The jokes are corny, the graphics are bad, but indie games are becoming more and more important to get increased feedback on products before investing heavily as game development costs increase in correlation to the days technology. A good metaphor for this trend is turning a high school stage production into a full fledge CGI Hollywood blockbuster.
Despite an increasing demand for indie developers many have choose to remake old titles that are often our most memorable. Perhaps they are avid programmers, with plenty of free time, and a lot of creativity, but after playing a little of Merry Gear Solid 2:Ghosts of Christmas Past by Insignificant Studios America it is clear some of these programmers are more then simple hobbyist.
So the story begins with the recent past events being narrated by Dr.Hal "Otacon" to Snake. This is a classic reminder of all the Metal Gear games, but the details are a little different then we remember from Metal Gear. Saint Nick had been forced to deliver packages on foot after the events of 9/11 because of heightened flight security, and during an exfiltration of a naught kids compound Snake holds him up with suspicion of being a clone of Big Boss according to a leaked mission report out of the White House that explains Saint Nick's mission was to bio-engineer the perfect beard. It appears to Snake that he assassinated Saint Nick aka "Big Beard" in this fortress in the previous game's project "Los Bigotes Prefectos"; but of course things didn't quite go as planned. With the memory of destroying Christmas "haunting your mind" the current mission of penetrating mall security on Christmas eve is easily distracting while scouting for Intel and making bad puns. Defeating more difficult opponents will have never been more fun, and challenging at the same time that is truly for all ages.
Cons: Running back to the beginning of the "map" to get the "Holey Socks" was a huge pain to place about half way through the game, but if you can make it past that point go ahead and finish.
Pros: The dialog was fantastically corny which I enjoyed, and went a long way to balance the action and story aspects of the game. Also the weapons were easy to use, and Otacon was actually an efficient teacher.
The save function on the game was intuitive. Music was used in a memorable way to create a Christmas theme throughout the whole game. Without spoiling this games best feature let me just say it has an interface that is very diverse, and will show exactly why indie games are perfect for testing ideas.
Haha. A naked Snake! Isn't he supposed to be in Metal Gear Solid 3?
