Metal Gear Solid Essential Collection

Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection is a collection of video games in the Metal Gear series released by Konami on March 18, 2008 for the PlayStation 2 in order to allow players to familiarize themselves with the history of Metal Gear before the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots. The collection includes three titles: the original Metal Gear Solid (released in 1998 for the PlayStation ) and the expansions of the two chapters for the PlayStation 2, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty ( 2001 ) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater ( 2004 ), i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance ( 2003 ) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence ( 2006 ).

It is therefore possible to access all the additional contents of Substance, such as the virtual reality missions the five Snake Tales and the Skateboarding mode, but the same cannot be said of Subsistence, as there is only one disc in the collection, while the original version included, depending on the edition, two or three DVDs. This means that you can play Metal Gear Solid 3 using a third-person perspective, but you cannot try the Duel, Snake vs. Monkey and Secret Gallery modes, or play the titles released on MSX2 , i.e. Metal Gear ( 1987 ) and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake ( 1989 ). Not even Metal Gear Online, the online multiplayer component of Subsistence , is included in the collection, but it would not have been possible to play it anyway, as the service is no longer available.

Regarding Metal Gear Solid there is a flaw related to the save mechanism : the game in fact allows you to save data only on the original PlayStation Memory Cards, and no changes have been made that allow you to recognize those for PlayStation 2 as well, therefore those who do not have a PlayStation Memory Card cannot save their progress.