Reviews

Metal Gear Solid by Raymond Benson

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sleepey's review against another edition

4.0

This book is infamous among Metal Gear fans for being a terrible adaptation, & it often comes up alongside the same handful of really bizarre quotes (like the one where Snake randomly says Merry Christmas to a couple of guys he's knocking out), so I was curious to see how unhinged it would get. Unfortunately (?) it turned out to just be... kind of good actually?

The worst lines all come out in the first few chapters & then the rest is just a super readable retelling of the story. Maybe a little campier than the original script but you soon settle into it. There are some minor changes here & there, mainly to fit the format better or to foreshadow the later games, all pretty positive honestly.

I don't think a person who's never heard of MGS would really get much out of this. But if you've played the game & it's been a while & you want to relive the story (but as a book for some reason) I'd say it does the job pretty well.

django947's review

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

singular_coyote's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

Accurate to the base game which I appreciate. Kinda reminds me of reading the Warrior Cats books - take that as you will.

yojimbo96's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I haven’t played the MGS video game so I cannot say if it is a good adaptation. On its own it is a fun spy type novel.

readthesparrow's review against another edition

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adventurous funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

A terrible novelization that absolutely mangled Solid Snake’s character, though there were some moments of Snake not knowing how to be a normal person that were extremely funny to visualize. The prose was dry and boring and doesn’t fully succeed in making the novel not feel video game-y and just can’t quite capture the absolute what-the-fuckery quintessential to the Metal Gear series. Benson also didn’t choose the ketchup escape route from the cell which greatly disappointed me. Also I don’t think Snake said “hrngh” even once. Sad.

The only changes I liked were the handling of the Psycho Mantis boss battle and (some elements of) the ending which combine the two possible endings of MGS1.

Of course, I a hated every single part of SnakexMeryl (he is 32 and she is 19, he directly refers to seeing her as a teenager at least twice, so then getting together is *ew*) but I can’t blame Benson entirely for that particular issue. That nonsense is, sadly, canon.

I also wish that Otacon had been just as important of a character as Meryl had, considering that he is more important in the following game than she is (she doesn’t show up again until MGS4). His character would have been important to develop a little more in this novel.

Honestly, I wish this novelization focused less on the action (especially since Benson isn’t very good at writing it) and more on the plot and characters. Those is what people love about the MGS games, after all (as well as the absolute whole-hearted absurdity, which I was pleased to see Benson did indeed preserve). My favorite parts of the game were the CODEC calls, and most of the conversations were few and far between. Honestly, a good novelization of MGS would be difficult to pull off for anybody, though novels set in the MGS universe covering non-game events could be fantastic.

Do I think that this novel is worth reading for any but the most diehard MGS fans? Not really. Will I read the next novelization? Yeah, eventually. Do I have high hopes for it? No. But I am interested to see how the buckwild twists in that game get handled. Plus I want to see the best buddies Otacon and Snake handshake on paper.

revolution666's review

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1.0

Metal Gear Solid is my favorite video game of all-time. It's an intense and intelligent sci-fi espionage thriller with a gritty, dark atmosphere, a complex story that weaves through deep conspiracy theories and philosophies, unique and memorable characters, and it has just enough silly camp and self-awareness to make it absolutely fun alongside being totally compelling. Hideo Kojima's masterpiece is a work that truly transcends the video game medium into interactive cinematic art.

Unfortunately, the Metal Gear Solid novelization is garbage. Raymond Benson doesn't understand the characters at all and most of the action and whatnot just reads like a transcription of someone playing the video game, which isn't very interesting when I'm trying to read a book. Reading about how Snake keeps sneaking around grabbing stray hand grenades in boxes and a billion different guns just doesn't work when the prose is bad and boring.

There's also the aggravating fact that Snake keeps spouting off cringy, totally out-of-character one-liners that most of the time don't even make sense, such as:

"Merry Christmas," Snake said as he delivered two power-house punches, left and then right, into the guards' faces. The soldiers plopped to the floor. "I forgot to tell you — Christmas is early this year."

Or he just has really dumb thoughts all the damn time, like when he finds the Kevlar vest and thinks: You don't find too many of these in Cracker Jack boxes! There's one particularly mind-blowingly awful moment in the sequence where he's running from the Hind-D helicopter between two towers that are being increasingly engulfed in flames and basically thinks "these towers are on fire, but at least it's not as bad as 9/11!" I just...what the actual fuck.

The only time it's actually any good is when he's just copying the cutscenes and dialogue verbatim, but none of that is even actually his own creation so he doesn't even get any points there, especially when in most of these moments he's throwing in his own shitty dialogue and prose, completely ruining any tension or drama in the scenes.

This book is an embarrassment to the legacy of Kojima's creation, and the fact that he was brought back to write the Sons of Liberty novelization is absolutely amazing (and I hate myself for feeling the need to read it at some point as well).

coffeeastronaut's review

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1.0

Very bad book, just utterly atrocious. conversely to many bad adaptations, this one might be better if you haven’t seen the original- long swaths of text directly lifted from the game are extremely boring to read.
the one star is given for the sheer comedic value of the bad writing.

Spoiler

at one point, while dealing with the comm tower fight (with liquid & the hind d?), snake takes a moment to hope that the damage the tower had already taken won’t cause it to fall, and then reflects on 9/11. absurd. at the beginning of the book, snake is woken from a dream about picking blueberries and salmonberries to feed to his huskies. The dream is referenced twice more by snake, once to inform general campbell that snake was ‘in the middle of a very nice dream about berries, so this better be important.’ genuinly my favorite aspect of the book was this berry dream.

Other then the comedy value contained in the abysmal quality of the writing, this book sucks. just absolutely sucks. total slog.