One of the best parts of Metal Gear is when they explain why the vampiric looking character that drinks blood is called "Vamp". It's because he's bisexual.
God, MGS2 was a ride. "Also Vamp was having an affair with the buff blonde black US Marine colonel at the start of the game and now he's with that guy's daughter"
That was when Kojima truly realized that he could do anything he wanted
Or was that when he put an overweight explosives expert on rollerskates and called him 'Fat Man'?
I always figured Fat Man's name was a double entendre for his appearance and a reference to the nuke dropped on Nagasaki. Fitting given he's an overweight explosives guy.
I mean, Kojima can't everything he wants, because he wanted to kill Snake and Otacon during his original plans for MGS2, but his staff pushed back and threatened to stop working if he went through with the plan.
Now, I may be biased as a long time fan, but I still play MGS1 every few years and I still love it. The first two (or four, depending if you want to count the NES games) Metal Gear games, those are far more outdated and are more a curiosity and are not really required to understand the story, especially with the interview / interrogation of Snake extras on the MGS1 discs.
And the later games are even less outdated than MGS1. I would recommend starting with MGS1 on the PS1 rather than it's remake since while Twin Snakes was made under Kojima's supervision, the more Hollywood action movie style of it and especially it's cutscenes don't IMO really fit MGS1. It's a good game in it's own right for sure, but as an adaptation/remake of MGS1 it's kinda hit or miss at times.