Metal Gear Solid
I suppose it should be noted that I played this game in the year 2011. This is 13 years after the game was released for the Playstation back in 1998. The reason I played it was rage. A professor of mine didn't care for an assignment that I had worked particularly hard on. After returning from class, I vowed not to leave my room for the rest of the day, but instead start a file on a game that I had never played. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to go old school and made my way to the PSN. MGS was downloaded and installed within minutes.
My expectations for the game were high, admittedly. After all, MGS4 is the highest selling PS3 exclusive behind Gran Turismo 5. I had never played a stealth game before and so I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.
The game opened with Solid Snake being called back from retirement by a man named Roy Campbell. Snake is essentially forced to take this mission. He is ordered to infiltrate a nuclear warhead testing facility to stop Liquid, the leader of an organization known as FOXHOUND, who plans to use his current position as a bargaining chip to gain what he wants from the government. Not your typical starting point in a video game narrative.
What I experienced for the next 12 or so hours (yes, I played it in one sitting. I was not leaving my room) was as close as I have come to being brought to an out of body experience by a video game. This game wasn't rated "mature" for blood, sex, and swearing. No, this was a mature game. A game that reflects on human nature, ethics, loyalties, and so much more. Not only did this game offer a narrative that could rival that of novels and film, the interactive experience was enjoyable throughout the entire game as well. It was fun, challenging, and way ahead of its time. I was being blown away by it 13 years after its release.
In a way, it was the perfect game. A game that recognizes that being fun isn't the only thing a game needs to be. MGS is so well orchestrated; from the expertly written and acted death scenes, to the way the plot twists are revealed, this is the game that started a defining franchise.
Metal Gear Solid shot to the top of my "best games ever" list as the ending credits rolled. Although I cannot say it overtook Final Fantasy X as my favorite game of all time, it most certainly earned a tie.
And man, did it get me excited for the HD collection that was set for release just a few weeks after.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
This is, without argue, the MGS game that has garnered the most hate and disappointment throughout the years. I enjoyed my time with this game, and it had my attention throughout just as much as the original did. But I do understand why so many dislike it.
One thing that stood out to me in the original MGS was how real Kojima tried to make the game feel. Even though it could be argued that the events within the game were completely out of the realm of possibility, it was presented as something very real and worldly. (I think that many things in MGS are very possible.) MGS2 seemed to lose sight of this type of storytelling. While there was enough reality within the game to keep me satisfied, some elements that were included made it hard to hold the suspension of disbelief.
Characters like Vamp really strayed from what the original MGS laid out as groundwork. It's almost as if they built a house while the foundation was set in a place somewhere else. Some argue that the house collapsed, while I think it still stands the test of time.
Despite all of this, most of the gripes come from the introduction of Raiden, it seems. For those of you who don't know, the player does not play as Snake for the majority of MGS2. They play as the newly introduced Raiden. Not only is he new to the series, he is new in general, as he admits that he is on his first mission during the game's events. We are brought from playing as the legendary Snake during the first MGS (and the first couple hours of MGS2) to being forced to play as the newby Raiden. Let me explain why I believe this works well in the context of the game.
Raiden explains that he got his training through the extensive use of VR (virtual reality) sessions. I like to think that Kojima was, in a way, trying to draw comparisons between us as the player and Raiden. Raiden is sent out into the field with nothing under his belt other than "video game" training (as Snake puts it.) A sort of Tabula Rasa is introduced to the series this way. Raiden comes into the game largely without any type of personality. We see throughout the game how the events of the story shape him into what he becomes by the game's end. It's as if Kojima forced us to play as Raiden in order to get rid of everything we knew about MGS so that we, too, could become newbies and more easily influenced by the happenings within the game.
The story of MGS2 is, like its predecessor, expertly crafted. When I first played it, and was trying to sort through everything that had happened, I did think there were too many of those "ha! Got you! This had been planned since the beginning! None of what you know is right!" moments. But now, looking back, I realize how all of those different things were planned from the beginning. The more I thought about it, these story elements changed from a copout to a story that was designed extremely well, and planned extensively from the beginning,
Although the least impressive in the series, MGS2 is an incredible game. The end boasted too much philosophical gibberish for my taste, but Kojima listened to fans and ultimately ditched it entirely for the next entry in the franchise: Snake Eater.
Check back for my thoughts on MGS3 and 4 later on!
No comments:
Post a Comment