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6 months ago
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Good luck to anyone wanting a decent version of MGS1, though
Image credit: Image credit: Konami
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater arrived for the first time on PC with a resounding “oof” last month, launching alongside Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, plus the two Metal Gear games, in the extremely barebones Master Collection.
Among the many, many complaints directed at the PC collection of Hideo Kojima’s assembled sneakathon (Snakeathon?) are the lack of any in-depth PC graphics options, including being locked to 720p - or worse for MGS1, emulated at a brutal PS1-era 240p and 50Hz when playing its PAL version - and inaccurate aspect ratios during both gameplay and cutscenes. In other words, it was a bit of a mess.
As is now tradition, modders have stepped up to fix what Konami apparently didn’t want to, with recent Master Collection mod MGSHDFix gathering together a toolbox of handy expanded options and fixes for those playing any of the games on PC. (Thanks, GamingOnLinux.)
The combined mod pack from modders Lyall, emoose, ShizCalev and yoyossef includes new support for custom resolutions, including ultrawide support, and the ability to resize the HUD and cutscenes to 16:9 in MGS2 and 3, albeit in an experimental form for now. You can also now play in a borderless mode or a window, rather than being forced into exclusive fullscreen.
Elsewhere, the pack makes corrections to Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater’s aspect ratio in gameplay and cutscenes to be accurate to the original games. There are some tweaks to make everything look sharper too, thanks to expanded texture size limits and adjustable anisotropic filtering - though the bigger textures are only for the Metal Gear games and MGS3 at the mo. Still, Snake Eater’s lush jungle is definitely deserving of some crisper textures.
Image credit: Konami
Smaller options include the ability to skip the intro logos for MGS2 and 3, and tweak mouse sensitivity - or simply toggle the mouse cursor off.
Nearly all of the improvements work with MGS3, with some also applying to MGS2 and the Metal Gears. Metal Gear Solid 1, unfortunately, remains saddled with the worst performance and visuals due to being handled by its in-built PlayStation emulation.
Konami have promised their own solutions to some of the issues, including the lack of visual options, various bugs and slowdown during some cutscenes, but have so far only released a patch to address the game running at high speeds.
Maybe they’ll at least have everything solved for the time Volume 2 rolls around. Then again, maybe that’ll bring its own fresh troubles - thank god for modders, at least.
