2 DAYS UNTIL MGS4!

We're almost there, folks! I'm at the very end of MGS2, and I should have no trouble beating it tonight. My original plan for this blog was to write about aspects of each game as I beat them, but with my schedule the way it has been I've had to kind of abandon that idea and just write about whatever I have time for. Rest assured, I'll be maintaining and updating this blog for the foreseeable future! I haven't covered a quarter of the topics I want to yet, and I have no doubt that MGS4 will only provide more to theorize and obsess over!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Speaking of obsession...

...I own a lot of Metal Gear stuff.

In the top photo, going from top to bottom and left to right, are the following:

1. PSP with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops "body armor" attached.
2. Box the PSP MGS:PO body armor came in.
3. MetalGear Solid official strategy guide
4. Metal Gear (NES)
5. Snake's Revenge (NES)
6. Metal Gear Solid (the same copy I bought on launch day on 10/21/98!)
7. Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
8. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (AKA Metal Gear Solid in the U.S.)
9. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (again, same copy I bought on launch day!)
10. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
11. The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2
12. Worlds of Power: Metal Gear (a godforsaken abomination which will be covered in detail in a future update...)
13. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (launch day again!)
14. Box for Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence Collector's Edition
15. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
16. MGS3: Subsistence "Existence" Collector's Edition Disk
17. Metal Gear Ac!d
18. Metal Gear Ac!d 2
19. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (couldn't find the case for it, but I still have it somewhere)
20. Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel (This is pretty rare!)
21. Metal Gear Solid comic collection 1
22. Metal Gear Solid: The Complete Guide
23. Metal Gear Legacy Vol. 1 (pre-order bonus for MGS3: Subsistence)
24. MGS2: Sons of Liberty Original Soundtrack
25. MGS3: Snake Eater Original Soundtrack
26. MGS: Portable Ops Original Soundtrack
27. Metal Gear Legacy Vol. 2 (pre-order bonus for MGS4: Guns of the Patriots)
    

Underneath all that is a close-up of my Raiden and MGS2 Snake figures. I have a figure of Big Boss (as he appears near the end of MGS3) as well, but that one is currently guarding my desk at work. The only other Metal Gear-related artifact I have that isn't shown here is one of the original E3 fliers for Metal Gear Solid (passed out at E3 in 1998, I believe). It's this full-sized, fold-out brochure; lavishly colored and illustrated, and covered with info about the game. It's not pictured because I just now remembered I have it. Heh.

SIX Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:


I don't recall where I first saw it, but this was the ad that made the 12-year-old me want to check out the NES version of Metal Gear. I eventually rented it, couldn't figure out where to go or what to do, and returned it a day later without accomplishing jack shit.

Then I played it again a year or two later and loved it. For years after that, my friend Matt and I would occasionally speculate on how it cool it would be if Konami would make another Metal Gear game someday.

Finally, in 1997, Metal Gear Solid was revealed to the world. Even before it was released, I knew it was going to be something special. Little did I know that Metal Gear would go on to become my favorite game series of all time...

ONE WEEK UNTIL MGSIV!

The time is nearly upon us! One week from this very moment, I will be playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots! Just this morning, I was extremely excited to learn that one of the Gamestop locations in Champaign, IL (which is where I spend most of my time) will be doing a midnight launch of MGS4. You can bet your ass that I'll be the first one in line! Here's a list of all the Gamestop stores that will be selling it at midnight on launch day:

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/mgs4/MGS4Midnight.pdf?affid=3346&wt.mc_id=mgs4

Be there, or crawl into a dark and filthy corner and turn your tear-burnt eyes away from the cruel light of the unforgiving world like the miserable wretch you know you are and always will be!

Ahem. Anyway, here's today's Metal Gear fact of the day:

The third clone produced in the Les Enfant Terrible project, Solidus Snake, was actually the President of the United States of America during the events of MGS1. As a result of those events, the existance of Metal Gear REX was made public knowledge, and Solidus--known as President by his "real" name, George Sears--resigned his office.

This was not done out of disgrace, no matter what the public might have thought. Solidus knew better than anyone that the Presidency was a sham--the winner of every election was selected and then controlled by The Patriots. Solidus was sick of being under their thumbs, and went underground after his resignation to plan a way of striking at The Patriots directly.

Even though the presidental elections in the USA as it exists in the world of Metal Gear are rigged by The Patriots, I still find it extremely interesting to ponder how "George Sears" was sold to the public. Did he run as a Republican or a Democrat? Seeing as the second Iraq War officially does happen in the Metal Gear timeline, is Solidus meant to replace Bush in the series' fictional Presidental lineup, or did he beat Bush in the 2004 election? I like to think it's the latter case, as that would mean that Solidus Snake--who in the past had murdered innocent people without a second thought and trained child soldiers in Africa--ran as a Democrat. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty liberal myself, but I'm absolutely in love with the irony of that possibility.

8 Days Until MGS4!

We've almost a week to go, and I'm close to the end of MGS1! I should easily beat it tonight, but I'm gonna have to really buckle down to make it through MGS2 with my current work schedule. I know I can do it, but it's a bit frustrating that I won't have time to write the kajillion-and-one things I want to about MGS2 before MGS4 hits.

I actually have a fair amount of mostly-finished articles related to MGS2 that I'll try and get posted up in the next week. Stay tuned for those, as well as more Metal Gear trivia. Speaking of which...

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Solid Snake's real name is David. He says so in both endings of MGS1.

This probably has nothing to do with the fact that Snake's American voice actor is named David Hayter. It seems more likely that Kojima named him this as a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially considering the exchange he has with Otacon in the (non-canon) ending where Meryl dies:

Otacon: "So, what're you gonna do now, Snake?"

Snake: "David. My name is David, Otacon."

Otacon: "...I'm Hal, Dave."

Snake: "Heh. Hal and Dave. That's a good
one! Maybe we should take a trip to Jupiter together."

Also like David Bowman in 2001, Snake endures a ton of freaky shit, and then suddenly finds himself turning old. The parallels are endless, I tell you!

10 Days Until MGS4!

Today's Random Metal Gear fact:

On the subject of Snake's Revenge, take a look at this:

Yes, they actually made one of those godawful LCD handheld games for Snake's Revenge. No, I never played it. Yes, I'm fine with that.

For the morbidly curious, here's a link to the manual of this travesty:
http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/Snake

Sounds... uh, "fun."

PS3 Procured!

With the advent of MGS4 less than two weeks away, I decided yesterday that it was time to quit dawdling and get myself a PS3. I drove to Best Buy, grabbed the only PS3 I could find on the shelves, picked out a couple of blu-rays, and proceeded to the checkout. I'd been saving up for one since the beginning of the year, so it wasn't a huge bite out of my current finances.

I was feeling pretty psyched as I returned to my car. The only thing that was even slightly annoying me was my unexpected discovery that Sweeny Todd apparently isn't out on blu-ray (seriously, what the hell?). I ploppped my new acquisition down in the passenger's seat and looked it over... and then there was a disturbance in the force. I suddenly realized three things:

1. The PS3 I'd just bought only had a lame SIXAXIS controller packed-in with it, not a Dualshock 3.


2. It also only came with shitty composite video cables, not HDMI cables.


3. I was a gigantic tool for not realizing either of those things before that moment.

Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to half-ass Metal Gear Solid 4, of all things. I drove across the street to Target and bought myself an HDMI cable and a Dualshock 3. Then I went home, hooked up my new PS3, and beheld its awesomeness.

OK... admittedly, I hadn't actually bought any games for it. Right now I'm still focused on beating all the Metal Gear games. I don't have time to spare for anything else at the moment, especially considering how many hours I'm going to be stuck working during the upcoming week (13 hour days, anyone?). That being said, I had fun exploring the Playstation Network a bit. There were two things in particular that I was excited to discover: one, I could choose a picture of Sly Cooper as my PSN profile avatar; and two, there's a downloadable theme that makes the UI menus on your PS3 look all retro and pixellated, just like the menus in No More Heroes. Badass!

Just for the record, here are the two blu-rays I ended up buying:

I'm not sure it's even possible to get two movies that are more opposite of each other.

13 Days Until MGS4!

Today's Random Metal Gear Fact:

The NES version of Metal Gear was extremely successful in America, and Snake's Revenge was Konami's follow-up, released in 1990 in the U.S. under the Ultra Games banner. However, it was not developed by series creator Hideo Kojima. While Snake's Revenge is considered the bastard child of the series by many fans, I have to admit I liked it when it came out. Hell, I thought Snake's Revenge was the real sequel to Metal Gear until I bought Metal Gear Solid and read the synopsis of past games in the manual--that was the first time I ever heard of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Snake's Revenge isn't necessarily a bad game, but it contains a lot of questionable design choices. From the very beginning, the game really gets off on the wrong foot. The starting area is a jungle patrolled by guards flying around in weird helicopter-buggy contraptions. These assholes are positioned so that they will immediately spot you the second you leave the first screen in the game, setting off an alert and flooding the area with troops. Brilliant way to start off a stealth game, dumbasses.

When that alert goes off, the next problem with Snake's Revenge rears its ugly head--it's fricking hard. Even the wussiest guards have one huge advantage over Snake: they can shoot diagonally, while Snake can only shoot up, down, left, or right. In other words, every enemy in the game can hit you far more easily than you can hit them. And this is before the designers throw grenade-tossing soldiers who can (and WILL) hit you with pinpoint accuracy from over walls into the mix. On top of that, the game contains countless hazards that simply kill Snake instantly--swaying bridges, magical shipping pallets floating over bottomless pits (seriously), and collapsing floors in every other goddamn room, to name just a few.

OK, so it's hard. But is that really enough to garner the level of derision this game receives? Surely not. That would take something really moronic, right? Something terribly executed and completely out of place in a stealth game...

Yeah, that should just about do it.

For some unfathomable reason, the designers of Snake's Revenge thought it would be a good idea to cram horribly shitty side-scrolling action sequences into their game. Not only are these parts completely out of place, they control terribly. Most of the time Snake moves like he's underwater--and when he actually is underwater, he moves like a wounded slug crawling up a steep grade against a strong headwind. On top of all that, the stealth mechanics completely break down in these scenes. If you happen to walk from one screen to the next while a guard on the new screen is looking in your direction, it's an instant alert--and there is NO WAY to tell where they'll be looking before moving forward. Since the guards move much faster than Snake and have shots that travel faster and farther than his across the screen, beating these sequences basically boils down to having enough rations to survive running away from the onslaught of trained killers that inevitably ends up on your tail. Fun!

Despite all this, Hideo Kojima himself has said that he likes Snake's Revenge, and that he considers it a game in the spirit of the series. In fact, in a way Snake's Revenge is responsible for the Metal Gear series becoming what it is today. While Snake's Revenge was in production at Konami, Kojima actually ended up sitting next to its lead designer on a train one morning. The designer told him what he was working on, and asked Kojima to please make a game about the "real" Snake. That was what inspired Kojima to make Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake... and eventually, Metal Gear Solid! (http://tinyurl.com/6xolpo)

As bad as some parts of Snake's Revenge are, I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few cool moments. There's a sequence where Snake has to infiltrate a ship and blow it up from the inside, which ends with a mad dash for an escape helicopter as the whole place begins exploding. There's a fairly cool part on a train, as well. And at least you actually get to see Metal Gear in the freaking game, which puts it ahead of the NES version of Metal Gear in at least one respect. It's really the combination of the game's jacked-up difficulty and those retarded side-scrolling parts that makes Snake's Revenge hard to go back to.

BONUS VIDEO: A very funny look at the various shortcomings of Snake's Revenge.

http://www.revver.com/video/906691/snakes-revenge-nes-review/

TWO WEEKS Unitil MGS4!

Today's Random Metal Gear Fact:

It's been said that nicotine is a harder addiction to break than heroin. Solid Snake and Big Boss might agree, as almost every game in the series has included some variation of everyone's favorite cause of lung cancer. Take a deep, long drag on these facts:

• In the original Metal Gear (both the MSX and NES versions), equipping the cigarettes during the final escape sequence will slow the countdown timer considerably.
• Metal Gear 2 was the first game that let Snake use cigarette smoke as a way of seeing infrared laser beams, something featured in all of the later games in the series. MG2 was also the first game where having the cigarettes equipped causes Snake to slowly take damage.
• Snake won't fly the hang-glider off the roof of the Zanzibar building in MG2 until he's smoked a cigarette to calm his nerves.
• Snake is such an addict that he resorts to swallowing a pack of cigarettes to bring them along with him in MGS1. That's pretty damn hardcore.
• Snake may have been trying to kick the habit during MGS2--he passes his cigarettes to Raiden when they first meet (apparently Raiden used to smoke, but managed to quit).
• Big Boss (AKA Naked Snake) is too manly for cigarettes. He smokes cigars.
• The cigar in MGS3 has a few uses of its own. Since it burns bigger and slower than a cigarette, it can be used as a weak light source in dark places. It's also an effective critter repellent--Big Boss can use it to burn off any leeches that get too friendly, and its smoke will keep The Pain's hornets from swarming around Big Boss's head while he's puffing away on it.
• The only cigarettes available in MGS3 are the distinctly Bond-ian sleeping-gas cigarettes found in the basement of Graniny Gorki lab. These emit a cloud of knockout gas that sends any nearby enemy into instant dreamland. I know a guy who even managed to beat The Boss using these...
• In the American version of Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, Nintendo apparently required Konami to replace Snake's cigarettes with something called a "fogger." Blasphemy!
• The only Metal Gear games that don't contain some kind of tobacco are Snake's Revenge, Portable Ops, and the American version of Ghost Babel.

15 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:
There are all kinds of interesting things Snake can do during the fight with Volgin in the Shagohod hangar near the end of MGS3. Here's a few:

• Put on the Raikov mask and the officer's outfit. Volgin will hesitate for moment and become confused by Snake's disguise.
  
• When Volgin is standing under the bridge above the middle of the area, shoot the water pipes on the bridge's underside. If he gets hit by water while he's charged with electricity...
• If you have any Russian Glowcap mushrooms in your inventory, throw them on the ground. Volgin's electrical bolts will be drawn directly to them until they vanish.
• Volgin's electrical field only protects him from the front and the sides. If you need to get in a quick hit on him, use the Single-Action Army and ricochet bullets off the wall behind him!
• Volgin's electrical field isn't perfect. If you pile on enough hits in short amount of time, you'll break through it and leave him stunned. Try the M63!
  
• If you toss food to Ocelot standing up on the bridge above, he'll throw down SAA bullets or Life Medicine.

16 Days to MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Solid Snake was born at an unknown point in 1972 (along with his two brothers). Given that, we can easily calculate how old he is during each installment of the series:

• Metal Gear (1995): 22-23 years old


• Metal Gear 2 (1999): Probably 27, since MG2 is in late December


• Metal Gear Solid (2005): 32-33 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 2 - Tanker Chapter (2007): 34-35 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 2 - Plant Chapter (2009): 36-37 years old


• Metal Gear Solid 4 (2014): 41-42 years old

As you may know, Snake is a clone of his "father," Big Boss. As he and his brothers, Liquid and Solidus, get closer to the age Big Boss was at when his cells were used to clone them, they begin aging at an accelerated rate. Big Boss was in his early forties when the Les Enfant Terribles project was conducted, so this explains why Snake appears to have aged so much in the five-year period between MGS2 and MGS4.

This accelerated aging phenomena is theorized to actually happen in real-world clones such as Dolly the sheep, though there seems to be some contention over it within the scientific community. Check the link below for more info:

http://tinyurl.com/6djzez

17 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

Almost every single Metal Gear game thus far has included the infamous cardboard box trick. The only exception is Snake's Revenge (which doesn't really count anyway, as Kojima had nothing to do with it). Here are some lesser-known facts about everyone's favorite shipping container / espionage equipment:

• In the NES version of Metal Gear, Snake could shoot from inside the cardboard box.


• In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, guards will often become suspicious if they notice the box and start peppering it with bullets. If Snake sits there and takes it, they'll be convinced the box is harmless and return to their patrols.


• While Snake is disguised as Major Raikov in MGS3, he can move around under the box in front of guards. When they pick the box up and find what looks like their commanding officer crouched down in there, they just kind of stand there awkwardly, not sure how to react to this strange new development in their lives.


• Several of the boxes in MGS2 feature product-placement. Box 4 has the logo for McFarlane toys (which made the official MGS1 & 2 action figure lines), and Box 5 has the logo from Kojima's Zone of the Enders series.


• If Snake hides under the cardboard box on the deck of the tanker in the opening chapter of MGS2 for a while, it will become wet and will then fall apart if shot by an enemy.


• Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (AKA Metal Gear Solid for Gameboy Color in the U.S.) features an insanely annoying puzzle involving various colors of cardboard boxes and an automated conveyor belt cargo sorting system. Seriously, fuck that puzzle.
  
• The following conversation happens in MGS2 if you call "Plisken" (Snake working incognito) immediately after seeing "someone" sneaking around in a cardboard box:

Raiden: "Pliskin, I saw someone wearing a cardboard box just now...?"
Plisken: "A box? I don't know anything about that. You sure you weren't imagining things?"
Raiden: "Of course I'm sure. Do you think it's one of the members of Dead Cell? I don't want to fight someone like that..."
Plisken: "Why not?"
Raiden: "Because it looked so dumb. Anyone who's willing to be seen like that must be completely insane. I mean, he's a psycho; there's no question about it!"
Plisken: "Um, yeah..."

Snake's tone is hilarious on that last line. He sounds like a kid who just had his sand castle kicked over.

18 Days Until MGS4!

Today's random Metal Gear fact:

The picture of Solid Snake on the cover of Metal Gear 1 (published in 1987 for the MSX computer and in 1988 for the NES) is totally freaking ripped-off of a shot of Michael Biehn from one of Kyle Reese's flashbacks in the original Terminator.

Oh, that wacky Kojima. On a side note, what the hell is that weird tuning fork thing strapped to Snake's left shoulder in that picture?

Metal Gear Series Primer: Prologue (1920-1962)

The overall plot of the Metal Gear series is really composed of two major, intertwining threads. One is the story of a succession of truly exceptional soldiers, each of them somehow linked to the others. The other is the story of a group seeking to influence the world from the shadows. The story of Metal Gear as it has come to be can be seen as the inevitable clash between a group that seeks to impose control, and a series of individuals who all struggle against this control in their own ways.

The stories recounted below are, for the most part, never directly depicted in any games in the series. They are a compilation of various events referred to by characters or seen in flashbacks. Everything you're about to read is series canon; all I've done is present it in chronological order to make it a bit easier to grasp for those not familiar with the series' many twists and turns.

The Founding and Fragmentation of The Philosophers

Shortly after the close of World War I, around 1920, the "true holders of power" in the United States, the recently-formed Soviet Union, and the Republic of China came together and forged a shadowy alliance. The result was an organization known as The Philosophers. The twelve founding members formed the controlling body of the group, the so-called "Wisemen's Committee." Using their vast influence, The Philosophers sought to steer the course of various world events from behind the scenes. Each of the three "founding" countries had a separate branch, but the three branches worked together to their mutual benefit.

The Philosophers' original goal was allegedly to unite the world--under their own control, of course. As the original members of the Wisemen's Committee began to die off, however, the group's objectives gradually began to shift. By the end of the 1930s, all of the founding members of The Philosophers were dead, and the three branches of the group were starting to become more divided. The rise of the Axis powers and the advent of the second World War forced the branches to come together again, but also set the stage for the schism that would permanently break them apart.

At the beginning of World War II, The Philosophers assembled a vast amount of money in a secret fund--one-hundred billion dollars, which was split up into innumerable pieces and expertly hidden away in banks throughout the world. Known as the Philosophers' Legacy, this money was used to finance various secret activities throughout the war (rocket technology research, the Manhattan Project, etc). The three branches had originally promised to split the remaining money equally between them at the end of the war--but when the opportunity presented itself, the chief financial officer of the Russian branch was somehow able to redirect all of the remaining funds into new locations, and thus effectively steal the entire Legacy.

Needless to say, this theft was all it took to turn the American, Chinese, and Russian branches of The Philosophers against each other. With the end of World War II and the fragmentation of The Philosophers, the intangible battle lines of the Cold War had been drawn. (See my article on The Philosophers for a more detailed account of the group's origins: http://mgsaga.blogspot.com/2008/04/philosophers.html)

The Rise of The Boss

Born in the early 1920s, the woman who would eventually become known through the world by her honorary title "The Boss" was the daughter of one of the original twelve members of The Philosophers Wisemen's Committee. As the original Wisemen controlling the group died off and began to be replaced, her father became more and more concerned with the direction in which the group was headed. Eventually, he disclosed the true nature of the organization to his daughter--warning her that The Philosophers, rather than striving for unity, now sought to profit from conflict. They had "become war itself." When the rest of The Philosophers learned that he had revealed their secrets, The Boss's father was unceremoniously disposed of.

As she grew from adolescence to womanhood, The Boss must have demonstrated the truly exceptional combat skills for which she would later become famous. Someone certainly noticed her talents--in 1942, she assembled a disparate group of exceptionally talented fighters from various Allied countries under her leadership. Calling themselves the Cobra Unit, this group undertook only the most dangerous and covert operations throughout the war. Their activities were so secret that every member of the group was required to have a microbomb implanted in their body, triggered to detonate at the moment of their death--they were forbidden from leaving behind even a corpse as evidence. The Cobra Unit and The Boss became the stuff of battlefield legend, so much so that they were regarded as a major factor in the Allied victory in World War II.

This was not the only major event in The Boss's life during the war, however. At some point in 1943, she became pregnant. One of the other members of the Cobra Unit, a Russian man known as The Sorrow, was the father. Despite her condition, The Boss continued to lead her unit during the massive invasion of Normandy that took place in June, 1944. The Cobras had been given a secret mission of infiltrating enemy territory to destroy V-1 rocket installations, in order to clear the way for the Allied advance. In the course of that mission, The Boss was shot in combat and immediately went into labor, delivering her child right there on the battlefield, with bullets whizzing overhead. She and her newborn son both survived, but The Boss would never have the chance to be a mother--shortly after the delivery, her child was snatched away by an unknown agent of The Philosophers. Though they would meet again many years later, The Boss never learned what became of her son.

In 1947, as the iron curtain dividing East from West fell, the Cobra Unit was disbanded; its members returned to their native countries. Now a living legend on both sides of the globe, The Boss was nevertheless left alone--both her comrades and her son had been taken from her. Perhaps that was why, in 1954, she took a promising young soldier named John (aka Jack) as her new apprentice.

The Prodigal "Son"

Little is known about Jack's life before he became a disciple of The Boss, but he must have been about 25 at the time. No doubt he showed considerable talent if a legend like The Boss considered him a worthy apprentice. But it was more than that: on March 1st, 1954, Jack was one of the American soldiers stationed on Bikini Atoll to oversee the nuclear tests that took place there. He was exposed to heavy amounts of radiation and rendered sterile. The Boss, who had been exposed to atomic tests in Nevada some years earler, later stated that this shared trauma was part of what drew her to Jack.

In the five years they spent together as master and apprentice, Jack and The Boss undertook many top-secret missions and co-developed CQC, a new fighting style specifically tailored for military operations. Jack proved himself to be the most promising student The Boss had ever trained, and for a time the two were as devoted to one another as a mother and son.

Then, in June, 1959, The Boss suddenly left Jack without a word of explanation. Hurt and confused by this sudden abandonment, Jack did his best to carry on alone, continuing to prove his abilities in various missions undertaken for the U.S. Army. One of his few friends over the next several years was a comrade-in-arms who went by the codename "Python." A veteran of many battles, Python was a consummate soldier--tough as nails, and unflinching in the face of danger. However, Python was gravely injured during a secret mission in Vietnam. Jack believed he was dead, but they would meet again many years later under very diffferent circumstances.

After Python's alleged death, Jack spent some time in the elite Green Berets unit of the Army. It was during this period that he met Major Zero. Zero was a former director of the British intelligence agency MI-5, and an acquaintance of The Boss. He was so impressed with Jack that he asked him to join the new unit he was assembling. This unit, called FOX, was unlike any other in existance at the time. It was conceived as a group specializing in single-man infiltration missions, emphasizing silence and stealth above all else. Tired of the internal power struggles typical of the regular military, Jack accepted Major Zero's offer without hesitation. It was a decision that would greatly impact his life in the not-too-distant future.

Making the World Whole

The Boss did not leave her star apprentice's side on a whim when she vanished in 1959. She had been recruited by the U.S. government to take part in a mission unlike any other she had ever experienced. Since the successful launch of Sputnik in 1957, America had lagged behind Russia in the space race, and now they were determined to pull ahead--but to do so, they needed to study the effects of space travel on an actual human. NASA had not yet developed the technology to completely block out cosmic rays, so whoever was sent up would be exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. The Boss was selected because she had already been irradiated once.

In 1960, a year before Yuri Gagarin's world-reknowned space flight, The Boss became the first human being to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Given the illicit nature of the experiment, she knew that she would never be recognized as such by history. The sight of the planet beneath her deeply moved The Boss--seeing the world from above, without borders or boundaries, made her reflect on the foolishness of the Cold War; the division betwen East and West. Upon her safe return, she silently vowed to "make the world whole again."

The Boss began to work closely with the American branch of The Philosophers. Presumably, she reasoned that the only way to "unify" the world was to bring it back under the control of a single group--which meant that the American Philosophers needed to eliminate their now-rival Russian and Chinese counterparts. In 1962, The Philosophers sent The Boss to a remote region of the Soviet Union called Tselinoyarsk on a mission to eliminate an enemy agent. When she finally met her target, she was horrified to discover that it was The Sorrow--her former comrade, lover, and the father of her long-lost child. They had both been assigned to kill the other. Only one of them could live. Finally, after much urging from The Sorrow, The Boss pulled the trigger and carried out her mission. "The spirit of the warrior will always be with you," were his dying words to her.

It's not clear if The Philosophers knew The Boss would be forced to face her old friend on that mission--it may have been their way of testing how loyal she truly was. If that was the case, it was a test she passed with flying colors. At that point, The American Philosophers began to work with The Boss to formulate a plan that would let them reclaim the stolen Legacy from the Russian branch. Together, they began laying the groundwork for what would surely be The Boss's most important mission ever...

But that's another story.


OK, that was pretty fricking long. Ironically, I think it will take a lot less time to recount the stories of the actual games than it did to cover all of the background plot. Check back for a recap of MGS3 later this week!

Metal Gear Series Primer: Introduction

Holy shit. Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out in less than a month!

I'm slightly disappointed with how much I've been able to cover on this site so far--I've been really busy with work and other things recently, which has limited my time for writing. I've beaten MGS3 and Portable Ops and am now halfway through Metal Gear 1, but I haven't even come close to writing everything I want to about any of them. It looks like I'll be updating for a good, long while even after MGS4 is released.

Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out on June 12. In the time I have between now and then, I'm going to shift my focus here a bit. For the rest of the month, most of my updates are going to be devoted to helping anyone who isn't as familiar with the overall story of the series get caught up for MGS4. Since MGS4 is the culmination of the entire series, a good understanding of the previous games is almost guaranteed to make playing it more enjoyable. I'll simplify things a bit to make it easy for a casual fan or newcomer to the series to digest, but I'll also give you everything you should need to know to appreciate MGS4 to the fullest.

On that note, check back soon for an entry about the Metal Gear saga's opening chapters!

Weapon Profile: Mosin-Nagant 1891/30

The Russian-made Mosin-Nagant 1891/30 sniper rifle is featured in Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Metal Gear Solid 4. Lauded by experts as one of the greatest sniper rifles produced in the first half of the 20th century, the Nagant has been the weapon of choice for a number of masterful snipers, both real and fictional.

In MGS3, the Mosin-Nagant is used by The End, a member of the Cobra Unit who is said to be "the father of modern sniping." The End is a master of both sniping and camouflage, and engages in an epic sniper duel with Big Boss in a thickly-forested area of Tselinoyarsk called Sokrovenno. If he's defeated by depleting his stamina (using the M22 pistol or other non-lethal weapons), he'll leave behind his rifle for Big Boss to use. Here's what Sigint has to say about it:

Sigint: "The M1891/30 Mosin-Nagant is a real beauty of a bolt-action sniper rifle. It's been in use since World War II. Mosin-Nagants are created by selecting the best-made weapons out of the regular M1891/30 rifle production line for their high precision and upgrading them to sniper rifles. They add on an optical sight, make the trigger pull lighter, bend the charging handle underneath--that kind of stuff. The Mosin-Nagant has been known far and wide since the war for its superior capabilities. They were so highly valued that a lot of German snipers on the eastern front preferred to use captured Mosin-Nagants instead of their own rifles. It looks like The End took the one he'd been using since the war and modified it to fire tranquilizer rounds. It's also been fitted with a folding stock and a pistol grip."

Big Boss: "Maybe for parachute jumps?"

Sigint: "Well, I dunno why he did it, but that's the tool of a legendary sniper. It's got to be a fine piece of work."


In reality, the M28 Finnish variant of the Mosin-Nagant was used by a soldier named Simo Häyhä in the Winter War between Russia and Finland (1939-1940). Considered by some to be the greatest sniper in history, Häyhä racked up an unprecedented 542 confirmed kills in only 100 days, earning him the nickname "White Death" from his adversaries. Like The End, he used camouflage expertly and operated alone in the field (sniping is usually conducted by two-person teams). Unbelievably, his rifle lacked even a telescopic scope--Häyhä preferred to aim using just the iron sights!

In all of its Metal Gear series appearances thus far, the Mosin-Nagant 1891/30 has served as a long-range nonlethal weapon, making it especially useful when attempting a "no kills" play-through. Like the M22 tranquilizer pistol, shots fired from the Nagant will put enemies to sleep for a set amount of time rather than killing them, and will deplete a boss's stamina gauge instead of their life gauge. The only downside to using it is that it has no suppressor, allowing any remaining enemies nearby to hear shots fired from it.

For Further Reading:

The links below contain more interesting information about the Mosin-Nagant 1891/30, as well as several real snipers who used it to great effect.

http://www.snipercentral.com/mosin.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosin-Nagant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Hayha

http://www.soviet-awards.com/digest/pavlichenko/pavlichenko1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grigoryevich_Zaitsev

The Philosophers

History:

The Philosophers were a secret organization founded in the early 20th century, shortly after World War I. Little is known about those who founded the group other than that they were all highly influential people from three countries that were quickly growing in power at that point in history--the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America. At the head of the group were twelve key individuals referred to as the "Wisemen's Committee." Beneath them were an unknown number of "sleeper agents," trained in collecting information and using covert tactics to further the organization's agendas. According to EVA, The Philosophers had "charm schools" where children gathered from around the world were raised and trained specifically to be loyal agents.

The original goals of The Philosophers are somewhat hazy, but they clearly sought to influence politics on a global scale. To that end, they assembled a massive fund to finance their collective interests. Known as "The Philosophers' Legacy," this fund amounted to no less than one-hundred billion U.S. dollars, which was split into innumerable pieces hidden away in various banks and financial institutions throughout the world. (How the group managed to hoard such an immense amount of capital and where it all came from is unknown--though it likely involved some amazing acts of embezzlement.) This money was used to research and fund various "black" projects, such as the Cobra unit, nuclear weapons development, and rocket technology. Each branch of The Philosophers controlled a third of the Legacy, thus maintaining the balance of power between them.

However, as the 20th century progressed and the global balance of power began to shift, the internal balance of power within The Philosophers followed suit. All of the original members of the Wisemen's Committee were dead by the end of the 1930s, and their replacements were less interested in maintaining unity. During the chaos of World War II, a deep schism formed between the three branches of the Philosophers.

This split was triggered by one specific event: towards the end of WWII, The Philosophers' chief money-launderer--Volgin's father--used his knowledge of their collective finances to seize the entire Legacy for the Russian branch. He recorded the locations where the numerous pieces of the Legacy were hidden on microfilm, and passed the information on to Volgin upon his death several years later. Volgin used it to build the fortress of Groznyj Grad and fund the development of a number of new weapons.

Once the three branches of The Philosophers turned on one another, their original goal of world unity was completely lost. Each branch became concerned only with holding onto and increasing their own political power. The tool they used to accomplish this was, simply, war. According to The Boss: "The Philosophers of today have no sense of good or evil. Their influence extends to countries and organizations involved in every aspect of every war. They have become war itself. ...The sacrifices of war cause a shift in the times, which increases conflict and, in turn, triggers the next war. ...By consuming me, and you, The Philosophers intend to keep that cycle going forever."

Naturally, the American and Chinese branches of The Philosophers had no intention of allowing Volgin to do whatever he pleased with "their" money. The events of Metal Gear Solid 3 depict what transpired when the three divided branches clashed over possession of the Legacy: by sacrificing The Boss, the American branch was able to acquire half of the missing money (courtesy of their triple-agent, Ocelot). The Chinese branch got away with a fake copy of the Legacy and the Shagohod's test data, which they used to jump-start their country's nuclear and space-exploration programs. With the death of Volgin and the loss of half the Legacy, the Russian branch was greatly weakened--though this didn't stop one of its presumed members, Leonid Brezhnev, from ousting Krushchev and becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union just a few months later (in October, 1964).

Little is currently known about what became of the Russian and Chinese Philosophers after the events of Operation: Snake Eater. We do know, however, that six years after Snake Eater, in December 1970, the American branch gained the rest of the Legacy and assumed a new name: The Patriots. The story of those events is told in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.


Speculation:

The Boss was the daughter of one of the original members of The Philosophers Wisemen's Committee. To hear her tell it, the group's original goal was to "make the world whole"... which sounds like a nice way of saying they wanted to implement one-world government. Whatever flowery rhetoric they may have used to obscure their motives, The Philosophers clearly weren't shy about using some pretty nasty tactics to steer the world in the direction they wanted it to go--from the very beginning, they were abducting and indoctrinating children to serve as future agents. They even stole away the newborn son of The Boss and raised him from childhood to serve them. That child was named Adamska... later known as Ocelot.

There's also the matter of a certain enigma that would haunt America's collective consciousness for the latter half of the 20th century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On the official series timeline included on the Metal Gear Saga Vol. 2 DVD, 1961 is specifically mentioned as the year Kennedy "falls out of favor with The Philosophers." 1961 was the year of the Bay of Pigs debacle, a botched invasion of Cuba backed by the CIA. Though the invasion was based on faulty intelligence and likely would have failed anyway, the CIA blamed Kennedy because he held back the air support that had been promised to the troops who landed in Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion). In fact, The Boss specifically mentions this to Big Boss at the end of MGS3: "Our weak-kneed President held back their air support. Defenseless, the exiles were annihilated by the Cuban army. All I could do was watch in silence."

As a result of the Bay of Pigs operation, the CIA was publically humiliated, and its founder, Alan Dulles, resigned in disgrace. We know that the CIA at that time was deeply involved with the American branch of The Philosophers. At the end of MGS3, Ocelot calls the director of the CIA to report on his success in obtaining the Legacy. Also, in Portable Ops, Gene refers to the Pentagon and CIA headquarters as "The Philosophers' twin lairs." Factor in Kennedy's famous threat to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds," and The Philosophers clearly had a motive to remove Kennedy from power to protect their own interests.

Two years later, in November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated during a visit to Dallas, Texas. Given the annoyance he had caused them already, it's more or less a given that The Philosophers had a hand his death. (If we didn't know for sure that Ocelot was in Russia at the time, I'd be willing to bet he was the legendary "second shooter on the grassy knoll.") Not only did this remove Kennedy as a political threat, it sent a strong message to future Presidents regarding the penalties of defying them.

Links for Further Reading:

Listed below are links to pages containing information on several real-life organizations that may have served as inspirations to Kojima in creating The Philosophers and The Patriots. All of these groups have been the focus of conspiracy theories in their own right. Some of those theories are pretty wacky, but I find it interesting to note the parallels between these groups and their fictional counterparts.

The Trilateral Commission:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_commission

http://www.trilateral.org/

The Bilderberg Group:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

The Illuminati:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati

MGS3 Media Influences, Round 1: Bond

Hideo Kojima is a huge film buff, and he's not shy about making it known. Every game he's ever directed bursts at the seams with references to his favorite movies. Some are subtle, while others leave me shaking my head in wonder at the fact that no one has sued him over them. If what they say about amateurs imitating and geniuses stealing is true, then Kojima is most definitely a genius.

The funny thing is, though, he always ends up doing his own thing with whatever elements he swipes from other sources. Snatcher may be a shameless ripoff of Bladerunner in terms of its visual aesthetic and basic premise (both are about a guy trying to track down robots that outwardly appear human), but they take the concept in very different directions. Kojima also always seems happy to openly admit it when he uses something from another source, and frequently pokes fun at himself in his own games--Solid Snake using "Iroquois Plisken" as a pseudonym in MGS2, for example.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is no exception to this. Since the events of the game are set in the early 1960s, Kojima decided to model certain elements of it after the early Bond movies (Dr. No came out in 1962, quickly followed by From Russia With Love in 1963). The game's most obviously Bond-ian elements are its theme song, "Snake Eater," and the stylized intro it plays over, which closely mirrors Bond movie opening credit sequences:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

VS.

Goldfinger

There are plenty of other similarities between MGS3 and Bond. EVA, Snake Eater's biker-chick femme fatale with the perpetually unzipped jumpsuit, is cut from the same diaphanous cloth as many a Bond girl. I suspect her appearance was based on Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love (played by Daniella Bianchi), but her actual character is very different.

Similarly, Ocelot and Volgin function a lot like a typical pair of Bond villains--the menacing mastermind and the sidekick with a weird signature weapon or ability (Goldfinger and Oddjob, for example). Ocelot also shows up to take one last crack at Big Boss after the "main" villain, Volgin, has been dispatched; a common occurrence with Bond villain sidekicks. Volgin even has a line parodying the infamous "talking killer"phenomenon that the Bond movies have become known for--when Big Boss asks him about the Philosophers' Legacy near the end of the game, he says "Very well... I'll explain it before I kill you." (To his credit, he does personally try to tear Big Boss limb from limb right after that, rather than leave him tied up unsupervised in front of some slowly-advancing deathtrap.)

It's interesting to note, though, that all of these similarities are mostly superficial. I can't really think of any specific Bond girl who has EVA's combination of combat competence, deceptiveness, and teasing seductiveness. Unlike most "main" Bond villains, most of Volgin's menace comes from his physical strength and brutal sadism rather than any skill for making ingenious plans. And while Ocelot may seem like a typical over-eager lackey, at the end of the game it's made clear that he was playing everyone else around him for suckers, and he comes out of the situation with exactly what he wanted--not only was he using Volgin the whole time, he also knew exactly who EVA really was and who she was really working for! As I said earlier, Kojima almost always takes the elements he "borrows" from other sources in directions that are all his own.

Finally, MGS3 actually mentions the Bond movies at several points. There's a conversation where Para-medic asks Big Boss if he's seen From Russia With Love. Big Boss replies that he hates the Bond movies... much to Major Zero's chagrin. Be that as it may, Big Boss can clearly appreciate 007's fashion sense: like MGS1 & 2, MGS3 has a snazzy black tuxedo as an unlockable costume.

Secrets: Decisions, Decisions...

Right after you select "New Game" from MGS3's title screen, the game throws a menu at you with a number of choices and no explanation as to what each one will get you. While most of them don't significantly impact the game in the long run, I thought I'd clear up the mystery for you. Here's a breakdown of what each choice means:

"I'm playing the MGS series for the first time!"

Choosing this gives you the default intro sequence. I recall reading at one point that it also makes you take a little bit less damage and lose stamina a little bit more slowly during the Virtuous Mission (the game's prologue chapter). I'm not 100% positive that's true, but it seems plausible.

"I like MGS1!"

By all appearances, this gives you the same intro as the first choice. I've heard that choosing this makes the Virtuous Mission slightly harder (take a little bit more damage when hit, consume stamina a little bit faster). As with the first choice, I'm not sure this is true... but if it isn't, then why would they even bother having this and the first choice be seperate?

"I like MGS2!"

This is a fun one. Selecting this changes the intro sequence considerably: Snake will start out in the plane wearing a mask that makes him look like Raiden from MGS2, and after he lands in Tselinoyarsk the game lists his name as "Jack" rather than "Snake." The radio conversation with Major Zero immediately following that will be different, and then Snake will take off the mask to show his real face.

So what's the point of all that? Basically, it's the first of the many potshots MGS3 takes at Raiden, the bishonen-y main character of MGS2. The joke is that, if you choose MGS2 as your favorite, the game makes you think you'll be playing as Raiden again before revealing that it's really Snake (both of them are really named "Jack," so that's why the game introduces him as such).

This was what I chose the first time I played the game, and at first it kinda freaked me out. I saw this guy who looks like Raiden in the intro, who sounds and looks like Snake when he talks during the flashback scene where he accepts the Virtuous Mission, and I got worried that the game was pulling some cheap head-swap switcharoo on me. I knew from the previews that there was someone in MGS3 who looked almost exactly like Raiden, and I started thinking: "What if choosing that makes you play the whole game like this, and those preview scenes with the guy who looks like Raiden were taken from the version of the game where you choose MGS2?"

For the record, I like Raiden. However, his head looks ridiculous on Snake's body, and I didn't think it made any sense to play as him in a game set in 1964. So I reset my game and chose "I like MGS1!" It wasn't until my second time through the game that I found out Snake takes the mask off and reveals the joke about three seconds after the point where I hit reset. D'oh!

"I like MGS3!"

This choice is only available if you're playing the enhanced version of MGS3, MGS3: Subsistence. Choosing it unlocks a ton of stuff that you'd otherwise have to beat the game once to get--the secret demo theater and boss battle mode on disc 2, all of the Snake Vs. Monkey levels, and a plethora of new camo and face paint patterns.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was released in November, 2004. It introduced new gameplay elements to the series such as hunting for food and using camouflage to hide in plain sight, and gave players larger, more open-ended areas to sneak through and explore. Like all the Metal Gear games, the game still emphasizes (and rewards) stealth over straight-up run-and-gun action, while using a series of inventive boss battles to keep things exciting.

Story-wise, the game is a major departure from its predecessors. After setting the stage for the series' final conflict in MGS2, Kojima chose to flash back to where it all began in the next two games, MGS3 and Portable Ops. While Metal Gear Solid 2 ended with more than a few loose ends crying out to be tied up, MGS3 doesn't address any of them directly. MGS3 is set in 1964--45 years before MGS2--and focuses on an almost completely different cast of characters. While the rest of the Metal Gear games take place in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, MGS3 is set deep in the heart of the Cold War.

Let's just get this out of the way: Solid Snake is not the main character of MGS3. In fact, he's not even born until eight years after the events of this game. The main character of MGS3 (and Portable Ops) is Solid Snake's father, Big Boss: a man who will eventually become a legend in his own time--first as the greatest warrior of the 20th century, and many years later as a nuclear terrorist and a traitor. On the surface, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the story of how Big Boss destroys a dangerous super-weapon to prevent the outbreak of World War III, and is recognized as one of his country's greatest heroes.

The price he pays for these accomplishments is the loss of his innocence. In fulfilling the mission his country has set before him, Big Boss gains uncomfortable insight into the forces that drive the government he serves. For the first time, he truly realizes that even the noblest and most loyal heroes are only pieces in the grand game of politics--pieces to be used, then blithely sacrificed the moment it becomes advantageous to their players. At its core, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the story of a man who saves the world, but loses everything he believes in.

I'll cover the evolution of Big Boss's character in more detail later. For now, it's time for me to get playing!

Metal Gear?!

Hi there. My name is Caleb. If you happen to know me, then it probably comes as no surprise to find that I'm writing a blog about the Metal Gear series of videogames. Simply put, I love Metal Gear--its characters, its plot, its gameplay, the themes it deals with, and the level of sheer off-the-wall insanity the series' mastermind, Hideo Kojima, always manages to whip up. This blog will contain all kinds of information on, and analysis of, the series. I plan to write entries focusing on major themes, characters, plot points, running gags, influences from outside media, instances where the history of the series coincides with actual 20th century history (or interestingly contradicts it), and whatever else I feel like yammering about.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the series, Metal Gear is a series of "tactical espionage action" videogames that began in 1987. The first installment, Metal Gear, was originally published by Konami for the MSX personal computer, which was only sold in Japan and Europe. In 1988, Metal Gear was remade for the American Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), where it gained much wider exposure and quickly gathered a surprisingly huge fan following. In the third-ever issue of Nintendo Power, November/December 1988, Metal Gear appeared out of nowhere at #3 on the magazine's "Top 30" list (as determined by responses mailed in by readers). It beat out immensely popular titles like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!, Super Mario Bros. 2, and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, and stayed in the top 5 for quite some time. A decade later, in October of 1998, Metal Gear Solid was released for the Sony Playstation. It sold almost seven million copies worldwide, and is still widely regarded as one of the best Playstation games ever made. The success of the original Metal Gear Solid established the series as one of the most popular videogame franchises of the last ten years, and cemented Hideo Kojima as an industry celebrity (and one of my personal heroes :) ).

I'll go into more detail about the history behind each game in the series later, though. As anyone who follows videogames likely knows by now, the final game in the series--Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots--will soon be released. June 12, 2008, is the day when the saga of the Snakes will finally see its conclusion, and needless to say, I'm extremely excited. So excited, in fact, that I've decided to prepare by playing through every game that takes place in the main story arc of the series in chronological story order. Which breaks down like so:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater -- 1964
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops -- 1970 (December)
Metal Gear -- 1995
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake -- 1999 (December)
Metal Gear Solid -- 2005 (March)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Tanker chapter -- 2007
Big Shell chapter -- 2009 (April 29-30)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots -- 2014

This approach may seem a little awkward at times--the order in which the games take place within the series' timeline is much different than the order in which they were released. But since I'm mostly going to be focusing on the narrative and thematic elements of the series, I think going through the games in story order ultimately makes the most sense. One warning, though: there will be a huge amount of spoilers found in these entries. Proceed at your own risk if you want to play through the series on your own. Finally, if you have any comments or feedback, please feel free to post here or e-mail me directly.

Now that introductions are aside, let's get started!