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Review cover Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack Vinyl (Merch)
Official GBAtemp Review

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(!) Snake? Snake! Snaaaaaaaaaaake!!! … No, as much as I would wish to hear Paul Eiding, the voice of Col. Roy Campbell excite my eardrums with those soothing words, they are unfortunately not included in this vinyl. However, this premiere vinyl pressing of Metal Gear Solid from Mondo does feature iconic soundtracks from the classic PS1 title. Let’s take an audio trip down memory lane!

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Metal Gear Solid was one of the cornerstone video games for me. Blending a unique and convoluted plot with innovative controls in a cinematic approach, I was sold on the game by only playing the demo. I kept replaying said demo until I could get my hands on the full game, which was one of the first that I saw through completion.

However, the game would be incomplete without its top-notch audio score and this vinyl recreates it faithfully. Disc A’s “Introduction” track reminded me of the first time I loaded the game on my PlayStation and being greeted by the calm yet ominous synth melody. Other tracks like “Intruder” and “Escape” brought back memories of the numerous times I sounded the alarm or got noticed by an enemy (!) and had to hide Snake under his trademark cardboard box or crawl into some air vents until the situation dissipated.

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Spread across 2x 180 vinyls (Green Smoke or Black Smoke colored), they collectively pack a full hour of nostalgia but also musical masterpieces worthy of any vinyl amateur’s collection. One thing is for sure: this is my go-to album to accompany my morning coffee until further notice.


This playlist is an exact replica of what you’ll find in the vinyl

Randy Ortiz is once again handling the artwork on this album. The main sleeve’s front features a depiction of Solid Snake’s head with two snakes wrapped around and baring fangs at each other, clearly a metaphor for the twin snakes that face each other in this title. A graphic of the titular Metal Gear, battered and on fire, adorns the back. There’s also an extra track list sheet where you’ll find Grey Fox’s Cyborg Ninja head at the back.

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Moreover, if you pay close attention you’ll find subtle references to the series like the codec graphic on the vinyls and also the animal metaphors of some of the game’s bosses: an octopus, a praying mantis, an ocelot and a wolf. Did you decode them all?

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However, even if the total runtime of both vinyls clocks around one hour, the tracks are of varying lengths and the flip side of Disc 2 holds only 2 tracks. Also, Metal Gear Solid is equal parts its iconic voice actors and fans would probably have appreciated some "fan service" in the form of voice overs by David Hayter or Paul Eiding's iconic Game Over "announcement".

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Faithful recreation of soundtracks
  • Subtle references
  • Artwork
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Number of tracks
  • Where's Paul Eiding's (Col. Roy Campbell) game over screen VO?
9
out of 10

Overall

Yet another great vinyl from Mondo and this time it's a beautifully recreated OST from genre-defining video game and one of my all time favorite, Metal Gear Solid!
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Silent_Gunner
Sonic Angel Knight said:
I didn't know people still cared about vinyl. :blink:
Click to expand...

Dude, what rock have you been living under? When yours truly used to work in the electronics department at my store, we used to have blank CDs alongside vinyl CDs. I don't know if the latter could be burned to or the like, but it was a thing. Now, they have a whole display of music vinyls like the 80's never died!
 
Sonic Angel Knight
Silent_Gunner said:
Dude, what rock have you been living under? When yours truly used to work in the electronics department at my store, we used to have blank CDs alongside vinyl CDs. I don't know if the latter could be burned to or the like, but it was a thing. Now, they have a whole display of music vinyls like the 80's never died!
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I'm just not used to seeing them, so maybe a boulder more than a rock. :P

Is there something special about them that common CD players or MP3 players can't do? :unsure:
 
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Silent_Gunner
Supposedly, the sound reproduction on vinyls is more accurate than what's on CDs. Put another way, CDs are .mp3s, and vinyls are .flac.
 
tech3475
Sonic Angel Knight said:
I'm just not used to seeing them, so maybe a boulder more than a rock. :P

Is there something special about them that common CD players or MP3 players can't do? :unsure:
Click to expand...

Should have seen the HMV I was in the other day.

Silent_Gunner said:
Supposedly, the sound reproduction on vinyls is more accurate than what's on CDs. Put another way, CDs are .mp3s, and vinyls are .flac.
Click to expand...

The typical reason I hear is because it sounds 'warm', due to the nature of the medium/stylus, personally I find this is true to some extent although I also like the motion of the disc.

Silly I know.

That said, I suspect for allot of people it's just a 'hipster' thing. I only started getting some as my dad gave me his old Stereo with a record player and I bought one for a laugh.
 
ChaosEternal
There's a minor typo in the score blurb; "defining" has an extra 'g'. In regards to the vinyl, I'm glad to see such a fantastic soundtrack getting more love! The soundtrack is honestly one of the best parts of the game, which is saying a lot given how amazing MGS is.
 
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TheMrIron2
This year, vinyl is poised to outsell CDs for the first time since 1986 - they are bigger than they have ever been in most of our lifetimes. The reason vinyl is respected is often because of the ritual of playing a vinyl record. The brain is much more engaged and responsive in an activity where you take out a big disc from a meticulously designed sleeve and you carefully place a needle on the edge, making sure to lift it up once it's done; 25% of spotify songs are skipped in the first 5 seconds, but with vinyl you can't really do that, making a listening session more concentrated. Even with CDs you can just hit skip. It's also trendy and hip to try a different format like vinyl and is a cool throwback to a different era.

Regarding vinyl's audio quality, it is no longer true that it is "better" than CDs; all recordings are digitally mastered now, then put directly onto a CD or "converted" to analog for vinyl, which means it is just a digital conversion to vinyl which has little if any merit over a CD version. Back when analog mastering was the de facto standard, yes, vinyls had a "warm" sound that digital copies are not very conducive to - a happy accident of the "distortion" of an analog medium. However, it's just too expensive to be worthwhile nowadays, and most people don't care about the fact it's digitally mastered anyway; it's more about the ritual, as I said. Hell, most people who claim they can hear the difference can't hear the difference!
 
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D
TheMrIron2 said:
This year, vinyl is poised to outsell CDs for the first time since 1986 - they are bigger than they have ever been in most of our lifetimes. The reason vinyl is respected is often because of the ritual of playing a vinyl record. The brain is much more engaged and responsive in an activity where you take out a big disc from a meticulously designed sleeve and you carefully place a needle on the edge, making sure to lift it up once it's done; 25% of spotify songs are skipped in the first 5 seconds, but with vinyl you can't really do that, making a listening session more concentrated. Even with CDs you can just hit skip. It's also trendy and hip to try a different format like vinyl and is a cool throwback to a different era.

Regarding vinyl's audio quality, it is no longer true that it is "better" than CDs; all recordings are digitally mastered now, then put directly onto a CD or "converted" to analog for vinyl, which means it is just a digital conversion to vinyl which has little if any merit over a CD version. Back when analog mastering was the de facto standard, yes, vinyls had a "warm" sound that digital copies are not very conducive to - a happy accident of the "distortion" of an analog medium. However, it's just too expensive to be worthwhile nowadays, and most people don't care about the fact it's digitally mastered anyway; it's more about the ritual, as I said. Hell, most people who claim they can hear the difference can't hear the difference!
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While it's true that audio is still recorded today, there is still a difference as CD's can only hold 16bit/44.1khz audio and masters are typically 24bit/96khz. The analog medium of vinyl, which is supposed to carry a 1:1 reproduction of the actual song still conveys more information with a digital Master applied onto it, as it can better represent the waveform of the audio compared to CD.
 
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TheMrIron2
PineappleGod said:
While it's true that audio is still recorded today, there is still a difference as CD's can only hold 16bit/44.1khz audio and masters are typically 24bit/96khz. The analog medium of vinyl, which is supposed to carry a 1:1 reproduction of the actual song still conveys more information with a digital Master applied onto it, as it can better represent the waveform of the audio compared to CD.
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The analog nature of vinyl is a better representation of a waveform but due to mastering that usually isn't exactly meticulous and the fact that CDs already provide a practically lossless audio stream, the difference in the two is usually a placebo, as JazzCat said.
 
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D
TheMrIron2 said:
The analog nature of vinyl is a better representation of a waveform but due to mastering that usually isn't exactly meticulous and the fact that CDs already provide a practically lossless audio stream, the difference in the two is usually a placebo, as JazzCat said.
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True, true. Curse me and my audiophile spikes.
 
StevenSeegal
Off topic but wanted to share what I just experienced:
The moment I entered the GBATemp main page I saw this small block-shaped link to this thread. As there was little room for the text it got a bit warped to make it full up the whole space. It looked. like this:
(!) Snake? Snake!
Snaaaaaaaaaaake!!! …

Just with these first 2 lines I immediately thought of the Badger song from WeeblesStuff so now that song is stuck in my head again lol.
 
mattytrog
JazzCat.CL said:
Vinyls are just a placebo thing, but they are great to collect.
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Not placebo - well maybe it could be to some.

The difference is SNR and frequency response.

Vinyl has a poor signal to noise ratio than CD. This is fact.
CD has an excellent SNR.

However, CD can only play back sounds of 22.050khz or lower on each channel. Then its brickwalled - 22.050x2 = 44.1khz. This is at 16-bit resolution.
Vinyl doesn`t have this limit. Vinyl can reproduce sounds in EXCESS of 60khz per channel - some of you will say "this is just harmonics"... Nope it isn`t. Ok some of it is - you will never hear this extra sound while you have a hole in your arse.

Bear in mind that our ears can only hear up to around 18000hz on a good day, some people will say "placebo". But you can "feel" the extra sound.

Ofcourse from a digital master of 48000hz per channel, nothing genuine, on any spectrum graph will be displayed above this figure APART FROM HARMONICS.

So... Is it the harmonics making the "warm" sound? Maybe. Or maybe its the RIAA curve - boost the bass, cut the treble.

But a record can hold FAR FAR more information than a CD or DVD. Signals above 22.050khz? No problem. Signals above 48khz? Still no problem. However, filtering out this inaudible info due to the poor SNR, which will also be mixed with harmonics, coupled with the fact we cannot hear anything above this frequency, makes it a moot point.

You want something to last for eternity in its truest form possible? Buy the record (wear and tear excluded ofcourse).

We are limited by the cutting head and maybe one day, players will come out that can do something with this information. Who knows.

Anyway, I`ve bored myself to sleep. Vinyl has always been the daddy. Its at the very top of the hifi cabinet and the hifi chain for a reason ;)

PS... They are NOT vinyls. They are records.
 
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