Growing Up With: Metal Gear Solid
Oh man… this one hurts. Recently at the date of this posting, it was rumored that news about Metal Gear Solid will be announced for E3. This news prompted me to think about the Metal Gear Solid series, both the good and the bad…
This series is an interesting one for me because I didn’t play the games until the 4th game in the series was announced. I did however watch the series as the little brother, in awe watching my older brother play and complete most of the games. I have since then played all the entries, even the spinoffs and original NES games.
When I was first introduced to these games, it was far too complicated for me to understand. Now that I’m an adult, the series’s story is still too complicated to understand! That does not, however, detract from the fact that these games are so much fun to play! To put it as simply as possible, these games follow the story of following the various soldiers who use some version of the code-name: Snake. Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, Solidus Snake, Naked Snake, and Venom Snake. I was going to attempt to summarize the story but I have decided that would be way too complicated and pointless. The story is amazing, as convoluted as it is, and was a huge part of why I enjoyed these games. It even crossed over into the real world, the famous example is when the game tells you to call Meryl and her number is on the back of the CD case the game came in. The main protagonist in these games, Solid Snake, is such an iconic character that he was even added to the Super Smash Bros. roster.
The game-play is genre defining, instead of going in guns blazing like you would expect most A.D.D. riddled children to want to do, this game forces you to play slow and stealthy. Try to outwit the enemy, rather than to brute force your way was rewarded. Plant bombs to stop Gray Fox, switch your controller to the player two spot to trick Psycho Mantis, use chaff grenades against Metal Gear Rex, and of course, sneak past enemies using the box.
As the series grew, so did the game-play. MGS 3 introduced CQC (close quarters combat) a martial arts style that allowed the player to grab, knockout, or interrogate their opponent. Kinda like fictional krav maga. There was even a slight survival aspect, as you had to eat and fix your wounds. MGS 5 introduced an open world style game-play, improved on the shooting mechanics of the game, and the npc A.I. However it is in MGS 5 that the empire started to crumble.
The maker of these games, Hideo Kojima, was let go from Konami in the middle of creating MGS 5, and it is clearly obvious as you play the game. The game starts off great, plays great, looks great, everything seems great… but something was off. The best way to describe it was like the last day of summer break before school started. You wanted to do something special and you did but in the back of your mind, you knew it was ending soon. This game had some real downer moments to represent the end as well. Eventually the story just sort of stops with the game. There are audio logs that explain the rest of the story but it is very clear that what was originally planned, was cut short.
Finally the infamous spinoff entry released three years after Hideo Konjima’s cut from the company: Metal Gear Survive. This game hurts to think of. This abomination was created out of greed and nothing is more evident of that than the micro-transactions. You could pay real world money for “Survive Coins” to buy in-game things such as boosters, base defenders, emotes and load-out slots. They effectively took a beloved franchise and made a mobile style cash grab game that had nothing to actually do with Metal Gear Solid other than re-using the assets from the fifth game. And with that, the empire of Metal Gear Solid does not go out with a bang, but a simple and pathetic whimper…
Now with that being said, what I’m about to say can be perceived as controversial but… I think Metal Gear Solid would have done great if it released a battle royale style game. Okay! OKAY! Here me out! Think about it, MGS 5 introduced great gun-play and physics in an open world but it still had amazing stealth mechanics. Imagine Fortnight or PUBG with stealth mechanics like Metal Gear Solid. It would be so much FUN! Sneaking around, performing CQC, hiding in a box, tranquilizing people and Fulton recovery system them out of the game. Some of the MGS games had multiplayer already, just make it bigger! Alas, even with the rumors of MGS 3 getting a remake, the best we are going to get is a Snake skin in Fortnite.
