The Demo Disk I Absolutely Had to Have | Playing Metal Gear Solid for the First Time | Retro Gaming |

One day, I was browsing the magazine rack at my local Kmart and happened to be turning through, I think it was EGM at the time, where I happened to browse to the back of the magazine where they would show previews for what every Ziff Davis published magazine would have in next month's issue. To my incredible excitement, I discovered that the next month's issue of the Official Playstation Magazine was going to have a playable demo of Metal Gear Solid. If there was one thing I knew for sure, I had to get my hands on that issue.

The hype for Metal Gear Solid was massive at the time. I was first introduced to the game's existence through an article and interview in the December 1997 issue of Gamepro Magazine. At the time I thought I was the only person in the world that even remembered Metal Gear on the NES, and seeing the interview and reading about the game made me super excited to play it.

Over the course of the next year, every gaming magazine under the sun was covering Metal Gear Solid as often as possible. This game was everywhere. The hype and excitement for the game was massive, and I'm sure I am not alone in saying, I wanted to play this game so badly. Up until this demo hit, the closest thing we could get to playing it was looking at still screen images in gaming magazines, and reading preview descriptions of the game.

Internet wasn't as big a thing, and there were no video platforms around to show fancy trailers, or gameplay samples. What we had were still screens, descriptions of the game, and our own imaginations. You would look at the screenshots, read the details, an then imagine what it was like to play the game based on what limited information you had on the game was. When the game hit, it either lived up, or surpassed what you imagined it would play like, or it was a disappointment. Sometimes it was completely different from what you imagined, but in a good way.

With 56K internet, there was no youtube, there were no streamers with early download codes to show the game off, just downloading a 30 second low rez clip of a game could take hours. If you weren't in the industry, going to E3, and other shows, the only way to see a trailer, or to play a game early was through demo disks that came with magazine publications, or PlayStation Underground which was Sony's Demo disk magazine that would send you demos every two months that had playable demos, and cool behind the scenes features.

When I finally got that demo home, man it did not disappoint. I tried every move I had read about in the magazines. Knocking on walls to get the guard's attention, using a guard as a human shield, having the guards follow my footprints. I even recognized some of the sound effects and music from the NES version. I don't know how many times I played through this demo, but it was a bunch.

It was so amazing to finally play Metal Gear Solid. It's simply one of the best, and most influential games of all time, and this was such an awesome time to be a gamer. 1998 was an amazing year for gaming, one of the best years ever in gaming.

Overall, it's a good issue of the official Playstation Magazine. I rarely read OPM, because it cost more, and I loved my PSM and Gamepro. However, the ocotober 1998 issues of the Official Playstation Magazine will always be a legendary issue to me thanks to the Metal Gear Solid demo. I will never forget playing this game for the first time. What an awesome time in gaming. 1998, arguably the best year in gaming history. If not the best, it's definitely up there.

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