Post by KC on Dec 4, 2006 16:05:17 GMT 6
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The history of videogaming's legendary undercover operative, Solid Snake - part one
Throughout the history of videogames, no series has mastered the fine art of envelope-pushing quite like Metal Gear. It was Metal Gear Solid, if you cast your mind back, that first truly showed us what Sony's ugly grey machine was capable of. Likewise Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a title that took PlayStation 2 and squeezed its testicles so hard it coughed up an extra ten per cent of visual firepower that no one even knew existed.
And so the trend continued, from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and that jungle to Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a game currently pushing the PSP to the verge of total malfunction. Next up is Solid Snake's appointment with PlayStation 3 and the frankly winkie-tingling prospect that is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. And that has to be special.
In the following feature, PSW pays tribute to this genre-defining, awardswallowing, world-conquering series, first looking at where it all began, then casting an eye into the future. So please, follow us into the world of stealth gaming par excellence. And remember, keep the noise down.
MENTAL GEAR SOLID!
A brief recap of one of the most insanely convoluted plots in history.
Trying to unravel the plotline of the Metal Gear series is like reading the script for the last series of Lost backwards. In Korean. There's just so much going on. Terrorists, genetic clone armies, futuristic nanotechnology, giant robotic missile launchers and a shadowy government agenda that goes right to the President: not only does Metal Gear have one of the most complex plotlines in gaming history, it's also one of the most socially conscious, with an anti-nuclear weapon message layed on so thick it can feel like you're playing a Party Political Broadcast for the Green Party. Confused? Then read on.
1. METAL GEAR
What's going on? It's 1995 and there's a weapon of mass destruction being made in a place called Outer Heaven. The government responds by sending in FOXHOUND operative Gray Fox to investigate.
What happens? Fox goes missing, so they send in new FOXHOUND recruit Solid Snake, who rescues him and finds out about a tank Outer Heaven is developing called Metal Gear.
How does it end? Snake neutralizes Metal Gear and confronts the leader of Outer Heaven, Big Boss, who's also (yawn) Snake's dad. Outer Heaven is destroyed. Snake wins.
2. METAL GEAR 2: SOLID SNAKE
What's going on? It's 1999 and the leaders of Zanzibar Land have kidnapped a scientist responsible for some kind of fancy algae. Then they hold the world to ransom.
What happens? Solid Snake creeps in and discovers Big Boss is behind it all. Again. Meanwhile Gray Fox has defected and is piloting a new Metal Gear.
How does it end? Snake destroys the new, improved Metal Gear and kills Gray Fox. Then he fights Big Boss using an aerosol can and a cigarette lighter. Ridiculously, Snake wins.
3. METAL GEAR SOLID
What's going on? It's 2005 and FOXHOUND stages an armed uprising at a nuclear weapons facility where it gains control of the 'bloody big mecha-tank' Metal Gear REX.
What happens? Snake is pulled out of retirement and sent in to sort it out. He encounters a robotic cyborg ninja, who turns out to be - yep, you guessed it folks - Gray Fox. Back from the dead.
How does it end? Snake destroys Metal Gear REX, then confronts FOXHOUND leader Liquid Snake, a soldier also created from the genes of the Big Boss. Snake wins. Again.
4. METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY
What's going on? It's 2009 and Snake is on a boat in US waters investigating rumours of a new Metal Gear. The ship gets hijacked; Snake fights back.
What happens? Regrettably, the story jumps forward two years and focuses on Raiden, an operative seemingly attempting to rescue the US President.
How does it end? Raiden discovers that Solid Snake clone Solidus Snake and shady organization The Patriots are behind the kidnap. Then it turns out to have all been some kind of stupid experiment. No one wins.
5. METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER
What's going on? It's 1964 and Naked Snake has been sent into the jungle to rescue a Russian scientist working on plans for a nuclear tank.
What happens? Naked Snake kills lots of people, gets captured, escapes, then learns of a shady group called The Philosophers, who secretly rule the entire world.
How does it end? Naked Snake kills his boss, who he believes has doublecrossed him, only to discover that he himself has been duped. Naked Snake wins, then cries.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING SNAKE-LIKE!
Tracing the family tree of Solid Snake, the godfather of 'softly-softly' gaming.
Before Metal Gear, action games were loud, brash, shouty affairs. They were
fun and colourful and exciting. They were also unfailingly, neverendingly, unceasingly stupid. Because pre-Snake action games were about one thing and one thing only: shooting stuff. No strategies were required, no tactics necessary. Then came the Metal Gear series, the first franchise in the history of games with brains as big as its balls.
Fittingly for a man who's made a living out of keeping quiet, Solid Snake's debut was a somewhat muted affair. Released on the obscure Jap-based home computer MSX2, the original Metal Gear was a basic two-dimensional action affair with pig-ugly graphics. Yet there was one key difference between this and your average actioner: in Metal Gear, you had to employ stealth. You had to watch your enemies, observe their patrol patterns, then sneak past when they weren't looking. You could, if you so wished, rush in all guns spurting. The point was, for the first time ever, there was another option.
Metal Gear was the brainchild of electro-upstart Hideo Kojima, who developed it with the intention of providing an alternative to the hordes of brain-dead run-and-gun titles. Alas, the relatively low sales of the MSX2 outside of Japan meant precious few gamers were able to experience Kojima's Metal Gear vision. In fact, it wasn't until 1988, when Metal Gear was finally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, that people first started to sit up and take note.
METAL GEAR AMERICA
In spite of the (belated) critical and popular success of Metal Gear, Kojima was initially reluctant to develop a sequel. Indeed, it wasn't until he discovered that Metal Gear publisher Konami was working on a more westernised, Yankee-centric follow-up without his consent - the lamentable Snake's Revenge - that Kojima even began thinking about a sequel. The result was Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, a title that refined the sneak-based gameplay of the original while adding a couple of neat touches of its own. Like cut-scenes.
Metal Gear 2 was released on MSX2 in 1990. Alas, it was only released in Japan, consigning it to the 'Lost Treasures' file in the dusty backroom of videogame history. (In a satisfying twist, unofficial spin-off Snake's Revenge died on its arse and has subsequently been airbrushed from the official Metal Gear timeline.)
THE WILDERNESS YEARS
Bitter from the disappointing sales of Metal Gear 2, Kojima put Snake into cold storage for almost a decade. Gamers had to wait until 1998 for another dose of spy-based sneakery, this time with his PlayStation masterpiece Metal Gear Solid. Now in glorious, head-spinning 3D, Metal Gear Solid was a hit, selling over six million copies and spawning an entire subcategory of sneak-flavoured knock-offs.
Metal Gear Solid marked a turning point for the series. Where the previous instalments had featured flimsy, halfbaked storylines, Metal Gear Solid's two discs contained over four hours of dialogue. Behind the much-improved presentation, however, the gameplay was near-identical to the original Metal Gear titles. Again, the idea was to 'think' your way out of a given situation, to observe your surroundings and to move accordingly. In a bid to keep thumbs twiddling during the lengthy lay-off between Metal Gear Solid and its inevitable sequel, Konami knocked out Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions, a collection of 300 VR-style training missions. And it was 'OK'.
THE SNAKE RETURNS
Nothing, however, could have prepared us for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a title that exploded onto PlayStation 2 in 2001. In terms of gameplay, the innovations were small but significant: you could now access a first-person view, affording you greater precision when taking guards out; enemies worked in teams, calling for back-up where required and undertaking fancy 'flanking' manoeuvres; and there was a lot more talking. In truth, too much talking. And yet it sold and sold. It was later re-released as Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, complete with a new Boss Survival Mode, 800 training missions and - get this - new dog tags.
Three years later came Kojima's gamble. Having tired of cramped, grey, office-like spaces, Kojima took the bold decision to set Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater entirely in the greenish thickets of a Soviet jungle. A prequel to the original Metal Gear titles, Metal Gear Solid 3 introduced an entirely new playing element: camouflage. It wasn't enough to just crouch in a corner and curl into a ball. Instead, you had to consider your environment and hide yourself away accordingly: long grass was good; up a tree was better. And yet MGS 3 failed to sell at anything like the rate of immediate predecessor. An advanced edition - Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - was, again, released later.
As for where Solid Snake goes from here, it's Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, followed by Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Bottom line: he's only getting warmed up.
part 2
Welcome to the second and concluding part of our feature on Solid Snake and the Metal Gear series. Missed part one? Then you can play catch-up here. Otherwise, read on...
WHY THE MOVIE OF METAL GEAR WON'T SUCK!
Metal Gear Solid: The Movie is happening. Three reasons why it'll be awesome...
1. BECAUSE UWE BOLL ISN'T DIRECTING!
Earlier this year, rumours started circling like flies around shit that that Uwe Boll, the World's Worst Director, had his mucky paws on the reins of the Metal Gear movie. The German clown responsible for such videogame-based cinematic turds as House of the Dead and Alone In the Dark was to oversee Solid Snake's transition from the small screen to the considerably larger one. As recently as January, Boll declared that he'd been sent an early draft of the script, and that he'd started making notes. Presumably on how to turn it into a cartoon about magical kittens.
And then came salvation. In a recent interview, Metal Gear motherbrain Hideo Kojima finally delivered the knockout blow to Boll's evil scheme. When asked whether the German would be directing the movie, Kojima replied: "Absolutely not! I don't know why Uwe Boll is even talking about this kind of thing. We've never talked to him. It's impossible." Praise be.
2. BECAUSE HIDEO KOJIMA WON'T BE DIRECTING EITHER!
Kojima is many things. He's a visionary, an incredibly intelligent man responsible
for single-handedly changing the course of videogame history. But he's not a movie director. Anyone who's sat through the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 2 's cut-sequences will tell you as much. Sure, the cinematic scenes look great, but holy shit, are they boring. This is man with no concept of brevity, a man who thinks nothing of wasting 20 minutes of your precious time indulging his homebrewed philosophies on the human condition. Do you want a rambling, half-baked action movie in the vein of The Matrix Reloaded? Or would you prefer a punchy, taut, muscled thriller in the Die Hard mould?
The omens weren't good; until very recently, imdb.com had Kojima listed not only as the producer and director, but as the writer as well. "The human body is supposed to be 70 per cent water," Kojima quipped. "I consider myself 70 per cent film." Oh dear.
Thankfully, Kojima is a man who knows his limitations. "I don't want to write the film scenario myself," he told PSW recently. "I don't even want to direct it. I'm just a game designer. I want to leave this movie in the hands of a really trustworthy director." Thank God for that.
3. BECAUSE DAVID 'SOLID SNAKE' HAYTER WON'T LET IT SUCK!
David Hayter is the only man alive who can make Metal Gear Solid the fanpleasing movie we want it to be. Not only has he provided the voice for Solid Snake in eight Metal Gear games, David Hayter is also a superb screenwriter, having worked on X-Men, X-Men 2 and, er, The Scorpion King. He is the one man in the entire universe with both the insight and the ability to make a Metal Gear movie work. And thankfully, he's up for it.
"I'm friends with the producers, and we've spoken about working on a Metal Gear screenplay," Hayter confirmed. "I'd love to do it. I think you'd be looking at a movie where you follow the character all the way through, as they encounter villains and allies. Sort of like The Wizard of Oz, with Snake as Dorothy and Otacon as Toto." OK, it sounds a bit gay, but have faith.
HEAVY METAL!
It's Snake overload in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.
A quirk of the Metal Gear series is that every game must be released twice. For every Metal Gear Solid, there's a Special Edition. So it is that, just a couple of years on from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, we find ourselves confronted with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. And yes, it's actually worth buying all over again. Here's why...
1. IT'S SNAKE EATER! BUT BETTER!
Subsistence includes Snake Eater in its entirety. Only better. The headline attraction is the inclusion of a threedimensional camera. Where before you were locked into a top-down view, now you're free to angle and direct the
camera as you see fit. It's a neat touch, allowing you to see just how beautiful Snake Eater's jungle environment is.
2. IT INCLUDES THE ORIGINAL GAMES!
For the first time on British shores, you can now (legally) own Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. They're medieval in terms of visuals and controls, but remain extremely challenging, absorbing titles. If nothing else, they provide interesting insights for the Metal Gear Solid historian.
3. PLAY ONLINE!
That's right. You can play Metal Gear Solid 3 online! (Providing you have the stamina, spending power and technical wherewithal to convince your PlayStation 2 to talk to the internet, that is.) And it's awesome. Up to eight players can contest multiplayer matchups, based on 12 areas from the main game. Game modes range from the standard-issue Deathmatch to Capture the Flag affairs and Hostage Rescues. PSW favours the Sneaking Missions, in which one player takes on the role of Snake while seven others act as guards.
4. IT COMES WITH A DISC OF CUT-SEQUENCES!
OK, we're scraping the barrel now. We can't deny that the bonus disc - in which a staggering three-and-a-half hours of in-game cinematics are edited into a coherent movie - is an impressive feat, but that doesn't mean we want to watch it. We've sat through enough Kojima-scripted dialogue for a lifetime.
VERDICT!
Gamers who missed out on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater have absolutely no excuse this time around. An improved camera, an astonishingly broad selection of bonus features and a new online mode add up to the ultimate Metal Gear experience.
PATRIOT GAMES
PSW looks forward to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and beyond.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was supposed to be Hideo Kojima's swansong. Having guided Solid Snake for 17 years through five punishing stealth-action titles, Kojima announced that he was to vacate the director's chair. Replacing him was Shuyo Murata, director of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. And so development started on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Weeks later, so did the death threats. Within a month the internet seethed with an angry mass of fanboys, furious that Kojima was leaving Snake's future in less experienced hands. Facing a public backlash - and presumably already rueing his decision to bow out - Kojima returned to co-direct Metal Gear Solid 4.
It would seem increasingly likely, however, that this time Kojima really is making his final stand, with Guns of the Patriots looking like the last Metal Gear game for some time. Earlier this year, Kojima announced plans to launch a Metal Gear MySpace site. He added, "I think that, around ten years from now, it would be great if we could make Metal Gear Solid 5 with the support of fans." To repeat, that's "ten years from now". Sorry folks. There might be the odd PSP-sized title in between, but a fifth fully-fledged Metal Gear Solid? That looks like a long, long way off.
But the series will continue, with or without Kojima. As for the direction of future titles, you can kiss goodbye to enclosed playing areas and linear mission design, and say hello to vast, sprawling environments, in which enemies must be hunted down for hours before they can be taken out.
SON OF SOLID SNAKE?
You can also expect the Metal Gear Solid titles to broaden out in terms of control methods. Kojima is a huge fan of Nintendo Wii's tilt-sensitive controller and has already signed to produce an entirely new title for the console. With this in mind, look for Metal Gear Solid 5 to allow direct physical interaction with Snake and his environment. Another area sure to be a huge focus for future development is the artificial intelligence. We've already been promised a psychological element to the combat for Metal Gear Solid 4, with the concept of 'fear' playing a significant role in battle. By the time Metal Gear Solid 5 rolls around we'll have living, breathing, thinking guards, with individual personalities and combat techniques.
Tomorrow's games will doubtless feature significant online modes. Subsistence's eight-way online battles are just a taster of what's to come. Expect vast online battles, in which dozens and dozens of Solid Snakes crawl through miles of outdoor terrain, all competing to be the first to track down the mission objective. Ten years can't go by quick enough.
SO SOLID SNAKE CREW
Snake's making friends in his PSP debut, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
Frankly, it's about time that Solid Snake got off his arse and appeared in a proper
Metal Gear Solid title on PSP. One that doesn't involve pissing about with cards or turn-based battles. For those of you who missed the Metal Gear Acid titles - Snake's previous PSP efforts - they were very much 'all right', but they weren't proper Metal Gear Solid games. Not like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which isn't just a full-fat, actioncrammed, stealth-smothered Metal Gear game, it's also an entirely new Metal Gear game. Like, wow.
Portable Ops is set in 1970, after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater but before the original Metal Gear. You play Naked Snake, now officially known as Big Boss. Captured by the Soviets and framed by the US, he finds himself in the unenviable position of having two world superpowers crawling up his arse.
We know what you're thinking: surely even Naked Snake can't take on the entire world on his own. And you're right. Which is why Portable Ops allows Snake to recruit team-mates that you can take control of at any stage in the game. There are a number of ways to sign up new recruits. Some you can drug and interrogate into joining your gang; others set you a small task, which must be completed before they'll even consider tagging along. It's possible to have up to three units on your side at any one time, and each will have a very different skill set.
Portable Ops includes a weighty Wi-Fi element. We've been promised "at least" four game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, a Capture the Flag variant and some kind of bizarre rugby-based affair), plus the ability to take your custom-built squad online to face off against rival crews. As in Subsistence, the online component is mercilessly unforgiving. Which means when you die, you don't automatically respawn, but are instead given a stark choice: play out the duration of the game as a 'ghost', or join the enemy. Interestingly, we've been told that multiplayer performance will affect the course of your single-player campaign.
Portable Ops looks set to be the unit-shifting PSP title Sony's handheld machine craves. Visually it's stunning, while the controls are as responsive and fluid as you'd expect. Solid Snake's legacy has got some life yet.
The history of videogaming's legendary undercover operative, Solid Snake - part one
Throughout the history of videogames, no series has mastered the fine art of envelope-pushing quite like Metal Gear. It was Metal Gear Solid, if you cast your mind back, that first truly showed us what Sony's ugly grey machine was capable of. Likewise Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a title that took PlayStation 2 and squeezed its testicles so hard it coughed up an extra ten per cent of visual firepower that no one even knew existed.
And so the trend continued, from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and that jungle to Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a game currently pushing the PSP to the verge of total malfunction. Next up is Solid Snake's appointment with PlayStation 3 and the frankly winkie-tingling prospect that is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. And that has to be special.
In the following feature, PSW pays tribute to this genre-defining, awardswallowing, world-conquering series, first looking at where it all began, then casting an eye into the future. So please, follow us into the world of stealth gaming par excellence. And remember, keep the noise down.
MENTAL GEAR SOLID!
A brief recap of one of the most insanely convoluted plots in history.
Trying to unravel the plotline of the Metal Gear series is like reading the script for the last series of Lost backwards. In Korean. There's just so much going on. Terrorists, genetic clone armies, futuristic nanotechnology, giant robotic missile launchers and a shadowy government agenda that goes right to the President: not only does Metal Gear have one of the most complex plotlines in gaming history, it's also one of the most socially conscious, with an anti-nuclear weapon message layed on so thick it can feel like you're playing a Party Political Broadcast for the Green Party. Confused? Then read on.
1. METAL GEAR
What's going on? It's 1995 and there's a weapon of mass destruction being made in a place called Outer Heaven. The government responds by sending in FOXHOUND operative Gray Fox to investigate.
What happens? Fox goes missing, so they send in new FOXHOUND recruit Solid Snake, who rescues him and finds out about a tank Outer Heaven is developing called Metal Gear.
How does it end? Snake neutralizes Metal Gear and confronts the leader of Outer Heaven, Big Boss, who's also (yawn) Snake's dad. Outer Heaven is destroyed. Snake wins.
2. METAL GEAR 2: SOLID SNAKE
What's going on? It's 1999 and the leaders of Zanzibar Land have kidnapped a scientist responsible for some kind of fancy algae. Then they hold the world to ransom.
What happens? Solid Snake creeps in and discovers Big Boss is behind it all. Again. Meanwhile Gray Fox has defected and is piloting a new Metal Gear.
How does it end? Snake destroys the new, improved Metal Gear and kills Gray Fox. Then he fights Big Boss using an aerosol can and a cigarette lighter. Ridiculously, Snake wins.
3. METAL GEAR SOLID
What's going on? It's 2005 and FOXHOUND stages an armed uprising at a nuclear weapons facility where it gains control of the 'bloody big mecha-tank' Metal Gear REX.
What happens? Snake is pulled out of retirement and sent in to sort it out. He encounters a robotic cyborg ninja, who turns out to be - yep, you guessed it folks - Gray Fox. Back from the dead.
How does it end? Snake destroys Metal Gear REX, then confronts FOXHOUND leader Liquid Snake, a soldier also created from the genes of the Big Boss. Snake wins. Again.
4. METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY
What's going on? It's 2009 and Snake is on a boat in US waters investigating rumours of a new Metal Gear. The ship gets hijacked; Snake fights back.
What happens? Regrettably, the story jumps forward two years and focuses on Raiden, an operative seemingly attempting to rescue the US President.
How does it end? Raiden discovers that Solid Snake clone Solidus Snake and shady organization The Patriots are behind the kidnap. Then it turns out to have all been some kind of stupid experiment. No one wins.
5. METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER
What's going on? It's 1964 and Naked Snake has been sent into the jungle to rescue a Russian scientist working on plans for a nuclear tank.
What happens? Naked Snake kills lots of people, gets captured, escapes, then learns of a shady group called The Philosophers, who secretly rule the entire world.
How does it end? Naked Snake kills his boss, who he believes has doublecrossed him, only to discover that he himself has been duped. Naked Snake wins, then cries.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING SNAKE-LIKE!
Tracing the family tree of Solid Snake, the godfather of 'softly-softly' gaming.
Before Metal Gear, action games were loud, brash, shouty affairs. They were
fun and colourful and exciting. They were also unfailingly, neverendingly, unceasingly stupid. Because pre-Snake action games were about one thing and one thing only: shooting stuff. No strategies were required, no tactics necessary. Then came the Metal Gear series, the first franchise in the history of games with brains as big as its balls.
Fittingly for a man who's made a living out of keeping quiet, Solid Snake's debut was a somewhat muted affair. Released on the obscure Jap-based home computer MSX2, the original Metal Gear was a basic two-dimensional action affair with pig-ugly graphics. Yet there was one key difference between this and your average actioner: in Metal Gear, you had to employ stealth. You had to watch your enemies, observe their patrol patterns, then sneak past when they weren't looking. You could, if you so wished, rush in all guns spurting. The point was, for the first time ever, there was another option.
Metal Gear was the brainchild of electro-upstart Hideo Kojima, who developed it with the intention of providing an alternative to the hordes of brain-dead run-and-gun titles. Alas, the relatively low sales of the MSX2 outside of Japan meant precious few gamers were able to experience Kojima's Metal Gear vision. In fact, it wasn't until 1988, when Metal Gear was finally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, that people first started to sit up and take note.
METAL GEAR AMERICA
In spite of the (belated) critical and popular success of Metal Gear, Kojima was initially reluctant to develop a sequel. Indeed, it wasn't until he discovered that Metal Gear publisher Konami was working on a more westernised, Yankee-centric follow-up without his consent - the lamentable Snake's Revenge - that Kojima even began thinking about a sequel. The result was Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, a title that refined the sneak-based gameplay of the original while adding a couple of neat touches of its own. Like cut-scenes.
Metal Gear 2 was released on MSX2 in 1990. Alas, it was only released in Japan, consigning it to the 'Lost Treasures' file in the dusty backroom of videogame history. (In a satisfying twist, unofficial spin-off Snake's Revenge died on its arse and has subsequently been airbrushed from the official Metal Gear timeline.)
THE WILDERNESS YEARS
Bitter from the disappointing sales of Metal Gear 2, Kojima put Snake into cold storage for almost a decade. Gamers had to wait until 1998 for another dose of spy-based sneakery, this time with his PlayStation masterpiece Metal Gear Solid. Now in glorious, head-spinning 3D, Metal Gear Solid was a hit, selling over six million copies and spawning an entire subcategory of sneak-flavoured knock-offs.
Metal Gear Solid marked a turning point for the series. Where the previous instalments had featured flimsy, halfbaked storylines, Metal Gear Solid's two discs contained over four hours of dialogue. Behind the much-improved presentation, however, the gameplay was near-identical to the original Metal Gear titles. Again, the idea was to 'think' your way out of a given situation, to observe your surroundings and to move accordingly. In a bid to keep thumbs twiddling during the lengthy lay-off between Metal Gear Solid and its inevitable sequel, Konami knocked out Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions, a collection of 300 VR-style training missions. And it was 'OK'.
THE SNAKE RETURNS
Nothing, however, could have prepared us for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a title that exploded onto PlayStation 2 in 2001. In terms of gameplay, the innovations were small but significant: you could now access a first-person view, affording you greater precision when taking guards out; enemies worked in teams, calling for back-up where required and undertaking fancy 'flanking' manoeuvres; and there was a lot more talking. In truth, too much talking. And yet it sold and sold. It was later re-released as Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, complete with a new Boss Survival Mode, 800 training missions and - get this - new dog tags.
Three years later came Kojima's gamble. Having tired of cramped, grey, office-like spaces, Kojima took the bold decision to set Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater entirely in the greenish thickets of a Soviet jungle. A prequel to the original Metal Gear titles, Metal Gear Solid 3 introduced an entirely new playing element: camouflage. It wasn't enough to just crouch in a corner and curl into a ball. Instead, you had to consider your environment and hide yourself away accordingly: long grass was good; up a tree was better. And yet MGS 3 failed to sell at anything like the rate of immediate predecessor. An advanced edition - Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - was, again, released later.
As for where Solid Snake goes from here, it's Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, followed by Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Bottom line: he's only getting warmed up.
part 2
Welcome to the second and concluding part of our feature on Solid Snake and the Metal Gear series. Missed part one? Then you can play catch-up here. Otherwise, read on...
WHY THE MOVIE OF METAL GEAR WON'T SUCK!
Metal Gear Solid: The Movie is happening. Three reasons why it'll be awesome...
1. BECAUSE UWE BOLL ISN'T DIRECTING!
Earlier this year, rumours started circling like flies around shit that that Uwe Boll, the World's Worst Director, had his mucky paws on the reins of the Metal Gear movie. The German clown responsible for such videogame-based cinematic turds as House of the Dead and Alone In the Dark was to oversee Solid Snake's transition from the small screen to the considerably larger one. As recently as January, Boll declared that he'd been sent an early draft of the script, and that he'd started making notes. Presumably on how to turn it into a cartoon about magical kittens.
And then came salvation. In a recent interview, Metal Gear motherbrain Hideo Kojima finally delivered the knockout blow to Boll's evil scheme. When asked whether the German would be directing the movie, Kojima replied: "Absolutely not! I don't know why Uwe Boll is even talking about this kind of thing. We've never talked to him. It's impossible." Praise be.
2. BECAUSE HIDEO KOJIMA WON'T BE DIRECTING EITHER!
Kojima is many things. He's a visionary, an incredibly intelligent man responsible
for single-handedly changing the course of videogame history. But he's not a movie director. Anyone who's sat through the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 2 's cut-sequences will tell you as much. Sure, the cinematic scenes look great, but holy shit, are they boring. This is man with no concept of brevity, a man who thinks nothing of wasting 20 minutes of your precious time indulging his homebrewed philosophies on the human condition. Do you want a rambling, half-baked action movie in the vein of The Matrix Reloaded? Or would you prefer a punchy, taut, muscled thriller in the Die Hard mould?
The omens weren't good; until very recently, imdb.com had Kojima listed not only as the producer and director, but as the writer as well. "The human body is supposed to be 70 per cent water," Kojima quipped. "I consider myself 70 per cent film." Oh dear.
Thankfully, Kojima is a man who knows his limitations. "I don't want to write the film scenario myself," he told PSW recently. "I don't even want to direct it. I'm just a game designer. I want to leave this movie in the hands of a really trustworthy director." Thank God for that.
3. BECAUSE DAVID 'SOLID SNAKE' HAYTER WON'T LET IT SUCK!
David Hayter is the only man alive who can make Metal Gear Solid the fanpleasing movie we want it to be. Not only has he provided the voice for Solid Snake in eight Metal Gear games, David Hayter is also a superb screenwriter, having worked on X-Men, X-Men 2 and, er, The Scorpion King. He is the one man in the entire universe with both the insight and the ability to make a Metal Gear movie work. And thankfully, he's up for it.
"I'm friends with the producers, and we've spoken about working on a Metal Gear screenplay," Hayter confirmed. "I'd love to do it. I think you'd be looking at a movie where you follow the character all the way through, as they encounter villains and allies. Sort of like The Wizard of Oz, with Snake as Dorothy and Otacon as Toto." OK, it sounds a bit gay, but have faith.
HEAVY METAL!
It's Snake overload in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.
A quirk of the Metal Gear series is that every game must be released twice. For every Metal Gear Solid, there's a Special Edition. So it is that, just a couple of years on from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, we find ourselves confronted with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. And yes, it's actually worth buying all over again. Here's why...
1. IT'S SNAKE EATER! BUT BETTER!
Subsistence includes Snake Eater in its entirety. Only better. The headline attraction is the inclusion of a threedimensional camera. Where before you were locked into a top-down view, now you're free to angle and direct the
camera as you see fit. It's a neat touch, allowing you to see just how beautiful Snake Eater's jungle environment is.
2. IT INCLUDES THE ORIGINAL GAMES!
For the first time on British shores, you can now (legally) own Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. They're medieval in terms of visuals and controls, but remain extremely challenging, absorbing titles. If nothing else, they provide interesting insights for the Metal Gear Solid historian.
3. PLAY ONLINE!
That's right. You can play Metal Gear Solid 3 online! (Providing you have the stamina, spending power and technical wherewithal to convince your PlayStation 2 to talk to the internet, that is.) And it's awesome. Up to eight players can contest multiplayer matchups, based on 12 areas from the main game. Game modes range from the standard-issue Deathmatch to Capture the Flag affairs and Hostage Rescues. PSW favours the Sneaking Missions, in which one player takes on the role of Snake while seven others act as guards.
4. IT COMES WITH A DISC OF CUT-SEQUENCES!
OK, we're scraping the barrel now. We can't deny that the bonus disc - in which a staggering three-and-a-half hours of in-game cinematics are edited into a coherent movie - is an impressive feat, but that doesn't mean we want to watch it. We've sat through enough Kojima-scripted dialogue for a lifetime.
VERDICT!
Gamers who missed out on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater have absolutely no excuse this time around. An improved camera, an astonishingly broad selection of bonus features and a new online mode add up to the ultimate Metal Gear experience.
PATRIOT GAMES
PSW looks forward to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and beyond.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was supposed to be Hideo Kojima's swansong. Having guided Solid Snake for 17 years through five punishing stealth-action titles, Kojima announced that he was to vacate the director's chair. Replacing him was Shuyo Murata, director of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. And so development started on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Weeks later, so did the death threats. Within a month the internet seethed with an angry mass of fanboys, furious that Kojima was leaving Snake's future in less experienced hands. Facing a public backlash - and presumably already rueing his decision to bow out - Kojima returned to co-direct Metal Gear Solid 4.
It would seem increasingly likely, however, that this time Kojima really is making his final stand, with Guns of the Patriots looking like the last Metal Gear game for some time. Earlier this year, Kojima announced plans to launch a Metal Gear MySpace site. He added, "I think that, around ten years from now, it would be great if we could make Metal Gear Solid 5 with the support of fans." To repeat, that's "ten years from now". Sorry folks. There might be the odd PSP-sized title in between, but a fifth fully-fledged Metal Gear Solid? That looks like a long, long way off.
But the series will continue, with or without Kojima. As for the direction of future titles, you can kiss goodbye to enclosed playing areas and linear mission design, and say hello to vast, sprawling environments, in which enemies must be hunted down for hours before they can be taken out.
SON OF SOLID SNAKE?
You can also expect the Metal Gear Solid titles to broaden out in terms of control methods. Kojima is a huge fan of Nintendo Wii's tilt-sensitive controller and has already signed to produce an entirely new title for the console. With this in mind, look for Metal Gear Solid 5 to allow direct physical interaction with Snake and his environment. Another area sure to be a huge focus for future development is the artificial intelligence. We've already been promised a psychological element to the combat for Metal Gear Solid 4, with the concept of 'fear' playing a significant role in battle. By the time Metal Gear Solid 5 rolls around we'll have living, breathing, thinking guards, with individual personalities and combat techniques.
Tomorrow's games will doubtless feature significant online modes. Subsistence's eight-way online battles are just a taster of what's to come. Expect vast online battles, in which dozens and dozens of Solid Snakes crawl through miles of outdoor terrain, all competing to be the first to track down the mission objective. Ten years can't go by quick enough.
SO SOLID SNAKE CREW
Snake's making friends in his PSP debut, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
Frankly, it's about time that Solid Snake got off his arse and appeared in a proper
Metal Gear Solid title on PSP. One that doesn't involve pissing about with cards or turn-based battles. For those of you who missed the Metal Gear Acid titles - Snake's previous PSP efforts - they were very much 'all right', but they weren't proper Metal Gear Solid games. Not like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which isn't just a full-fat, actioncrammed, stealth-smothered Metal Gear game, it's also an entirely new Metal Gear game. Like, wow.
Portable Ops is set in 1970, after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater but before the original Metal Gear. You play Naked Snake, now officially known as Big Boss. Captured by the Soviets and framed by the US, he finds himself in the unenviable position of having two world superpowers crawling up his arse.
We know what you're thinking: surely even Naked Snake can't take on the entire world on his own. And you're right. Which is why Portable Ops allows Snake to recruit team-mates that you can take control of at any stage in the game. There are a number of ways to sign up new recruits. Some you can drug and interrogate into joining your gang; others set you a small task, which must be completed before they'll even consider tagging along. It's possible to have up to three units on your side at any one time, and each will have a very different skill set.
Portable Ops includes a weighty Wi-Fi element. We've been promised "at least" four game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, a Capture the Flag variant and some kind of bizarre rugby-based affair), plus the ability to take your custom-built squad online to face off against rival crews. As in Subsistence, the online component is mercilessly unforgiving. Which means when you die, you don't automatically respawn, but are instead given a stark choice: play out the duration of the game as a 'ghost', or join the enemy. Interestingly, we've been told that multiplayer performance will affect the course of your single-player campaign.
Portable Ops looks set to be the unit-shifting PSP title Sony's handheld machine craves. Visually it's stunning, while the controls are as responsive and fluid as you'd expect. Solid Snake's legacy has got some life yet.