Metal Gear Solid - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

Metal Gear Solid was a commercial success, shipping over six million copies worldwide. Upon release, it was one of the most rented games, and topped sales charts in the United Kingdom.

The game received very positive reviews, gaining a 93.75 percent and 94/100 aggregate at ratings websites GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively. PlayStation Magazine gave it a score of 10/10, calling it "the best game ever made. Unputdownable and unforgettable." NGamer said "it's like playing a big budget action blockbuster, only better." IGN awarded the game 9.8 out of 10 and said it came "closer to perfection than any other game in PlayStation's action genre" and called it "beautiful, engrossing, and innovative...in every conceivable category." Users and critics of GamePro gave it an average score of 4.8 out of 5 calling it "this season's top offering and one game no self-respecting gamer should be without," but criticized the frame rate, saying it "occasionally stalls the eye-catching graphics". GameSpot also criticized how easy it is for the player to avoid being seen, as well as the game's short length, and called it "more of a work of art than ... an actual game." It received an Excellence Award for Interactive Art at the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival.

Metal Gear Solid is often recognized as one of the key titles involved in popularizing the stealth game genre. The idea of the player being unarmed and having to avoid being seen by enemies rather than fight them has been used in many games since. It is also sometimes acclaimed as being a film as much as a game due to the lengthy cut scenes and complicated storyline. Entertainment Weekly said it "broke new ground with...movie-style production...and stealth-driven gameplay, which encouraged...hiding in boxes and crawling across floors". GameTrailers claimed that it "invented the stealth game" and called it "captivating, inventive and gritty". The game is often considered one of the best games for the PlayStation, and has featured in best video games lists by GameFAQs, Japanese magazine Famitsu, Entertainment Weekly, Game Informer, GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly and GameTrailers. However, its placing in these lists is inconsistent, ranging from first to 50th.

In 2002, IGN ranked it as the best PlayStation game ever, stating that just the demo for the game had "more gameplay than in most finished titles." They also gave it the "Best Ending" and "Best Villain" awards. In 2005, in placing it 19th on their list of "Top 100 Games", they said that it was "a game that truly felt like a movie" and that the fights were "unique and innovative", and claimed that it was "the founder of the stealth genre". Guinness World Records awarded Metal Gear Solid with a record for the "Most Innovative Use of a Video Game Controller" for the boss fight with Psycho Mantis in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008 edition. In 2010, PC Magazine ranked it as seventh in the list of most influential video games of all time, citing its influence on "such stealthy titles as Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell." According to 1UP.com, Metal Gear Solid's cinematic style continues to influence modern action games such as Call of Duty. In November 2012, Time named it one of the 100 greatest video games of all time.

Metal Gear Solid, along with its sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2, is being featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "The Art of Video Games" exhibition, taking place from March 16 to September 30, 2012.