Page 1 of 1

Unreleased Metal Gear games?

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:05 am
by Szczepaniak
Ok, I'm a big fan of the MG series, from old to new, and for my own personal interest I would like info on the unreleased games in the series. I know of 3 possible titles that are unreleased...

Let's look at the facts (games) gentlemen:

Game1
Name: Metal Gear (port of the NES version)
System: Amiga
Proof of existance:
The back of the IBM box shows a series of images, from the C64, IBM and Amiga MG games. If it does exist, then it would be the most graphically advanced of the original MG titles, due to the Amiga obviously being more advanced than either the MSX or NES. No Amiga news groups, or game sites list it, at all, and the same goes for sites that carry disk images. The only evidence are those precious few screens on this box.

Does it exist in any shape or form?


Game 2
Name: Metal Gear Solid
System: TIGER Game.com
Proof of existance:
Three images which I found on the Snake-Soup website (do not visit it, it is absolutely dire). I do not know where these images came from, someone once said that they were found on some Game.com boxes, as a kind of advert. Does anyone have a more reliable source for these screens? Otherwise the game was indeed listed on several G.com release lists, so it was officially planned at some point.

Does a prototype/beta exist? Are there more screens?


Game 3
Name: Snake's Revenge (Japanese Famicom version)
System: Japanese Famicom
Proof of existance:
None, apart from the fact that the English version was developed by a Japanese team at Konami, and a hunch that they must have a proto lying around. This is interesting for several reasons:
* The English lang versions of most Konami games were not actually translated from the Japanese originals. The Western version of SR included. Any proto copies of the booklet would be valuable in getting a more accurate plot analysis. If the game existed, do you think manuals would too?

* SR began development prior to MG2:SS on the MSX (confirmed by the fact that Kojima spoke with the guy behind it, before deciding to make his own sequel). Which came out in 1990 I believe. But, adverts for MG2:SS (and other MSX games) were being included with Famicom games as early as 1989. Implying that SR began development around early 1989 in Japan. All conjecture of course. But I'm wondering if it was maybe first created for the Famicom, never released, and then translated before getting a Western release?

Did Konami of Japan ever develop games purely for a Western release? Gut feeling tells me that somewhere a Japanese language proto exists.



Are there any other unreleased (or stupidly rare) MG games you know of?

I have heard rumours that it was being ported to the Sega Saturn, and apparently some maga even had screens of it (is this true? I'd love to see those screens). I know there was a rare Snake's Revenge LCD game. Were there any other LCD titles released? What about later iterations of the series? I had heard that the guy porting the PS1 version to PC wanted to totally redo the character models, but was ordered not to. Then of course there is the weird fan made stuff, like that VMU title (it's rubbish btw). Oh, and of course the botched listings which resulted in some mags wrongly printing the existance of a Metal Gear Solid 64 (fairly certain it was never even considered for development).

So yeah. Go nuts and post images, info, URLs to other resources, theories, proof etc.

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:41 pm
by Ninja Kurosai
I'm pretty sure that after Konami went through the trouble of porting Metal Gear from the MSX2 to the NES, then changing the script, they translated to english, then back to japanese for the Famicom release, would not want to do the same for Snake's Revenge. Although they wouldn't have to port it, so it doesn't make any sense. Maybe MG1 for the Famicom sold poorly so there was no interest in SR?

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 4:46 am
by Szczepaniak
Ninja Kurosai wrote:I'm pretty sure that after Konami went through the trouble of porting Metal Gear from the MSX2 to the NES, then changing the script, they translated to english, then back to japanese for the Famicom release.
I thought the Famicom version was the first ported, and done in Japanese. AND THEN translated into English. Are you saying they ported the already translated European MSX game to the NES, and then translated it into Japanese for the Famicom? I'm confused...

Anyway, my assumption with SR, is that they developed it in Japan (the dev team is Japanese, that much is clear from the credits), meaning surely it must have been in Japanese first, before being translated. At least, that's my theory.

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 1:52 pm
by Artemio
Not necessarily, Snatcher for the Sega CD was done by a Japanese Team and only released in the UK and US market.

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:54 am
by OtakupunkX
From what I remember from back in the day Tiger announced Metal Gear Solid for the Game.Com shortly before they dropped support of the handheld. They had also announced a GigaPets game and a boxing title that included a force-feedback device. I also remember seeing screenshots of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, but I'm not too sure if I just dreamt that or what because I haven't even heard anyone even mention the Game.Com since I was in elementary school (about 7 years or so). If MGS did come out on Game.Com though, I'd expect to play kind of like the Resident Evil 2 "port" for the system, which was a 2.5-D game along the lines of Tomba, from what I understand, I never could find a copy of the thing.

Also, I read somewhere in an interview that MGS was planned for another system besides PS1 but Konami signed an exclusitivity agreement with Sony which killed any ports.

Hybrid Heaven for the N64 was originally supposed to be a Metal Gear title, if I remember correctly. It might've been (and probably was) just a typo.

I think http://www.ti-calc.org has some Metal Gear fangames for the TI series of graphing calculators. At one point I had really bad versions of both Metal Gear 1 and MGS on my TI-83 +, they're worth checking out I guess.

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 2:01 pm
by 87th
I don't know about Hybrid Heaven. I'm pretty sure it came out about the same time as Special Missions/Integral/VR Missions, which would have started development straight after MGS. The visuals are also worse than MGS's, considering the N64 was supposedly a better console (something that I don't tend to see in games other than Perfect Dark).

As for the Game.com version, it was a top-down game with much larger sprites than any of the 2D MetalGears (I'm pretty sure the characters were all pre-rendered from the PlayStation version). The level design also mirrored the PlayStation version. I don't know how they would have handled sections that required 3D aiming (the HIND D and Sniper Wolf battles for example). Apparently, a video was shown to developers and a few magazines. I doubt it's been put on the Internet, though.

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:36 am
by OtakupunkX
87th wrote:I don't know about Hybrid Heaven. I'm pretty sure it came out about the same time as Special Missions/Integral/VR Missions, which would have started development straight after MGS.
Actually, I had a Nintendo Power from way back when that had shots of Hybrid Heaven from before MGS came out. It was before the game was called Hybrid Heaven; They called it Metal Gear 64. I remember seeing coverage of the game as Metal Gear 64 in several issues, it wasn't until around 1999 I believe that they started calling it Hybrid Heaven. I'll look for those magazines later (I'm not sure if I still have them, I accumulated so gaming magazines that, at one point, my parents made me trash a whole bunch of them), if I can find them I'll scan the relevant pages and post them.

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:39 am
by Squallidus
I have heard of a Metal Gear being done for Nintendo 64, I think it could have been MGS1 for PS1. Anyway, I am researching it for BETA GEAR, I'll tell you when I find out more on it, lol.

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 9:13 am
by OtakupunkX
OtakupunkX wrote:
87th wrote:I don't know about Hybrid Heaven. I'm pretty sure it came out about the same time as Special Missions/Integral/VR Missions, which would have started development straight after MGS.
Actually, I had a Nintendo Power from way back when that had shots of Hybrid Heaven from before MGS came out. It was before the game was called Hybrid Heaven; They called it Metal Gear 64. I remember seeing coverage of the game as Metal Gear 64 in several issues, it wasn't until around 1999 I believe that they started calling it Hybrid Heaven. I'll look for those magazines later (I'm not sure if I still have them, I accumulated so gaming magazines that, at one point, my parents made me trash a whole bunch of them), if I can find them I'll scan the relevant pages and post them.
I think I threw the magazine out. I know some people who have vast Nintendo Power "archives" though, I'll have to look through their stuff. I think it was the issue with the dude from Castlevania 64 on it, but it might've been in the N64 section of the subscriber's special edition 100th issue too.