Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/6/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Stealth, Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: November 17, 2004

Every Metal Gear Solid story revels in a hypothetical scenario involving the potential destruction of the world with burgeoning nuclear technology in the close future, but remember a time in history when this scenario was a reality? For those of you, whose high school history education needs a bit of dusting off, the Cold War was a long, tumultuous period from a few years after World War II to the very early 1990s. Relations between the western world and the eastern world during the latter half of the 20th century couldn’t have been more contentious, a feud between economic and political ideas with two massive oceans in between both sides. Several famous wars like the Korean War and the War in Vietnam were notable marks in the Cold War timeline, but there is one aspect that most people associate when the Cold War is discussed. Usually, discrepancies between nations would be resolved violently with a bloody, debilitating war, but there was a certain unforeseen factor that prevented this. We as human beings had progressed our weaponry to the point where they would not only clear away an entire battalion of troops but would annihilate all of mankind as we knew it, using the instances in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as grim references. The looming threat of nuclear devices kept any bloodshed at bay but only escalated tensions between opposite sides and scared everyone shitless. However, there were most likely tons of covert operations involving espionage that could have resulted in imminent death for us all that we mere citizens are not privy to. World history used to be the plot of a Metal Gear Solid game. The third entry in the acclaimed franchise offers us a prequel set during the Cold War period as what could be loosely described as a historical fiction piece that revels in the lore of Metal Gear Solid.

Metal Gear Solid was in desperate need of taking a few steps back after the disastrous endeavor that was Metal Gear Solid 2. One would think that Kojima’s clueless ambition from that game would lead him to attempt conveying the fucking Fibonacci sequence in the video game medium for the third Metal Gear Solid title, something that I cringe at the thought of. Fortunately, a prequel set in a time before modernism grew, that pesky “post” prefix potentially showed a sense of self-reflection on how to approach Metal Gear Solid’s narrative. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater moves things back a few paces, and thank god for the inherent past setting of a prequel keeps the series from plunging even deeper into the rabbit hole of technological progress. Snake Eater is the most modest of the Metal Gear Solid titles, using the eccentric espionage story that defines the series and somewhat trimming the convoluted, bloviating fat. It sounds like Kojima has gone soft here but considering the praise Snake Eater receives over every other game in the franchise, this proved to be for the better. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a more refined, mature Metal Gear experience because it tones down all of the properties associated with the series.

Metal Gear Solid 3 still grants the player a thrilling introduction that sets the scene and scope of the operation. It’s the height of the Cold War in 1964, with the disastrous Bay of Pigs ordeal in recent memory and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War still yet to become a decade-defining event. A helicopter flies above the clouds with the sun radiantly beaming on the horizon. A group of American mercenaries, including a familiar voice in a tight leather uniform and pilot’s oxygen mask, set a course over a remote area of the enemy’s territory in the USSR. As the man stylishly lands on the soil of the dense jungle floor, he unmasks himself to affirm to the player that the voice does indeed match the face. For the first time in the Metal Gear timeline, this inconspicuous soldier is dubbed “Snake” by an older British man. Snake's mission is to rescue a hostage by the name of Nikolai Sokolov, a Russian rocket engineer who is essentially an older, foreign Otacon building a weaponized tank called the “Shagohod.” Upon retrieving Sokolov from his containment cell, GRU commander Volgin and his sensei, The Boss, storm the rickety bridge they’re running across. To Snake’s unpleasant surprise, The Boss has defected to the Soviets and gives Volgin enough firepower to blast Sokolov’s lab to kingdom come. With Snake mortally injured after falling off the bridge and his “virtuous mission” a bust, he merely has more on his plate now in the hopes of preventing another cataclysmic war.

Diverse environments seem to be a consistent strength of the Metal Gear Solid series. A tanker facility set over the deep waters of the Hudson was different enough, but the jungle setting in the Soviet Union is the antithesis of the frozen tundra surrounding Shadow Moses Island. Kojima has formulated a fictional area of the Soviet Union known as the Tselinoyarsk, or colloquially as the “Virgin Cliffs,” a wooded area with a heaping amount of eclectic topography. The Russian jungle is a vast, humid stretch of wilderness where the shade of the lanky, disheveled, and an innumerable number of trees filters the light in their habitat like a natural greenhouse. Swamps filled with the thickest of mud will sink any unfortunate soul in a matter of seconds, and crocodiles the size of mack trucks will crush anything with just the might of their tails. Bustling sounds of chirping birds and screeching primates make up the soundscape accompanying the faint sound of Snake’s footprints rustling through the leaves and the tall grass. On the outskirts of the jungle are caves, rivers, canyons, and more temperate forest areas. One could argue that this wide range of topographic areas confined under the name of a single place would feel inorganic, but the journey-like progression most Metal Gear Solid games implement makes coming across each of these formations feel natural. Tselinoyarsk is the most beautiful setting in the series while maintaining that sense of disquiet and hostility to constantly keep the player’s guard up.

This wilderness also comes with some new stipulations never before seen in a Metal Gear Solid game. Surviving the throngs of enemy troops through stealth was always imperative in the previous Metal Gear Solid games. Still, Snake Eater builds on that initiative with a more orthodox context. Snake’s full code name throughout the game isn’t “Solid Snake,” as we’ve come to know him as, but instead referred to as “Naked Snake.” Sorry ladies, this moniker does not connote that the rugged, handsome Snake is scampering through the jungle cupping his junk with his hands like Raiden near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Rather, it refers to how unprepared Snake is and has to fend for himself to survive here. Snake is at the mercy of the elements here and needs to find the best utility of the wilderness to survive. The emphasis on survival introduces many mechanics previously unseen in the Metal Gear series, and they prove to be a constant challenge to adapt to. In the previous games, rations will be found all around the field as items that will heal a consistent amount of health, and Snake can carry up to five at a time. In Snake Eater, Snake’s health will replenish automatically, so has Konami forsaken one of the franchise's staple properties here? Not exactly, as rations will refreshen Snake’s new (or old) stamina gauge underneath his health bar. It will diminish slowly over time as Snake is active in the field, and consuming rations is the only means to alleviate Snake’s energy. But where are all of the rations? Usually, cans of god-knows-what will be scattered around the field for Snake’s convenient consumption. Snake now has to MAKE his own rations by butchering the wildlife that makes up the ecosystem of the Virgin Cliffs. There is a smattering of different animals to eat here, something expected from land as diverse as the Virgin Cliffs. The player must look meticulously in the unkempt grass and shadiest spots of assorted facilities to subdue his prey, preferably with his trusty knife. Everything from rabbits, crocodiles, vultures, and spiders, to every assortment of wild serpents will be ready to consume after Snake plunges his blade into them. Snake Eater as a subtitle is a literal instance of what MGS 3 incorporates and not a cool, ambiguous spy title, nor is it a sexual euphemism.

While the hunting mechanic is a requisite in emulating a genuine survival experience, I am still skeptical about its general utility in regard to the game. Animals are plentiful no matter the terrain, but it’s the new rejuvenation aspect of eating animals that didn’t convince me. Endurance simply doesn’t seem essential to the gameplay. The meter dwindles fairly quickly depending on how much Snake is moving, and his stomach will begin to growl once the meter reaches its halfway point. Eating each animal will provide Snake with a different amount of regeneration as he’ll naturally find some animals delicious, while he’d rather taste the vomit he expunges after attempting to digest others. The mechanic at least works, but why is it here? Endurance, or lack thereof, never seems to deter Snake. If I didn’t know any better, the amount of food Snake eats matched with how far he has to travel before his stomach starts to rumble again, makes him seem like a glutton rather than a man on the brink of his own humanity. Having the endurance meter at a lower threshold never makes Snake groggy but only makes his stomach growl as loud as the roar of a tiger. I’m not sure if it’ll alert the guards because I always kept food on my person, but keeping Snake hungry doesn’t seem to have any consequence. The food spoils quickly, signaled by a fly symbol to signify its rotten status. If Snake eats the expired food, he’ll get sick, and his endurance meter will plummet unless he takes medicine to alleviate his stomach ache. What if Snake isn’t hungry when the food is fresh? I thought preservation was the point of rations! Perhaps having these animal rations as healing items would make the game too easy, but what the developers decided to do with this mechanic proved to be kind of awkward and lazy.

Surviving the harsh elements of the Russian wilderness doesn’t connote having enough food. Once Snake falls from the bridge after his first encounter with Volgin and The Boss, his grievous fall introduces the “cure” mechanic also found in the pause menu. While not initially strapped with either food or weapons, Snake’s first-aid kit is quite abundant. Snake’s first wound as a tutorial operation will mend his broken bones, but the player will keep reopening the menu to use this feature for various wounds. Once Snake gets injured, a red sliver of varying size on his health bar indicates that he needs medical attention in the cure menu. A smattering of supplies will be at Snake’s disposal, and depending on the nature of the wound, fixing Snake up will either require a single tool or a whole operation. The “cure” mechanic is a relatively engaging feature that fits perfectly with the survival initiative but like with eating, its flaws aren’t as apparent as the eating feature. Sometimes, it’s uncertain what injury is severe enough to warrant pausing and mending. I’d get shot, stabbed, burned, etc., and sometimes need to pause and patch it up, and other times I could carry on with my business. Secondly, medical supplies might run low because of common afflictions like gunshot wounds and broken bones requiring many to heal Snake. Other than these minor nitpicks, the “cure” mechanic remains engaging after repeat instances. Bandaging up Snake’s boo-boos in the name of survival tactics is like a mini-game in itself. My only wish is that I wouldn’t have to play doctor with Snake so often and disrupt the gameplay.

The player will have to familiarize themselves with these new mechanics because Snake Eater, in many ways, is the hardest Metal Gear Solid title. In the Metal Gear timeline, Snake Eater is a prequel set several decades before any preceding title. 1964 feels like ancient history compared to the advancements of 21st-century technology. Naturally, this comes with connotations relating to Snake’s typical bag of gadgets. Because much of the technology Snake uses are inventions of a hypothetical 21st-century future, the tools Snake uses in the mid-1960s Snake Eater are either more primitive versions of familiar items or are omitted completely. The radio Snake used to conduct codec calls with various operatives functions, but the talking heads on parallel sides of the call were obviously a feature of a more advanced model. Instead, the person on the other end is portrayed by a set of four different pictures, and a blurred outline of Snake is seen crouching down to take the call. Cigars are in Snake’s inventory as the smoking apparatus to slightly illuminate dark areas as his health dwindles, now without a surgeon's warning because it’s 1964. Why is it a single cigar now instead of a whole pack of cigarettes? It’s not as if cigarettes were invented after 1964 as less compact ways to smoke, but I digress. Truly, setting a Metal Gear Solid game in the distant past makes the game harder because of the glaring absence of one essential feature seen in the previous games: the radar. In a series where stealth is the most vital aspect of gameplay, the omission of the radar that details the trajectory of each enemy’s sight inflicts the player with a massive handicap. Navigating around enemies must be done with extra precaution in Snake Eater, with the player scoping the entire field before making even one move to their objective. It doesn’t help that the AI is as sharp as usual and will sound the alarm at the first instance of Snake’s presence if the player isn’t careful. I understand that something like a radar would’ve been a glaring anachronism in 1964, but I could say the same for Snake's radio. Couldn’t they have produced a more primitive version of the radar with some reasonable suspension of disbelief?

The final section of the “virtuous mission” where Sokolov is held serves as the first major roadblock regarding the lack of a radar. Several guards roam every corner of the dilapidated facility, and Snake must sneak around them with only a tranquilizer gun at his disposal. The cavalry will come if Snake is spotted, so the likelihood of Snake defending himself with a paltry weapon is low. Snake also cannot run from the guards as the ones from the previous area with the bridge will also be on his ass. Rescuing Sokolov will also not take place if there is even a slight alert level. Stealth was never as crucial to one of Snake’s missions before this moment. Patience is a virtue and a more vital component in Snake Eater. The margin of error in getting caught is much smaller and will happen more frequently. While rescuing Sokolov for the first time took some time to get used to, the section of the “virtuous mission” was perfect for familiarizing the player with the changes.

Under a less gifted studio and director, stripping the gameplay down to bare essentials would’ve rendered the game objectively worse than its predecessors, but Konami knew how to compensate for setting Snake in the past. If the player is less advantaged by the regression of a prequel, the prime solution to survival is to play as aggressively as possible. One might raise an eyebrow at my suggestion considering Snake Eater is still a stealth game, and I previously stated that the keener enemy AI means that punishment for not being vigilant is stricter. Still, I would be doubtful if I hadn’t played the game either. Using the radar in the previous MGS games allowed Snake to reference the dangerous spots and the enemy’s range of sight to passively trek past them to avoid conflict, with only a few unfortunate, nosy guards whose curiosity will get the best of them. I figured that the mark of a fine stealth game was only using combat in dire situations to prevent one’s cover from being blown, and also figured that this is what fundamentally separated the stealth genre from the action genre. I needed to change my perspective to survive playing Snake Eater and realized that I shouldn’t fear the guards: they should fear me. Snake is now a predator lurking in the grass to slowly and methodically eradicate every threat in the area. Again, that eyebrow might be raised with confusion as to how Snake can mow down enemies without too much blowback. That skepticism can be resolved by delving into another one of Snake Eater’s new mechanics: camouflage. Snake uses a bevy of face paints and colorful uniforms to match the terrain of his hiding spot like a big game hunter does to his unsuspecting prey. Selecting the various camouflage in the pause menu will inform the player on how effective each type is at concealing Snake on the field. If the player utilizes this feature to its fullest extent, those pesky, observant guards will act like a confused pack of defenseless deer. Using the most efficient camouflage, hiding in the grass, and then scoping out guards with Snake’s diverse set of weapons always proved to be a delightful excursion. Once I grew accustomed to this, the factor of not having a radar no longer crossed my mind.

I’d be remiss not to mention Snake Eater’s graphics and presentation as I do with every Metal Gear Solid game. A new entry to the series wouldn’t be the same without Kojima’s cinematic flair that redefined the capabilities of gaming back in the early 3D era. Like the previous titles, Snake Eater displays a scope of masterful cinematic proficiency, along with cutscenes long enough to where the player could finish another game during their run time. Unlike MGS 2, Snake Eater is not a showcase of the series' graphical potential on a new piece of advanced hardware. Snake Eater had nothing to prove in this department, and it’s expected that the game looks exactly like its predecessor on the same system. However, it’s surprising that Snake Eater’s presentation isn’t as fluid as the previous game because both games are on the same hardware. Graphics are not an issue, but the framerate in Snake Eater takes a complete nose dive in quality. I was floored by the silky smooth framerate in MGS2, especially for a game released in the early years of the PS2. The framerate in Snake Eater is fine, but I see no excuse as to why it couldn't have been as impressive as the previous game. The argument that a game set in 1964 should feel more primitive is downright silly. One aspect the developers retained from MGS 2 and 1 that I wish they hadn’t was the camera angles. Players of the MGS series were used to an inflexible, eagle-eyed perspective, but it doesn’t bode well without radar to compensate for blind spots. The developers maintained this angle to preserve a sense of familiarity, but all it does here is unfairly screw over the player*.

So, Snake Eater isn’t a perfect game, but this is an unrealistic standard for even the most exceptional of games, and Snake Eater is certainly in that league. Toning down everything from the mechanics to the performance fidelity might make people question why Snake Eater is often regarded as the optimal Metal Gear Solid experience, but these aspects are not the refreshing ones that I alluded to. I like each entry in the Metal Gear Solid series and admire the ambitious gameplay elements, but the bloated, overwritten narratives tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The story of Metal Gear Solid 2 went so far off the rails with so much postmodern mumbo-jumbo and a violent jetstream of different plot points that it left me with an irksome feeling like I had just watched a communist-era Godard film. Snake Eater may uphold a plot worthy of Metal Gear Solid’s standard of a convoluted political thriller. Still, the base of its story relies on emotion rather than a sputtering of obtuse philosophy.

A vital aspect of any exceptional story is the characters, and like the previous MGS games, Snake Eater’s cast is just as varied as the regions of the Virgin Cliffs. Setting the series back to its narrative roots in 1964 means that this new crop of Metal Gear lore relics is unrecognizable to the player, but there are some familiar faces in the batch. Surprisingly, Solid Snake is not one of those characters, or at least to the few who have not been paying attention. The “Les Enfants Terribles” project did not occur until the early 1970s, so this Snake is not the one we’ve come to know and love. However, Snake Eater’s Snake is a familiar character to Metal Gear veterans who have been attentive to the long-standing exposition. This Snake is none other than “Big Boss”, the infamous American supersoldier whose warrior DNA was cloned to create Solid Snake and his less genetically concrete brethren. An endurance meter must have been the only genetic trait Big Boss passed on to Liquid and Solidus because other than that, Solid Snake is an uncanny, indistinguishable replica of Big Boss. He has the same wartorn voice, phlegmatic demeanor, bearish charm, and savant-like enthusiasm for weapons used in war. If this Snake is Big Boss, why isn’t he referred to as such? For the readily identifiable characters, Snake Eater is a “how the leopard got his spots” sort of story that elucidates certain things from the lore. Operation “Snake Eater” is the mission in which Big Boss earns his stars and stripes and Revolver Ocelot earns his place in the Metal Gear storyline. Yes, the sole recurring character in this prequel is everyone’s eccentric, spaghetti-western-loving Russian operative Revolver Ocelot. Here, he’s a fresh-faced, twenty-something-year-old whippersnapper who becomes Volgin’s right-hand man after he uncovers the weapon Volgin uses to obliterate Soklov’s lab. Snake catches him early on using Makarov handguns in the same fashion he does with revolvers, only to jam them. After Snake’s informed suggestion to use revolvers, Ocelot’s boss encounter sees him with several of his trademark revolvers looking as if peanut butter just discovered chocolate, with those cheesy cowboy spurs to boot. Big Boss inadvertently created a monster, and this revelation is great to witness for anyone familiar with this character.

Admittedly, Metal Gear Solid was never a series whose strengths relied on its characters. Most of them are only heard and seen through the visor of Snake’s radio, conversing with Snake about the mission, and Snake Eater is no exception. While Roy Campbell is probably old enough to be on a mission regarding nuclear devastation in 1964, Snake Eater treats us with a new cast of characters that Snake can only communicate with from a safe distance via technology. The role of chief commander that Roy Campbell has taken is a British bloke who can’t decide on a code name but decides on “Zero” for just this mission. Unfortunately for the player, Zero and Snake are all business. It’s a shame that the man who dubs this iconic operative “Snake” has such a bland rapport with him, unlike the Colonel in the first game. Para-medic is a young woman who serves Mei Ling’s job of saving the game and also uses her time in her cushy role to ask Snake about a myriad of different films. Her character is not as lively or infectious as Mei Ling, and she never gets the hint that maybe Snake just isn’t a movie guy. A black man named Signit, apparently the younger DARPA chief from MGS1, will inform Snake about various weapons (like gun fanatic Snake wouldn't know everything already). As neat as having another familiar character available for codec calls, I never found a need to call Signit and only heard his voice when he interrupted someone else's call. One impressive factor in the first MGS was how organically the player became attached to these characters, who were only seen through the moving still on the left side of Snake’s monitor. Still, the weaker characters in Snake Eater, unfortunately, do not efficiently uphold this.

Eva is the only significant character the player can phone in for tips, but her weight as a codec character is based solely on her role in the field. Her relationship with Snake is fairly reminiscent of Meryl from the first MGS game, but Eva is far more capable than Meryl ever was. Eva is a sly, adept soldier whose buxom sex appeal is as dangerous as her skill with a gun. Her sultry, seductive demeanor gives her a strong femme fatale role which makes her relationship with Snake and the mission all the more unpredictable. She’s my favorite female character in the series, and it has nothing to do with pressing R1 to stare at her tits once you first meet her or that scene where she traipses around a bonfire in nothing but her underwear. I never called Eva for anything over the radio, but her hybrid role only reminds me that in-person relationships are more bountiful than long-distance ones. In a series where the protagonist is alone on the field surrounded by nameless, armed droogs, Snake Eater offers some of the strongest characters that Snake encounters on his adventure. The monocle-wearing, technological genius Sokolov is like a foreign, middle-aged Otacon, complete with moistening his pants in moments of fear. Granin is another Russian weapons scientist whose fearful ambition for tanks to be bipedal makes him the godfather of the destructive Metal Gear.

The villains of Metal Gear Solid were always much stronger than the supporting characters anyways, and the villains in Snake Eater are some of the most memorable in the series. The most formidable foe in Snake Eater is Volgin, the Russian soviet commander and the main antagonist of the game. His colossal physical presence, brutish strength, cold-blooded personality, and powerful lightning abilities make him the pinnacle of Russian nightmare fuel that would make Ronald Regan fumble about in his sleep in terror. Volgin is unapologetically evil and is a mightier threat than any Metal Gear MacGuffin. From a narrative standpoint, Volgin almost seems comical as a threat, as if the developers concocted all the most outlandish depictions of Russians from pieces of anti-Soviet propaganda. However, Volgin always has The Boss tailing him on the field, and she’s a much more substantial villain. Her defection is a devastating moment for Snake, and the main objective of his mission to subdue her never ceases to upset him. The Boss, however, does not start laughing maniacally like Volgin or downing fifths of vodka in the name of Mother Russia. The Boss still seems like the benevolent mentor Snake once knew, and each interaction they have on the field retains a sense of respect for one another. The Boss kicks Snake’s ass into the dirt once in a while, but only as a means to deter him and viciously execute him like Volgin would. Her unclear disposition carries a sense of intrigue, and the player feels just as conflicted in eventually killing her as Snake does.

Villains with more narrative weight and substance in an MGS game are nice and all, but what about the group of superterrorists with different powers? Could a group like FOXHOUND and Dead Cell exist in 1964? Fortunately, yes, and the Cobra Unit is the best bunch of eccentric baddies in the franchise. The Cobras have a bit less narrative importance than the members of the other two terrorist groups as they merely support The Boss in her efforts to halt Snake in his efforts to hunt her down, but they all prove to be exceptional fights. Every member in this group is titled with “the” in their name like a flock of British Invasion bands, and the ending half of their name vaguely represents their unique quirk. The Pain wears a hive of hornets like a sports jacket and spurts these buzzing bees like projectiles as if he's a military-grade Candyman. The Fear has a distressing presence due to his long tongue, bulging eyes, and lizard-like movements. The Fury wears a black spacesuit and uses his jetpack to set anything in his line of sight ablaze with his massive flamethrower from above. The high quality of all of these bosses lies in their design accommodating Snake Eater’s hunter stealth initiative. Patience is required to scope out these foes in larger arenas and requires as much stealth as dealing with enemies on the field, making for more tense boss encounters.



This concise design is taken to the extremes with what I consider the highlight fight between the Cobras: The End. A wheelchair-bound octogenarian who is old enough to remember the days of slavery is not only the cream of the Cobra crop, but he’s one of the greatest bosses in video game history. Soon after fighting The Fear, Snake will make his way towards a sprawling, green forest with running rivers and steep cliff sides to find the old man vegetating somewhere in the grass. Before he decomposes, he challenges Snake to one last duel using every last ounce of his strength, which is more than one would think a centurion would have. The End’s fight is not for the faint of heart. The wide arena, a paper-thin margin of error, and painstaking search efforts for The End make it one of the most demanding bosses I’ve ever played. I was not sure if I could do it as it took me over two hours to put the ancient bastard six feet into the ground where he belongs, and that’s an average time for most players. I was ready to give up, but the victory I achieved after figuring out a method to take him down made me feel invincible like I could take on anything. Of course, the developers knew The End would be too much to handle, so the player also had the option of sniping him during an earlier cutscene or setting their console clock forward by approximately a week, so he dies of old age. Absolutely brilliant.

Snake Eater borrows a few new influences and accentuates some old ones. James Bond has always been a clear inspiration for the franchise, but Snake Eater revels in Agent 007’s essence. Snake Eater is set during the golden age of the Bond franchise, and Eva is practically the spitting image of a “Bond girl.” That bombastic orchestral theme and Snake Eater is the greatest Bond film title that never came to make it all apparent. However, James Bond only serves as a stylistic influence. The story and direction of Snake Eater remind me more of Apocalypse Now. Not Heart of Darkness, but specifically how Apocalypse Now shifted the story of its source to the Vietnam War setting and turned the story into a spiritual journey of the soldier on a mission to kill his boss. Along the way, the soldier becomes subjected to the atrocities of war as it gets uglier the more he ventures onward. A creative instance of using the wartorn odyssey of Apocalypse Now is the “fight” against The Sorrow, the last Cobra Unit member who was presumably dead. This eerie duel against the supernatural phantom is an unconventional hike, wading through misty waters as the vengeful spirits slowly attack every enemy Snake had killed on his journey. It artfully illustrates the gravity of war in an interactive medium like Apocalypse Now did cinematically.

Using Apocalypse Now as a primary influence also lends to the best ending in the series Once inside the hangar containing the Shagohod tank, Snake attempts to blow it sky high, planting C3 all over the place. His plans are thwarted by Volgin and The Boss, who discover that Eva has been posing as a spy and threatened to execute her. Her role as a spy was to steal Volgin’s part of the Philosopher’s Legacy, the convoluted plot point of historical fiction in Snake Eater, and a lore piece regarding the enigmatic Sons of Liberty. With the help of The Boss, Snake and Eva make their escape as Volgin chases them down with the fully-functional Shagohod tank. After thwarting him at the bridge, one could assume that the threat has been vanquished and Snake’s mission is complete. However, Snake’s mission was to kill The Boss, not to stop Volgin. Eva and Snake make their way down to a field engulfed by knee-high white lotuses near a lake, the final arena against The Boss. She gives Snake ten minutes to execute her and fulfill his role as “boss” in the best final boss of the series. Once Snake tentatively kills his sensei, he flies away with Eva to a base in Alaska. Eva leaves him with the shocking revelation that she double-crossed everyone as a spy for the Chinese government to uncover the Philosopher’s Legacy. He returns home a war hero, but the victory is a sullen one as we learn that The Boss was never a villain who defected from her country. Her name got mixed up in the media when Volgin bombed the lab, so she will wrongfully be remembered as a villain. Snake still respects her as he salutes her at her grave with a single tear rolling down his cheek. For once in the series, the ending had me choked up. The endings of the first two MGS games were corny and confusing, respectively, but this one hits the mark because Kojima opted for an ending that reflects on emotions instead of ideas.

I am relieved that Kojima listened to the vocal criticisms regarding MGS2 and used them to deviate completely from that game when crafting the next entry in the franchise. Setting the game several decades ago wasn’t necessarily vital in going off the Metal Gear grid. Still, the lore implications and inherent technological divergence did wonder for the series. The game isn’t perfect, as some new survival mechanics are awkward, and the presentation isn’t as spectacular as MGS2’s. Still, everything else is so extraordinary that the minor blemishes can be forgiven. Snake Eater has the best bosses, characters, plot, and direction in the series by a metric mile. Among all of these stellar attributes, the thing that makes Snake Eater the standout entry in the series is that it has a heart. Instead of pontificating obtuse philosophies, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a solid Cold-War era espionage adventure story with extra layers for emotional impact, and that’s all I can ask for.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/17/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Stealth, Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: November 12, 2001

If I were to ask anyone what the pinnacle moment started the new millennium, it would not be when the ball dropped at midnight, New Year's Eve that began the year 2000. No, I think everyone would agree that the true moment that signaled that the previous century was gone and a new era was ushered in was on a sunny Tuesday morning on September 11th, 2001. This was the day the world was catapulted out of the 1990’s/past century into the modern age with a horrific wake-up call. Referencing 9/11 may be a dour and somewhat tasteless way to begin a review for a video game, but is it inappropriate considering the game in question is a Metal Gear Solid title? If the first Metal Gear Solid acted as a grim prediction of 21st-century politics and technology of unparalleled scope, then its sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, is a depiction of a world that is simmering in the stew of 21st-century turmoil.

The shocking thing is that Metal Gear Solid 2 was completely developed before that unforgettable morning in mid-September when the world changed for the worse. It was released two months after 9/11, and the events that occurred were still rattling around in our shell-shocked minds. What better way to quell our trauma-induced discomfort than to play a video game that revels in political conspiracy, government espionage, or a group of terrorists housing weapons of mass destruction? What initially was the exciting next-gen release of an enormously acclaimed title on the PS1 suddenly became the most relevant piece of media to the first big political event of the 21st century. Most likely, this is a coincidence. Kojima can center the plot of his game around any number of conspiracies, and they might vaguely connect to 9/11. However, the fact that this game is set around New York City AND one of the central goals in the game is preventing a widespread tragedy in the city is a wild coincidence. Content involving the Statue of Liberty being destroyed had to be cut in post-production due to the events of 9/11. That’s spooky. Is Hideo Kojima that insightful about world relations, or is he a bonafide clairvoyant that we should reprimand for not using his extraordinary powers to prevent 9/11 from happening? Whichever it is, I wretch at the thought of giving him that much credit for either scenario. I get the impression from the content of Metal Gear Solid 2 that Kojima wants us to come to these conclusions, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a contentious entry to the franchise for several reasons, and a few of those reasons solidify my position in the camp that criticizes it.

For a game with a radical auteur direction, it’s still a sequel that has to establish a sense of familiarity for the player. The sequence that sets this sense of familiarity takes place on a stormy night on the George Washington Bridge that connects Manhattan and New Jersey. A hooded man walking on the bridge jumps off of it, supported by a bungee cord to break his fall. The man lands on a tanker anchored offshore and unsheathes his cloak to reveal the enigmatic Solid Snake. Otacon signals Snake with a codex call to brief Snake (and the player) on the mission. Otacon has gotten word from a reliable source that a new model of Metal Gear is being housed in the basement of this tanker. Instead of destroying the abominable machine, Snake has to merely descend to the bunker and take photos of Metal Gear as proof that it exists. This breezy operation goes awry when Russian mercenaries invade the tanker and kill all the marines on board. Snake must then do what he does best: retrieve proof of the new Metal Gear in the bunker while avoiding being seen on the way down.

One meta aspect of Metal Gear Solid 2 that also applies to its themes of burgeoning technology of the 21st century is that it was an early title on the PS2, Sony’s sequel to their trademark early 3D console released at the turn of the millennium. A new century/millennium meant there was progress to be made in gaming, and graphics are an obvious point of evolution. I can’t think of a finer point of graphical advancement than with Metal Gear Solid 2. MGS2 is fortunate enough to succeed in a game of the early 3D era, so the advanced piece of hardware will prove to be an inherent significant improvement. The codex calls feature 3D talking heads that look exactly like their 3D models outside of the calls. The mouths of the characters move while they are talking, a drastic improvement on the most awkward graphical aspect of the first game. These improvements greatly aid the cinematic qualities of the series, but they aren’t just impressive compared to the first game on the PS1. Metal Gear Solid 2 is arguably the best-looking game on the PS2, and I’m astounded that it came out as early as one year into the console’s lifespan. Everything from the characters, settings, and backgrounds practically looks real here. The foregrounds of Shadow Moses were a tad indiscernible due to the PS1’s limitations, but the dark, damp bunker Snake finds himself here looks clear as day with cascading rain effects for a hint of realism. Despite only a few aesthetic aspects that look dated now, MGS2 still holds an impressive graphical standard. It also helps that all of this is supported by one of the smoothest framerates on the console. Kojima’s mission with the first MGS was an attempt to make a blocky-looking game feel as cinematic as possible with precise direction. The technology offered only one console generation later allows Kojima to make something that fully meets his ambition.

The bunker mission essentially serves as an extensive tutorial to introduce Metal Gear Solid 2’s new mechanics and reacquaint players with the old ones. Stealth is still key to success, and Snake achieves this with the same sneaky tactics. He still crawls through tight vents, chokes out guards in his way, and hides under a cardboard box to avoid being detected. Overall, Snake’s tactics have not changed. What has changed is the ease of executing these stealthy missions for the player. For instance, holding the R1 button will activate a first-person mode with a free-range camera view. This is mostly used to make shooting more accurate, but the player can also survey the area more clearly with this extra perspective. One of Snake’s first weapons is an M9 that shoots tranquilizer darts instead of bullets, disposing of those nosy guards without warranting any unwanted attention. The player can now hide in lockers when evading the guards, which is much more effective than hiding under a box. The game adds a “caution” level on the alert meter after successfully evading the guards that involve increased security for an extended period. I recommend hiding in the lockers for this period. It may last for a long duration of time, but it beats facing the SWAT team of guards that ambush the player if they try to stay and fight. Cheeky Kojima even supplies a variety of lovely Asian girls in many lockers for your viewing pleasure. All of these changes, especially the first two I mentioned, are such a godsend that I could weep tears of joy.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and this sentiment involves some of the more negative changes Metal Gear Solid 2 makes. To access the radar for the area, the player must find a workstation and manually download the map. The workstations are fairly easy to spot, but having to do this makes it apparent that the developers don’t understand what the radar is for. Having a map of the area isn’t a convenient way to direct oneself around the room to get to the next one; it’s to navigate around the guards in the room without being spotted. I’d often alert the guards on my way to the workstation because I couldn’t see their line of sight. These workstations are also the only way the player can access the game’s options menu. I’m sure these workstations have some significance to the themes of technology MGS presents, but I can’t admire their depth when they are inconveniencing me. Another thing one might notice when Snake is low on health is that the remainder of his health turns a yellowish orange, and there is a blipping sound. This means that Snake is bleeding out, and his health will decline until he dies. That is unless he has a bandage in his inventory to patch up his wounds. The bleeding can also be cured with a ration. The number of rations in the field also greatly outnumbers the number of bandages, so it’s a wonder why bandages were introduced in the first place. As for the bleeding mechanic itself, it certainly gives the player more incentive to remain cautious. The only times where I was annoyed with the mechanic were during boss fights, instances where I had to involve myself with the enemy and take damage.

These negative changes are not the core reason I find fault with this game. Overall, complaining about them comes down to nitpicking more than anything else. The divisive factors that make Metal Gear Solid 2 are much meatier and egregious than a few minor discrepancies. The main one that everyone bellyaches about comes right after the tanker mission and wears out its welcome for most MGS fans. When I discussed the new game mechanics MGS2 offers, I used Snake as the playable character to reference every action. This is to be expected because Solid Snake is indeed the playable character in the tanker mission, all of the new features apply to the tanker mission, and he’s the face of the Metal Gear franchise. My big reveal is that I only referred to the new features that apply to Snake in the tanker mission to avoid spoilers. After Snake uploads the pictures of Metal Gear to the workstation, his egress is halted by Revolver Ocelot, who has betrayed his Russian comrades for his self-interest. One might not notice at first glance, but Ocelot has acquired a new arm after it was severed from his body by Gray Fox in the first game. This new appendage has a few drawbacks, however, as Ocelot becomes possessed by none other than Liquid Snake at random occurrences. Ocelot ostensibly took Liquid's arm and crudely applied it to himself, figuring Liquid wasn’t using it anymore because he was dead. Tough break, Ocelot. A possessed Ocelot murders the marine captain and capsizes the tanker, leaving everyone in a watery grave. Otacon bellows a classic “SSSNNAAAKKKEEE”, but there is no game over screen to follow as this scene was intentional. This scene may suggest a grim twist of fate for our hero, but some might question killing off Solid Snake and remain skeptical. One’s suspicions could be relieved in the next scene when good ol’ Roy Campbell is briefing a man with the codename Snake while swimming into a cargo bay. The skeptical feelings may return when the player notices that this Snake has blonde hair and doesn’t sound as gruff as usual. Colonel then changes this Snake’s codename to “Raiden” when it dawns on the player that Snake might be dead, and they’ll have to play as this guy for the rest of the game.

I’m more ambivalent towards Raiden than anything else. He draws a lot of ire from franchise fans, and it’s not surprising to see why. Is it hated for his pretty-boy looks and his confused, puppy-dog expressions? Is it due to his disturbingly wide, child-bearing hips protruding from his skin-tight bodysuit? No, it’s simply because many fans felt betrayed by having him as the central protagonist of MGS2 instead of Solid Snake, especially after playing as Snake at the beginning of the game. The familiarity Kojima established in the tanker mission was just a ruse to keep the player’s guard down and then pull the rug out from under them. It’s wise to always expect this kind of thing from such a subversive series, but I can imagine why it upset many people. I don’t mind Raiden because at least he isn’t a downgrade from Snake in terms of gameplay. Raiden’s range of movement is just as slick and acrobatic as Snake’s, arguably even more so because Raiden can do a catapult. All of the new features are translated to Raiden for the rest of the game as well, so the developers, fortunately, don’t leave the player hanging in the gameplay department.

Raiden is, however, a completely different character to Snake in terms of characterization. The player shifts from controlling a grizzled combat veteran with a weathered face of experience to a bright-eyed, clueless dork whose only experience in battle is VR training. Raiden is a rookie, and his mission here is a big step out of his comfort zone into the fray of real danger. While Raiden's lack of experience will not be a detriment to the player, especially if they’ve played the first game, the frame of the story will treat Raiden as if this is his first time walking. The Colonel claims he has confidence in Raiden, but this conflicts with his constant codex calls during the mission in which he acts like an overprotective parent teaching their child how to drive. The codex calls with the Colonel in the first game had some leeway for banter between him and Snake, establishing a genuine relationship between the two beyond their roles in the mission. The interactions between the Colonel and Raiden are all business, sacrificing any levity the first game had. Raiden doesn’t have the confidence to be glib on a mission.

The one person on this mission who does have a personal relationship with Raiden is his girlfriend, Rose. Yes, Raiden’s girlfriend monitors him, and her codex channel acts as the save feature. A resounding “Why?!” may resonate with everyone as to why she’s here, and I’m still wondering after finishing this game. It’s most likely to humanize the soldier to compensate for Raiden’s conversations with everyone else sounding so sterile, but their relationship delves into the most irritating humanization possible. Raiden and Rose are at the point in their relationship where one side feels alienated from the other and decide to have quarrels regarding their sense of emotional distance via the codex calls. She only refers to Raiden by his first name, and I’m astounded that the Colonel doesn’t scold her for doing so. Does anyone enjoy eavesdropping on the dispute between one of their friends and their significant other? No one does, and experiencing this is just as tiresome in a video game. I would call her to save my game and then get an earful about how “Jack” doesn’t cater to her needs anymore for five minutes. It makes me miss Mei Ling’s ancient Chinese proverbs.

Raiden’s mission is a classic hostage rescue affair on the high perches of the Big Shell decontamination facility located over the deep waters off the shores of New York City. Big Shell was erected here to clean up the residual oil from the capsized tanker a few years prior. Revolver Ocelot has returned to the crime scene with another gang of eccentric terrorists, and they’ve got some big named hostages as collateral. As a setting, Big Shell is a total deviation from the dark, Alaskan tundra that surrounded the base of Shadow Moses. The sun shines outside the facility, accompanied by the bluest of skies. There are constant sounds of seagulls squawking instead of the howling of timberwolves, and the waves of the ocean waters below crash against the facility. Don’t be misled by the seemingly less hostile atmosphere; the whole facility is swarming with guards, and the ciphers hover over the waters to catch Raiden with just their peripheral vision. The steep, balance-board rafters that make up the foundation of Big Shell’s outside sections are flimsy and will often result in Raiden falling to his untimely death. Because of these treacherous obstacles, it’s wise to know the facility's layout, and its design allows the player to do so easily. The Big Shell facility comprises two main cores with many struts circling it, connected by outdoor bridges. The struts are labeled with letters of the alphabet, with struts A-F circling the first core and G-M circling the second core. The entire map is well organized, and its cyclical nature allows for easy access to other areas of the map. The entire layout of Big Shell will become comfortably familiar to the player, and backtracking is so much more manageable as a result.

Gallivanting around Big Shell’s towering struts are the eccentric super-terrorists, a franchise staple. Revolver Ocelot is the one familiar face (with Liquid being the other familiar voice) out of them, but a whole new crop of baddies is here to replace the ones from FOXHOUND. Their squadron is referred to as Dead Cell, ironically a former anti-terrorist group that has gone radical ever since their original leader died years prior. A few Dead Cell members have perished since, but those active here are Fortune, Fatman, Vamp, and Solidus Snake. Fortune is a woman who shares similar physical characteristics with Storm from X-Men. She’s got long blonde hair, dark skin, and an energy rifle that’s as big as her. Her special ability is having any projectile weapon like bullets and missiles zoom past her like her body emitting an opposing polarity field. This is not a power she wears with honor, as it is a curse for her. Fortune is suffering from the grief of the deaths of her husband and her father (the marine commandant from the tanker mission) and feels as if she is cursed to not die like some kind of martyr. Fatman is a rotund albino man who specializes in demolition tools and rides around on roller skates. He betrays his fellow Dead Cell members by planting bombs around Big Shell to blow it up, and disposing of his bombs becomes a central objective during a large portion of the overall mission. Vamp is an androgynous man with long hair and fangs with supernatural powers relating to his vampiric presence. Like a vampire, Vamp cannot die, so defeating him numerous times in the game only deters him slightly. As one could imagine, all of the Dead Cell members make up the boss fights of the game, and fighting against the members of Dead Cell is much more underwhelming than the fights against FOXHOUND. The fight against Fortune is a stalling bout, and the core of Fatman’s fight is just freezing more bombs. The main fight against Vamp is challenging and has a loose fighting structure for the player to take advantage of, but this fight is ultimately mitigated by the fact that Vamp can’t be defeated. The most interesting Dead Cell member is Solidus Snake, but the fight against him on Big Shell is just a more erratic version of the chopper duel with Liquid in the first game. Dead Cell are as interesting as FOXHOUND as villains, but they fail to make for engaging bosses.

All this seems a tad much for a rookie like Raiden to handle on his own. Fortunately, some “new” faces come to aid Raiden in rescuing the hostages and taking down Dead Cell. During Raiden’s first encounter with Vamp, a man who has a strong resemblance to Snake saves Raiden from the bisexual beast. While this man could be Snake’s doppelganger, he claims his name's Pliskin (which already gives it away that he’s Snake if anyone is familiar with Kurt Russell’s character from Escape from New York, an obvious influence for the character of Solid Snake). Plisken aids Raiden by providing him aid during some boss battles, freezing Fatman’s bombs, and giving Raiden some pointers on how to survive on the field. There is also the demolitions expert Stillman assisting Raiden, but he dies early on from one of Fatman’s explosives. To no one's surprise, it is then revealed that Pliskin is Solid Snake, and he’s brought Otacon on the mission with him. Since the tanker incident, Snake and Otacon have been working together independently from the American government. Otacon is present on this mission for another reason, however, and it’s a personal one.

One of the hostages Dead Cell has taken is Otacon’s estranged step-sister Emma who Otacon playfully refers to as “E.E.” She’s an engineer working for Arsenal Gear who Raiden and Snake need to deactivate Arsenal with a virus. Physically, she’s as frangible as a flower and pitiful as a whimpering puppy. Rescuing her as Raiden is an exhausting escort mission where the player has to assist with EVERY obstacle along the way. During the portion where Raiden and Snake are sniping claymores and guards out of Emma’s path, Vamp pops out of the water and inflicts Emma with a fatal stab wound. They get her back to the core of Shell 1, where she dies in Otacon’s arms. This scene may seem contrived, but I started to choke up when Emma’s parrot mimicked Emma’s longing for Otacon, and he broke down. I never expected to have any emotional standing with Emma. Her helplessness during the escort mission made for one of the most infuriating parts of the game, but her death made it so impactful. It’s a seminal moment for Otacon as a character who, until now, was only another one of Snake’s aids. I stated that an awkward hiccup in the first game was Otacon attempting to sympathize with Snake’s loss of Meryl with his loss of Sniper Wolf, but his loss here makes up for that in spades. This arc with Emma would’ve been much more pertinent if she was involved with Shadow Moses in the first game instead of Big Shell here.

While Emma’s arc stands out to me and is a sizable chunk of the game, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the overarching story. It’s hard to tell what the meat of the story is because it’s a total mess. I’ve heard of A plots and B plots, but the overarching themes and story points in MGS2 run the gamut of the whole alphabet. MGS2 inflicts excruciatingly long swathes of exposition on the player during what seems like every single cutscene. Even the conversations between Raiden and Rose serve as long points of exposition about their relationship. The Emma arc is almost ruined with long elucidations regarding the GW project and Otacon’s soap-opera family life. The first game presented plenty to unpack, but the exposition was used sparingly compared to the amount presented here. I can’t even appreciate the odd moments of levity here like Raiden slipping in bird shit, Raiden getting groped by the president, and Snake and Otacon’s complicated bro-handshake because they are weighed down by the gunk of plots A through Zed. At least the main objective of freeing the hostages is the core arc here, right?

Nope. After Emma dies, the game kicks the complicated switch into high gear to mold the rest of the game. I’ll try to explain everything and wrap everything up into a semi-neat package. Think that Psycho Mantis was the biggest Metal Gear mind-fuck? It has nothing on the end of MGS2. Olga, the first boss from the tanker mission, aids Snake in capturing Raiden and taking him to Solidus and Ocelot, where he is held captive in a torture device similar to the one from the first game. Raiden escapes bare-ass naked, rendered helpless because both hands have to cover his ding-dong. He gets many strange codex calls from the Colonel and Rose, ranging from breaking the fourth wall to silly non-sequiturs. Something isn’t right here. Snake meets up with Raiden, gives him a katana, and explains that betraying him with Olga was a means to infiltrate the core of Arsenal. Snake and Raiden fight their way into the core, where Raiden then fights six versions of Metal Gear Ray in a cybernetic arena (it’s not as hard as it sounds). Solidus and Ocelot show up to provide yet another long stretch of exposition that explains Raiden’s backstory. Raiden was a child soldier in the 1980s known as “Jack the Ripper,” Solidus killed his parents and adopted him as a child. Metal Gear Arsenal loses control and crashes into New York City. Raiden and Solidus have a final fight on a New York landmark with dueling katana swords, and Raiden saves the day.

That’s a rough summary of what occurs at the end of MGS2, but it’s the underlying context that molds it (or does it?). The main antagonists of MGS2 are not Dead Cell or any other terrorist but a group called the Patriots. The president explains to Raiden that the Patriots are the ones who pull the strings of America, and he is merely a figurehead to assuage the general public. GW on Big Shell exists to keep the Patriots in power by providing fake information to the people of America. Revolver Ocelot is a Patriot agent who has a list of their names, and Solidus used to be the president who was pulling for the Patriots in the first game. He’s also another clone of Big Boss like Solid and Liquid. The whole game is a virtual simulation of the events of Shadow Moses fitted for a VR soldier like Raiden, explaining the cracks in the system at the end. Defeating Solidus at the end seems like our heroes are getting one step closer to eradicating the Patriots and their oppressive control. Still, Ocelot’s disc claims that all of these men have been dead for over a century. All of this is supposed to point to themes of personal autonomy for every individual.

The Psycho Mantis portion of MGS1 was a mind-fuck that pleasantly shocked and awed me for its innovation, but the more severe one here made my brain feel violated. A moderately complicated base plot regarding a hostage mission has imploded into a clusterfuck of ideas and subplots with no cohesion or integral structure between them. I forgot to mention Rose being a patriot double-agent and holding Olga’s child hostage, but I can’t incorporate those subplots smoothly just like Kojima couldn’t do it. There are many interesting and provocative themes here, like the manipulation of information and reality becoming less structured moving into the digital age. Still, these points are crushed under the weight of everything else the developers are trying to get through. Metal Gear Solid 2 is the video game equivalent of Infinite Jest or Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. These are all works of art with interesting and unique spectacles marred by the influx of ideas and their multiple footnotes that the whole thing becomes indigestible. Some smug jackasses might argue that I’m not intelligent enough to “get it”, but you know what? The smartest way to interpret what’s being presented here is to analyze it and conclude that there is nothing to get. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that Kojima needs to undergo surgery to remove his head from his rectal cavity.

I’ve had it up to here (puts hand above head) with Hideo Kojima and his auteur vision. The first Metal Gear Solid tested the limits of what a cinematic narrative could accomplish in the early 3D era without going overboard, but Metal Gear Solid 2 bursts the seams of proper narrative structure. I’m not going to refer to the themes and story of this game as a “postmodern groundbreaker” like everyone else. Rather, it’s the result of a lapse of judgment, control, and self-awareness on Kojima’s part. Kojima’s plan to awe us with a 21st-century spectacle of conspiracy akin to 9/11 ultimately backfired. If it stuck with one theme, like the first game’s themes of genetics and their properties coinciding with one’s fate like the first game, I wouldn’t be so riled up. I’m still conflicted about how to perceive Metal Gear Solid 2. As a game, it’s better than the first one in every way. The new hardware granted Metal Gear Solid with smoother controls, more accessible features, and extraordinary presentation. Still, the fact that Kojima took all of these advantages and turned them into this makes it all the sadder. I cannot in good conscience put this piece of pretentious gobbledygook in higher regard than the first Metal Gear Solid, despite its high quality as a game.

Metal Gear Solid Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/30/2021)

[Image from ign.com]

Metal Gear Solid

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Stealth, Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: September 3, 1998

Metal Gear Solid: a video game that is a science-fiction work more philosophical and convoluted than The Matrix, more anxiety-ridden with the looming milestone of the 21st century than Radiohead’s OK Computer, and more wrought with paranoia regarding government conspiracies than portly American filmmaker Michael Moore. It’s also considered a landmark mark title for the medium of video games. Its launch year of 1998 had some steep competition. Banjo-Kazooie nearly perfected the 3D platforming formula established by Super Mario 64, Half-Life provided stark innovation for the single-player first-person shooter experience, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time translated the elements of The Legend of Zelda so remarkably that it was quickly considered to be the greatest game of all time. Metal Gear Solid is considered to be among the ranks of these early 3D titans. 1998 was the year that proved these newfangled 3D polygons weren’t just a phase but a changing of the new guard for gaming. While all of these titles deserve every bit of praise they get, I’d argue that Metal Gear Solid was the most impressive.

The outstanding aspects of Metal Gear Solid are too numerous to briefly summarize. The other three games from 1998 that were previously mentioned are impressive in their own right, but Metal Gear Solid was on a whole other level. Metal Gear Solid is the brainchild of Hideo Kojima, an iconic figure in the video game industry and arguably the finest example of a video game auteur. His eccentric vision spurred by his love of film fostered the question: can the gaming medium be a cinematic spectacle and be as narratively rich? As one could see from the final product of his masterwork, the answer to that question was yes. Metal Gear Solid pushed the boundaries of what we all thought was capable in a video game. In a period when the medium was still juggling with the new 3D capabilities, Kojima took it a step further, and his baffling ambition created something way before its time and also managed to make it a work of quality. Of course, this was 23 years ago, and the passage of time was not kind to many aspects of this game’s presentation and gameplay. Compared to future cinematic games and other games in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, the first Metal Gear Solid tends to be regarded in a similar breath of respect to other early 3D games. Most people will argue that it’s an important game, but its incredibly dated aspects sully its replayability decades onward. Judging from my non-nostalgic perspective of playing Metal Gear Solid, I’d argue that Metal Gear Solid still retains its impressive qualities.

The groundbreaking cinematic qualities of Metal Gear Solid are readily apparent as early as the opening cutscene. One of the first screens presents itself as a “Hideo Kojima Game”, stamping his name on the title to signify his distinctive vision like Jean-Luc Godard or Quentin Tarantino. The first visual of the game is a submarine treading through dark, frigid water accompanied by some nifty water effects. The operations inside the submarine are depicted as intricately as something from Das Boot. A voiceover gives the details of a classified espionage mission to Solid Snake, the special operative assigned to this daunting escapade. A group of highly capable terrorists known as FOXHOUND possess nuclear weapons and have threatened to unleash them on American soil if their demands are not met. They have also taken hostages involved in the nuclear device’s inception as collateral. Their stronghold is located on Shadow Moses Island, located in the center of the Alaskan arctic, surrounded by the Bering Sea. Snake’s mission is to rescue the two hostages and find out more information about FOXHOUND's nuke launching capabilities and the intricacies of their plan. As he ejects himself from the missile and arrives on Shadow Moses Island, he swims up to a cargo bay as a point of entry.

Most people who argue against Metal Gear Solid’s lasting appeal usually poke and prod at the graphics. Admittedly, the rudimentary 3D graphics commonplace in this era of gaming are quite jarring. The backgrounds are heavily compressed, which in turn makes the dark, oppressive look and tone of Shadow Moses look murky and monochrome with age. The atmosphere Kojima intended to convey isn’t as effective when the player can’t discern what they are looking at. The more dated aspect of the graphics that is more popularly criticized is the character animations. They are just as compressed as the backgrounds, with the added awkwardness of the stilted movements of each character. The mouths of the characters don’t budge in the slightest, maybe proving a point that Kojima was perhaps too ambitious to create a cinematic game during a period where 3D graphics were still so primitive.

With all of the dated aspects in mind that I cannot overlook, I will make something clear in the game’s defense. The graphics of a game and its presentation aren’t necessarily interchangeable. While the graphics of the game couldn’t be more endemic to the early 3D era, the game's direction is still masterful. Judging by the opening cutscene of the game, the intended spectacle is still present now as it was in 1998. The opening visual of the submarine verging closer to the screen while moving is like the opening scene of Star Wars, plunging the viewer into the action with an alluring, ambiguous scope. The wide-ranged shots of the environment surrounding Shadow Moses Island illustrate the breadth of the hostile landscape. As Snake exits the SDV, he ascends to the glimmering surface as the screen fades to white. These kinds of shots are not ones of typical game developers but ones of a filmmaker. Metal Gear Solid’s presentation is preserved through marvelous cinematography. Critiquing the dated visuals is superfluous when the direction holds up its foundation so well. Other impressive cinematography uses are the first-person perspectives of enemies during cutscenes, flash cuts in scenes when someone dies, and the explosions that occur during some scenes. I’d even argue that all of this is even more impressive with age because it’s astounding that the game can perform all of this with such primitive technology. The game also utilizes live-action portions in cutscenes with long swathes of exposition. Live-action cutscenes were popular during the early 3D era and tended to look cheesy. Normally, I’d chastise a game’s presentation for using these, but Metal Gear Solid has managed to use them tastefully. Most of the live-action sections include what looks like clips of classified government footage, and the grainy textures of the PS1 add a certain rarefied quality to them.

I can also forgive the borderline paralyzed character animations in the game because the voice acting is phenomenal. Along with the game’s cinematography, Metal Gear Solid was leagues ahead of the curb regarding voice acting as well. This era was when voice acting in video games was still a new concept. Most voice-overs during this period were either awkward or patently directionless, inadvertently making the game comical or campy as a result (see the first Resident Evil for a prime example of this). Considering Metal Gear Solid bears many film-like qualities, having a stellar cast of people to provide the voices is a mandatory feature. Metal Gear Solid is a very dialogue-intensive video game, probably setting an unprecedented record for most spoken dialogue in a video game at the time. David Hayter gives our furtive protagonist a gruff, gnarled tone of voice. Yet, he evokes more of a range than one would expect from his tone. The same could be said for all of the voices in the game. Most of the dialogue in the game is spoken through codec calls, characters from the outside listening in on Snake’s mission and giving him a bevy of information to aid him on his quest. The conversations during the codec calls are meant for exposition and to aid the player in whatever situation Snake finds himself in. The codec calls are usually prompt and formal due to the somewhat urgent nature of the mission. Still, the voice actors give the talking heads behind the codec calls enough personality to characterize them properly.

It helps that the characters supported by the stellar voice acting are all very interesting. One thing I’m not fond of in the action-espionage genre is the lack of characterization. These types of stories usually highlight the action-intensive story and its wavering nature. They don’t take the time to give the characters more personable traits, making the story unsubstantial. The medium of video games allows more time for this among the action, and Metal Gear Solid does this splendidly. Solid Snake, for instance, is more than just a capable force against villainy. He’s got the strong demeanor of a typical action hero but is far more brooding than suave. This, however, does not stop every female character from making suggestive, flirty comments at Snake. Moments like these are indicative of Metal Gear Solid’s sharp script. While a lot of the dialogue is very forward, as per usual for the espionage story, there are plenty of moments like these that add a much-needed sense of levity. The other characters are given this characterization through their banter with Snake, especially those only spoken to through the codec calls. Roy Campbell is the government head of this classified mission, but he and Snake speak to each other like they are long-time friends with a lot of history. Mei Ling’s frequency is only used to save the game, but Snake forms a caring, respected relationship with her while being treated to the wisdom of ancient Chinese proverbs when the player saves. Otacon is more front and center in the action than the other supporting characters, but he still forms a personable bond with Snake. He’s like the nerdy, pragmatic foil to Snake’s grizzled, warrior persona. He also pees himself when confronted with danger which is both amusing and disgusting. The espionage genre was in dire need of characters that wee themselves out of fear. The guards can also be a source of levity given the circumstances. For being militant soldiers with impressive AI working in extreme weather conditions, they can act like total nincompoops at times. One can’t forget the squeaky-voiced guard telling Snake to shut up or another guard patrolling Snake’s cell that suddenly gets the shits and comes back amused to find Snake playing with ketchup (if the player screws this up). It’s funny to me how the most elite group of terrorists can still have the dopiest of workers guarding their stronghold.

Speaking of that elite group of terrorists, FOXHOUND is the most colorful and eccentric team of bad guys to ever threaten the world with nuclear annihilation. Each member is as unique as the next and has philosophies about justice and their place in the world. Revolver Ocelot is a Russian soldier adept with the gun of his namesake. He’s also fashioned himself up like a cowboy due to his fascination with spaghetti westerns. Vulcan Raven is a hulking man of Native American descent with shaman-like superpowers. The birds of his namesake always seem to be flying around cawing when his presence is near. Psycho Mantis is a maniacal man with psychokinetic powers, donning a gas mask that makes his voice more menacing. Sniper Wolf is a deadly sharpshooter, the best in the profession. Leading the group is the motivated soldier Liquid Snake, who is just as capable as a soldier as Solid Snake is. The fights with these bosses are all incredible as they are all varied from one another and very engaging. The distanced duel with Sniper Wolf is so tense it will make the player’s brow sweat, and the infamous Psycho Mantis fight was and still is unparalleled by anything else in gaming. Hideo Kojima ostensibly used the gun masters from the cult classic acid western film El Topo. Like the gunmen of that film, Kojima wanted each FOXHOUND boss to be distinctive from one another in both aesthetics and beliefs. If the muse of El Topo creates video game bosses of this magnitude, then perhaps the film should be used as inspiration for more video games.

The remarkable cinematic properties in Metal Gear Solid are something to behold, but they do not make up the entirety of the substantial weight of the game. I’ve never been a huge fan of cinematic games as they tend to heavily simplify the gameplay to enhance the film-like qualities. They tend to come across as glorified interactive films to either compete with the medium or to reel in film people who might be averse to most video games. Hideo Kojima’s ideology as a developer strives not to let the cinematic properties dilute the gameplay, and he does an exceptional job at finding that balance here. Metal Gear Solid is as impressive in the gameplay department as it is with its presentation.

Metal Gear Solid is a stealth-action video game, a genre of game that the previous Metal Gear games pioneered in the 1980s. The games involve the player surreptitiously traversing through an area with an emphasis on avoiding being detected, or else the player will suffer some kind of consequence from carelessly blowing their cover. Like many early 3D titles, Metal Gear Solid is in many ways a 3D translation of the gameplay elements presented in the 2D Metal Gear games. Many familiar aspects of the 2D games make their return here. The radar returns to aid Snake in avoiding guards, codec calls are still present to communicate with people on the outside, and the game gives the player time to evade the guards after being spotted. The extra visual dimension in Metal Gear Solid also adds other aspects to the stealth gameplay. Holding down the triangle button on the controller engages a first-person perspective that Snake can use as a visual vantage point. The 3D environments also allow more objects to be a part of the terrain to be used as barriers to hide from guards. Overall, the 2D aspects are translated swimmingly, and the new 3D graphics unlock parameters that flesh out the stealth gameplay.

Snake also has an eclectic arsenal to aid him in his mission. Both items and weapons are designated to opposite sides of the controller that appear in a menu when the left and right triggers are held down. On the right side are the weapons that Snake can use during combat. The first firearm Snake can use is a SOCOM pistol which can take out a guard with a few rounds. The FAMAS assault rifle is unlocked later to deal with bigger guard ambushes as the game gets progressively more demanding. Snake also has access to two missile launchers: the Stinger for dealing with larger, more durable vehicles and the remote-controlled Nikita missile. A sniper rifle helps Snake pick off enemies at a distance. Still, it’s rendered impractical without the additional use of the drug diazepam to calm Snake’s nerves and make accurate shots. Snake also incorporates a bevy of explosives like grenades, C4, claymores, etc. These can be used offensively, but explosives like C4 are also used to combust walls with weaker foundations for traversal. Chaff grenades and stun grenades are used to subdue security cameras and guards, respectively. On the left side of the screen is the smattering of items that aren’t weapons, such as rations to restore health, a multitude of goggles for different occasions, and the staple cardboard box that Snake can hide under to avoid being detected. Having all of these weapons and items at one’s disposal may give off the impression that Snake is an impenetrable offensive force, but the game counter-balances his array of tools by making ammo for them scarce. This counterbalance makes the game invigorating as the player has to prioritize when to use their inventory.

Metal Gear Solid is also much more action-oriented than its 2D predecessors. This isn’t to say that the series has been adulterated to fit the more accessible action genre. It’s still a tried and true stealth game that will subtly reprimand players who decide on a gung-ho approach attempting to mow down the guards. Even if they succeed, remember that ammo and other items are intentionally scant to persuade the player to be stealthy. This way, the player will be screwed during sections when they need a plentiful amount of ammo and supplies. Rather, Metal Gear Solid gives the player more leniency with error, allowing them to take action in hectic circumstances. Snake is not equipped for speed as his quickest running animation still looks like he has something uncomfortable wedged between his asscheeks. Trying to run away from the guards will be unsuccessful most of the time. Metal Gear Solid is a rare example of hiding working out better than running. The player will be overwhelmed by guards if they take a head-on approach. When the player is forced to run and conserve their resources, Snake isn’t rendered defenseless. He can also hurl enemies to the ground, knock them out by punching and kicking, and can snap the necks of enemies by sneaking upon them. The stealth-action gameplay is perfectly balanced in most circumstances, reasonably giving the player enough to work with while making it clear that Snake is not a seemingly impenetrable force of nature like the Doom Guy.

One aspect that isn’t as balanced is whenever the game forces an action sequence upon the player. This doesn’t relate to the bosses as those encounters are never overwhelming due to focusing the action on one person, but the same can’t be said for being ambushed by guards at certain points. The first case of this is when Snake and Meryl are accosted by a group of guards once Meryl breaks out of her cell. If the player hasn’t alerted any guards up to this point, this is certainly when they discover that shooting in this game isn’t ideal. Aiming the guns at the guards is imprecise, especially if the player is aiming with a PS1 controller without an analog stick. It can be forgiven in most cases because it’s more incentive for the player to take a stealthy approach, but there is nowhere to run or hide during these instances. Whether it be the instance where Snake is ambushed on the elevators or the section where he is climbing up a tower of stairs, the forced-action sections feel unfair to the player because of the awkward controls.

On the surface, Metal Gear Solid sounds like a more intricately written James Bond film in an interactive medium. While the iconic British spy was certainly an influence on the series, Metal Gear Solid is far more weird and cerebral than anything Ian Fleming ever wrote. Hideo Kojima only uses the espionage genre as a base, engulfing it in his auteur eccentricities with a healthy dose of postmodern sensibilities to shake things up even more. Characters will often break the fourth wall by instructing the player to press certain buttons on the controller (I knew this was where Sly Cooper got the idea from!). They will also acknowledge the game outside of normal metaphysical boundaries. These postmodern tropes in the narrative are typical of the style. They might never have been used in a video game before this, but they are common in other mediums like film and literature. Something unprecedented that Metal Gear Solid debuts are translating postmodern elements into gameplay mechanics. A simple one is locating Meryl’s codec code on the back of the game box, which Campbell will also instruct the player to do outside the metaphysical boundaries of the game. A silly vibration mechanic with the controller will be used by Naomi Hunter to “calm Snake’s nerves”. I played along, and the slight tingling sensation did feel rather nice. These light-hearted mechanics are fun and interesting, but they are nothing compared to the infamous section of the game that utilizes postmodern properties with gameplay mechanics to the nth degree.

The Psycho Mantis boss is the ultimate video game mindfuck. He’ll start by possessing Meryl by making her unhinged with both ravenous desire and aggression, which is unnerving. Once he physically appears, it gets a whole lot stranger. He claims he can read Snake’s mind, commenting on the player’s saving habits and approach to combat. If the player is still skeptical about his abilities, he responds by reading the player’s memory card. Unfortunately, the only other Konami game I had saved on the memory card was Silent Hill which came after Metal Gear Solid, so Psycho Mantis just told me that my memory was clean. I can still imagine that the jaws of every player back in 1998 were dropped to the floor when this happened. Once he sets the tense, creepy mood of his boss fight, the player will notice that they can’t do anything to even wound Psycho Mantis. The TV even turns off suddenly with the input visor HIDEO in the top right corner (this effect is unfortunately lost on anyone not playing on a modern TV. Too bad.) Once this culminates in driving the player into a panicked frenzy, Campbell calls and instructs Snake to swap the controller into the second controller port. Yes, the player has to get up off their ass and switch the controller to defeat Psycho Mantis. While many of the effects of Psycho Mantis’s powers are somewhat lost to time due to needing outdated technology to be effective, implementing all of these postmodern elements into the gameplay was unheard of. I can still appreciate the ingenuity of this portion of the game and the intensity of Psycho Mantis’s fight.

Metal Gear Solid’s plot and themes are much more sophisticated than the typical work of espionage fiction. The political spectrum of most espionage works is set on a very black and white compass, often leaning towards the power and might of the western world (mainly the Anglosphere if not specifically America) to be right and true. Metal Gear Solid takes a more nuanced take on good and evil as Snake only sees his enemies as people who are just casualties of war. Even though they try to kill him, he still respects them as fellow soldiers. The game also conveys the message not to trust the government a soldier is working under, even if they are portrayed as heroic and just. Snake’s initial mission of rescuing the DARPA Chief and ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker is derailed when both mysteriously die from onset cases of cardiac arrest. His mission becomes a perilous race when he learns that FOXHOUND already had the codes for the nuclear launch. When Snake is taken hostage, he finds the body of the DARPA Chief in his cell with him and notices how strange it is that his body has decayed to the point where it is being digested by maggots in only a matter of hours. He then learns that the person he saw die was not the DARPA Chief but FOXHOUND member Decoy Octopus posing as him. Near the end of the game, there is a scandal involving Naomi Hunter being an imposter. She is a scientist that developed a deadly virus called FOXDIE, which is programmed to kill any past or present member, including Snake. The government sent Snake on this mission knowing this would happen to him, so they could retrieve the unscathed Metal Gear REX and use its nukes for their purposes.

The convoluted twists and turns of Metal Gear Solid’s plot are certainly engaging, but they are not the essence of Metal Gear Solid’s narrative brilliance. The substance of Metal Gear Solid lies in its general theme of fate or subverting its supposed absolute nature. Metal Gear Solid explores this theme under the pretense of genetics and how they shape a person’s life. The reason why Liquid Snake wants the remains of the infamous American soldier Big Boss is because he and Snake are genetic clones of the man. While Snake inherited all of the dominant genes, Liquid ostensibly inherited all of the weak recessive ones. This makes him jealous of Solid Snake and yearns to use Big Boss’s genetic data to subvert his supposed fate of being an inferior soldier by design. The theme of genetic-based destinies also rings true for other characters in the game.

The Naomi Hunter we’ve come to know launched her career in genetic research to discover who she is. Meryl feels inclined to become a soldier because many family members were soldiers. Otacon feels his work with Metal Gear Rex is fated to be destructive because of his grandfather’s involvement in the Manhattan Project. Solid Snake even feels that his role as a cold-blooded, genetically engineered soldier makes him fated to be alien from humanity. Solid Snake is callous to the casualties of war because his genetic makeup does not allow him to not have humanistic traits. He has no family, no relationships, and he doesn’t even have a name. He’s as much of a war machine as any tank or nuclear device he’s come across, except that he’s made of flesh and blood. This fate he’s accepted is tested with Meryl because he finds himself attracted to her. Whether he’s enamored with her because she’s an exceptional female soldier or lusting after her...posterior, she still makes him feel the human emotion of attraction that he claims to not possess. Even Psycho Mantis gives kudos to Snake for not being driven by the same “impure desire to create” as other humans, but his relationship with Meryl proves otherwise. His foil to this theme is the allied cyber soldier Grey Fox who turns out to be Snake’s old soldier friend Frank Jaeger who was presumed dead. While he is still much alive, his new cybernetic armor that is holding up his body is making him anguished, a shell of his former humanity that Snake takes for granted. He even wants Snake to fight him with his bare hands to feel the embrace of flesh and bone instead of mechanical bullets, which is both disturbing and sad (and kinky).

There are two different endings to Metal Gear Solid that contrast Snake’s fate with Meryl. If the player survives the torture sequence and escapes the hostage cell, Snake will escape Shadow Moses with Meryl. If the player submits to the torture (which is understandable because smashing the circle button will give anyone onset of carpal tunnel syndrome), Ocelot will kill Meryl, and Snake escapes the base with Otacon. Both endings differ entirely in narrative resolution. Escaping with Meryl gives Snake a chance to subvert his fate of being an alienated killer by starting a relationship.

On the other hand, having Meryl dead gives Snake the profound human emotion of feeling grief for losing someone he cared about. Either outcome provides a strong resolution to this theme, but I think the more uplifting ending where Meryl lives is better. This is mostly because if she dies, Otacon falsely equates losing Sniper Wolf to Snake losing Meryl, which is ridiculous. Meryl and Snake had chemistry, while Otacon had one conversation with Sniper Wolf before she died. Otacon is that kind of uberdork that will fall in love with any woman who talks to him. Whether either ending takes place, another falling action also gives a resolution to this theme. Liquid Snake chases Snake and Meryl/Otacon out of the base, guns blazing. After Snake and his compadre are in a tight spot at the end of the base, Liquid has a chance to make a final strike. He then, however, succumbs to the effects of FOXDIE and dies. Snake assumes this is when his body will surrender to the virus because of the similar genetic makeup, but it doesn’t kick in. When he asks Naomi Hunter why she didn’t kill him with the virus, her answer is very vague, which leads the player to ask these questions: did Liquid Snake die from FOXDIE because of his inferior genetics, or did Naomi subvert Snake’s fate to die from FOXHOUND because Snake himself subverted his traits and showed some humanity? Either or, it’s a fantastic open ending.

Metal Gear Solid is a game that is highly regarded for a reason. It set so many unprecedented landmarks in the medium that it’s still hard to believe that it came out at a time when other games were simply exploring the basic realms of 3D gaming. Hideo Kojima treated us gamers to something that could rival any major filmmaker in terms of narrative and intelligent design and direction. As it gets older, some of the jagged aspects of the gameplay and graphics might not hold up, but its indelible mark on gaming cannot be taken away. This is a rare instance where the phrase “for its time” makes all of the positive aspects of the game more impressive as time passes.