Snake's Revenge
A Western-developed sequel to the original Metal Gear.
Snake's Revenge is a 1990 action-adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was released under the Ultra Games brand in North America.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Konami
- Publisher
- Ultra Games (NA); Konami (UK) (EU)
- Designer
- A. Nozaki, Takeshi Fujimoto
- Programmer
- Hitoshi Akamatsu
- Kouki Yamashita
- Yasuo Okuda
- S. Fukuoka
- Composer
- Tsutomu Ogura
- Series
- Metal Gear
- Platforms
- Nintendo Entertainment System
- Released
- April 1990 (NA); March 1991 (EU)
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The player infiltrates an enemy stronghold while avoiding detection by soldiers and surveillance devices. Weapons, equipment, rations, and card keys must be collected to progress. When discovered, an alert phase begins, and enemy soldiers attack; the player must defeat a set number of them or move to another floor or area to end the alert. A single red exclamation mark over a guard's head sometimes allows escape by moving to an adjacent screen. Unlike the original Metal Gear, the player starts with a combat knife and a handgun. The A button fires firearms and explosives, while the B button performs a melee attack with a punch or knife. The knife instantly kills guards at close range; guards defeated with punches may drop ammo or a ration. Maximum health and carrying capacity depend on a six-star rank, increased by rescuing hostages. Enemy officers can be interrogated with truth gas, and successful interrogations count toward promotions alongside rescued hostages. The transceiver now has three preset contacts—John, Nick, and Jennifer—and a radar activated by nearby tracking signals. The transceiver cannot be used during alert mode.
Plot
Lieutenant Solid Snake leads a three-man team—himself, infiltration expert John Turner, and weapons specialist Nick Myer—on Operation 747. Snake infiltrates a jungle base with John acting as a decoy by being captured. He discovers mass-produced Metal Gear tanks being transported on a cargo ship, destroys the ship's ammunition cache, and escapes via helicopter. The pilot tells Snake to contact double agent Jennifer inside the main base, where a prototype Metal Gear 2 is held. Snake defeats an impostor posing as John, contacts Nick, and learns from Jennifer that the enemy commander plans global nuclear launches. Nick is killed, Jennifer is captured, and Snake confronts the commander, who is a cybernetically enhanced Big Boss who survived their previous encounter. Snake defeats Big Boss, rescues Jennifer, and destroys Metal Gear 2 before its launch countdown ends. Afterward, the United Nations declares World Peace Day; John Turner is listed missing in action, and Nick Myer receives three posthumous promotions.
Development
Konami started work on Snake's Revenge after putting out the NES version of the first Metal Gear, making it a sequel aimed at Western players. Hideo Kojima, who designed the original Metal Gear for the MSX2, had no hand in its creation. A developer on Snake's Revenge told Kojima about the project and urged him to craft a proper follow-up, which pushed Kojima to start work on Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX2. That game became the official Japanese sequel instead of Snake's Revenge, which launched only in North America and Europe with no Famicom release. The Kobe division of Konami handled development, and staff from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, including lead programmer Hitoshi Akamatsu, worked on it. In a 1999 interview, Kojima said he liked Snake's Revenge and felt it stayed true to the Metal Gear idea. He later joked at the 2009 Game Developers Conference that it was "somewhat of a crappy game," but told Nintendo Power he does not think it is a bad game. Tiger Electronics put out a handheld electronic version. Snake's Revenge appears in Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
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