Snake's Revenge

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Snake's Revenge, a 1990 stealth game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, was once called "somewhat of a crappy game" by the man who created the series it belongs to. Hideo Kojima said it jokingly, at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Yet this sequel to Metal Gear came from Konami itself, and in North America it was sold under the Ultra Games brand. So why did the creator of Metal Gear sit out a Metal Gear sequel? What did the game change about sneaking, fighting and talking over a radio? And how did its existence push Kojima toward making a different sequel altogether?

  356

• 2. Knife and Rank

  ›

  Snake starts this adventure already carrying a combat knife and a handgun, a change from the original Metal Gear. The A button fires guns and sets off explosives. The B button throws a punch or a knife strike, depending on which is equipped.

  A knife kills a guard instantly at close range. A guard beaten with fists is slower work, but he may leave behind an ammo box or a single ration.

  Six stars is the highest rank Snake can reach, and rank decides how much health and gear he can carry. To earn promotions, the player must free hostages scattered across the areas. Officers found in certain rooms can also be questioned with truth gas, and each successful interrogation counts toward a promotion just as a rescue does.

  Promotions are only half of the risk management, because a guard's reaction depends on the number of marks over his head.

  1219

• 3. Alert Phase

  ›

  Two exclamation marks over a guard's head mean trouble. The game then enters its alert phase, and enemy soldiers flood onto the screen to attack. To return to normal infiltration, the player must defeat a certain number of them or reach a different floor or area.

  A single red exclamation mark is more forgiving. When a guard shows only one, the player can often shake the alert by simply walking to the adjacent screen.

  The radio was redesigned too. The original asked the player to dial frequency numbers, but Snake now has a fixed list of three contacts: John, Nick and Jennifer. A radar switches on whenever it detects a tracking signal coming from a nearby area. During an alert, the transceiver cannot be used at all.

  Those three names belong to people whose fates by the end of the mission could hardly be more different.

  1219

• 4. Side View

  ›

  Rush 'n Attack is the game that the side-view areas of Snake's Revenge most resemble. Most of the adventure is seen from above, but these stretches switch the camera to the side. Snake walks, jumps and crawls on his stomach while still trying to avoid detection.

  Weapon choices shrink in these areas. Only the knife or the handgun serves as his standard weapon, though plastic explosives can be planted to clear obstructions.

  Some side-view stretches send Snake crawling underwater, which means he needs oxygen tanks to avoid taking damage. Whenever his oxygen gauge runs dry, a tank is used automatically to refill it, and this continues until the supply is gone.

  Elsewhere the game moves through settings such as a warehouse and a train, and it keeps the series tradition of enemy bosses. Linking all of those places is a single mission with a code name: Operation 747.

  1219

• 5. The Mission

  ›

  Three years after the events of the original Metal Gear, FOXHOUND learns that a hostile nation in the Middle East may have obtained the plans for Metal Gear. That nation may be secretly building a new model. Lieutenant Solid Snake, the operative who destroyed the first machine, is ordered to lead a three-man team into the enemy base.

  John Turner, a former Navy Intelligence agent, is the team's infiltration expert. Nick Myer, once of the Marines, specializes in weapons and explosives.

  John lets himself be captured, serving as a decoy, and that gives Snake his way into the jungle base. There Snake discovers that the enemy is moving a set of mass-produced Metal Gear tanks aboard a cargo ship. He blows up the ship's ammunition cache and escapes with the team's helicopter pilot as the vessel sinks.

  The pilot then reveals that the enemy keeps a prototype of the new Metal Gear 2 model in its main base. Snake is told to seek out a double agent on the inside, Jennifer.

  Deep in the base, Snake defeats an impostor posing as John and regains contact with Nick. At last he reaches Jennifer, who warns that the enemy commander plans to launch nuclear weapons around the globe. Then Nick is killed, and Jennifer is exposed as a spy and captured.

  The commander turns out to be a cybernetically enhanced Big Boss, who survived his earlier clash with Snake. Snake defeats him and rescues Jennifer. She guides Snake to the storage facility holding Metal Gear 2, and he destroys the weapon before its launch countdown ends.

  Afterward, the United Nations declares "World Peace Day." John Turner is listed as missing in action and removed from Navy records. Nick Myer receives three posthumous promotions.

  In Japan, though, players were about to be offered a very different sequel.

  1219

• 6. Two Sequels

  ›

  Konami began work on Snake's Revenge once the NES version of the first Metal Gear had been released. The company made it specifically for the Western market.

  Hideo Kojima, who designed the original MSX2 version of Metal Gear, took no part. By his account, one of the developers on Snake's Revenge told him the game existed. That developer urged him to build a true sequel with his own team.

  The encouragement worked. Kojima developed Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX2, and it reached Japan later in 1990 as the official follow-up to Metal Gear. Because of this, Snake's Revenge was released in North America and Europe with no matching Famicom version.

  The work itself fell to a Konami division in Kobe. Its staff included people from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, among them lead programmer Hitoshi Akamatsu.

  Kojima's feelings about the result would prove less simple than a single joke.

  3567

• 7. Second Thoughts

  ›

  Steven Kent interviewed Kojima in 1999, and the designer said he had enjoyed Snake's Revenge. He called it "faithful to the Metal Gear concept." Later, in an interview with Nintendo Power, he said he does not consider it a "bad game."

  The game also reached a wider audience through other products. Tiger Electronics published a handheld electronic game based on Snake's Revenge.

  The NES title has since returned on modern machines. It is included in Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, which is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.

  34789