by Eric Coomber

So it’s been a while since I’ve written to you peeps for a while, and there’ve been a few reasons for that. First, I wanted to talk about E3, but I was a bit disappointed at what Nintendo brought to the table and wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase it well. Then I saw Jurassic World, but Mike already reviewed it, and a short paragraph from me definitely would not do it justice. And most recently, Satoru Iwata, President and CEO of Nintendo, passed away at the way too young age of 55. Even then, I don’t feel comfortable writing on his legacy because I don’t know enough about it. In all honesty, only in the last two or three years have I become interested in the politics and business side of video games; I also still have not played Earthbound, of which Iwata was a main programmer. But there’s somebody else in the video game industry whom I have respected for many years: 小島 秀夫. That’s um, that says Kojima Hideo. Or, you know, as English speakers would refer to him, Hideo Kojima. On to the stuff!

A few weeks ago, I watched a group of my favorite let’s-players go through the original Metal Gear (1987) game, and that prompted me to seriously figure out how I could get myself into the series, too, specifically with Metal Gear Solid. In one word, it is fantastic (adj. – 1. imaginative or fanciful, remote from reality; extraordinarily good or attractive). It does everything the original does, only better. The way to go through each area, aside from strategically and stealthily sneaking one’s way, is based on the use of specific items to overcome certain obstacles and puzzles.

The same goes for the bosses. Now, at this point, I realize it kinda sounds like a Zelda game. And I’ll admit the original NES games of the two series share some similarities in the ways of progression, but the major difference I’d say between the Zelda series and at least Metal Gear Solid (its sequels may be different) is that the different items found can generally be used throughout the game and different areas, not specifically to the location in which they’re found to beat one specific boss.

Definitely one of the things that has me floored is the fact that this was released back in 1998. Of course, I’m not trying to say great games weren’t made until recently (in fact, many would argue that the majority of the best games are older; that or it’s just nostalgia-goggles). I’m just floored by the well done voice acting for each character with multiple lines of dialogue, the music and overall sound design, the graphics, the gameplay that is both fun and challenging, and the fact that there are a plethora cutscenes which usually last at least four or five minutes; however, many go longer than that, too. And yet there are plenty of games that come out now-a-days that are published by big studios but are still flawed and broken as hell (see Sonic Boom: The Rise of Lyric).

Metal Gear Solid does, however, struggle with a major aspect of gameplay: explanation of how to proceed. The game constantly breaks the fourth wall by having characters tell the player, currently assuming the role as Solid Snake, what to do to overcome a certain obstacle. For me it just doesn’t work well. I find that this constantly reminds me that I am definitely playing a video game rather than being Solid Snake in the world, which is our own but based slightly in the future in each iteration, that Kojima has set up. I hate to use the cliché term immersion, but it really does ruin whatever immersion the game attempts to establish. And while I’m complaining, I might as well throw in that Snake controls like a person who can only move in eight directions, and needs to think about changing the direction before doing it, especially when crawling. Things are clunky, but for a first game in the modern Metal Gear series, I can deal with it.

Other than that, though, I really like it. I’m impressed by it. It’s fun and rewarding to make it through areas unseen by enemies and makes you feel badass when you manage to take down bosses that ordinary humans just would not be able to contend with. The game came out approximately seventeen years ago, and I would highly recommend it to anybody who has also waited until now to finally dive into it and the series as a whole. Metal Gear Solid is rad as heck.

PS – Fuck you, Konami. You’re shooting yourselves in the foot (at least in the eye of the western world) by neglecting your video games, dissolving Kojima Productions, canceling Silent Hills, and removing Hideo Kojima’s name from the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I miss the old you. Here’s to hoping Nintendo or someone else buys your IPs!