Share and Follow
What kind of scene changes are we talking about? Well, just take a look at this scene in which Solid Snake deftly avoids a sniper bullet by leaping into the air Matrix-style:
Now, you may think I’m cherry-picking an especially strange scene to make a point, but I assure you that I am not. Twin Snakes is famously filled with sequences that see Solid Snake exhibit what could only be described as superhuman abilities. Granted, such Matrix-like sequences were popular at the time, but Twin Snakes pushes the limits of (and arguably abuses) that cultural privilege.
It’s not just the bullet time sequences, though. Twin Snakes features multiple scenes that defy all logic (such as Revolver Ocelot directly addressing the player) as well as numerous changes to crucial pieces of dialog. Some of those changes are the roundabout result of the voice actors reading them slightly differently this time around, but others were completely rewritten.
The reception to those rewritten lines isn’t universally negative, but there are multiple scenes in Twin Snakes (most notably, the death of Sniper Wolf) that are deliberately stranger and often sillier than they were in the original game. It’s almost like the whole game is a weird hidden track Easter egg for fans who know the original game front-to-back.
However, you have to remember that for some Nintendo fans, Twin Snakes was the first version of Metal Gear Solid they ever got to play. So, while those who knew the original game may have been in on Twin Snakes‘ fan service jokes and hardcore callbacks, many others were left asking “What the hell is happening?”
The answer to that question brings us back to Hideo Kojima. Originally, Silicon Knights intended to make Twin Snakes as similar to the original Metal Gear Solid as reasonably possible. However, it was Kojima who encouraged Twin Snakes‘ cinematic director Ryuhei Kitamura to go nuts with the project and incorporate his brand of stylistic action into more of the game’s cutscenes.
And those are the real Twin Snakes at the heart of what makes this game so strange: Kojima and Kitamura. For Kitamura, Twin Snakes was a chance to use the Metal Gear Solid property and Twin Snakes’ budget/technology to explore his craziest creative visions. For Kojima, Twin Snakes was a chance to oversee a more surreal version of Metal Gear Solid that feels stylistically closer to future sequels (at least in some respects).
