fans wondered how their favorite series would be adapted to the portable format. While many properties simply downsized the console experience, Metal Gear thought outside the box.

Metal Gear AC!D is a turn-based tactics game where players’ actions and options are determined by the cards in their deck. It is still done through a Metal Gear lens, with stealth playing a part in the battles and the story, including all the tropes fans expect from the series, but the card-based system felt far-flung from series norms.

6

Snake’s Revenge

The Unofficial Sequel

Snake’s Revenge

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is the true sequel to the series’ debut and was helmed by series creator Hideo Kojima. Before that, a sequel handled by a North American developer called Snake’s Revenge came out.

The game follows Solid Snake through a similar mission. This time, however, there are some side-scrolling segments to shake up the typical top-down format. Big Boss is still revealed to be the final boss and this time is cybernetically enhanced.

Snake’s Revenge is bizarre for being such an early attempt at a developer taking a crack at Kojima’s series. It is not necessarily a bad game, but something feels off about it the whole time.

Swords, Cyborgs, And Philosophy

Released

February 19, 2013

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a Metal Gear sequel that simultaneously feels so far away from what Metal Gear is while still embracing everything that makes the series memorable. The character action game starring Raiden opens with an absurd fight against a Metal Gear Ray where Raiden chops it to pieces while nu-metal tunes blast in the background.

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This energy keeps up as the story explores deeper, more serious political themes. Like many titles from developer Platinum Games, Revengeance did not immediately light up the sales charts. It has since grown into a cult classic that is still revered more than a decade after its release.

4

Snake Eater 3D

A Strange Part Of The 3DS Library

6/10

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D

• Release: February 21, 2012
• Platforms: Nintendo 3DS
• Developers: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, Kojima Productions, HexaDrive
• Publisher: Konami

Normally, any old port job would not justify a place in a list of bizarre games. However, Snake Eater 3D makes the cut for its changes to the Metal Gear Solid 3 experience. Thanks to the Nintendo 3DS‘s differing button layout from the PS2’s DualShock 2, certain changes had to be made.

It is a little harder to control, but at the same time, there are some improvements. Snake can crouch walk, something that was only introduced to the series in Metal Gear Solid 4. He can also aim from behind the shoulder instead of only in first-person.

The UI and menus look radically different too. It is not the best way to play the game due to the controls and performance issues with the frame rate, but it stands as a fascinating curiosity, especially to those intimately familiar with Metal Gear Solid 3.

The Deviation From The Norm That Became The Norm

Systems

Released

December 5, 2006

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Animated Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence

Usually, portable spin-offs are smaller than their mainline console cousins. Portable Ops took the mobile format to make arguably a more involved and complex stealth action game than the mainline entries up to that point.

Instead of a linear adventure with gameplay variety, Portable Ops tasks players with building up a base of operations by recruiting soldiers during missions. Players drag enemy soldiers and scientists back to the mission start truck to then add them to their roster.

Equipment and other traits improve as players recruit more people. This idea, while bizarre for Metal Gear at the time, was expanded upon in Peace Walker and eventually made it into a mainline entry with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

Big, Polarizing, And Bizarre

Systems

Released

June 12, 2008

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood, Crude Humor, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is perhaps the most polarizing main entry in the series. Fans either embraced the bizarre plot twists and resolutions to questions that had been hanging in the air for years or were utterly disappointed by them.

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Regardless of how one took the plot, it is impossible to say it is not bizarre. Some might say its gameplay and structure buckle under the weight of their ambition. However, its release was an almost unprecedented event back in 2008.

Besides, what other game lets players control an aging super soldier on a globe-trotting adventure? Did we mention that a previously minor character whose prior purpose was toilet-related comic relief plays a significant supporting role in the story?

Not Where People Expected The Series To Go

Even though Konami derailed Metal Gear Solid 5’s development, the publisher was not done with the series. Metal Gear Survive is about a group of MSF soldiers who were transported to a parallel dimension after Skullface’s attack on Motherbase at the end of Ground Zeroes.

This dimension happens to be filled with zombie-like monsters. The heroes try to survive and find a way back home. Instead of stealth action, Metal Gear Survive is about holding up in one spot and surviving against incoming hordes of monsters.

There are zombie-like enemies in sections of Metal Gear Solid 4, but the real complaint about Survive was how it continued the series in a superficial way after Hideo Kojima’s exit from the publisher.

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