Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is a 1990 action-adventure stealth game created and released by Konami for the MSX2 computer. It follows the original Metal Gear game, which was also made for the MSX2. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the series, designed this game as a response to Snake's Revenge, another sequel being made for the NES for North American and European markets. The MSX2 version of Solid Snake was only available in Japan. Later, Kojima directed a new sequel called Metal Gear Solid, which was released worldwide for the PlayStation in 1998 and received high praise. This game was later included as bonus content in the Subsistence version of Metal Gear Solid 3 for the PlayStation 2 in 2006, along with an English translation and other updates. It was also added to the HD Edition of Metal Gear Solid 3 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Vita, as well as the Master Collection edition of the original Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Windows (via Steam).
Set in 1999, several years after the original game, Solid Snake must enter a strongly protected area in Central Asia called Zanzibar Land to save a captured scientist and destroy the updated "Metal Gear D." The game improved the stealth mechanics from its predecessor and includes a story that explores topics like the nature of war and the spread of nuclear weapons. Some people consider it one of the best 8-bit games ever made.
Gameplay
Solid Snake improves on the quiet, sneaky gameplay style from its earlier version. Like the first Metal Gear game, the player's goal is to enter an enemy base without being seen by soldiers, cameras, heat sensors, and other monitoring tools. The most important change in the game is how enemies act. Unlike the first game, where enemies stayed in one area, soldiers now move between different parts of the same map. Guards also have a wider view, seeing 45 degrees to the sides instead of just straight ahead, and can turn their heads to look diagonally. Enemies can hear sounds made by the player, such as hitting a wall or firing a gun without a silencer, and will search for the source. They can also hear footsteps on certain surfaces, so players must be careful where they walk. If the player is spotted, a counter appears in the top right corner of the screen. This counter decreases when enemies lose track of the player. When the counter reaches zero, the game enters an alert phase and returns to normal.
Players have new moves and tools to stay hidden and finish the game. For example, players can now kneel or crawl, which helps avoid making noise on certain terrain, pick up land mines, and hide in small spaces like under desks or inside air ducts. A radar with a 3×3 grid in the top right corner shows the player’s location as a red dot in the center grid, with enemies as white dots. This helps players see what lies ahead. However, the radar stops working during the alert phase. The radar can also be used with a mine detector to find enemy mines or launch Stinger missiles at flying targets. Many weapons and equipment from the first game are included, along with new items like robotic mice to distract enemies, a camouflaged mat, and three types of rations, each with special effects. Health and carrying ability increase after defeating bosses.
The transceiver, a tool for communication, has been updated. Conversations now depend on the situation rather than just the area. The transceiver screen shows the faces of Snake and the person he is talking to. Players can speak to children in the fortress to learn new information, but losing health if they harm a child. The game’s environments are more varied than the earlier MSX2 version, and players must solve puzzles to progress, such as luring a carrier pigeon with a specific ration, following a female spy to a bathroom, or decoding secret tap codes to find new radio frequencies.
The MSX2 version requires a floppy disk drive or a Game Master II cartridge to save progress. If these are unavailable, players can write down a password to reload their game. Later versions of the game removed the password system, using standard storage like memory cards or internal hard drives instead.
Plot
Solid Snake takes place in a near-future world where the Cold War continued into the 1990s. The game’s events happen in 1999, four years after the original Metal Gear (later changed to four years in Metal Gear Solid).
Solid Snake, a retired FOXHOUND agent and hero from the original Metal Gear, returns as the main character. His mission is to rescue Dr. Kio Marv, a kidnapped Czechoslovak biologist, from Zanzibar Land. He is supported by a radio team: Roy Kyanbel (later called Roy Campbell), his new commander; McDonnell Miller, a survival coach; George Kesler (later George Kasler), a military strategist; and Yozev Norden (later Johan Jacobsen), a wildlife expert. On-site helpers include Horry White (later Holly White), a CIA agent posing as a journalist; Natasha Marcova (later Gustava Heffner), an StB agent and Dr. Marv’s bodyguard; and Dr. Petrovich Madnar (later Drago Pettrovich Madnar), the Metal Gear designer from the first game, who was captured with Dr. Marv. Other characters include Big Boss, a former FOXHOUND commander, and Grey Fox (later Gray Fox), who disappeared after the Outer Heaven incident.
The game’s bosses include Black Color (later Black Ninja), a drug-enhanced ninja from a former NASA project; Running Man, a former Olympic runner turned terrorist; Red Blaster, an explosive expert from Spetsnaz; Ultra Box (later the Four Horsemen), an assassination squad; Predator (later Jungle Evil), a jungle warfare expert from South Africa; and Night Sight (later Night Fright), a stealthy assassin from Vietnam.
A major oil crisis in the late 1990s harms the global economy because oil supplies are depleting faster than expected. Alternative energy sources and new drilling efforts fail to solve the problem. Dr. Kio Marv, a Czech scientist, creates a new type of algae called OILIX, which can produce petroleum-like fuel efficiently. He presents OILIX at a conference in Prague but is kidnapped by soldiers from Zanzibar Land, a Central Asian country that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1997. NATO learns that Zanzibar Land plans to control the world by using OILIX and nuclear warheads taken from old stockpiles. FOXHOUND’s new leader, Roy Campbell, sends Solid Snake to rescue Dr. Marv on Christmas Eve 1999.
During the mission, Snake works with Holly White, a CIA agent posing as a journalist, and Gustava Heffner, an StB agent and Dr. Marv’s bodyguard. He reunites with Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar, the Metal Gear inventor from Outer Heaven, who claims he was kidnapped again and forced to build a new Metal Gear (Metal Gear D) for Zanzibar Land. Dr. Madnar also oversees the production of smaller, non-nuclear Metal Gear units. Snake learns from Dr. Madnar that Big Boss, his former commander, now leads Zanzibar Land.
As Snake, Heffner, and Dr. Madnar approach Zanzibar Land’s main prison, Heffner is killed by a missile from Metal Gear D, and Dr. Madnar is recaptured. The pilot of Metal Gear D is revealed to be Gray Fox. Snake fights Zanzibar Land’s mercenaries and reaches Dr. Marv’s cell, but finds Dr. Marv’s body and the OILIX data. Holly later tells Snake that Dr. Marv died during Dr. Madnar’s torture. Snake also learns that Dr. Madnar volunteered to help Zanzibar Land to build Metal Gear as revenge for being shunned by the scientific community. Snake defeats Dr. Madnar when he tries to attack him.
Snake battles Gray Fox in Metal Gear D and destroys the mech. They later fight in a minefield, where Snake defeats Gray Fox. Without weapons, Snake uses a lighter and aerosol can to create a makeshift flamethrower and defeats Big Boss. Snake and Holly escape, delivering the OILIX formula to Roy Campbell.
Development
After the NES version of Metal Gear sold more than a million copies in North America, Konami started making a follow-up game called Snake's Revenge for the overseas market. Hideo Kojima, who directed the first MSX2 game but wasn't involved in the two NES games, didn't plan to make a sequel until he met a junior coworker on a train in Tokyo. The coworker was working on Snake's Revenge and encouraged Kojima to create his own sequel. By the end of the train ride, Kojima had already imagined the basic idea for the game. After visiting Konami's sales division, Kojima persuaded his superiors, who were hesitant to make a Metal Gear sequel for Japan because the Famicom version of the first game sold poorly, to approve the development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
To make the game feel realistic, Kojima and his team studied references, including a former Green Beret who became an author, and took part in survival games in a forest near their workplace. Originally, Solid Snake was planned for release in February or March 1990, but the launch was delayed until July. The game's ROM size increased from 3-Megabit to 4-Megabit. Solid Snake used Konami's special sound technology, the SCC sound source, which had been used in all their MSX titles since Nemesis 2. Development of Solid Snake was temporarily paused to help with another game, SD Snatcher, which was being made by a different team at the same time.
Kojima wanted the sequel's title to be simply Solid Snake, inspired by the Indiana Jones movie series. However, Konami's sales and marketing department insisted on adding "Metal Gear 2" as a subtitle. In the original MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2, character portraits were based on actors from movies: Solid Snake resembled Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, Big Boss looked like Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October, Grey Fox was modeled after Tom Berenger in Platoon, Roy Campbell resembled Richard Crenna in Rambo, and Holly White was based on Brenda Bakke in Gunhed.
Releases
The MSX2 version of Solid Snake was released in Japan on July 20, 1990. Unlike the first MSX2 game, no official English version was made (Konami had stopped selling MSX games in Europe). However, a fan translation was created in 1997 by the MSX hobbyist group G&T International. By 1996, unofficial copies of the game had reached Europe, and some fans asked for a version for the PlayStation.
The first time Solid Snake was released on a different platform was the Japanese mobile phone version, which came out on October 1, 2004, as a downloadable app for i-mode, EZweb, and Yahoo! Mobile. This version added features like an easy mode and an unlockable boss rush mode after finishing the game once. It also changed some details, such as replacing the portraits used during conversations. In the original MSX2 version, these portraits were based on real-life celebrities, but in the mobile version, they were redesigned to match the character styles created by illustrator Yoji Shinkawa for later Metal Gear Solid games. These changes were later included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, a 2005 expanded version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the PlayStation 2, which also included full versions of Metal Gear and Solid Snake.
Subsistence was released internationally in North America and Europe in 2006 with English versions of both MSX2 games, marking the first time Solid Snake was available outside Japan. These games later appeared in the 2011 HD remastered version of Metal Gear Solid 3 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and in the 2012 version for PlayStation Vita. They were also included in the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection series, released in 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. These versions were available as extra content with the re-release of the original Metal Gear Solid and as part of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, which also includes Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3.
Solid Snake was also released for the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on March 30, 2010. This version was recreated using the original MSX2 hardware, not based on the mobile phone version. However, it used the updated character portraits from later versions.
The music for the game was composed by members of Konami Kukeiha Club, including Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masahiro Ikariko, Mutsuhiko Izumi, Yuko Kurahashi, Tomoya Tomita, Kazuhiko Uehara, and Yuji Takenouchi. The MSX2 version used a special sound chip called SCC (used in games like Nemesis 2 and Snatcher), which improved the music and sound effects compared to the standard PSG chip in the MSX system.
Arranged music from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was used in the VR training disc of Metal Gear Solid: Integral (released in North America as Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions). The game also includes two hidden songs based on Solid Snake, playable through a secret CODEC frequency. One is an arrangement of the "Theme of Solid Snake," and the other is an arrangement of "Zanzibar Breeze." These can be heard by contacting CODEC frequency 140.66 in specific locations. "Theme of Solid Snake" also appeared in Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008) and a remixed version is in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018).
Reception
When it was first released, the game Solid Snake was listed on MSX Magazine's Top 30 best-selling MSX games list for six months. It appeared at the number one spot in the October 1990 issue. Later, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake received praise from many retro game reviewers. Paul Soth of GameSpy said the game improved on its predecessor, Metal Gear, in all areas. He praised the gameplay and called the story "exciting and well-written" for its strong characters and high-quality storytelling. He concluded that players would enjoy the game's "great gameplay and story" and that it remains "one of the best 8-bit games ever made." Game Informer gave the game a 7 out of 10 score. They noted that to reach key moments in the story, players had to go through "some of the most unusual situations" and that the game's focus on repeating tasks made it feel repetitive. They said only very dedicated fans would find the experience rewarding and recommended playing it through the bonus disc of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.
The sequel, Metal Gear Solid, kept many of the same mechanics as its 2D predecessor, even after switching to 3D. It included summaries of the first two MSX2 games, which players could access in the "Special mode" under "Previous Operations." Because of this, Retro Gamer called Solid Snake "as close as anyone can get to playing Metal Gear Solid in 2D," stating it was better than the Game Boy Color version released in 2000. Retro Gamer also listed Solid Snake among the top ten MSX games. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com described Metal Gear Solid as "basically a high-spec remake of Solid Snake." Nickolai Adkins of 1UP noted that many story elements from Solid Snake were reused in Metal Gear Solid, such as "Snake returning from retirement to rescue a kidnapped non-soldier" and "an escape scene where Snake is helped by his female companion." IGN mentioned that Solid Snake introduced stealth mechanics, like making noise to attract guards, crouching and crawling, disarming mines, and enemies having limited sight ranges.