TheMetal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1has left me with mixed feelings. As a PC player, it’s fantastic that these classic games are finally natively playable on PC at a reasonably high standard, thoughas I rambled about previously, those standards don’t feel quite high enough, what with the collection basically being a repackaged port of 2011’s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (which was good for its time, but lacking the visual bells and whistles and 4K resolutions you might hope for in 2023).
Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 come out of this better than the original Metal Gear Solid, however, with baseline HD (720p) resolutions and 60fps, especially as you can quite easily mod them both up to 4K now. Now, things are a little different for the original Metal Gear Solid, whose animations and game logic are tied to 30fps, so it would need to be hacked to run higher than that (which usually comes with all manner of unexpected behaviours and glitches). And let’s be honest: those blocky, pixel-heavy PS1 graphics don’t benefit from super-high resolutions quite like the PS2 sequels do.
There’s also a very tangible input lag to the MGS 1 controls that I struggled with. It’s very possible that this is the most ‘accurate’ representation of how the original MGS played back in ‘98, but dear Lord it feels unpleasant in this day and age.
Hunt For A Missing Ghost In Metal Gear Solid 1’s Secret Spooky Mini-Game
If you’ve completed Metal Gear Solid 1 in the Master Collection, then a spooky surprise awaits.
The True Way To Play
So instead of trying to suffer through Konami’s official rudimentary port of the OG game, I decided to take the emulation route through my old pal RetroArch (which you candownload here). PS1 is possibly the best-supported platform for emulation around, and the Beetle PSX HW core (which also exists as thestandalone Mednafen HW emulator) has been working veritable miracles with PS1 games in recent years. For me at least, this is the best way to play the original Metal Gear Solid today (and as RetroArch and the Beetle PSX HW core are available on PC and Android, the following pointers apply to both).
The first thing that’s noteworthy about playing MGS via this particular core is that it can fix those infamous wobbly textures that we associate with PS1 games (a result of the console lacking sub-pixel precision and poor texture-mapping, for you tech bods out there). Of course, some may want to keep that iconic wobble for nostalgia purposes, but if you want the world to look more straight-lined and stable, just whack on all the relevant options underPGXP (Precision Geometry Transformation Pipeline). Now, RetroArch recommends using ‘Memory Only’ for PGXP Operation Mode, but I’ve found that using Memory + CPU reduces the wobble significantly (it comes with a warning that it might cause bugs, but I’m yet to see ‘em).
Check out my clip below, which first shows PGXP with Mem Only, then with the support of the CPU. Keep an eye on how those textures wobble around after the camera moves, then how they don’t.
you may also crank up the internal resolution of the game immeasurably (up to 16x the native 320 x 240 it originally ran at on PS1), which makes 3D models lookwaycrisper than the 720p the Legacy Collection saddles you with. Now, I actually don’t think cranking the internal resolution up too high looks great, exposing given the blocky old nature of native PS1 graphics. Back in the 90s, these graphics were designed to be somewhat obscured by CRT scanlines and low resolutions, and for me at least overexposing them doesn’t look great (though I appreciate it’s a matter of personal taste).
SEE ALSO:10 Best Stealth Games
Via the Retroarch Quick Menu with the game running I like to have the internal resolution in the 2x to 4x range, though if you want to go higher then I suggest combining it with Supersampling, which downsamples whatever internal resolution you set down to the native PS1 res, kindly covering those graphics up with a blurriness accurate to how the PS1 actually was at the time (some folks swear by combining this with the CRT-Royale shader, which you can also enable, though you’ll want a 4K display to make the most of that).
Snake, Respond!
Beyond that, Metal Gear Solid 1 played this way feels beautifully responsive—much more so than the Master Collection version—which somewhat makes up for the game’s innately sluggish framerate.
As I mentioned earlier, all the above tweaks can be done on both the PC and Android versions of RetroArch, andas a big proponent of kinda hacky handheld gaming, I think Metal Gear Solid 1 worksreallywell on the small screen these days. Those tiny displays do a great job of concealing some of the visual creakiness of old games like this, and with save-states at my disposal, kicking back on the bed with Solid Snake in the palm of my hand has become one of life’s little pleasures for me (you can likewise get Retroarch running on Steam Deck and play that way).
Granted, the Master Collection is also out on the Switch, but with that version of the collection being even more underwhelming than the PC/PS5/Xbox Series one (all the games are locked to 30fps on Switch), I’d rather jump through the few hoops of emulation and give this classic the moonshine remaster treatment it deserves.
All this does kinda come back to how the Master Collection could’ve gone a bit further in delivering the ‘ultimate’ version of these games, but hey it’s still inspired me to track down the best ways to play them(ormod the Master Collection versions), so I guess it’s serving its purpose of sorts.
Also, emulators let you use ‘Turbo’ buttons, so after all these years I can finally redeem myself and complete that accursed torture sequence that’s haunted me ever since childhood.
