Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a stealth action video game
developedA video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
by
Silicon KnightsSilicon Knights is a Canadian video game developer. Founded in 1992 by Denis Dyack, the company is headquartered in St. Catharines, Ontario, Dyack's hometown....
and
Konamiis a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
that was
publishedA video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
in for the
Nintendo GameCubeThe , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
video game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
.
The Twin Snakes is a remake of
Metal Gear Solidis a videogame by Hideo Kojima. The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first published by Konami in 1998 for the PlayStation video game console. It is the sequel to Kojimas early MSX2 computer games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake...
, developed and first published by Konami in for the Sony PlayStation.
The Twin Snakes features graphical improvements over the original, new cut scenes written and directed by
Ryuhei Kitamura
, and
gameplayGameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
functions originally introduced in the
sequelA sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Libertyis a stealth action video game directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 in 2001....
. The game also includes a revised translation with re-recorded
voice actingVoice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
using all of the original
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
voice cast.
Gameplay
For
The Twin Snakes,
Metal Gear Solid's gameplay was altered to resemble that of
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. While all of the original areas and enemies were kept, new ways for the player to combat them were introduced, such as the ability to shoot using first person view. Enemy
AIArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
was also improved, giving enemy soldiers the ability to communicate with each other and detect the player more intelligently with senses of sight and sound enhanced.
Development
The Twin Snakes was first announced in
2003-Events:*February 27 — Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Yu Suzuki of Sega to the AIAS Hall of Fame....
by
Nintendo of Americais a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, confirming that Silicon Knights would be developing under the guidance of legendary developers,
Metal Gearis a series of stealth video games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. The first game, Metal Gear, was released in 1987 for the MSX2. The player takes control of a special forces operative Solid Snake who is assigned to find the eponymous superweapon "Metal Gear", a...
creator
Hideo Kojimais a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is currently the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011...
and
Mariois a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
creator
Shigeru Miyamotois a Japanese video game designer and producer. Miyamoto was born and raised in Kyoto Prefecture; the natural surroundings of Kyoto inspired much of Miyamoto's later work....
.
Although
The Twin Snakes was largely developed at Silicon Knights (mostly programming), its cut scenes and models were developed in-house at Konami and directed by
Japanese filmThe has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
director
Ryuhei Kitamura
, reflecting his dynamic signature style, utilizing bullet-time photography and
choreographedChoreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
gunplay extensively. Kitamura created many of the game's cinematics to look identical to those in the original
Metal Gear Solid, but upon inspection Hideo Kojima had him redo them. The game's composition duties were split: some of the in-game music was handled by Steve Henifin and Silicon Knights' music staff, while the rest of the music (in-game, menus and cut scenes) was handled by Konami's music staff, including
Metal Gear Solid 2 co-composer
Norihiko Hibinois a Japanese video game composer and saxophonist.-Biography:After graduating from Berklee College of Music, he moved to Kansas City to start a career as a solo jazz musician...
.
Voice acting
The voice acting was re-recorded with the original cast from
Metal Gear Solid, except for the role of Gray Fox.
David HayterDavid Hayter is a Canadian-American voice and screen actor and screenwriter. He is best known for providing the English voices of Solid Snake and Big Boss in the Metal Gear video game series, and for writing the screenplay for X-Men and co-writing the screenplay for The Scorpion King and X2...
persuaded Konami to have the original voice cast reprise their roles. The main reason for the re-recording, according to an interview with Hayter, was because the increased audio quality allowed by the Gamecube picked up outside noise from the original recordings that were inaudible in the PlayStation version. In the original game, Gray Fox and Donald Anderson were both voiced by
Greg EaglesGreg Eagles is an American voice actor whose talents have been used for numerous TV shows and video games...
. In the remake, Eagles reprised his role as Anderson, but Gray Fox was voiced by
Rob PaulsenRobert Fredrick "Rob" Paulsen III , sometimes credited as Rob Paulson, is an American voice actor, best known as the voice behind Raphael from the 1987 cartoon of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yakko Warner and Dr...
. Unlike previous
MGS titles, no Japanese voice-overs were recorded for
The Twin Snakes. Instead, the Japanese release used the same English voice acting as the North American and European versions. The revised voice acting is used in
Metal Gear Solid 4is a video game developed by Kojima Productions for the PlayStation 3 console. The game was directed by Hideo Kojima and made its worldwide release on June 12, 2008, ten years after the release of Metal Gear Solid and twenty years after the North American release of Metal Gear.Guns of the Patriots...
during Snake's reminiscence as the English-language voice-recording used in the original game was not recorded in a sound-proof studio. Also, both Mei Ling and Naomi Hunter speak with American accents in
The Twin Snakes and
Metal Gear Solid 4, whereas in the original
Metal Gear Solid, they spoke with Chinese and British accents respectively.
Cast
| Voice Actor |
Former Pseudonym |
Character |
| David Hayter David Hayter is a Canadian-American voice and screen actor and screenwriter. He is best known for providing the English voices of Solid Snake and Big Boss in the Metal Gear video game series, and for writing the screenplay for X-Men and co-writing the screenplay for The Scorpion King and X2...
|
Sean Barker[This credit appeared in early demo versions of the game, and in early printings of the game's manual. David Hayter did not have a pseudonym in the game credits. Sean Barker is the name of David Hayter's character in the film Guyver: Dark Hero]Guyver: Dark Hero is the 1994 sequel to The Guyver. It is based on the Guyver manga and anime. It was directed by Steve Wang, and stars David Hayter, Kathy Christopherson, and Bruno Giannotta...
. |
Solid Snake Metal Gear, initially released in 1987, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned is, and...
|
| Cam Clarke Cameron Arthur "Cam" Clarke is a prolific American voice actor and singer, well known for his work in animation and video games. Clarke is well known for providing the voices of Leonardo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Shotaro Kaneda in the 1989 original English-dub of Akira. He often voices...
|
James Flinders |
Liquid Snake |
| Debi Mae West Debi Mae West is an American voice actress. In 2008, she won a Spike Video Game Award for voicing Meryl Silverburgh in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.- Film roles :* Boyz Up Unauthorized - Unknown* Superman - Billy...
|
Mae Zadler |
Meryl Silverburgh |
| Paul Eiding Paul Eiding is an American voice actor, voice instructor, and actor, perhaps best known as the voice actor behind Perceptor in the original Transformers cartoon, Roy Campbell in the Metal Gear series, the narrator in Diablo, Judicator Aldaris in StarCraft, and Max Tennyson in Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien...
|
Paul Otis |
Roy Campbell |
| Jennifer Hale Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-born American actress and singer best known for her voice over work in video games like Grandia II, the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tales of Symphonia, the Metroid Prime trilogy, the Metal Gear Solid games, Brütal Legend, and Disney's...
|
Carren Learning |
Naomi Hunter |
| Kim Mai Guest Kim Mai Angela Guest is a voice actress of European and Vietnamese descent. She is known to speak fluent French and Italian.- Anime/Animation roles :* .hack//Liminality - Narumi* .hack//SIGN - Subaru...
|
Kim Nguyen |
Mei Ling |
| Renee Raudman Renee Raudman is an actress and voice actress who performed the English voice of Nastasha Romanenko in the video game Metal Gear Solid and its GameCube remake . She also provides the voice of the recurring character Ms. Butterbean on the cartoon series The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy...
|
Renne Collette |
Nastasha Romanenko |
| Christopher Randolph Christopher Randolph is an American actor known for providing the English voice for Hal "Otacon" Emmerich in the Metal Gear series. Prior to landing his role as Otacon, he auditioned for multiple parts, including Solid Snake...
|
Christopher Fritz |
Hal "Otacon" Emmerich |
Rob PaulsenRobert Fredrick "Rob" Paulsen III , sometimes credited as Rob Paulson, is an American voice actor, best known as the voice behind Raphael from the 1987 cartoon of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yakko Warner and Dr...
|
N/A |
Gray Fox/Cyborg Ninja |
| Patric Zimmerman Patric Laine Zimmerman is an American voice actor.He began his career in 1990, providing big voices for the animated television series Tale Spin and Tom & Jerry Kids. He voiced the character of Elroy Jetson in the film Jetsons: The Movie that same year...
|
Patric Laine |
Revolver Ocelot |
| Peter Lurie Peter Hill Lurie is an American television personality, Sports anchor and voice actor who has worked in several television shows, movies, and dubbed anime, since the mid-1990s. He is well known as the voice of Vulcan Raven in the Metal Gear Solid video game series, and the Marvel Comics...
|
Chuck Farley |
Vulcan Raven |
| Doug Stone Douglas David Stone is a voice actor who is most notable for his representation of the character Psycho Mantis from the popular video game Metal Gear Solid, as well as the voice of Matt Trakker and several other characters in M.A.S.K., and Dragonborg in Beetleborgs Metallix...
|
N/A |
Psycho Mantis |
| Tasia Valenza Tasia Valenza is an American actress who has most recently found acclaim as a voice actor.- Television :...
|
Julie Monroe |
Sniper Wolf
Computer Voice |
| Greg Eagles Greg Eagles is an American voice actor whose talents have been used for numerous TV shows and video games...
|
George Byrd |
Donald Anderson |
| Allan Lurie Allan Lurie is a voice actor. He is also known as Alan Lurie and Bert Stewart.-Career:Lurie is best known for his voice-over for Mezmaron in the 1982 cartoon Pac-Man and as Uglor the Alien in Space Stars...
|
Bert Stewart |
Kenneth Baker |
| William H. Bassett |
Frederick Bloggs |
Jim Houseman |
| Dean Scofield Dean Scofield is a voice actor who has provided the voice of the recurring "joke character" Johnny Sasaki in Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, but was not brought back for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.He was credited as Dino...
|
Dino Schofield |
Johnny Sasaki |
Release
The Twin Snakes was released on March 9, 2004 in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. It was originally to be released in November 2003, but was pushed back, along with the other versions. The European date was pushed back several weeks.
In
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
The Twin Snakes was released on March 11 alongside an exclusive Premium Package. The box includes the game itself; a platinum-colored GameCube adorned with the FOXHOUND
logoA logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
; a 44-page book titled
Memorandum containing production notes, sketches and photos; and a GameCube disc called the "Special Disc" containing an emulated version of the
Family ComputerThe Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
version of the original
Metal Gear and a training probes of
The Twin Snakes.
Reception
Much like the original
Metal Gear Solid, which received excellent reviews from critics,
The Twin Snakes also received an 8.8 and 85 from
Game RankingsGameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
and
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, respectively.
IGNIGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave
The Twin Snakes 8.5 out of 10, praising its superior graphics and likening the presentation to epic movies.
GameSpotGameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
gave it an 8.2 out of 10 or "Great" on their scale,
EurogamerEurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
rated
The Twin Snakes as 8 out of 10 and Gaming Age gave it a "A-" rating. American gaming magazine
Game InformerGame Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
gave
The Twin Snakes a 9.25 out of 10, citing its improved gameplay and graphics, and also its faithful retelling of the original
Metal Gear Solid story.
Despite receiving generally favorable reviews,
The Twin Snakes has also drawn criticism. According to
GameProGamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
, the game has a "flagging framerate and bouts of slowdown that occur when too much activity crowds the screen." The new gameplay elements from
MGS2 have also been criticized as unnecessary, as the level design is virtually unchanged from
MGS1, and even "spoil the challenge ... and completely ruin at least one boss battle."
The January 2009 issue of
Game Informer placed
The Twin Snakes at #11 on their list of "Top 25 GameCube Games".