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| Kept you waiting, huh? |
My first encounter with Metal Gear was through the demo for MGS2 packaged with Zone of the Enders. Back then, my dad's then-partner's brother and I were pretty close. I was an impressionable young kid into foreign martial arts movies and sci-fi rated for ages considerably above my own and he was a sage of those two things and patient enough to put up with hanging out with me. I'm pretty sure it was through him that I ended up with a copy of ZoE1.
First playthrough of the MGS2 demo terrified me. It set me on my merry way on the tanker in the Hudson river, rain pouring down, tasked with obtaining intel on something I had no knowledge of. My pre-teen hands were too lacking in dexterity to sneak past any of the guards with reliable precision and I couldn't calm my nerves quickly enough to tranquilise them before they spotted me. The tension hit me hard, and for maybe another year, I never touched the full game. I was scared of Metal Gear Solid, and thought of it as far above my skill level at the age I was then.
My cool almost-step-uncle Phil would later lend me his full copy of MGS2, and for a good month or so, it didn't enter my PS2 out of the anxiety I felt from the tanker chapter demo. I can't remember what finally gave me the courage to have a go at it but once I did, I was hooked. I still sucked at the game, but the story drew me in (even though I didn't understand any of the plot points from earlier games) and Hideo Kojima's philosophical commentary blew my by then teenaged mind. I beat the game in a summers afternoon just as I was about to leave for the city centre with some friends, and a sense of achievement struck me for the entire day.
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When MGS3 hit the scene, I had played through MGS2 maybe a dozen times, but had only read up on the plots of the earlier games. I got so addicted to the feel of MGS3 that my friend and I bought walkie talkies and climbed trees like Big Boss (and I dropped a valuable phone into a river). A few years later, and the roles had switched, I was the one to lend Phil MGS3. Sadly for the completion of my MGS shelf, my dad and his partner split and I was unable to ask for MGS3 back...
Luckily, MGS3: Subsistence came out and I was fortunate to get a copy before it skyrocketed in value. I was able to play MG1 and 2, and discover that those games are hard as nails. By then, I had gotten considerably better at the games and became obsessed with no kills/alerts runs.
It was only after 2 and 3 that I came upon a copy of MGS1, and as I worked my way through the final moments, it dawned on me that as a child of about 10, before even my encounter with the MGS2 demo, I had witnessed my cousin beat the final boss and struggle with the final sequence. It was so memorable because after a dozen or so failures during the end sequence, we resorted to me looking away from the screen so as not to jinx his performance. It wasn't until experiencing this part of the game as a 16 year old in the summer between school and college that I put that scattered, random memory to the Metal Gear franchise.
In my first year of college, I bought a PS3 for MGS4. I remember pulling many late nights playing that game over and over. Not every part of it was to my liking, but the story gave a fitting end to the story of Solid Snake, and for the second time (first being during MGS3) in my life, I felt emotion for a character in a video game. Heck, during the ending I think I cried 3 or 4 times. I had grown up with these characters, and they too had grown, come across hardships and not always overcome them cleanly.
Also during college, Peace Walker came out, and I spent many, many hours playing solo and co-op through that. Still do, to be fair. Though I've moved to the HD Collection, I probably still play through MGS2, 3 and PW at least once a year, sometimes more.
This is as good a forum as any to tell this story, and it's not one I'll ever get tired of telling. It's a tale of one of the most awkward run ins with a lifelong idol. Shortly after the announcement of MGSV: Ground Zeroes, I won a competition to attend a talk by Hideo Kojima at BAFTA. The two tickets I won were the only ones given to people who had not earned their rightful place at BAFTA.
I dressed up in a dinner jacket and attempted to fit in at the pre-talk champagne reception. Given that the champagne was free, and that I was a hungry student, I certainly didn't shy away when another glass was offered to me, so as is nature, I eventually needed to use the mens room. As I was minding my own business at the urinal, I saw a leather jacket pull up to my right. The urinal two spaces away was free, so I looked up to see who had chosen to use the one uncomfortably close to my own, and I instantly recognized the guest of the night, Hideo Kojima. Given the circumstances of the meeting, I did not tell him how much I loved his work, I didn't extend my hand to shake his, I couldn't even make any form of acknowledgment that one of the biggest influences of my life was urinating next to me. The one thing I did manage, however, was to zip up, wash my hands run out to ask my girlfriend waiting outside the washroom to take a sneaky photo as he came out. Here it is, this is my proof.
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| Do you think he noticed? |
Another thing I've come to appreciate about Metal Gear is the music. Whilst not as close to my heart as the music of things like Final Fantasy and Pokémon, the work of Harry Gregson-Williams and Donna Burke have come to stir heavy feelings of nostalgia in me. Peace Walker even has a song by Nana Mizuki, a personal favourite voice actress of mine. You could listen to the themes back to back (and I have, today) and not hear one weak link. Bonus points to Kojima for using Joan Baez' Here's To You in Ground Zeroes.
What do I hope for the future of Metal Gear? I honestly loved the MG Zeke customization in Peace Walker, and as much as I hate tacked on multiplayer, it would be neat to have some level of integration with that system and sharing with friends, sort of Armoured Core-esque, I guess. The mother base aspects of recent games have been a ton of fun.
I'm not even going to talk about the plot of Metal Gear today, this has been one heck of a long ramble on the same topic already, and I could run on longer than an MGS4 cutscene if I was to talk about the characters in depth. Maybe someday, maybe.
