Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)

Metal Gear Solid
Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: September 3, 1998 Released in US: October 21, 1998 Released in EU: November 16, 1998 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has a prototype article

This page sucks. If you could make it suck less, that would be awesome. Specifically: A terrible article for a legendary game. Come on, we can do better than this. Dump some of the YouTube videos and replace them with actual screenshots/music rips/whatever, and clean up the nasty writing!

Metal Gear Solid is the result of Hideo Kojima's experiment to see how many variations of "Snake!", "Huh?", and maniacal laughter could be shoehorned into two CDs.

Unused Sounds

Unused Sounds

Debug Menu

To do: Replace that ugly YouTube video. (It will be done soon by RedCode Interactive)

Download Metal Gear Solid debug save files File: MGS_PS-saves.zip (1.6 KB) (info)

A debug menu can be accessed by using a hacked game save. The menu most notably features a level selector, but also a checkpoint selector, a vibration creator (for cinematics) and a voice tester.

(Source: RedCode Interactive)

Unused Animations

Please elaborate. Having more detail is always a good thing. Specifically: How are these accessed?

Various animation sequences were programmed into Solid Snake's character model that were unused in the actual game. These were discovered within the "Pilot Disk" demo version, as well as within the final Japanese and American versions of the game. One of the animated sequence includes a jumping roundhouse kick that was later incorporated in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Unused Cardboard Box

Three things left in the game indicate there was, at one point, a fourth cardboard box item. Nothing remains of its graphics, but equipping item id 0x19 causes Snake to adopt the box-crouch (see left) and guards to go through their box routines. There's also dialog for the truck driver (below left) mentioning its destination was to be the canyon where Snake fights against Vulcan Raven's tank.

The third thing is the texture names – the snowfield box parts have names starting with cbox4.

Development Text

The executables still contain all the text logging added by development staff but the printf-style function that would send it to the debugger has been removed. The following GameShark codes re-enable it, and the result can be seen in PCSX's console output.

PAL

800ACC44 00A0
800ACC46 240A
800ACC48 0008
800ACC4A 0140
800ACC4C 003F
800ACC4E 2409
8008CCC0 B311
8008CCC2 0802

NTSC-U

800AE370 00A0
800AE372 240A
800AE374 0008
800AE376 0140
800AE378 003F
800AE37A 2409
8008E62C B8DC
8008E62E 0802
8008E634 B8DC
8008E636 0802

Some sample output is shown below:

mem:[R]TASK START: 11 8008CBA8
[R][R][R]pad:gv:fs:Change effective memory : 2 MBytes
TASK 10 START:addr=800a51c4
TASK START: 10 800226E0
MGS read_sector 202
FILE BRF.DAT : top 203 size 5724160 set 353
FILE DEMO.DAT : top 2998 size 247597056 set 3148
FILE FACE.DAT : top 123895 size 3508224 set 124045
FILE MGS1.EXE : top 125608 size 645120 set 660212864
FILE RADIO.DAT : top 125923 size 1777377 set 126073
FILE STAGE.DIR : top 126791 size 70025216 set 126941
FILE VOX.DAT : top 160983 size 196161536 set 161133
FILE ZMOVIE.STR : top 256765 size 47507456 set 256915
Position end
DISK 0
gcl:hzd:sound:TASK 5 START:TASK START: 5 80082BBC
Start Task:SdMain
sng_data 801E0000
wave_header 801E4000
voice_tbl 801E4000
se_header 801E5000
se_data 801E5800
CDLOAD_BUF 801E7800 18000 801FF800
str_header 801FF800
TASK 1 START:TASK START: 1 80082D80
RESIDENT TOP 80116B54
LoadReq
load init
start
unload 1824
LoadEnd
load complete time 95
-- Title MemCard Check Reult! --
save_flag = 0
photo_flag = 1
vr_flag = 0
spe_rank = 1
demo_rank = 0
START PCM 0
StartStream(e0000001:vol=3fff)
GM_StreamPlayStop
***BGM Terminate***

 Game Level = 0

[R][R]check1 = 0
check2 = 0
this memcard is OK
load_dir bu00:* start
TOTAL 5 FILES used 6 block
free = 9
this memcard is OK
load_dir bu10:* start
NO FILE
free = 15
error flag card1 = 0 card2 = 0
max flag card1 = 0 card2 = 0
command.c:  Where Is Snake ????
SngCode=1ffff21
SongSyukanMode Off
SngCode=1000001
SameSongHasAlreadyPlayed
set camera 5
SngCode=1ffff21
SongSyukanMode Off
[1719]cam in 5
[1719]change camera 5
[1809]cam out 5
[1809]change camera -1

Oddities

Hidden Door

Usually, the geometry for an adjacent area is loaded just before the door to it opens. In the case of the Mantis battle, however, going out of bounds to the rear shows the door to the caves floating in the void. While solid, you cannot interact with it. The red light is also out of place from where it ends up.

Unique Camera Angle

You can't get back to the first area after leaving it, but throwing Ocelot's timer bomb when the camera is in three-quarter mode changes it to a closeup of throwing the bomb away, an angle unique for that item. Throwing grenades leaves the camera in three-quarter view.