Snake...Snake? Snaaaaaake?!

One of my favorite game franchises of all time is Metal Gear.  Remember that story I told during my Castlevania retrospective about going to the video store?  That was also my first dip into the Metal Gear franchise.  While Castlevania was a short game that was harder than hell due to the programmers turning the game's difficulty up to near unfair levels, Metal Gear was a extremely long game, that was just as challenged due to the immense story and inventory of items that had to be collected in order to complete.  However, I found myself very taken this game because it was completely original to me.  I had never seen anything like it.  While most games were about run and gun platforming, Metal Gear was a game that really wanted to you to not kill anyone if you didn't have to.  

Okay, let's get this out of the way right now.  Fans of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, I will not debate with you which series is better or worse.  That's all opinion based, and the funny thing about opinions is we all got 'em, and getting someone else to change their opinion is nearly impossible.  I grew up on Metal Gear, so I'll stick my flag into that mountain top.  If you want a down right fact though; there would be no Splinter Cell if it wasn't for Metal Gear.  I understand that some of the later games in the Metal Gear franchise have gotten a little preachy, sure.   Doesn't mean I don't love them though.

In 1987, a guy named Hideo Kojima developed a Metal Gear for the MSX2 console in Japan.  It was ported to the NES by a completely different development staff, though, and saw major alterations from the original game.  For instance, the Metal Gear itself, the walking tank, technically never makes an appearance in the NES port.  While you blow it up in the MSX2 version with plastic explosives, in the NES port you blow up the control computer with plastic explosives.  Yeah, lame.  However, the whole thing started with Kojima wanting to do a game where the player was put in situations where he shouldn't kill the bad guys, as opposed to other games from that time period, like Konami's Contra or SNK's Ikari Warriors (by the way trivia buffs, Ikari is actual "fury" in Japanese, so fans of Evangelion's main character, Shinji Ikari..now you know what Ikari means).

Kojima was influences by Hollywood.  Box Art for the original game looks like Reese from Terminator, doesn't it?

You played as Solid Snake (taken from the movie "Escape from LA"'s main character, Snake Plissken) and your mission was to sneak into the base Outer Heaven to rescue your friend Grey Fox and destroy the walking tank, Metal Gear (what's with the Japanese and mechs anyway?).  The American NES port had a lot of problems, to say the least.  I won't get into them all, but the localization remains one of the laziest translations I've ever seen.  The famous lines "I FEEL ASLEEP!" and "UH OH!   THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE" both come from Metal Gear.  The game was extremely long though, like Legend of Zelda long.  You also had a massive inventory of weapons and items that had to be all used in some innovative ways in order to get through the game.  By the end of the game, Snake discovers that the leader of the terrorists of Outer Heaven is actually Big Boss, the commander who you've been in constant radio contact with since the beginning of the game.  

The sequel was a bit of a cluster.  Konami had a western developer working on the supposed sequel, Snake's Revenge.  Kojima was not involved with this game, and it was fairly obvious to fans of the series that it wasn't anywhere nearly as good as the original game.  Snake's Revenge was never released in Japan.  Instead, Kojima released Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the same year, 1990, in Japan for the MSX2.  Europe, since they had  the MSX2 platform, also saw the game.  North America, however, did not, and since there was no NES port of Metal Gear 2, we would have to wait until Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (which is also the first time we got to play the original cut of Metal Gear as well, natch).  

After the discontinuation of the MSX2 and NES, Metal Gear disappeared in the 16-bit era.  Konami would revisit several of their classic franchises from the NES, such as Contra and Castlevania, but they didn't touch Metal Gear.  Kojima continued making games, however.  In fact, he did a very classic Sega CD title called Snatcher, which remains one of the holy grails of that rather disappointing platform.  The funny thing was I don't really remember asking myself, "Damn, where is Metal Gear?!"  I always loved the original, and during the Super Nintendo's time, I remember looking at the 16 bit versions of my favorite titles from the NES and being wowed.  Metal Gear remained one of the old franchises that was not reborn on a 16 bit console.

Everything changed with Sony's Playstation, though.  It was announced that Kojima was working on a new Metal Gear for the PSX, and there was an immediate sound of everyone my age shitting their collective pants.  Memories of the original game came rushing back, and we all where beside ourselves waiting with what could be done with the 32-bit Playstation, and CD ROM technology.  Now during this time period, we had a lot of hype going into games.  I already mentioned the hype that went into Final Fantasy VII.  Metal Gear Solid was the big hyped up game after Final Fantasy VII's release.  I've seen a lot of hype go into a lot of games boys and girls.  Final Fantasy VII, Halo 2, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2; just to name a few.  That being said, I've only played one game to this point that had a shit ton of massive hype behind it that actually lived up to it's hype, and that's Metal Gear Solid.  Released in 1998, Metal Gear Solid broke the mold on the stealth genre, again.  Players once again took up the mantle of, the now fully voiced, Solid Snake (voiced by Hollywood scribe David Hayter, who incidentally wrote X-Men, X-Men 2, The Scorpion King, and Watchmen).  Snake has to rescue the DARPA chief from his former unit FoxHound, from a military installation in Alaska.  Snake quickly finds out that the installation was actually producing a new model of the Metal Gear, Rex.  The storyline and characters were very complex and engaging.  It also had one of the first "breaking of the 4th wall" fights in gaming history (I think it was first, but I hate to be so absolute about it), with Snake's battle with Psycho Mantis.  Mantis could actually read your memory card and would make comments about your Konami save files on it.  Mantis was impossible to defeat while using the first controller port, because Mantis could read your movements from the port (as demonstrated by reading your memory card).  Instead, you had to pull out the controller from port 1 and switch to port 2.  Mantis couldn't read the port, and was able to be defeated.  There was also a part where Snake being tortured, and the player must wail on the "X" button like a fat kid in a doughnut factory.  Revolver Ocelot warns you prior to the torture that he would be able to tell if you were using a turbo fire controller, which were really popular at that time.  Metal Gear Solid would also see a port released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2004, labeled "Twin Snakes".  (This port was done by Canadian developer Silicon Knights, who would go onto develop Eternal Darkness on the GameCube, and, unfortunately, Too Human, on the X-Box 360)

In the year 2000, Sony was prepping the Playstation 2 for launch.  They needed some really big games to help push the console into the living room of gamers everywhere.  The game that wowed everyone?  Metal Gear Solid 2.  Since we all had Metal Gear Solid on our minds, seeing the upgraded graphics for the PS2 immediately generated buzz surrounding the platform.  After the initial demo (which was packaged in with another Hideo Kojima production, Zone of the Enders), Kojima ended up granting no new information about his upcoming Metal Gear title, and would leave us hanging until 2001.  Subtitled, Sons of Liberty, gamers everywhere were excited to see exactly what Kojima could do next for the franchise.  What we got, though, wasn't what we expected.  At all.  The demo put players, once again, in the role of Solid Snake, and walked us through the start of the game.  What we did not know is that once the game got past the part where the demo ended, we were no longer in control of Solid Snake.  (I remember my initial reaction was like, "What the hell?  Did I get the right game?)  Instead, players were put in the role of the young Raiden, a government operative who is released in plant called "The Big Shell" in order to free a group of hostages (including the President of the United States) from a group of terrorists.  Along the way, Raiden meets with a very curious and familiar looking Navy SEAL named Iroquois Plissken (remember what I said about Escape from LA?).  All in all this game was really good, but towards the end became a massive fourth wall gag or something.  I think Kojima was trying to screw with the minds of players so much, that the game actually required multiple play throughs of ending areas just to figure out what the hell was going on.  Luckily, the enigmatic endgame and ending did not stop the game from becoming a massive success both in sales and in the eyes of fans around the world.  Since the ending was what it was, though, Metal Gear fans fully expected a new installment.  Kojima, as we would come to find out, has an interesting sense of humor...

After the completion, Hideo Kojima claimed that MGS2 would be his bow-out of the series.   He wanted to move onto other types of video games.  However, in November of 2004,  he would release the next game in the series, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.  What would we come come to find out, though, was that the game wasn't as sequel to MGS2.  Instead it was a prequel to the entire series!  MGS3 ended up taking place in 1964, during the Cold War.  Instead of Solid Snake, players took control of Naked Snake.  As the game went on, we would come to find out that this was actually the story of how Big Boss actually became Big Boss.  While the game did a lot of foreshadowing and put some of the questions about the story at rest, it also was a different Metal Gear completely.  While the other games relied on James Bond style gadgets, MGS3 was a step back in technology.  Things we had gotten accustomed to as being normal in Metal Gear were ripped from us.  Instead, players were in more control of more simplistic aspects of Snake's survival; like camouflage and curing specific woulds he would get.  Some liked this, some did not.  Overall it was received with a lot of positive press.  Kojima, would once again proclaim that MGS3 was his final game.

There were some handheld versions of Metal Gear.  These games do each have a part in the Metal Gear timeline, but the brilliant thing is that you don't have to play them in order to get the storyline of the console titles.  These games include Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel (Game Boy Color), Metal Gear Acid and Acid 2 (PSP), Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and Portable Ops Plus (PSP) and finally Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker (PSP).  It should be noted that the Portable Ops and Peace Walker games are actually prequels to the first Metal Gear, but taking place after Metal Gear Solid 3.  These are all great games (although the Acid series is rather odd), but again, not required play for progression in the main story.

As we with his proclamation that both MGS2 and MGS3 would each be his final Metal Gear games, Hideo Kojima apparently forgot that when he started work on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.  MGS4 would be a landmark title for a few reasons.  First and foremost, it would finally tie up all the plot holes and unanswered questions we had from the previous titles.  Secondly, it was one of the first "next gen" titles that wowed everyone who saw it.  This was a PS3 exclusive title, and Sony really hitched their wagon to the game.  Which brings me to my final point, is that it really was the last of the huge budget 3rd party exclusives.  Sure, there have been games Gears of War, that partner in the 1st party to keep it exclusive, and smaller 3rd party exlcusives like the Witcher.  However, there just really aren't that many massive 3rd party console exclusives anymore. That could always change, and if you want to argue over certain titles being "massive" or not, but I'll flat out tell you that there's not a lot of games out there that are bigger than a Metal Gear title.  The game came out to rave review scores, and was widely received by a very eager fan base.  Once again, Kojima said MGS4 would be his last.

However, now we're waiting to see what is next.  Kojima would go onto to oversee the reboot of Castlevania last year, but he is also overseeing the next Metal Gear, Revengance.  This next game will be multiplatform, and star the cybernetic ninja, Raiden (who has gotten much more popular from MGS2, fans initially hated his debut, but now like him much more from his MGS4 rebirth).  This game is not being completely developed by Kojima's house though. This is probably due to the fact that the game is not a stealth game.  Instead it's going to be fast paced action game.  Development is being handled by Platinum Games, a house of former Clover Studios (Viewtiful Joe, Okami) guys, responsible for games in his generation like Vanquish and Bayonetta.  Don't know about any of you guys, but I'm anxiously awaiting it.