That’s fair, I got a little puzzle fatigue myself in the first game. I did find the story to be quite compelling, maybe it’s worth a watch instead of a play? Though I think that misses out on all the messages between other AI’s and terminals in the game, which add significant world building.
You’re not missing much. I would honestly just stick with the order in which they were released, starting with Metal Gear Solid 1 on the ps1. It holds up well.
I personally disliked mgs2 a lot, but found 3 to be fantastic. 4 I also disliked for story which just draaaags, and 5 has the most fluid gameplay, which I did find fun, but the story was pretty meh on that one, and it ends pretty jarringly since they fired the creator mid production.
If you want just the highlights, play 1, 3, and 5.
The two PSP games are chronologically after mgs3, so I’d recommend playing that first to get the most out of them.
Mgs5 is basically a direct sequel to peacewalker on the PSP.
From what I got in this latest video, the EU and Australia angle seems very promising, with many roads to possible success (for any EU or Australian people reading this, you can help in a big way!)
Another I forgot to mention is Quest for Infamy, which is a fantastic little spiritual successor to Quest for Glory. It has some really witty writing, and was a really fun romp.
I really enjoyed Gemini Rue and Primordia, most of wadjet eye’s catalog is pretty high quality.
I also would recommend Lost Horizen, which was very Indiana Jones like, and done quite well. Another game, Heart of China by dynamix is in the same vein.
An interesting older one is Dreamweb, which has great visuals and a kickass soundtrack, but you may need a walkthrough handy since you can pick up almost any object that isn’t nailed down, but only a few of them are useful.
Lastly, the old 1997 Bladerunner punches above its weight, with some amazing mechanics that I haven’t seen in any other game. NPC’s will notice how you treat others, and have the ability to warn other NPC’s they interact with, which will influence how they respond to your questions, to the point that they will lie to you. It’s also replayable, since the replicants are different characters every playthrough. The main designer did a really fantastic interview about the game on Ars Technica that I’d recommend watching (though it does contain spoilers, so beware).
Yeah some of the animations look a little unpolished, and they left just enough frames in that you can see the revolver doesn’t move at all when it’s fired, just a little smoke cloud clips through his hand.
As others have said, you’re in that pocket of time where the game wants more than DOS, but less than modern windows, which isn’t well catered to. Your best option is a windows 98 or 95 virtual machine, which is doable, but not trivial or quick to set up.
I feel that’s one of the best ways to grow the Fediverse further than it already is.
What I’ve seen happen is that someone with an interest in a more niche thing here will create a community for it, actively post in it for a couple weeks, and maybe a couple other people will post in it a couple times too, but then the creator loses interest or lacks material to post, and the community sits with old posts months old.
Not to dissuade you from making an attempt at creating those communities, but it’s just a little hard to sustain them without active participation to keep people coming back and growing.
You may even find that there are some active communities for games you’re interest in, but may just have trouble finding them. The best way I’ve found to discover communities is with Lemmyverse, using the communities tab at the top.