Anniversary Advent 2022 | Metal Gear At 35
What a thrill…
Man, Metal Gear is 35 years old this July. I still remember it like it was yesterday. Sure, I’ve never touched an MSX2, and I was still eight years away from being born, but even at the time, I knew it would be big.
Please MSX was my mother, call me Snake.
Okay, but seriously. It is nigh impossible to overstate Metal Gear’s impact on the video game industry. Sure, the original Metal Gear may not have invented the stealth genre; Doom didn't invent the first-person shooter either, but you sure as hell don't think of Maze War when you think of FPS. At the same time, when you see the words ‘Metal Gear’ most don’t think of the top-down 8-bit game for Japanese home computers, you likely think of 1998’s Metal Gear Solid for the PS1; a game without which the modern game industry would be vastly different. When you think of AAA games these days, your mind will often go to narrative-focused games with intricately directed cutscenes and setpieces like Uncharted and The Last of Us; this high production value style was pioneered by the original MGS.
However, what sets MGS apart from most is that - while these games are known for being story-heavy - they never treated the story as a factor more important than the gameplay. While weird uncle Hideo loves to emulate his favourite films with his work, he also seems to understand that just trying to be a movie has you missing out on what makes games as a medium so unique. While many first-party Sony games could just be prestige television series (see The Last of Us literally becoming one), Kojima puts the game-iness of his games at their core. The original MGS wouldn't be nearly as iconic as it was without moments like Meryl’s codec number, and, of course, everything with Psycho Mantis, you really couldn't do these in any other medium. This philosophy was brought forward throughout the entire series; moments like The Sorrow in MGS3 or the Shining Lights, Even in Death mission from MGSV could have just been cutscenes, but are made that much more impactful by taking player initiative into consideration.
Ok, but have you ever watched the MGS2 gameplay trailer from E3 2000?
As well as it being the 35th anniversary of the series, 2022 also happens to mark my 10th anniversary with the series. I had played the games before - at friends’ houses and such - but I never fully got into them until the release of Bluepoint’s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection in 2012 on the Xbox 360. This means that the first MGS game I ever completed was Metal Gear Solid 2, which; if you’ve played MGS2 you will know that it’s arguably the worst game to start off with considering how much it ties into MGS1 and how much of its brilliance is based off playing against the expectations players had coming off that game. So why am I here now as a die-hard MGS fan if I couldn't even understand the first game in the series I beat?
That's simple - Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the greatest video game ever made.
Instead of continuing the story of Raiden and Solid Snake after the events of MGS2, the series went back to the 1960’s focusing on the series' villain, Big Boss (known then as Naked Snake)’s first mission as part of the legendary FOX unit. While MGS2 went all Nostradamus with its - frankly, bizarre - ending sequence, MGS3 instead aimed to be a pure spy thriller in the vein of 007 movies, fully embracing the campy ridiculousness that comes with that. Snake Eater captures what makes the series so great in the first place by simultaneously being the silliest game and having the most grounded and emotional story in the series.
We were torn between using this incredible Yoji Shinkawa MGS3 and looping gif of the ladder scene.
During the development of MGS3; Kojima stated that he intended Naked Snake to feel more human than Solid Snake. Solid is - in theory - the perfect soldier, born from the Les Enfants Terribles project - which produced clones of the “greatest soldier of all time”. Naked Snake, however, is just a normal man, capable of feeling pain and emotion. Snake - a rookie at the time - has to simultaneously deal with the betrayal of his mentor, The Boss, and his subsequent task to kill her to prevent a third world war from breaking out. This gives Snake Eater’s story an emotional depth that previous entries just couldn't match. This depth culminates in MGS3’s finale which marked the first time a game had ever made me weep, and probably the only game that can continue to make me emotional every time I replay it.
Metal Gear is a serious political drama and social commentary.
Snake Eater also marked the series’ first foray into a more open-world style. While the games have always been sandboxes of emergent gameplay, the previous entries often started the player within a closed-off enemy base funnelling the player into a certain approach. While Snake Eater takes place primarily in the jungles of the Soviet Union. This may seem like a negligible change, but taking the series outdoors opens up a whole new layer from the litany of rooms and hallways seen before, giving the player more freedom on how they would tackle any specific area - something that would be expanded upon, and eventually perfect in MGSV’s unmatched open-world simulation.
Metal Gear is special. For as popular and influential as it was, there truly isn't another series like it. Hideo Kojima (and his many under-credited contributors) managed to continually push the boundaries of what could be done in the medium with the series, while somehow never producing an entry that was any less than fantastic.
In all honesty, it feels weird to celebrate an anniversary for a franchise that has laid dormant since 2015 (with a brief re-animation in 2018, but let's ignore that). They say all good things must come to an end, and sure, we’re getting whatever bizarro experience Kojima decides to put out for the rest of his lifetime (Death Stranding did show that magic at some points), but I’m not sure anything will be able to scratch that itch left by Metal Gear. Maybe that's okay because at least we got to experience it in the first place.
