by Nike Okami
In our first part detailing the most memorable moments in the Metal Gear Solid saga, we looked back on some of the more action-oriented, politically steeped and revealing character twists. In this part, we’ll be looking at moments that are more personal and intricate.
As any MGS fan will tell you, the series is as much about the small touches as it is about the big. Here are five more of those happenings, along with some shattering events that affected the world of Metal Gear almost as deeply, if not more than, it’s gamers.
6. Breaching the Digital and the Real
Raiden is not really saving the world from a renegade terrorist group known as the Sons of Liberty. He’s actually part of a VR training simulation for creating the perfect soldier. No, scratch that - he actually holds the key to defeating the Patriots, sealed within his neural implants (by the way, the Patriots have manipulated history as we know it, so as a little heads-up, don’t trust any info you come across). Oh, and he wasn’t actually drawing upon Colonel Roy Campbell’s expert assistance - he’s just so obsessed with pleasing the man that a deadly supercomputer crafted an elegant AI program to satisfy his achiever complex. Before it goes loco and starts muttering for “scissors 62″ and what-not.
If it’s not obvious already, the world of Metal Gear Solid is pretty fudged up at this point in the series.
7. Hollow Man Central
It started casually enough. Solid Snake walks into an elevator, ready to continue his plan to halt Metal Gear REX. Suddenly, he gets a call from Otacon asking him how much he weighs, since he’s reading several hundred pounds of weight on his monitor for the same elevator.
As soon as you know it, you’ve been ambushed by not one but four soldiers, each wearing the same stealth armour as the cybernetic ninja of Grey Fox encountered earlier. Even if this sequence originally occurred in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the appeal had only heightened.
This moment accomplished two things for MGS. First, that stellar voice-work, 3D graphics, and well-thought-out and executed planning can change the level of gaming immersion completely. Second, that when situations are at their quietest, the player, with his guard dropped, is at his most vulnerable. It just makes you ask, “What if Otacon hadn’t called?” to understand how much danger Snake was really in.
8. Voice of the World
They were there all along, but we didn’t know. Everything we accepted as truth was everything they believed to be truth. They shaped history as we know it, because they knew it would easier be for us to accept a common foe. However, when the Patriots first made their debut in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, they knew that the danger of an enemy was in inverse proportion to how you saw him, her or it.
They existed only to filter out any useless info and create an efficient society. They wish to control the world. And they’ve been dead for several decades while achieving all this… or have they? The Patriots are the result of Kojima’s views on privacy in an age of nano-machines and the global village society. You’d think Old Snake would hunt them down in MGS4 but how you hunt, according to every source of data you trust, what’s not there is no walk in this derelict, war-torn park.
9. Les Enfants Terriblis
Solid, Liquid and Solidus. Three brothers borne from the genes of the greatest soldier who ever lived, Big Boss. When it was revealed and constantly referenced by Liquid’s annoying “Brother!”, we didn’t (exactly) doubt that the two could be related. Liquid’s British and Snake’s American - after The Parent Trap, what’s the big fuss?It was later explained by Liquid that Solid Snake and he were part of a cloning experiment, Les Enfants Terriblis (”The Terrible Children”) and they’re both meant to continue the legacy of Big Boss. Solidus Snake, the President of the United States, came to be unveiled when Ocelot betrayed Liquid. While The Man got the beat-down he constantly tempted in MGS2, the reformation of Outer Heaven by Liquid Ocelot in MGS4 pays tribute to the standing theme of the original Metal Gear series: Snake stopping Big Boss’ ideals and creation of a conflict-creating, soldier-friendly nation.
Everything has finally come full circle. Now, if we could just figure out who the younger looking Solid Snake is.
10. Beauty and the Beast
Now, who will possibly forget the entry these feral four made? The idea is simple. The developer brought back Fox-Hound code names and attached them to new agents as a sort of passing reference. However, it went deeper; the Beauty and the Beast Unit all follow their names to a tee.
Laughing Octopus constantly laughs and has actual octopus tentacles. Screaming Mantis has displayed the use of some sort of sonic waves to mentally disfigure her enemies even though the aspect of her mantis claws hasn’t been revealed yet, and so on. An element of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder provides the pretense for their transformation from supposedly beautiful women (at least the women who model them are, and very much so) to vicious weapons. Another instance of sympathizing with the enemy on Kojima’s part? Maybe. Four totally awesome boss battles? Hell yeah. Hopefully.
Of course, it’s not possible to fully categorize all the defining moments in the franchise based on our perception alone. If you think there was a memorable moment we forgot to mention, comment and let us know. The countdown to Metal Gear Solid 4 grows ever shorter, and we hope to catch up with you on the defining day of it’s release.
4 Responses to “Metal Gear Memories: Part 2”
Screaming Mantis is the most Vile of the lot….I still think Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 3:Snake Eater had the best plots since they are not trying hard to warp up ends and postulate a beginning…even MGS4 plot falls a step below expectations since it tries too much to finish a segement of the series…
Snake Eater and MGS 1 had self-contained story-lines that captured the series main trump in story-telling: political espionage. MGS 4, for all rights and purposes, is racing towards the finishing line for the series, since three games have been setting up the events for this one. As of this moment, it does look like we’re part of a summer block-buster rather than a tech-noir, spy thriller, but you never know. Many of the elements, such as the new Foxhound Unit, the story behind the Beauty and the Beast Corps, as well Sunny’s upbringing are all self-contained, and draw upon comparatively less mythos than say Cyborg Shinobi Raiden or the reformation of Outer Haven. Another interesting plot-point: which is the penultimate Metal Gear in this game? As of now, only REX versus RAY and the mooing Metal Gears have been spotted besides Snake’s own personal mini-MG.
Each of the BB Corps represents some product of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, like hysteria (Laughing Octopus), insanity (Screaming Mantis), depression (Crying Wolf) and bipolarism (Raging Raven). The whole point is that they’re outer shells are the representation of their inner most trauma, while their inner beauty is buried under rubbles of emotional baggage. Interestingly, the player’s approach to the bosses affects which wins out - so, if you approach Mantis like she’s a vile creature, then her sadism had achieved it’s goal, and her beauty is lost forever. It’s kind of like killing a mental patient when you also have the choice to save her. I think it’ll be cool to see how this approach to boss design affects gamers’ strategies.
I agree that’s the entire point of the “The Beauty and the Beast corps”, the player gets rewarded accordingly for saving the inner beauty that has been distorted by post traumatic stress disorder, but here again we are at cross roads every game, at the end of the day every game is out to reach that green seller in the sky and as much as people may disagree so is Metal Gear….a tantalizing summer blockbuster it may be, such manifestations and representations of a gruesome reality is understood by a minority, hence many shall loathe about the length of the cutscenes and the convoluted plot. Kojima made this game as an ode to the dying hardcore which has incessantly been engulfed in the endlless series of corridors that sustains creatures and humans that rev chainsaws and blow on their plasma rifles. Ash’s dialogue “Come get some” best assesses the preponderance postulated by Metal Gear for anyone who loves the series to death….
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