When is the next stealth kingpin?

 

I am a long-time lover of the Stealth Genre of games. From Deus Ex to Metal Gear to Splinter Cell- you give me the opportunity to proceed through an area in a manner so quiet that I am a veritable ghost, and I'm probably going to grind my way through that room, reload after reload, until I master it's every slight shadow, alternative path and split-second opportunity. Perhaps that stems from my inherent invisible nature as the kind of person you forget about the moment after you've met them, but anonymity and plausible non-existence are my utmost forte. Which is why it can be so gruelling being a fan of a genre of games so poorly served over the past few years that I'm starting to wonder if my genre is one of those 'dead genres' that just doesn't sell games anymore!

Started, quite literally, due to a lack of processing power which resulted in a full action game being impossible to make- stealth created a whole new philosophy to the way we play games. Suddenly the idea of going through rooms of enemies without leaving corpses opened up the possibility to question why people needed to die at all, which would pave the way to complex scenario writing where maybe the opponents are always the defacto villains of the story. Deus Ex itself being a great example of a franchise were sometimes the choice to play stealthily and non-lethally can prevent genuinely unnecessary loss of life that can positively come into play later down the line- all possible because of the concept of alternative gameplay paths.

And to be fair, that might be what makes stealth games such a tough proposition compared to your normal run and gun affair. They need to ideally cater for both games, the violent and the quiet. Sure, there are a few pure stealth games on the market such as the Styx games- but they come across as niche even admits stealth enjoyers like myself. Splinter Cell and Metal Gear need to be half competent shooters on their own to facilitate the consequences of failing at stealth, which is what leads to situations such as 'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain' just being one of the best third person action games to this day, for the sheer malleability of it's many tools and systems creating near limitless gameplay potential- even for what is ostensibly a 'stealth focused' franchise.

But Metal Gear has rusted to a standstill, unfortunately. Splinter Cell has splintered. Siphon Filter needs a replacement. Deus Ex renounced itself and became secular. And Sly Cooper is trapped in an alternate universe or something. (That last one isn't even a joke. I'm pretty sure the last game ended with Sly being shoved off this entire realm.) Every single significant Stealth genre game is currently dormant and all we have to scratch this itch are the works of one particular studio who include stealth not because of any internal passion for the genre, but simply because it's one of those core pillars that someone long ago instilled in their franchises back when the studio had a soul. Yes, for the fiftieth time in the past hour, I'm ragging on Ubisoft.

Assassin's Creed bitterly tries to shirk it's Stealth Gameplay in favour of hit-and-miss combat that is becoming more and more generic as the RPG sub-series progresses. What began as an Arkham light affair of style, flow and speed has become plodding, slow and tedious. Chipping away massive health bars on big enemies with simple attack cycles that are 12 feet tall for some reason because some one on their team played Dark Souls once and now that has to be all their games. Mirage tried to bring back stealth to the franchise and it was an admirable attempt, but it still felt slightly clunky. As though someone was trying to stuff stealth into an engine it clearly wasn't made for. And otherwise Ubisoft are working on the Ghost Recon games which treat Stealth about as basically as they did fifteen years ago. Do not expect any innovation out of that franchise.

In fact, to this day I think the most innovative and creative stealth game on the market is still Phantom Pain, and that was nine years ago! That was a game which featured complex enemy AI packages that reacted to how badly the player had screwed up their infiltration, oodles of reactivity objects and dynamic interactions that still surprise me to this day, (such as the ability to hide bodies on cots to make passerbys think they're sleeping.) and so many tools and gadgets to work with that sometimes it feels as though you are a god of manipulation terrorising these Russian outposts for your own sick amusement. And you know what? I kind of am! MGS V was the kind of game malleable enough that you could play it a hundred different ways practically forever. But it's not enough.

We need a new prince to worship! A new cadre of Stealth that manages to at least approach what MGS V was doing, let alone surpass it. To this day one of those nagging elements of that game which bothers me is the apparent truth that dogs, with smell based gameplay, were conceived of but ultimately scrapped- surely someone out there has taken that as a challenge to see what new elements to the stealth genre they can bring? I've dreamed about what a successor might look like, how it would feel, the ways it would innovate. Perhaps improving on the companion system to give you a plethora of team interactions mid mission, maybe shoring up melee combat to create more dynamic gameplay moments in those times where you're caught off guard up close- or just giving us actual proper bosses to play around with like previous Metal Gear games. MGS V gives us like... one at the very end.

Who has the nads to try at that? At the time being only the Arkane Immersive Sims seem deeply invested in stealth gameplay but I wouldn't call them especially ambitious in their iterations. Deathloop kind of revealed the fact that the team are basically remixing the same stealth tools and abilities they came up with back in Dishonoured again and again, and though they're still fun- there's no scratching at the cutting edge happening to set my stealthy heart aflame. Maybe their upcoming Blade game will have something special, or Kojima's rumoured new stealth action series will be the successor? All I want is for someone to try. And heck, maybe that's a signal for the fact that it's time for me to start learning how to use an engine and give it a crack myself. (It's better than not doing it, right?)

The Metal Gear situation

 

I promised I would talk about this a while ago but the truth is that I really didn't want to. In fact, I wanted to bury my head and pretend that Konami would fix everything in the interim but- I mean what was I thinking, this is Konami we're talking about! Part of it was blind optimism, and the rest of it was fear that if I accepted the rank incompetence of Konami I would also be accepting the terrible danger all upcoming Konami projects are in under a publisher that clearly has no idea how to quality control anymore. But reality isn't a matter of picking and choosing what seems comfortable, it's about sitting down in front of the meal prepared, undercooked and worm ridden as it is, and bearing everything. So I have to take my medicine and admit- Konami have absolutely screwed the pooch with the easiest of it's upcoming projects, the straight Metal Gear Ports.

If we are to accept the recent gall over everyone's inability to remake Knights of the Old Republic then we should damn near pass out from sheer flabbergastedness by the fact that simple HD ports lay outside the ability range of one of Japan's premiere development studios. Or perhaps it would be fitting to say 'former, most premiere'. Konami did a fine job whittling itself down into a studio focused entirely on mobile and gambling machine ventures, keeping all our favourite franchises hostage in the interim. I think mostly the world was praying for heroes to swoop in and nick the Metal Gear brand right out from under them- but that's just not how it works in our damnable capitalist society, now is it? That's probably what led to that false optimism when Konami, a proven mediocre publisher, decided to do anything with it's licences. We accepted the gruel, now we have to swallow it down.

The Metal Gear Master Collection proposed a brand new introduction into the classic franchise sans the name of Kojima on the box art because apparently we're all still petty about that after all this time? Although I suppose the original team must be grateful not to have their name handy on such a blatantly undercooked horror show of a port that somehow managed to achieve even less than an emulator could do on a tight schedule. These ports are ripped from the decent 360 era HD collection and propose little else to that formula other than a slight update to the menu screen when starting. The actual work they had to do, bringing Metal Gear 1 and 2 along for the ride, is the most rudimentary emulator job feasible carrying none of the basic classic re-release tools one would expect as enforced by the literal decades of retro renewal ports we have to compare with.

Tools such as The Metal Gear Solid original not supporting mouse control on PC (Which the GOG version absolutely did) were not even considered at launch. The highest resolution possible appears to be 720p for a lot of the games, with anything higher resulting in ugly stretching- which is only acceptable for about one single player in the world. Me. The one PC gamer who still has a 1080p monitor. (Fear my backwards ways!) There is nothing in the way of substantive configuration options in the games menus, (Just like FF7R- do Japanese players just never alter their settings or something?) the textures look untouched from the original package, there's no boost mode to speak of for the classic games or even save states. One ongoing problem seems to be an inability to switch from Windowed to Fullscreen (A problem the team intend to patch in later- that's premium apparently...) and no way to exit back to the menu midgame... It's essentially the lowest effort port one could feasibly make.

You could threaten a talented team with a life time imprisonment to make the worst product possible and they wouldn't have screwed up this badly. You know why? Because they would have tried, and that tiny modicum of effort, even to a destructive end, distinguishes that theoretical assignment with what Konami has delivered to us. People have already rushed to point out that the GOG Metal Gear Solid has more features. The HD collection for 3, 2 and Peace Walker (PW is nowhere in this package) runs at a smoother 60 with seemingly better textures. For a 'Master Collection' there doesn't seem to have been any effort put into 'remastering' whatsoever, which I guess explains their marketing approach- sticking the announcement for these games at the end of Metal Gear Solid Delta and riding off that game's hype.

But whilst we're on the topic, do you think this debacle paints the development of Delta in any different light? I've already raised my dissatisfaction with the fact that from everything we've seen Konami appear to be going the absolute safest route they possible could by recreating everything from the original game one-to-one, even borrowing audio files from the original. (Come on; even Persona 3 Reloaded hired the old musicians to play slightly updated versions of their old tracks!) But somehow safety even seems to be a risk at the Konami offices, and that was before they were tasked with actually creating anything. Now I don't know- we could end up getting a technical nightmare the likes of which sullies the Metal Gear name forever more. All I wanted was for my literal favourite game ever to walk in the sun once more, and the Monkey Paw prophecy is winding up for a haymaker retort to my foolish ambition.

To play complete Devil's Advocate, to the point where I've travelled to the pearly gates, enrolled in their most prestigious university, shirked all solicitation in order to focus on my studies and then pushed myself directly into application to pass The Extraplanar Bar for otherworld affairs in order to serve as lead attorney in Satan's trail- maybe this is a 'priorities' situation. As in, maybe key resources were deprived from the Master Collection and funnelled into Metal Gear Solid Delta under the belief that they were more deserving there. That would, at least, give the hope that The Master Collection died so that Delta can live. But even that is giving a lot of credit when, in honesty, sacrificing the re-release of universally beloved classic games would be a marketing nightmare by most's reckoning. You would have to be certifiably instituionable to champion such a terrible gambit when this whole movement was designed to rebuild the Konami image out of the dumps in the first place. Could the big K really be that incurably dumb?

Shame as it is to say, I can only hope they are. Because at least in that case we can hold out for some sliver of hope as it pertains to the future of Metal Gear. Right now I can't help but think of what Kojima must be making of it, matured and moved on as he is, looking back on the dissolution of his name-bearing franchise with a conflux of vindication and existential sadness, like watching one's progeny fall to illness. Konami is that illness, unshakable and malignant, seeping off the lifeforce of a property fans have kept living in their hearts for years now- and they are a terminal affliction. Coupled with the dogs-dinner of the Silent Hill revival currently happening, (Did you know the 'interactive TV show' has a Battle Pass? Yeah, kill me.) it's becoming soberingly obvious there is no redemption path for the bloodsucking vampires over at the big K. And the desiccated corpse of Metal Gear will be their debris in the year to come.

The new face of Metal Gear

 A weapon- to surpass Metal Gear!

So it's pretty much a done deal at this point. Konami have decided to recreate the Metal Gear franchise from scratch in order to carry on the legacy of one of their most beloved franchises and ride that momentum into becoming a somewhat respected developer in the industry once again. To what end? I haven't the foggiest. They already make a scandalous amount of money producing exclusively mobile games and Pachinko machines- unless... maybe they're looking to ingratiate themselves with people so the world won't vomit their guts out when it's revealed that the new Metal Gear games they intend to produce come with live service elements attached. I imagine that's their endgoal, because they couldn't figure out a way to make a Silent Hill battle royale. Yeah, I don't trust Konami as much as I can throw them. But until they show off their worst side, I wonder what Metal Gear will look like in the new age?

First off, Metal Gear isn't much of a series without it's visionary director at the helm guiding the narrative, directing the cutscenes, collating gameplay concepts and overall being the sort of overbearing perfectionist that drove the numbers-obsessed suits over at Konami consistently nuts. Hideo Kojima is very much the heart of the Metal Gear Solid series, ever since his first directorial debut, his unique approach to game design and narrative ambition have left their mark on the art of game design and summoned swarms of content hungry fans in his wake. And after a split with Konami so vicious that Konami expunged his name off the many games he produced, one would wonder if his name would ever be mentioned by them again, let alone called on to remake his game alongside them.

Well, in the way that they do, some games journalists decided to stir that particular stewing pot of faeces and to the surprise of all actually got themselves a response! Rather than ignore the question altogether or send the reporter a recently gutted grass snake as a way of 'subtly giving them the message', Konami came out to say it straight: Hideo Kojima has no involvement with the development of Metal Gear Delta. Nuts. Also, Yoji Shinkawa, the incredible artist who's iconic pencil-scratch sketch-pad illustrations have lent the franchise a unique cinematic poster design since it's inception? Yeah, he's not being called up either. However, Konami have gone out of their way to bring aboard various inhouse developers that have allegedly worked on Metal Gear before as well as a Singaporean developer called 'Virtuos' who have helped on titles like Dark Souls Remastered, Arkham Remastered console ports and The Outer Worlds' port. Yes... the port which looked and performed bad... What, were 'Bluepoint' busy?

And as I suspected, Metal Gear Solid 3 was chosen to be the vector of this remake not just because of it's beloved place in the hearts of desperate fans who had been begging for a remake for years now, but because it is the beginning of the franchise narrative wise, telling the origin of the man known as 'Big Boss'. Which very much makes it sound like they intend to ride this out and remake the entire Metal Gear franchise, without Kojima's name on the boxes, however when asked the contact seemed to get very cagey about the future. According to them, the ongoing future is dependent on the reception of this release, which is pretty much just saying that they absolutely are going to make another remake because this title is already going to break well past even- they could announce pre-orders tomorrow and meet their sales targets, the fervour for this remake has been beyond what I could have imagined. It warms my heart to see a world as ravenous for my favourite franchise as I've always been.

However, I do have some lingering queries about whether or not Konami are as clear on their direction and path as they make out. For example, Metal Gear Solid 'Delta' apparently sports the geek numerical because of 'Delta's association with change and renewal', despite the fact that from everything we've seen the developers are scared stiff to do absolutely anything different with this remake. Not that I think Metal Gear Solid 3 is in desperate need of a change-up, mind you- that's my single favourite game of all time- but I'm starting to really question the point of a remake that only updates the visuals and the basic control scheme. We know they're going to provide more than the fixed angles of the original, I'd imagine they'll have to remake the enemy AI and all that good stuff, but as for the world, story and presentation... they seem to be untouched.

We've seen the comparison screenshots and as far as anyone can tell these have all been one-to-one recreations. Not new areas designed to create the same feeling as the original, which is what the Resident Evil Remake franchise typically shoots for, but down-the-middle, totally unerring, paint with the lines, recreations. What's more, the original vocal talent have not been asked to return to this name game, not because they're going to be replaced or anything as ghastly as that, but because the original voice lines from the original game are going to be used. Which pretty much just plays out the fact that there will be no new dialogue, no new takes of dialogue, I can only imagine that cutscenes are going to be shot-for-shot identical to the original- these guys are doing everything they can to make a game exactly like Hideo Kojima would have, only without putting his name on the box. At that point- why even bother get developers who have worked on Metal Gear before? Just get anyone who's competent at copy work.

I sound petulant, I recognise that. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not so blinded by my undying love for Metal Gear Solid 3 that I can't recognise a product desperately struggling to justify it's own existence. Metal Gear Solid 3 is a masterpiece, no doubt; but the entire point of this remake movement is to see our favourite games realised in a different light, with modern design sensibilities and storytelling techniques. Unless we're talking about Last of Us, in which case the remake is just an excuse to recreate the game on a new engine and dull the visual palette down to the sequel's more washed out and grim aesthetic, potentially creating a tonal disparity but I guess when you're told to "just do the remake, remake maker!" higher design principals never really enter the equation, do they?

But at least the original Metal Gear titles are making their way to modern consoles, that I cannot critique. Volume one of the Metal Gear Collection is going to come with Metal Gear Solid 1 to 3, which I'm increadibly excited about because the original Metal Gear Solid is one of my earliest gaming memories and I haven't been able to pick up that classic and play since those halcyon days. And that collection is going to be only the first of the collection, leaving us to merely imagine what the next volume could contain. It could just be Metal Gear  Solid Phantom Pain and Ground Zero, but both those games already run fine on the modern generation so that would be a waste of a release. Fingers crossed we're getting a Metal Gear Solid 4 remaster and port for the first time ever! Maybe that kind of fan pandering will make up for the questionable future plans for Metal Gear undoubtedly cooking up in the Konami lair... 

Artistic Intent versus Mechanical Cohesion

Thrills of Frills?

The game, the game; the beautiful game! Often has it been said that at the end of the day, when the chips have landed and the goose is cooked, within the world of games there is no more senior a position than gameplay. The divine right of developers to directors to publishers to shareholders all rely on the power of strong core gameplay to trickle down it's bounteous rewards, pretty much in that order of beneficiary. But what of the all important king of creativity across the entertainment medium? Artistic Intent? Why, the artistry of creation is the lifeblood behind it, and failing to really hone in on that beating heart of intent can spell the difference between Apple TV's 'Luck' film and Dreamwork's 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.' One treads the well-worn steps of successful previous properties, the other dances with it's heart in it's hand throwing a twirling fiesta in the name of love, life and spectacular animation. I don't... you don't need me to say which is which- right?

When it comes to the world of game design, the question of where artistic intention ends and mechanical cohesion begins is not an easy one to answer. I know because I literally spent last week trying to get an answer out of actual game designers from more personal studios to conglomerates like Sony, and the resounding response was a middling "it's a balancing act". Because at the end of the day, sure, if you can make a game that is true to it's artistic principals and the intent of the narrative themes alongside being robust, intuitive and fun; then well done, you've reached peak perfection as a video game designer. But... well... that's not going to be where the majority of people land, now is it? Perfection is a slithering writhing snake weaved of the finest sand, that squeezes through the cracks in your fingers the tighter you grasp. So you end up doing the best that you can. Compromise. Balance.

But I don't like that answer. It seems... incomplete to me. Of course, there's no way to write a perfect consensus that will cover every scenario dictating times when the art needs to peel away for the good of the mechanics- but there's got to be a better consensus then 'I'll go with my gut'. I always hated the games that attempted to try and rationalise the concept of respawning by somehow working that into the narrative. Bioshock's resurrection chambers make any character's death patently meaningless thus undermining the sanctity of death as a narrative device, and Borderlands' New-U-Station attempts to be both an in-game joke and apparently non-canonical mechanics system. The latter of which literally clashes between the teams who make the games where no one can seem to decided whether or not they need to bend over backwards to explain why Handsome Jack deregistered himself the network (because there was an off-hand joke in the first game about it causing irreversible infertility and Jack wanted a daughter) or just ignore the fact that Scooter definitely would have been linked up to one. (You know, considering his entire 'Catch-a-ride' enterprise functioned out of various New-U-Stations!)

Is the solution just to ignore the collision? I've always looked at that to be a sacrifice in immersion. Sure, maybe if you have a protagonist who doesn't speak that can allow the player's voice to inhabit the hero's head, but when your player stands silently in the middle of 4 way conversations that omission can start to grate at the senses. Or even a little thing like how in Hogwarts Legacy, being a game set in school, people are constantly introducing themselves to you and simply don't expect the same in return. You have no pithy short-hand catchphrase they can call you, you're not the 'Boy who lived' or 'The Dragonborn' or 'Courier Six'; your just a student with a name that the player wrote out, thus the game can't feasibly repeat it. Perhaps these are the lesser examples of art clashing with mechanics, but the dissonance rumbles nonetheless.

As always whenever we get into diatribes about topics like this, I find myself coming back to the eclectic work of Miyazaki and his now legendary Souls series, which championed artistic intent in marriage with robust mechanics throughout most of his catalogue. There was, however, one famous instance of a clash that I can recount. The final confrontation of the final Souls game was famously changed from the difficult 'Pontiff Sulyvahn', sometimes still called the hardest boss in all of Dark Souls III, to the relatively simpler but thematically resplendent 'Soul of Cinder'. Whilst mechanically and balancing-wise there really is little doubt that Sulvahn provides the more dynamic challenge, designed specifically to ingrain a playstyle in the player that he then immediately undermines with his next phase, the narrative impact of what the Soul of Cinder would come to represent, the conjoined efforts of every souls player who ever played the games, and then of the returned Lord of Cinder himself in that iconic second phase, is irreplaceable. Artistry, in this instance, trumped mechanical soundness. 

And to take matter back to one of my own favourite games of all time, who remembers the iconic ladder scene within Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater? Itself existing within a transitional cell that moves the player from a jungle environment to the desert-like mountain tops, and as such could easily have been covered by a single cutscene- as is utilised later when Snake climbs from the underground tunnels up onto the tarmac of Groznyj Grad. Instead Hideo Kojima decided to give players a conceptually dull task of climbing the ladder in real time, with a fixed camera angle, from the bottom to the top. A task enriched only by a ghostly, acapella rendition of the title song, Snake Eater to fill the monotony. A scene that exists to offer no gameplay benefit to the player whatsoever, but simply to reinforce the artistic intent of creating a game narrative indistinguishable to the film making techniques of a James Bond movie, which would typically invoke musical overtures during transitory sequences. 

Of course, the examples I just pulled up were from auteurs for their craft, and just as leaning into your intent can be transformative to the overall experience, it can sometimes be a detriment as well. Forspoken is a game built to incur the same sort of emotions and responses as Joss Whedon written dramas. Imagine Buffy or the Avengers; that's the kind of audience the game was hoping to secure. And yet, giving up the agency and immersion in the game world to constantly have a witty and stake undermining back and forths between Frey and her talking magical Cuff drove a wedge between players and how they wanted to experience the world, making it difficult to take anything seriously in all but the most dire moments. In this way the artistic intent ended up harming the overall presentation, and such is just the most modern example from a slew of examples likewise.

When it comes to nailing that idea of balance, I think that as simple and lame as it sounds the missing ingredient is understanding. Understanding of the exact effect the decisions and changes made will have on an audience. And perhaps that understanding can come from a sudden or supreme insight of consequence, or deferred from the repeated opinions of others; but until you've reached that point of knowing what liberties can and cannot be taking without diluting the whole product, you are pretty much developing in a total vacuum with a blindfold on. I am a firm believer in the sanctity of artistic intent, but I recognise how the fanciful whims of the artists can trail off into inanity, and the other extreme can languish in a mire of obsequiousness. Balance, as ever, is a process of iteration.

The Metal Gear Remaster rumours have come back to haunt us

 Dormammu, i've come to bargain

There's nothing more sad than being a die hard fan of a franchise that was all but killed in the executive backrooms of some staunchly little business deal. It's demeaning, scrabbling around in the dirt begging for new coverage or interest, singing your flat-note tune about how "back in your day this franchise was the bees knees." Saints Row fans are a few short months away from that reality after the inevitably disappointing DLC drop for their game is followed by a 'We're moving on and am likely never going to touch this franchise again until at least 2028- bye!' message. But Metal Gear fans weren't even given the courtesy of a proper goodbye, in any of it's outings. The last Metal Gear outing was Survive, pretty much a desecration upon a corpse we didn't even know was in the ground yet, and before that came Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain; which quite famously didn't actually have an ending. When do we get our closure?

If Konami gets to have their way, we would never be given a new game in the Metal Gear pantheon purely because of some childish dispute between Kojima and some unnamed executive that millions of fans now suffer for. They don't want to touch that franchise with a ten-foot pole, and honestly I don't think anybody really wants them to change their policy on that either, because even after all these years the distaste of what Konami have become still sticks to it's image. Nothing short of a total rebranding and rebooting of all of it's major franchise could dig their reputation out of this pit, which is part of the reason why I take news of an upcoming remaster for MGS 1,2 and 3 very suspiciously. I mean I've mentioned these rumours before, but now that they're building up and we coming to face the reality that they might, in fact, be real; the defences need to go up as we ask ourselves just exactly what it is we're willing to accept from Konami.

Because as simple as a remaster pack would be, so simple that there have already been three or so packs of their kind in Metal Gear's past; the very vindictive nature of Konami leads us to believe they'd find someway to screw it up. "What's that? People just want to play the Metal Gear they remember? Well how about we get some mobile dev to make rough approximations of the game that they liked. How is Grove Street Games doing for work these days?" Maybe they'd go to sell each game together for some ridiculous $70 price point. Maybe they'd really go the 'scorched earth' route and put in new skins that need to be bought for Snake. Or crap, maybe even restrict some of the unique skins that are already in the base game so that they can't be acquired without extra funds. What I'm basically saying is that a Metal Gear Remaster would need to be a celebration of the franchise to be good, and I don't there's enough love in all of Konami to celebrate anything. They're a company without a soul.

Metal Gear Solid 1 would be the most interesting of these purported remasters, because as far as I can tell that original has never been touched up since it's launch. The Nintendo Gamecube saw a remake of the game that added weird cutscenes that some felt distracted from the style of that original classic, but even that has been left out a lot of the collections that came later on in the franchise's life. Personally I would love to see that classic touched up again, but I feel this is probably more of a 'Resident Evil' type situation where the company just wants to pretend that the remake was the original all along. Not least of all because it's probably easier to touch up a Gamecube game than it is a PlayStation 1 title; even if that means the Remaster won't accurately convey the evolution of the franchise. But you'd have to be seeking care and attention to pay any credence to that nonsense; and I don't think Konami have either of those affectations in their company dictionaries.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is another matter. That is a classic which has been in collections that have transcended their original platforms to wind up on Xbox! Whereas complications with policy and software means that MGS4 will likely never be ported off the PS3, and thus will remain unplayable for the foreseeable future, MGS2 can rightly wind up wherever it wants as soon as someone is willing to port the thing. Nintendo Switch, PC; heck, you might as well put the thing on the Ouya! It is a classic of the franchise, being the game to successfully pull a bait-and-switch on it's entire audience, and seeing that running on modern resolutions will be a great send-up to the Matrix-inspired age of pop-culture from which that game spawned. Also we'll get to see a naked Raiden doing cartwheels whilst cupping his genitals in 4k. What more can you ask for?

And then there's Metal Gear Soild 3, the myth, the legend; the mountain goat carcass being feasted on by a white-rumped vulture. I don't need to tell you how much I adore Metal Gear Solid 3; it's literally my favourite game of all time and I take any effort to work upon it very seriously. During the PSVita remaster, I was actually somewhat disturbed by the game's addition of crouch walking. (Not least of all because it allowed people to circumvent the vulnerability of crawling whilst still moving stealthily and quickly; upsetting a carefully designed balance.) For the life of me I cannot conceive what Konami would possibly do with a remaster, but I feel like anything more or short of just porting the HD collection, would be a mistake that I will complain incessantly about. I will buy it though. Whatever the damage, there's no escaping my inevitable purchase.

Each one of these games are going to be manhandled by Konami in an attempt to earn some cred back with the community they've shunned, whilst simultaneously stomping on Kojima's legacy by removing all of his names from the box art, because at this point that's just company policy. They'll probably cut any corners that they can in order to try and maximise return for the least amount of investment, and somewhere down the line this effort will tie back into their cynical NFT projects that I have not forgotten the team tried. I will not allow the wool to be folded over my eyes when it comes to Konami, both who they are and the many globules of crap that they stand for as a company, because one singular good release does not erase the years of actual super-villain level conduct the company has been responsible for. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if this remaster was a Metal Gear level conspiracy to try and brain wash the community into associating the talents of that legendary series with Konami, despite literally no one who worked on those games still being present in any part of Konami. Maybe they want to subliminally plant some sort of mind-control code in our head to make us more susceptible to pachinko machines and grubby MTX schemes. What? Why are you looking at me like that?

I am not crazy! I know Konami have scrubbed all the Metal Gear box arts of his credits. 'A Hideo Kojima game', as if I would ever forget that. Never. Never! I just- couldn't prove that they had done it. They covered their tracks. They printed out brand new physical copies of MGS V with a clean byline. You think this is something? You think this is bad? This? This- chicanery? They've done worse. Those employees! Are you telling me that people who spoke out about being mistreated at Konami just happened to also get blacklisted from every tech company in Japan? No! They orchestrated it! Konami! They monitor their employees movements twenty-four seven so that they can stamp down on 'excessive lunch breaks'! And we ignore it! We shouldn't have. We go out to buy their games everytime they stick 'Metal Gear' on the box even without Kojima's oversight. What were we thinking? They'll never change. They'll never change! Ever since they were founded! Always screwing employees out of a competitive wage! But not our Konami! Couldn't be our precious publishers of Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania and Suikoden! Burning their employees dry! And now they get to publish a Metal Gear Remaster? What a sick joke! We should've have stopped them when we had the chance, we should have done something. And you, you have to stop them, you-

Is Dio Brando and Colonel Volgin the same person?

 "You don't even know what the Philosopher's legacy is, do you?"

Of the very few fleeting reasons there are left to endure reality, one of the most enduring is the love I have for Metal Gear Solid. I've not been subtle about that, pretty much every other week I'm sneaking in an reference or unwittingly letting slip some sort of idiom or speech pattern I've developed from that series. I'm an AI sponge, soaking up all the media around me and splattering it all over this blog without a care in the world. But, no matter how important MGS is to me, no matter how formative that series has been to my current place in life (which is significant, by the way. I got into writing because of Snake Eater) there has recently been another franchise I can't stop going on about. One that stretches even further back than MGS and is arguably more influential. And with the amount of times I've mentioned JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I don't think there's much point being coy about that either. But what if there was more in common with this series than sharing fans? What if they also shared a main villain, between core Jojo (as-in, before 'Steel Ball Run') and my favourite MGS entry (III: Snake Eater)? Well that could either be one of the most hairbrained things my psychosis has ever imagined or... well, okay it's definitely that either way, but it could be true as well! (Oh, and Spoiler warning for Metal Gear 1-5 as well as Jojo Parts 1-5.)

Let me start with the Russian man first, we have Colonel Volgin: the Thunderbolt. This KGB career man started off his career as a humble war criminal from World War 2, brutalising and murdering captured soldiers in a manner that earned him the fear of his compatriots. (They grow up so fast!) After the war, Volgin learned about his father's part in an organisation known as The Philosophers, a group of wealthy and powerful war-time individuals who conspired to pool their resources in order to help end the war, (and maybe control parts of the world to ensure that another world war would never happen again, but that would be scribbled into their constitution much later.) Being obviously inspired by such a noble and altruistic philosophy, Volgin immediately stole all the legacy funds from this super group and used it to try and plan a coup against Khrushchev in a grand plan to ultimately escalate the cold war into a thermonuclear holocaust. (Like father like son?)

Now we shift gears to Dio Brando (prime), a poor British child born under the thumb of a drunk father in the slums of London, Dio learned quickly how to survive on the harsh streets and bide his time. The greatest power he ever earned was patience, and everything that would go wrong in his life from then on would mostly come in the times when he would lose it. Through the winding line of fate, Dio Brando's father would pass away when he was just a teenager and pull the last of his strings to get his son adopted by the wealthy Joestar family. Dio was disgusted by his disgrace of a father, but still seized the opportunity to become close to the Joestars so that he could overthrow the rightful heir of the Jostar line, Johnathon, and ultimately steal the fortune that he felt life deserved to give him in recompense for the hardships of his childhood. So not quite as bad as Volgin- oh, but then he rejected his humanity, became a vampire and slowly escalated his plans to turning all of England into his undead slaves. Only to then develop the power to control time in limited degrees and deciding that entitled him to become ruler over all of the weaklings in humanity. (Ahh... and they say Dio was an ambitious man.)

So now we start to draw the similarities, if there are indeed any to draw. First, both characters are blonde, which might not seem like much but considering that both these characters come from Japanese creators, a place where there is little natural blonde hair in the gene pool, it's a point that sticks out. Second, we have the ruler complex that is indicative of both these characters. Neither of them are portrayed to have redeeming characteristics about them but are instead varying degrees of avaricious, or tyrannical. Volgin wants world war, Dio wants money, then power, then total global domination. And both of them find ways to turn those grand ambitions into personal vendettas against the protagonist. Volgin finds out that Snake has infiltrated his base by incapacitating his lover, and from there on becomes increasingly obsessed with killing Snake and causing him as much pain as possible. "You'll pay for hurting Ivan!" Dio, on the otherhand, takes an instant and almost intrinsic disliking to Johnathon Joestar, not just as his rival to the fortune but because he represents someone born into all of opportunity and privilege that Dio seeks without having to endure an ounce of the hardship that he had to- marking the start of a rivalry.

And then there are the extremes that both go to in order to fuel their revenge. Volgin famously shouts "This isn't over yet" and lives up to that promise when he returns ten years later as a walking corpse of fire fuelled by nothing more than anger against Snake and maybe a tiny bit of Psychic energy. (Metal Gear is weird with its magic) Dio, on the otherhand, is driven by a literal curse of immortality (vampirism) that he harnesses specifically to drive at the punishing of the decedents of Johnathan as much as humanly (or inhumanly) possible. But there's also the aggressive sexuality of Dio, which doesn't seem as prominent in Volgin. Dio is ever the cult of personality leader, and many of the scenes of him luring followers under his sphere of influence containing symbolism of sexual attraction and the consummation of innocence, such as with the flashback with Kakyoin. What's more, we see several scenes of him with lounging with women draped at his feet and the many who's blood he seems to dine on. There's a scene of him trying to seduce a worryingly young girl in the later half of Phantom Blood and in Golden Wind we're told how rare it is for any woman to make it out of his harem alive. Volgin on the otherhand is proven to be bisexual, like Dio, but apart from a scene of being sexual inappropriate towards Eva one time, sexuality isn't really a big part of his character.

In fact, the many similarities are circumstantial at best with Volgin only faintly resembling Dio if you squint and try to make the pieces fit in the holes. But do you know what character they fit with much more naturally? That's right, the big bad of the whole MGS franchise; Liquid Snake. Liquid is a blonde, English clone created alongside Solid Snake using the DNA of the legendary soldier Naked Snake. (These seem like porn names, but I swear they're the originals.) Much like Dio, Liquid's journey starts with an adopted childhood insecurity which taints his lifelong obsessions, namely he believes that he was a clone made from Naked Snake's recessive genes whilst Solid was cloned from the dominant genes, making him the genetically inferior clone. (Which turns out to be the exact wrong way around) This feeds into a persecution complex where he believes he is geared to be the loser, just as Dio does thanks to the circumstance of being born to a poor abusive father, thus both characters are driven to overcompensate in their desire to reclaim their 'respect' and 'birthrights', leading them to a collision course with the protagonist.

When I started this blog I did so as a joke, seeing the stupidly vague connections between Volgin and Dio, but when I bought Liquid into the equation the similarities built and built to the point where now I'm not so sure. ("And besides: these aren't- my- characters!") The brother-like relationship between the hero and villain of these stories seems almost intentionally referential, although Snake doesn't seem as heartbroken about their inability to bond as siblings as Johnathon does. (But that's more down to who the respective heroes are as characters, Dio and Liquid are still shockingly similar) And then we get to how both of the characters have managed to persist in their journeys of vengeance. Dio defies all laws of physics and steals Johnathon Joestar's dead body by replacing Johnathon's head with his own, which then persists in a coffin for a hundred years thanks to his vampiric status. Liquid, on the otherhand, after being killed, literally possesses the body of Revolver Ocelot after Ocelot uses Liquid's arm to replace the one he had cut off by the Cyborg Ninja, Gray Fox. (I feel like I'm spouting out word salad, but I swear this is all part of the MGS plot!) That's a frighteningly similar means of revival, taking the body of another character in order to come back later into the plot, wouldn't you say?

The only spot of difference is, again, Dio's outstanding sexuality, although given that Hirohiko Araki seems more intune with sexuality in general, that might just be a writing preference. You've seen how open Liquid dresses, haven't you? I bet if Kojima were more open to that sort of story, we'd have seen Liquid seducing the Genome army just like Dio did. Right now I'm actually about 60% on the theory that Kojima at least took Dio Brando into account when designing Liquid Snake, and maybe even dived back into the influential insanity that is JoJo when further developing the character. And there's no shame in that; Metal Gear has an incredibly memorable main villain because of that. So there's my moronic joke blog turned into a genuine theory by the end, but what do you think? Am I onto something or am I just blowing smoke up my own end? Let me know-

The Metal Gear that wasn't

There's nothing more for me to give you.

Metal Gear Solid is a dead franchise. But for every corpse in the video game industry, MGS' is one I hold the most lingering affinity towards given the very real fact that it holds my single favourite game of all time 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'. I try not to think about what could have been and what we've lost without it's guiding hand in our lives, which means I tend not to think about Metal Gear in my day to day if I can help it, but then I'm greeted by some horrifying article about MGS III and MGS II getting pulled down from digital storefronts and I flip the hell out. Only to find out that it's because of licencing issues on the intro footage for the game that someone at Konami forgot to renew and they're going to be write on filing that. Thank god, I don't need that heartache today. (I don't care if there is a MGS III remaster coming, don't take my original!) but then there was another piece of gaming news that made me think about Metal Gear, and it was Call of Duty. Wait what?

That's right, the latest Call of Duty game to drop is called 'Vanguard', and it was (according to the creators) an attempt to imbue Call of Duty with some of those 'iconic character's that other franchises have and whom have be eerily absent from COD. Bear in mind, that I'm paraphrasing their words there, not giving my own opinion. In fact, the second I heard that very statement the first thing I did was quiz my baby brother, who has obviously never played a COD in his life, about any iconic COD characters he knows and even he was able to produce Soap McTavish. (Because of the Price punching you down the stairs meme, but that still counts) What followed is a game which many are calling painfully average where COD tries to bring back World War II and tell some story about a vanguard made up of 'exceptional individuals' who only get two whole missions in the entire game (the rest are flashbacks showing you how cool each member is) and the game ends on some of the most lazy sequel bait you could hope for. But it made me think of Metal Gear.

'Why?' You might ask. Well, think about that premise again. You've got a fictionalised story set in the throes of World War 2 that brings together a team of crack individuals, all specialists in their fields, on a covert mission that could change the very course of the World War. (In Vanguard that secret conspiracy is hilariously underdeveloped) Yes, by in large Activision had sat down and made their own infinitely worse version of Cobra Unit, the squad led by the Boss in Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater. (FYI Activision; you'd have scored an entirely new fervent fanbase if you'd teamed up with Konami and made this a COD/Metal Gear Crossover. The game would probably be a godawful insult to the Metal Gear name, but us fans are desperate, we'll buy anything.) Naturally this had me thinking about the possibility of the famous Metal Gear game that never was, the one which was rumoured to be in conceptualisation stages, which would have followed that very unit in a whole new era for the Metal Gear brand.

For those who don't remember or are unfortunate enough never to have played Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Cobra Unit are a group of super solider spies who conspired to protect western geopolitical interests through the blackest of black ops missions. Their leader was known as The Joy, whom would later become Snake's mentor under the moniker of 'Boss'. Under her were The Pain, the hornet soldier who was infected with parasites that granted him control over insects; The Fear, the spider soldier who specialised in stealth and experimented with early forms of active camo; The End, 'the father of sniping' an impossibly old man with the ability to photosynthesize to keep himself alive and stake out the perfecting sniping position in the foliage by matching his body temperature to the plants; The Fury, (who the game will insist is not their own insane version of Yuri Gagarin) the secret first man in space who was engulfed in flames upon re-entry and is now a fire and pain obsessed 'fire solider'; and finally The Sorrow, the enigmatic spirit medium who's true powers have never quite been explored due to the fact that at the point of MGS III, the man is already dead. (which doesn't stop him from stealing the show in one of the most memorable set pieces the title has to offer.)  

Now just from that rollcall alone I bet you can start to see how promising of a ensemble cast we were looking at here. Much more interesting than Vanguard which just stuck a bunch of famous faces over stereotypes and called it a day. (Oh, Laura Bailey is in Vanguard? Then I guess she has to be a Russian sniper with a bad accent.) This Metal Gear game would have broken new ground as the first in it's series to feature an entire squad, probably in a system similar to the Diamond Dogs mechanic in Phantom Pain but much more constrained and focused. Heck, maybe there was even the chance for co-operative multiplayer in such a game, given that these agents must have worked on missions together at points. There's just so much that could have been done.

In my mind, the perfect idea would be a game which maps itself out over the course of the War and various locations across the Allied front which would serve as mission locations. Players would choose their load-out and the character they play as for that mission, and perhaps that choice will also somewhat dictate their objectives as characters like The Sorrow, The Fear and The Joy specialise in infiltration whilst The Fury or The Pain can perform more martial actions. Individual stories regarding who these characters were and which parts of the war they're fighting for can keep this team fresh, perhaps with making them a rough near-mistrustful team at first, only to become a diehard unit that transcends the borders of their countries by the end. All of which will heighten the underpinning tragedy of how the two lovers from the group, The Joy and The Sorrow, are destined to be split apart directly after the war as they end up on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain.

But most of all, I'd love to see how the Metal Gear stealth formula would have evolved with the inclusion of special powers and the fertile setting of World War II. How would enemies be balanced in order to make The Fear's stealth suit gameplay standout, and how will The End's photosynthesis play out in an urban sniping setting? Would The Sorrow take the stage, or would he perhaps serve better as an overwatch character? Would Kojima have gone the logical step of exploring World War 2 conspiracies, or perhaps might he have touched on the alleged occult practises of the Nazi's. And of course, what special new event would happen during the events of the war in order to spur the impending historical spiral event which characterise the Metal Gear franchise, wherein the Cold War lasts longer?

Alas, all this is dreaming of a game that we will, rather definitively, never have in our hands because the world is cruel and Konami are crueller. It's always the way that even after an entire career's worth of risks taken and dreams invented, it's the shots that aren't taken which linger the longest, sting the deepest, a sobering reminder that one can never be satisfied. But at least we have some image of what Metal Gear would have ended up looking like without Konami's assassination attempt (codenamed: Metal Gear Survive) and that is an dream to keep us smiling at night. Afterall, isn't it nice knowing that even after everything it covered, Metal Gear could have had even more stories to tell? I liken that to a fable of one's own unending worth and propensity to invent, for as long as we can keep dreaming the fantasy never ends.

Will Konami start licencing?

 Give it back! This isn't right, that was ours!

The great stone wheel of the rumour mill is stirring up a little late this year, at least in regards to what many expect out of the 'gaming even of the year' this time around. E3 probably underwent the best announcement it could have recently, after deciding to not host a show in person for the second year running, although that's more in response to the on-going global caution rather than actual acknowledgement of how much better last year's event was to their usual garbage. Several weeks of coverage spread out for people to digest, great free demos to try out, a distinct lack of existential cringe to recoil at; E3 last year was straight unnatural for many reasons. (But in all the best ways) And perhaps that distinct veer from the usual, that clear indication the humors of the world's body are no longer in alignment, has effected the very soul of the industry as we know it. I say this because people are starting to suggest- nay, to speculate- that Konami's next botch-job is going to be the licensing out of one of their core franchises.

But why am I even talking about Konami in the year 2021, you might be asking, theirs is a clearly fallen company who have no baring in the modern landscape of gaming. The last game I remember out of their studios was that mobile Castlevania game which- oh right that shut down, didn't it? (After a year in operation. Poor form) They've still kept up with their annual PES releases though, because I guess they need to keep the lights on, but apart from that their studio has gone completely radio silent since they torpedoed their own reputation in a fruitless battle against a beloved industry icon, and then ruined their own reputation as competent creators by trying, and utterly failing, to supplant his life's work. (Oh my god, Metal Gear Survive still gives me nightmares some nights. Until I wake up and realise- real life is the nightmare where this game exists in; the night terrors were the escape.) But it's fitting I should invoke the name of my favourite game series of all time. (that favouritism is really directed towards specifically 3 but I think the gist carries all the same) For you see, folk believe that Metal Gear Solid is the game getting licenced.

And to be honest I wouldn't be too darn surprised with the way that Konami have treated that franchise in recent years. (I mean beyond their efforts to actually make a game for it; that deserves it's own special place in hell) On one hand you have the, still inexplicably not cancelled yet, Metal Gear Movie said to be staring Oscar Isaac. I'm told he's a solid actor, but casting anyone as Snake is a damn crime to the source material no matter who's wearing the bandanna. Also, the very concept of creating a stealth action storyline for the cinema is asinine to me. Where will the tension of sneaking around come from? I've never seen a movie shoot a stalking/sneaking scene with even an ounce of the amount of investment that a game can create over the same situation; and Metal Gear was the original king of tension pop moments. I think the project is so wrapped up with the conspiracy storyline and bombastic villains that it totally forgot how the meat of the game doesn't really translate over all that well onto the big screen. Unless they want to take a 'movie Hitman' route and completely forget what the source material was about in favour of mindless action. (Wait- this movie, despite getting greenlit from Konami, actually has Kojima's seal of approval? Hmm... well then I guess I disagree with my favourite game director; I wonder who will have that laugh last...)

Then there's the biggest crime that Konami have ever done to any one of their series', which they then committed several times to their other franchises, and I'm of course talking about Metal Gear Solid 3 Pachinko. (You utter, utter, monsters.) I will literally never forgive Konami for that. The absolute exuberance of seeing your favourite game of all time rendered with the love and care of a high-quality remake only to have it be all for mid-game eye candy shoved onto a Pachinko box; was truly heart-breaking. I may never love again. Actually, I did go and watch some proud Diamond Dog out there who uploaded themselves filming evert cutscene onto Youtube; so I have technically cathartically benefitted from this betrayal in the long run; but I wouldn't have needed that closure if Konami hadn't actually stabbed me in the heart to begin with. (The reanimation was great by-the-by. You can tell the creator really respected Kojima's famously solid scene placement and timing and did their best to match that perfectly, as opposed to the Twin's Snake remake.)

In light of that catastrophe, it might make a little sense why Konami want to distance themselves from any future delving into the Metal Gear series. They have no more creditability themselves and any move they make will be instantly killed by sheer underperformance, the only sort of accountability that these people care about. That's not just a reflection of how loyal Metal Gear fans are, but also how clueless Konami is about the series. They took a stealth action political intrigue thematically heavy-handed series and turned it into a zombie survival game that takes place in an alternate universe. There's no sensible words for how far off the mark you need to be in order to miss the execution that badly. With how the industry works, where the next game suffers from the failures of the last, it would literally be burning money for Konami to sell another Metal Gear. (And Survive did poorly enough anyway) But is their solution really going to be licencing out the franchise?

On one hand it really had done wonders for some series' to have a plethora of different creators come in and have their own swing at things. One of the most iterated upon series that I can think of, Warhammer, has literally every single game genre under it's belt that you could think of short of a racing spin off. (Although there's always potential. The Speed Freaks table top game is just waiting there to get adapted!) But on the otherhand Metal Gear is such a hyper specific series it's a wonder that any other developer could consider approaching it for a one-off entry. The lore is intricate and entwined, the canon and validity of the supernatural differs drastically in relation to however Kojima is feeling that morning, and all the characters know each other intimately; so slipping in another one there will just feel cheap and contrived. (Trust me, I know. They tried that twice with 'Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain')

What makes far more sense is the rumour that Konami are looking to straight up sell Metal Gear; because that's the only way the K-gang are ever going to realistically see decent profits out of this series ever again under their leadership. (Their company badge might as well be profit-kryptonite right now) Plus, if anyone is going to come to this series they'd need to attack it with gusto and commitment; especially since all the loose ends are firmly tied up right now, so a new entry would have to start a fresh branch of the Metal Gear story, and that's no easy task. I mean sure; I know of several great jumping off points for new storylines, but I'm a megafan who's literally had years to ponder this, you'd need that same level of dedication to formulate a new series yourself. (As well as a new suffix to Metal Gear. Again, I have a perfect one. Not sharing. At least not today.)

I am absolutely, unequivocally, all for this rumour being willed into existence by the sheer force of the Internet. Metal Gear, Castlevania, Silent Hill and just about anything of quality needs to divorce itself from Konami if they've any chance to be good again. Some complete hopefuls out there even hypothesis that, with this move, Metal Gear could feasible end up in the hands of Kojima productions! (Could it be coming home?) But I think that's a stretch beyond the pale. Even if Kojima is in those talks, like it's said that he is, I can't understand why he'd go back in his career at this point when it seems he's committed to exploring high concept art games from this point onwards. Mixing art and action to that perfect degree would be JOJO levels of brilliant, but I've suffered too much disappointment in my life relating to this series to even entertain such a notion. But unhooking Metal Gear's reins so that it can gallop free around the pasture? Heck, I'd say that's a good enough compromise for this lifetime. Come on Konami; do the right thing for once in your miserable lives!

Metal... Gears?

 You don't even know what The Philosopher's legacy is, do you?

In but a manner of less than a few days one of the most hyped games that I've ever fallen for will descend upon this earth, and at that time what happens is literally anyone's guess. Perhaps the game will be the next big thing to shake this industry to her bitter core, or just another disappointment like the rest of this year. Either way, on that day there will be nothing left to be excited over, to talk about, to live for. Everything will return to it's base stat of meaninglessness and sad folk like me will drift through the days like phantoms waiting for a car to hit them or something to spice thing up at the very least. Luckily, it would appear that a new contender hasn't even waited for that void to present itself, because already rumours are being drummed up about something new to pine after. Something truly unexpected by every measure. Something near and dear to my heart. And something so deadly and volatile that it can either be the best thing to ever happen, or a horrendous curse to the name so terrible that it burns all those involved irreparably. I'm talking about a Metal Gear Solid remake.

No, the rumours don't touch on a remake of my favourite game of all time, (which would be 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater') but rather on the progenitor of the 'Solid' sub franchise which changed video game storytelling for ever. MGS bought movie level cinematography and spectacle to gaming like never before, and that's a legacy that is very much still alive to this very day. Just look at Uncharted, Last of Us or God of War; all games renowned for their cinematic quality, all can trace their inspirations in some way back to this original game. So when it comes to remaking such a gem, it's far beyond touching up some graphics and throwing in a new camera; you're touching video game history and that has some serious weight to it, which is why it's my duty to impart my gut reaction to this news; this is probably a terrible idea that might blow up in everyone's face. And yet I understand why they did it.

Metal Gear Solid 1 isn't a game that has been immune to tampering and people wanting to throw their own take on things, heck, it isn't even a game that hasn't had a remake before! 2004's 'Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes' for Gamecube was a full remake of the title that threw in completely reworked cutscenes that most people likely think of immediately whenever they picture MGS in their head. (The memory of the original has been a little bit supplanted.) And there have been talks of a movie adaptation for a while now, but I can't help but hope that's just hot steam because there's seriously no sense to bringing a game that's brilliant for being a game to the silver screen. Yes, Metal Gear was inspired by movies, but the elements through which it surpassed that static medium is what makes the game special, such as through the revolutionary stealth gameplay, (Stealth action being something notoriously hard to sell in movies) the great level design and the iconic Psycho Mantis fight, which makes the game unadaptable. (At least in any manner which will sufficiently capture the sprit of the original.) So by comparison, a remake of the game doesn't sound so bad, no?

Of course I still wasn't initially behind the project. The owners of the franchise, Konami, have demonstrated time and again their flagrant disregard for the gaming medium and Metal Gear fans through their heartless and repeated attempts to transmute our love into their own literal money reserves. Metal Gear Solid V was sabotaged by their efforts, resulting in a lop-sided storyline which felt unfinished and a main questline that tapered off after the third chapter and repeated itself. And Metal Gear Survive, the first game to be made without Kojima's involvement whatsoever, was a steaming mess of hot garbage that torpedoed all which people loved about the franchise in order to be a cynical monetised disaster that couldn't even nail it's crappy zombie-base builder premise. Isn't this evidence enough that Metal Gear needs to be left alone? Who in their right mind would take on a project as asinine as a Metal Gear Solid remake? Whoever signed up that would have to have a proven track record for this sort of work, be respected by the community and have the talent on hand to create the impossible. So who is the studio that the rumours have said would be behind this remake? Bluepoint!? Oh...

Bluepoint have made a name for themselves in recent years for, what else, remaking seemingly unremakable games. Who would have imagined that the storied 'Shadows of the Colossus' could be treated to a modern visual update which touched on a few thematic choices, gave the protagonist a face, and still left with a good taste in people's mouths. And how about a remake of the spiritual predecessor to the remarkable Dark Souls franchise, Demon Souls? There was an experimental title that popped on the PS3 back in the day, yet Bluepoint worked their magic and not only improved the title, but turned it into a launch title unit-shifter for the PS5! That's literally incredible work on Bluepoint's part. I wouldn't usually ever look upon a remake of Metal Gear as a good idea, but I have to admit, Bluepoint has the receipts to justify this job. I can't in good faith discredit their talent.

All that being said, this doesn't mean a Metal Gear Solid remake is a good idea, nor that it will be anywhere near as good as Demon Souls, because there's a lot about MGS which I think people tend to forget. Firstly, Metal Gear Solid is a relatively short game by the series' standards, most people can finish it up in just under 5 hours with new players probably clocking in at twice that. Then there is the level design which, whilst legendary for the time, is a bit straightforward and played out by todays standards. Even the story perhaps lacks a lot of the ingenuity and mind bending melodrama which makes the franchise great. (Not saying it's absent at all, just lacking.) Given that Bluepoint are renowned for remaking this games almost to a T, one has to wonder whether that'll be enough this time around for people to flock to Metal Gear like they very much should do.

But if this does go through, who knows what it could lead to? I mean, I don't want to be the person who lights the fire, but if Metal Gear Solid gets a remake, I don't see any decent reason why her sequels should be left out of the fun... Look, I'm just still blue-balled by the way we saw all those great remade MGS 3 scenes out of Konami all those years back only for it to turn out to be for a stupid Pachinko machine; where's our justice? I mean, some might go so far as to call this a prelude to renewed interest in the MGS franchise but I'll be honest, without Kojima or another visionary to guide the way, I have no faith in Konami mounting a new franchise revival. It just isn't in the cards for them in terms of on-hand talent nor the trust of the series fans.

I know that I can't be the old man screaming at windmills forever. Resident Evil 4 Remake is a terrible idea that I hoped would never come about, but it's happening. Even the Demon Souls Remake made me furrow my brow, but I was proven wrong. We live in an age where going back can be as fruitful as going forward, and that's a lot more than can be said about the movie world. (I mean just look at the remake of 'She's all that' which is so bad it literally risked lives! Look that story up for a sad laugh.) Some part of me will always be sad that the MGS franchise is over and nothing great will shock me from it again, but maybe reliving it will be good enough to set the old nostalgia cauldron churning down in my cold old heart chambers... Let this Metal Gear super fan grant you, Bluepoint, my personal seal of confidence. (I know it means a lot to ya.)

Metal- Gear?

Things are happening...

So I think that it's hardly an earth shattering revelation right now for me to say that I'm an overwhelmingly huge fan of the Metal Gear franchise. I'm talking obsession level right here, I love those games more than I like myself. If there was one series of games I would simultaneously give my right arm to work on whilst not ever wanting to touch for fear of sullying the franchise, that conflict of emotion could only ever be attributed to Metal Gear. Thus you know that I was well aware of the budding rumours of an impending remaster hitting the first three games of the franchise, or is it a full remake? (Details are sketchy) But all that was neatly undercut by a huge, actual, development that came right the heck out of nowhere; Metal Gear is now on PC!

Now by 'Metal Gear' I unfortunately only refer to Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, because Snake Eater never gets the love it deserves, but that is some bona fide progress considering the amount of fan made projects attempting to do that very thing which Konami has cut down in the past ten years. (I count at least three.) For some incomprehensible reason none of these games have made their way to Steam or Epic yet, but debuting on GOG is good enough for the time being and it opens the figurative floodgates for all sorts of things that just weren't possible before for fans. For example, now there can be actual work done on HD retexture packs and even model swaps. (The latter of which would certainly be more difficult, but would be welcome considering the low-res models on the first game at least.) We could be looking at a whole renaissance of Metal Gear appreciation starting right now!

But why is this happening? Why now? Konami, as it stands, has no level of cred with the dedicated gaming community and unfortunately for them, not a lot of their brands hold mainstream appeal. Castelvania is typically best when a platformer, Bomberman hasn't been a household name for decades and Metal Gear suffers from the perception of being 'too long'. Each one of these titles that I have mentioned have suffered from either mismanagement or straight up character assassination, so if Konami is trying to drum up excitement they're going to have an uphill struggle. There would have to something big up their sleeves, some sort of upcoming game that could win over even the most curmudgeonly gamers. They'd have to be working up to a full remake of the Metal gear Solid Games. (That's right, we're circling back around to those rumors.)

As the legend goes, someone is hard at work trying to create full remakes, not just remasters, of the MGS franchise in order to capitalize on the same sort of success that Capcom is enjoying. This sort of plan doesn't come out of nowhere either, fans sounded the excitement bell all the way back during the leadup for the abominable Metal Gear Survive when we saw those HD remade MGS 3 cutscenes only to learn they were being made for a Pachinko machine. As a self-proclaimed MGS 3 aficionado who flares his nostrils everytime anyone dares suggest remaking something so close to perfection, even I had to admit that those screens looked good. (A little too much panning in some of the scenes, but I'd rather an over-active camera than a still one.) So Konami knows there's an audience out there willing to pay through the nose for MGS remakes, it makes sense that they'd be capitalising on that.

And this might just come into fruition with another rumour I've been hearing, although to be honest this other one is a lot more of a long shot. Apparently, folk have said that Hideo Kojima, the legend himself, is in talks with Konami in order to get back in their graces to work on Silent Hill(s?) again. Now if that is true, it would be insane giving the absolute 'salted-earth' manner in which their partnership concluded. (Just as a reminder; Konami went so far as to remove Kojima's director credit on the cover of every game it was on.) Plus, other rumours said that their breakup was actually on personal issues over business ones, and I think we all that those wounds tend to cut the deepest. But perhaps cooler heads are prevailing, and Kojima is back on board to help them with the Metal Gear revitalisation project. That would need to be the case, because otherwise I know these games are going to run into some issues.

For one, a full remake would mean that everything would need to be remade from the ground-up, and Konami just aren't talented enough to do that as they are now. Now I say this not as a disparagement against the many artists who do work at Konami, but merely as an observation of the mess they made of Metal Gear Survive. That's a game that was not only conceptually rotten, but which stunk in every aspect. They couldn't even mimic Kojima's eye for shot composition to the point where it was immediately obvious where they stitched his footage with their own. And as for them lacking the writing talent, that's no great insult, most of the world lacks the writing talent to get up to speed with, yet alone significantly add to, Kojima's hair-brained narrative. Even the art of reworking some plot points could collapse the entire premise without the right eyes involved, think about how crazy the source material is! You've got nano-bots, vampires, photosynthesising centenarians; this stuff ain't coming together without a bonafide genius pulling the strings on the otherend.

For two, I don't particularly think that Metal Gear is quite in need of a remake quite as much as the Resident Evil games were. I mean sure, Resident Evil 2 was a masterpiece, but one that was poorly aged in mechanics, gameplay and visuals; Metal Gear Solid 3, for example, is aged in visuals at best. Maybe a few mechanics could do with some work too. But if you remastered the game right it would easily stand up against the stealth games of today as one of the best examples of it's genre, and that's something you can't really improve upon. I wonder if you'd even get anything out of rerecording actors lines, because some lines may be a little stiff, but a lot of it carries the charm of the franchise. We're not talking 1990's Capcom level of crap-tier acting, there's little to improve upon.

At the end of the day, bear in mind that I'm heavily protective of these games so any issue I introduce is going to get naturally inflated, but also remember that I'm the key target audience, so if they can't sell it to me they're pretty much up a creek. Personally I had already long come to terms with the death of my favourite franchise, and I really don't want that corpse poked around any more than it already has been. At this point I don't even know if I'm up for continuation games, even with Kojima at the helm, that's how over this period of games I am. But if the stars align and that old MGS magic manages to break through this rusty exterior of faux-disinterest, I may be willing to at least see what these remakes have to offer. And even if it's a mess, a least we have the originals to fall back on. (Either way; it's a surprisingly good day to be a Metal Gear fan)

Birthday Blog: 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'

The past is gone...

Today, on my Birthday, I've decided that I would give myself a little treat by talking about my single favourite game of all time. Afterall, what better time is there to discuss a topic of such importance when it comes to personal video game preference? You can learn so much about someone by learning what their favourite game is; you learn why it is they play games, what they hope to get out of their time and what is the one thing they want for everytime they start a new game. As a lifelong gamer, my favourite game is especially important to me, as it took had active role in the development of my life. I'm talking about that one game which helped to ignite my passion for storytelling and essentially set me on the path that I am on today. A game that I unconditionally love through all of it's faults and imperfections, because it is perfect in my eyes. A game that is closer to me than many of my closet confidants. I am talking about: 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'.

My History

I have detailed my history with the Metal Gear franchise before, however it's my birthday and I love telling this story so get off my back already! I did not hail from a particularly flush or affluent family in my youth; Although, I was lucky enough to be raised in a rather nice neighbourhood, albeit in a crappy city. We were still a lower class family living in a middle class area, however, so we weren't always, and still aren't, abundant in disposable funds. (I can only imagine what a headache it must have been for my parents once they realised I was getting into a hobby as expensive as gaming!) That being said, they still endeavoured to do everything that could in order to provide for me and later by brother too, eventually this would branch out to keeping us entertained. I would get a lot of hand-me-down toys and computer games to play around with (Which ultimately meant I ended up getting more things then those kids who only accepted brand new toys.) This philosophy would lead to the first system that I would call mine.

My father came back from work one day with a pretty big Christmas gift, A second-hand PS2 and a whole box worth of video games. Apparently a colleague of his was moving and needed to clear out her space and so I ended up profiting from the situation. In my first Metal Gear blog I talked about this in detail, but long story short this was how I came across what had become my copy of: 'Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater'. At first I found myself instantly repulsed by the game. I couldn't quite remember if I'd heard of the series before (I had.) and something about the exquisite box art didn't gel with my childish brain. It was only after I had exhausted every other game in that box, that I finally got around to giving Metal Gear a chance. Or rather, the manual a chance. Back in the day of physical games, manuals were the ideal piece of literature that every gamer partook in. They contained useful insight, stories, pictures and screenshots. It was the way that we would allow our imagination to the paint the picture of the game before we ever put the disc in our console. (Therefore guaranteeing that we would ruin any potential to be surprised. Kids are weird.) So instead of just trying the game that I had lying around I decided to test the water with it's manual, and what I saw shocked me.

Now I was no stranger to action video games by any stretch of the imagination, indeed I had played a great many, and yet they all seemed cut from the same cloth. Some were fantastical, others were more horror-based, but all seemed mechanically homogenised; that's just the consequence of widely accepted standards for game design. From what I read in that manual, however, 'Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater' seemed to challenge all of that. Actions were limited by a stamina bar, I'd seen that before, but I'd never seen a system where you needed to collect food by hunting in order to keep that bar stocked. You could take care of enemies by shooting them, yet if you snuck up you could hold them up and essentially mug the poor souls! Even cutscenes were more involved than what any of Metal Gear's contemporaries were doing at the time, with an interactive button allowing players to change their perspective in dynamic ways such as looking down binoculars or through the eyes of Snake. (Think Quibi but good.)

What stood out to me beyond all of that was the stealth system, specially the 'index', which was far beyond anything I could ever imagine a game to be. Now, clearly that was mostly due to the fact that I had never played any stealth game before (there were a lot of them, I just never got them.) But even then, the specific way in which Metal Gear bought stealth to life was simply unbelievable to my mind back then. A system within which players had to actually match the pattern of their camouflage with the specific environment in order to stay stealthy? Are you kidding me; that's witchcraft! And it would be dynamic, with the need to change camo as you move from grassy floor to rocky land. This was character customisation with a fantastically meaningful twist to it and I just couldn't get enough.

Of course, for my little adolescent eyes the real thing which sealed the deal was the gun page. Yeah, the game manual had an entire couple of pages dedicated to the vast array of items that could be acquired within the game, and that meant at least one page full of guns. Once again, I couldn't imagine this many weapons in one game, and all of them seemed so strange and varied. On one hand you had the old M16, (or XM16E1) those were practically in every single game, but what the heck was a Drugnov? Or a Mosin-Nagant? Remember that this was back in 2004 before Call of Duty became a phenomena and every single teenager developed an encyclopedic knowledge for the entire US weapon stockpile. (It's weird what COD culture did to us.)

So with all that to look through it only made since that Metal Gear Solid 3's booklet became my favourite go-to reading material whenever I didn't have the ability to game myself. I would keep it on my bedstand before I went to sleep, I would read it in the mornings before school; I'd like to think that I didn't go so far as to bring it into school to read it, but I was chronically geeky so there's a good chance that I did. (And that was before I developed my rudimentary social skills, so you can bet I'd rather read a game manual than talk to other kids at lunch.) I realise that this must make we sound like a total weirdo, and that would be because I was and still am. (Why do you think I waited until by birthday to rat myself out like this.) Also, I'm beating around the bush about it because I'm terrible at remember ages, but I was most certainly not old enough to play Metal Gear, so that's a whole can of worms I don't want to even think about right now...

Around that time I had another game that I was pining for, and that was because I'd played it around friend's places and was incredibly excited to see it end up as part of my collection by chance. Unfortunately, that was game was 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas', a series which every parent knows is too adult for their child. I could maybe brag off some of my 15-gated games by the natural benefit of my parents being naive, but there's no sneaking GTA past anyone, (it's too infamous) and so I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place with that title. All I wanted was to jump into what would become my favourite Rockstar title, but my Dad was wise enough to know I wasn't quite ready for it yet. (Although that didn't stop me sneaking play sessions at night. Kids gotta kid)

But in that time I was left with the void of needing a game to enjoy, before realising that there was one I knew a great deal about but had never tried. By that point I had played just about every single game that had caught my eye and was only left with picking through the extras, yet somehow it was only until that moment that I though it might be fun to throw on Metal Gear for a while. Of course, I wasn't exactly expecting good things but I was slightly curious after all the things that I had read. I mean, how bad could the game feasibly be, right? And so I snuck myself some time to play MGS one sunny afternoon and the rest is pretty much history.

A game like no other

Most people who have been gaming just a bit longer than me credit 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' for being the first time gaming really evolved into something truly cinematic. For me, however, Zelda was never a childhood obsession of mine, so I had to wait until Metal Gear to happen upon that particular revelation. It didn't take too long either, as pretty much from the moment go Metal Gear Solid 3 throws all of it's cards on the table with that iconic as heck introduction. That great scene cutting between the control room and the plane hangar as our hero prepares for the world's first HALO jump, is just a whole different ballgame to Spiderman 2 or Fable. From the camera angles, the shot composition, the noticeable artist's intent; for the first time ever I saw a game that managed to capture true cinematic magic!

Of course, now I know this is due to the talents of Kojima productions and the guiding eye of the movie-nut game director Hideo Kojima, but back then it felt like I was watching a movie come to life, and i was instantly enamoured. Snake Eater told the story of a CIA covert operations group known as FOX looking to cut it's teeth on an extraction mission deep in the Russian forest, and you get the honour of playing as their top agent; Naked Snake. Kojima always had this talent for making these easily digestible set-ups that build and build into something elaborate and insane by the credits, evolving the stakes along with the pace in a way we just don't see in films today. (Or really ever, to be honest. There isn't enough time for it.)

For me I was luckily that I started here in the Metal Gear series, as this was a prequel game intended to tell the story behind a figure famous to the lore of the series, whilst to me it was just a really cool story that I could jump into. I wasn't burdened by the games worth of lore involving clones, warring brothers and amputated replacement arms that contains the soul of your deceased brother maybe. (Metal Gear's lore does get trying sometimes) That perspective allowed me to approach the game in the manner that I felt it was intended; like a pure self-contained adventure following one man who slips into events far beyond his depth. It's a testament to the strength of the story and writing that this was even feasible, and that I could come to connect with Snake on his struggles without having to know who he was in his later years.

And that isn't even touching upon the strengths of the gameplay, and there were certainly a lot! By today's standards, of course, there would be a tad bit too many loading screens, (Although they honestly don't take more than a couple seconds anyway) but that is all understandable when you take into account the sheer amount of detail contained in literally every single corner of this game. Each slice of Tselinoyarsk is built to accommodate the stealthy individual with ferns of grass scattered all over the place, stealth index modifiers related to every visible texture and several routes around each guard encounter. But even beyond that there are secret pieces of discarded equipment in treetrunks, herbs and fruit in the environment for harvesting and even active ecosystems that the player can exploit in order to get one-up on those around him.

Coming to all this as a kid who thought he knew the extent of what games could be, I was quite frankly shook with everything I was getting my hands on. All of a sudden I was playing a game which redefined my parameters for 'immersive' and made me really feel like I was prowling the woods as an apex predator. Nothing I had read in my extensive time with the manual could accurately convey how fun adapting to all of these systems would be and how empowering the plain act of stealth-ing was. It's often joked about how all of these stealth-based games will inundate players with ways to kill and then tell them not to use them, but Metal Gear always seemed mindful to ensure we had just as many ways to distract, or forsee the patrolling soldiers, making either play-style as fun as the other. I still remember how blown away I was at the time by even the littlest things, like the way that Snake could knock his knife-hand against a wall face in order to attract  guards. (How is that not a thing in more games?) Long story kinda short; 'Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater' was a supremely fun game to play with, and it was inevitable that I was going to stick with it through to the end.

Snake's Story

Coming into it fresh, perhaps the most surprising element about Metal Gear as a game from the early 2000's was the way in which it's story proved just as engaging and interesting as anything you'd see in film. As I alluded to earlier, there were some significant games who weaved their stories into a deft thread, but those were always the exceptions, never the rule. Snake Eater, meanwhile, delivered a brilliantly paced, personally-charged, spy thriller to rival (and honestly trump) most of the James Bond movies. (I've always said that MGS 3 was the greatest Bond game ever made, they just forgot to throw in James.) The stakes are deliciously universal whilst intensely individual, the acts are perfectly pitched and the set-pieces are frankly unforgettable. (I may be jumping the gun a bit but it must be said; if you've never played Snake Eater because you're dubious if it holds up, change that right now because I promise you that it absolutely does.)

As a kid playing through this game I will be honest, there were quite a decent amount of story beats that I frankly didn't understand, but even then I was still fully capable of playing along and having fun. The one which still gets me, however, even to this day is the way in which Kojima tries to shock the audience with the surprise of Eva and Tatyana being one and the same. Seriously? The blonde haired blue eyed women with the exact same face structure who are never in the same place at the same time were the same person? Who'd have thought... Seriously, though, it was only in my third playthrough that I realised that was supposed to be a surprise reveal. So that's a bit silly looking back, but it still doesn't detract from the scenes she's in. (Especially not the one with the "Motorcycle oil")

I think what it was that 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater' in particular did so well, was marrying the natural ramping of the game with the pacing of the story and the growth of the main character. (A narrative polygamous extravaganza, if you will.) Once the prologue is behind you and the true stakes of the game are revealed, (spoilers) we are alerted to the fact that our former mentor and her entire crew of WW2 Heroes (Cobra Unit) have joined up with a former-Soviet megalomaniac in a defection so volatile that it has the potential to spark global conflict if it isn't resolved presently. (There's also the fact that, said megalomaniac, just blew up a Russian facility with an American nuke that your mentor handed over as a defection gift.) This means that you're literally racing against the potential end of the world whilst facing up against your mentor (fittingly named: The Boss) who abandoned you years before you felt your training was complete.

Right away Kojima sets up this feeling of inferiority as Snake and The Boss converse before her defection only to come to a small argument once Snake complains how she never taught him to "Think like a solider." The Boss merely remarks that she can't teach him that, and sows the seeds of Snake not being ready to be his own man, clearly not even knowing what that means. Then, at the moment of her defection, we get a much more hands-on demonstration of his inferiority to her when he tries to stop her from kidnapping the scientist he just recovered and promptly gets his arse handed to him. And I mean it, The Boss totally beats the ever living crap out of Snake and he doesn't even get a hit in. By this point the game has already taken the time to inform us that they know all the same moves, so clearly there must be something more innate setting them apart as The Boss breaks Snake's arm and throws him off a cliff.

So right there you have your set-up; Snake needs to kill The Boss in order to prove to the Kremlin that the CIA had nothing to do with The Boss' defection; (and the subsequent attack on Russian soil. Even though they kinda did, but that's a whole other story) but in order to do that he needs to recover, regroup, deploy one week later and stop whatever it is she's planning with her new BFF, Ex-GRU Colonel Volgin. He has to grow into the soldier that the Boss tried to make him, and prove that growth by fighting her former WW2 squad-mates in order to reach her. (Handily providing a good narrative reason for there to be boss fights.) I am being honest when I say that I've never seen another video game weave gameplay, story and character so tightly together and I know it's not easy to do. That's one of the many reasons why Kojima is so highly regarded for the auteur that he is. 

There and back again

Operation Snake Eater follows Snake on his journey as he is forged in the fire of ordeal through his attempts to survive the Russian Forest. That alone actually sets it quite apart from the other 'stealth game' contemporaries as rather than having the action occur in a sterile and sensible building structure (as the past two MGS games did) it happened to blossom out into the wild and dangerous wilds of an unkempt forest. Although the action did not stay there, but moved along with the plot to "The virgin cliffs" from which Tselinoyarsk gets it's name before finally going back to more industrious environments with the infiltration of Groznyj Grad. (Terrible Fortress.)

Along that journey there are several threats to overcome, from Volgin's GRU soldiers to The Boss' wartime friends to even an appearance from a young Revolver Ocelot. (Looking very much like a grown up version of Gary from Bully.) Your options for handling these threats are almost never linear, and some of the little tricks are so out of left field that even now I see folk completely blindsided by a few of them. I mean sure, you can shoot a gun or sneak past them, but did you know that you can capture a python and then chuck it at an enemy to watch them struggle? How about the way in which you can target and blow up certain supply rooms to negatively effect nearby enemies with permanent debuffs? (If you blow up the food then they'll be more eager to chase down any spare rations you leave in their path, blow up ammo and they'll be more sparing with shots in combat, etc.) In any other game these would be huge gimmicks that are slapped on the box and sold as the be-all end-all of dynamic gameplay systems, but in MGS 3 they're just there. The supply room trick isn't even in the game manual and the game doesn't tell you unless you specifically radio for SIGINT whilst literally staring one in the face.

But that's just the ways in which the emergent gameplay pans out. For the boss fights things are a little more straight-forward, but even then with room to breathe. But before I go into it, can I just lose myself for a moment in a time when games still had boss battles? What days those were! When you could expect the adventure to be inter-cut with one-on-one battles of endurance and wit. Sure there'll be a gimmick or sleight thrown in there to keep things fresh, but at it core it was your health bar against theirs, the ultimate test of wills. What happened to those days? Well, I know what happened. Less and less imaginative folk got ahold of game design and started making every boss into lazy bullet-sponge time sinks that took all the fun out of it. Nowadays almost every video game boss fight is little more than their gimmicks and sometimes just a few scripted quick time events. (That's part of the reason why I'm so glad that I found the Kingdom Hearts series recently, but I digress...)

Metal Gear Solid 3 launched a long time before that dark age of boss fights and, in fact, this title has a bit of a reputation for having some of the greatest bosses in gaming. Who could forget the subterranean flamethrower duel with The Fury, (who is totally supposed to be MGS' version of Yuri Gagarin) the cavern side gun slog against Ocelot or, the classic, the sniper showdown against the photosynthetic centenarian: The End. All of these fights are renowned for being distinct, cinematic and just a whole lot of fun to go through. Whatsmore, you can handle them through killing your opponent or, if you're feeling sly, by tranquillising them into submission. (Due to their microbombs most still die, but you'll get a cool reward for your patience.) The End even has two unique ways of killing him that are unlike anything I've ever seen in any other video game. One in which you can quickly snipe him after the end of his introductory cutscene, which is obviously before he has been 'awoken' and the other one which simply requires you to save during his fight and sod off for a week. Literally, when you come back he'll have died of old age. (How wild is that?)

For my money, however, no fight is better than the last few that are thrown during the climatic final act of the story. (With that finale being timeless.) Because afterall, how can you have a metal gear game without the Metal Gear? Speaking of, I applaud MGS 3 once again for doing the impossible: finding a sensible reason for the existence of the series' namesake. In previous games, the Metal Gear was a walking weapons platform that raised a lot of questions, such as why? What's the point of sticking a missile on a giant robot when you can just shoot it from a cannon? Of course, the answer was that the Metal Gear could be deployed anywhere but really think about it; how in the heck is anyone supposed to transport a giant steel monstrosity that's 21.5 meters tall? That thing would drop a jet out of the sky, it's more trouble than it's worth.

In MGS 3, however, being a prequel; you get to witness the progenitor of the Metal Gear line: The Shagohod. Now this weapon is the perfect answer to a timely question, how could the one win the Cuban missile crisis? Now of course, logistically this crisis came about due to an issue wherein nuclear ordinance was being moved into striking range of the US mainland, igniting a tense standoff that only avoided full blown World War due to cooler prevailing heads of state on both sides of the iron curtain. You all know this, it's ancient history at this point. In MGS 3, however, this is very recent news, and Colonel Volgin rebelled against his Soviet colleagues for being too weak to go to full blown war. (And other reasons which I cannot go into right now.)

The Shagohod was thus invented to circumvent such a crisis in the future, by being a large mobile weapons platform capable of being a ICMB carrier and be attached with jet rockets. This means that with enough rocket fuel and as little as 3 miles of runway, it can attain enough momentum to launch a rocket from anywhere in Russia to anywhere in the USA; hitting them before they even knew a missile had been launched. That is logical, and beyond that, it's scary; isn't it? Because it's sounds just technical enough to be real, and isn't the threat of something like that something to be worried about? Of course, by the time this game was made that threat is entirely trumped, now anyone can fire a nuke from anywhere to hit wherever they want, and you can bet your bottom-dollar that's something Kojima wanted folks to be thinking about, being an anti-nuclear activist like he is. 

A lot of this is something that I, as an amateur writer, can only dream of imitating; subtlety, mindfulness and real stakes. So much about the narrative of Metal Gear Solid 3 is like this, ideally cinematic with a little bit of something extra to it. Sometimes that extra can be a lifelike reflection of an issue, othertimes it's weird surrealism, never is it dull or pastiche like one would naturally assume a spy story to be. (Like James Bond so often is.) Speaking of writing, did I ever mention that Hideo Kojima, through this game, is the reason why I became attached to writing? (Which even today is the only aspect of my person that I don't completely despise.) That wasn't sparked from any of these overarching themes or plotlines, I was too young and stupid to understand any of that when I first played the game. No, instead it was something much more mundane that opened up the way I see storytelling.

You see I took for granted all of the effortlessly cinematic visuals and composite shots for the very reason I just described, because they seemed effortless. Much more interested was I in the big guns and the set piece moments and all the stuff that the storytelling enabled. That was until just after the legendary fight against The End, wherein I find myself up against another iconic scene; The ladder. (That's not code for anything, it's just a ladder.) Functionally, this tunnel space acts as a transition from one environment to another, as Snake enters this service space in the forest and alights from the top of the area's mountain, but Hideo Kojima and his team decided to make it much more than that. You see, when Snake is climbing this ladder there isn't a cutscene simulating the passage of time. (like one would naturally expect in times like this) No, instead you do it all in realtime.

Now climbing the ladder doesn't take too hideously long, it's about two and a half minutes of work, but when you think about it; that is a while now, isn't it? Any ladder that's two minutes high is a fair bit of distance, and asking the player to sit around and hold the analogue stick up for Snake is just a recipe for boredom, right? However even to this day this is one of favourite scenes and it's all down to one subtle addition. As a kid playing this game I legitimately thought I was imagining things when I heard Cythnia Harrell's voice crooning my ascent, but having played the game several times over I now can confirm that I was not going crazy, it's there. Whilst the player makes their arduous way up the mountain service tunnel, an acapella rendition of MGS' Bond-tastic main theme is played, and to this day it still gives me chills. But here's the kicker; it had no purpose to be there for the good of the game.

Think about that; the player is subjected to a two minute ladder trip with a fixed camera angle just to hear the main theme played again, sans instrumental, and none of it enriches the gameplay. As a kid this struck me as so deliberate, so distinct, that it forced me to open my eyes and look at everything else that Kojima and co were doing with this game, and that's when I saw it. The bleedin' obvious that I've reiterated time and time again over this blog. I saw that this game was designed from the ground-up to be a movie story told through the lenses of a game. (It's just good luck and skill which ensured both the movie and the game sections were exceptional.) And that, dear reader, was the catalyst that shook something loose in my ol' noggin. You see before that I'd only ever seen stories for what they were, Moby Dick was printed ink on a page, A Christmas Carol was just a bunch of actors in a studio. (Yes, it was a book first. Just go with it.) But now I had something that wasn't so simple. It was a movie, in a game. That got the ball rolling as I started to realise how malleable stories could be, how you can tell anything on any medium with enough skill, and that's why I do the things I do today. (For better or for worse. Mostly for worse, however, let's be fair.)

Tears in rain

If there is that one moment, in 'Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater' that will always stay with me, it's that finale. Just like that moment with Aerith in Final Fantasy 7; or the strangely similar moment with Lunafreya Nox Fleuret in Final Fantasy 15; Or... (A non FF game. Think! Think...) Oh, that moment when you confront Darth Malak in 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'! (Nailed it.) These are the scenes that don't just stay with you, but still evoke those same emotions and reactions everytime that you view them. Whether that is a moment of great sorrow for the loss of someone so well realised that they felt like a friend, or the shock of a brilliantly executed reveal or, in the case of this game, a confrontation of such weight and significance that you cannot help but stop and feel the power of it.

By the end of the game, Snake has been through the ringer. He's beaten each member of the Cobra Unit and proven himself in that regard, he's survived multiple deadly scenarios, uncovered the existence of The Shagohod, been captured and tortured, jumped off a cliff, endured a hazy trip into the afterlife which may have been in his head but maybe not, fought Colonel Volgin man-to-man, joined up with another spy (Eva) and blown up half of Groznyj Grad, battled the Shagohod whilst hanging out the back of a motorbike's sidecar, and dragged Eva through enemy infested woods once she crashed that bike and got skewered on a tree branch. He's already saved the world from a nuclear platform it wasn't ready to face and now just needs to get back home and take that break he's been waiting for, but things are never that easy. On the way to their MiG escape plane that's hidden on the lake, Eva hits Snake with a bomb; before she was found out as a spy, The Boss told Eva to direct Snake to her if they made it this far.

At this point Snake has a choice, he's clearly capable of just cutting and running, but his mission isn't technically done unless he kills The Boss; the woman who practically raised him. Although for Snake there isn't even really a choice to make, as this is a confrontation that he has endured everything to be ready for, and now he is. So he leaves Eva to prepare their exit so he can travel to one of the most visually evocative locations in the entire franchise; The Lake of Destiny. (I can't remember the Russian name.) This place is a beautiful clearing full to the brim of blooming water lilies, creating this eerie curtain of white atop the ground, and in the middle of that clearing: The Boss in her silvery stealth suit petting her milky Andalusian steed.

There they finally meet, student and teacher, but instead of descending immediately to blows or accusations, instead The Boss has a story to tell Snake. One last lesson, if you will. She tells him the story of her life, showing Snake the ways in which their lives have shadowed each other. She talks about how she was used as a guinea pig for military nuclear experimentation in her youth; how she rose to fight for America when the world fell to war; how she had to have a caesarean on the battlefield, only to have the baby taken away from her; and basically the many ways in which she had given so much of herself to a machine that only seems to take and take. She speaks more about herself in that moment than she ever had to anyone else before, and to me I always interpreted this as a warning to Snake. They were so similar, and she didn't want him to end up consumed by conflict his entire life like she was, as that is a loser's game. Before he can get too complacent, however, she radio's into her team and delivers a deadly ultimatum; in 10 minutes a strike team will home-in to bomb this entire area, and only one of them could leave before then. In her words, she had given him everything she could and the only thing left for him to take was her life. And with that she declares "Lets make this the greatest 10 minutes of our lives", and the final fight commences.

I still get chills just recounting the set-up to this fight, but the battle itself is just as iconic in my mind. I love the setting of the white grass-lily field, and the way her armour makes her almost invisible amidst the fauna. I love the way the fight itself is a mix between slow anticipation and flashes of intense, fast action. I love the Easter egg in which the only animals in this area are 3 silvery snakes which, should you capture them, are labelled 'Liquid' 'Solid' and 'Solidus'. (The three codenames that will be given to Snake's sons years from now.) And I love the dramatic tension and pathos that is conveyed through quite possibly the greatest final fight of all time. Yes, The Boss is without a doubt my favourite fight in Metal Gear, and incidentally, she is also my favourite character. Her plea to Snake is the foundation for much of the tragedy of the series, as she tries to be honest with the one person she feels is close enough to really hear her, only for him to totally mistake her intent. Those who know the series will be familiar with the fact that Snake embroils himself in warfare and being a solider in his later years, until he becomes a twisted shell of his heroic past. Only during this scene do we know the reason why he does that, because he thinks he's living up to the image of his mentor.

Of course, Snake beats The Boss whilst that fabulous main theme kicks up in the background to set the climatic nature of the fight. (And handily inform the player how long they have before the bombs drop) What follows is, and let's be honest here, blatant plagiarism; but can I really knock it for such a beautiful visual? The Boss lies defeated in the white lilies, waiting for Snake to finish her off. (an action which the game makes the player do) Only once the bullet is fired does something unexplainable happen; as the entire field of lilies bloom into red with subtle pulse of a thumping heart. It's a beautiful and surreal moment; it's also lifted directly from the 2002 epic martial arts film, Hero. (But can you really argue when the results are this good?)

The Metal Gear series is long and storied, but never again did they reach such a height as this finale did, and I'll possibly never experience a story that touches me so profoundly as this one did. Sometime I should take an entire blog to talk about the emotional significance of this one scene alone, but for now I am sated by the chance to just talk about and share it with you all today. As a recent chronophobe, I don't really find much to celebrate in a Birthday, but taking the time to recount beloved, even formulate, stories in my past does help to alleviate some of that stress. I'm glad I found this outlet to write to, as otherwise I think I'd likely succumb to that feeling of uselessness that I'm hounded by everyday. I'm not sure if this helps in any tangible sense, but I like to think it does. Thanks for sticking around, and if you're reading this, sorry for rambling so long. (MGS 3 tends to make me do that.)