MGS was my first love and I think it's the best game evr made and certianly the best of the series with Snake Eater a close second. I love Big Boss and think he's bad ass but never really saw any different characterization between him and Solid Snake. I just sort of see them as the same character really. It's just Snake to me. I think the coolest Look for Snake is the eyepatch Big Boss snake though, fatigues and/or sneaking suit. and I much prefer the MGS1 look of Solid than MGS2.
I didn't enjoy MGS2 for the amount of time not playing as Snake. Raiden was god awful, he got a little cooler in 4 but he will always be lame to me.
But I just hated playing MGS4 for how frigging stupid Snake looked. hate his "Old Snake" look more than anything. Even Old Big Boss/Solidus or whatever that look is is much cooler looking. Old Snake looked like a dirty old sickly pervert to me with that mullet and mustache.
I also hated that fricking game. Play as Snake, move him three inches on the screen and then watch a 45 min boring cutscene. The new MGS had damn well better be back to actually PLAYING a game.
It's why I enjoyed Snake eater, the story was good and the characters cool and the added element of a slight open environment was compelling to me. But nothing will ever ellipse the pure ingenuity of the first game. Thinks that added unique gameplay that broke the linear mold like Occelot's torture table or switching controllers to the non memory pack controller so Mantis could not "read your memory" Genius. Nothing will ever top that out of the box thinking. It also had genuinely them ost original and coolest looking characters.
Western influence and people not being able to comprehend MGS2 is what destroyed MGS4 as the conclusion to the series, and it wasn't even the ending Kojima wanted anyway.
I don't really care about Ground Zeroes much and I will be glad when they finally get ****ing done with BB once and for all and do a MSX remake.