Found HERE.
Surprised they aren't offering any improved graphics.When Konami confirmed the release of Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection for the US just a few weeks back, anyone like myself jumped for joy at the prospect of replaying one of the most legendary game series of all time. However, one aspect of the collection seemingly overlooked was the form in which the original Metal Gear Solid would be appearing. When it was originally released for the Playstation in 1998, MGS appeared on 2 CDs, requiring a disc swap once you progressed far enough into the game. Would Konami pack the game onto a single DVD in order to cut down on packaging and the inconvenience of disc swapping? This of course would require the game to actually be ported to the Playstation 2, though it would likely be a transparent port, unlike the full-blown remake that was released as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on the Gamecube in 2004.
Disc swapping aside, that didn't seem like enough of an issue to warrant the effort for Konami to move the PS1 classic to the Playstation 2, but then another problem came up: game saving. When playing original Playstation games on a PS2, you're required to have a PS1 memory card to load and save games. Save files can be put onto PS2 memory cards for archival purposes, but they can't actually be used. The main issue is that Playstation 1 memory cards haven't been sold for years, thus anyone who had packed their PS1 away, sold it, or never had one in the first place would have an incredibly hard time (read: impossible) saving. It's obviously a non-issue for anyone that will be playing The Essential Collection on a Playstation 3 which can save to the internal hard drive, but plenty of gamers still haven't hopped on that bandwagon yet.
Well I decided to set the record straight and get the word direct from Konami's PR stud Andrew Kelly, who today confirmed for Game Almighty that Metal Gear Solid 1 will in fact be released on a Playstation 2 disc. No disc swapping. No more gray memory card. Other than those two improvements the port should be entirely transparent to the player, retaining the PS1's visuals and gameplay mechanics. Anyone that was on the fence about buying the Metal Gear Solid games again should seriously consider picking up The Essential Collection when it ships on March 18 for $29.99, as the convenience alone more than makes it worth it.
It's also worth noting that the versions of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are the "Director's Cut" versions, being Substance and Subsistence respectively. If you never picked up either of these after the originals, they're well worth playing as Substance adds some entertaining VR missions, while Subsistence brings a much improved camera system that makes MGS3 worth replaying all over again. Of course you'll also want The Essential Collection in order to get up to speed for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, which was just confirmed yesterday for a June 12 release along with a new 80GB Playstation 3 bundle. Did I mention that it's also a fantastic price for a rerelease of three stellar games? I'm looking at you Square-Enix.