Metal Gear is a 1987 action-adventure game developed and published by Konami for the NES. You play as Solid Snake, a rookie special forces operative sent alone into Outer Heaven — a fortified mercenary state in southern Africa — with orders to locate and destroy a nuclear-armed bipedal battle tank called Metal Gear and return its prisoners alive.
How to play
The game is about moving unseen rather than shooting through opposition. Guards patrol fixed routes; step into a guard’s line of sight and an alert triggers, flooding the area with reinforcements until you find cover or eliminate the threat. Snake starts unarmed, so the first priority is to collect weapons, equipment, and card keys through exploration. Rescuing prisoners raises your rank and unlocks radio contacts who reveal where key items are hidden.
Browser controls (NES gamepad):
- Arrow keys — move
- X — A button (fire / interact)
- Z — B button (punch)
- Shift — SELECT (cycle weapons and items)
- Enter — START (pause / open menu and transceiver)
Use the transceiver (START menu) to call your contacts — they point you toward hidden items and the card keys needed to unlock new areas.
Tips
- Watch each new room for a full guard patrol cycle before you move. Guards cannot see through walls, so doorways and corners are safe places to wait.
- Collect every card key you find and revisit previously locked doors as your key set grows — many areas become accessible only after reaching a deeper section of the base.
- Your commanding officer Big Boss will contact you by radio throughout the mission. As the story develops, his advice becomes deliberately misleading — treat it with growing scepticism.
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