Not too long ago, my Xbox 360 started dying. As this is an indispensable item on the Songy household (sadly, more for my toddler's Netflix than my own video game habit, these days), I immediately started considering replacements. It seemed pointless to get another 360... the system is on its way out the door, and the only thing I still care about that is exclusively for the 360 is the next Halo game. With that in mind, I purchased a PS3.
Now, in the heydays of console gaming, systems usually had exclusive games that you longed for if you did not own said system. Not so in this modern, hyper-commercial world. Just about every "hit" game gets distributed broadly across the platforms. One of the few exceptions to that was the Metal Gear Solid series, which has stayed on the Playstation platform exclusively (with a couple small exceptions). I picked up 4 (the only original offering for the PS3) and just finished it last night.
Here are my thoughts.
Changing Filters: MGS and Me
I've been playing these games since their origin on the Nintendo. I recall the original ones as being very difficult, and I don't believe I gave them an inordinate amount of attention. (It also bears mentioning that at the tender age of 7, Italian Plumbers were way more interesting to me that shadowy assassins.)
Like most people, where the Metal Gear series really grabbed hold of me was in Metal Gear Solid. I was fourteen or fifteen when it came out. I can say it is a great game, but that lacks specificity. The truth is a little more complicated.
From a technical standpoint, it is great because it really maximized the capabilities of the first Playstation. I don't think I'd ever seen a game as good-looking, immersive, or geographically "big". The use of CDs instead of clunkier, less efficient cartridges enabled sophisticated voice-acting and gave the game an extremely cinematic feel. The more complicated Playstation controller (which quadrupled the usable buttons from its older Nintendo cousin) allowed for a much wider range of behaviors for the player-character, allowing for a rich experience. There was definitely a lot of ways to accomplish the same objectives, and this was something fairly new to video games at the time. The score was great, and the artwork was extremely well-integrated and stylistically "fit" the story's themes.
It ran deeper than that for me, though. Snake was the first real "anti-hero" I had ever been exposed to, and like most young teenage boys, I ate it up. I admired his aloof strength, his facility for violence, and his unspoken devotion to the warrior's ideals. With his deep gravelly voice and dark demeanor, Snake embodied everything that a callow, teenage boy isn't.
The story for the game is good. It has some soul to it, and some human emotion, but it isn't overly convoluted. The good guy stays the good guy. The bad guy stays bad. The hero saves the world and gets the girl. Huzzah. It is exactly that palatable mix you want in a good action movie. Just a spicy side of thoughtfulness with your main dish of savory action.
Enter Metal Gear 2.
At first, I absolutely despised it. For one, my much adored Snake was put aside for the boyish, untried, and considerably feminine Raiden. Even though I was eighteen when this installment came out, I was very much a child and still very much threatened that Hideo Kojima would have the nerve to take my paragon of manhood (or so I thought at the time) out of the "spotlight".
And then there's the plot. While all the good things about the gameplay remained (and some new ones were born), the plot was convoluted to the point where it was fairly incomprehensible at the end. I remember thinking at the time, "Man, this started so good and ended so shitty! How would they let him drop the ball like this at the end of the game?"
Thus began a debate that has raged in my mind to this day.
I was in my second year of an English degree at that time and had done considerably coursework concerning creative writing. At that stage in my education, I was very much immersing myself in the fundamentals of story-building, and I was obsessed with a clean, goal-oriented narrative. This is all well and good, but it certainly isn't the only way to "skin a cat". Read Franz Kafka and you'll figure that one out real quick. Not all great narratives are clean and easily digested.
In this modern information age, where my "video game generation" has started to inherit the earth, there has been some serious scholarship regarding my beloved video games. Particularly, there has been a lot of examination of MGS 2 as the first "post-modern" video game.
Gamasutra's article about it, here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/119999/Analysis_What_Metal_Gear_Solid_2_Teaches_Us_About_The_Information_Age.php
I'd never considered it this way previous to now. The game really is a very interesting dialogue in how society evolves and, to an extent, imprisons itself in the information age. The end revelation, that Raiden is ultimately a pawn in a much bigger scheme, doesn't seem as disappointing as it used to. As I no longer need video games to affirm a youthful, misguided ideal of manhood, I'm able to "take a step back" and see what Kojima was trying to accomplish from an artistic standpoint.
While he does make some forays into the outright ridiculous, I'll concede that there may have been some very bold artistic endeavors going on in that second game. Even if it doesn't quite hit all the marks it is aiming at, I'll give the man praise for attempting something new and different in the forum of such a "big money" popular video game.
The third game I won't spend much time on, because as a practical matter, I think it was a throw-back to the first game. Simpler plot, more of an action focus, and those same uber-mensch ideals that I loved so much in my teens and early twenties.
This brings me to my most recent experience, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
The gameplay is excellent. The parts where you are behind the wheel are as fun and challenging as ever. The sneaking is exhilarating, and if anything, Snake has more options than ever in terms of attaining his goals. It is the other stuff that is an issue. (One astute Amazon.com reviewer suggested, "Just skip all the cut-scenes and you've got a great game.")
The cut scenes are looooooooong. I mean, "go make yourself a sandwich" long. Perhaps "go write the Great American Novel" long. My impression was that they were disjointed and frantic... almost like the manic scribblings of a drug-addict while he is in the grips of an opiate-induced euphoria. He has a narrative, and it makes sense to him, but that is about it. Ideas that seem brilliant and meaningful in his own mind come out as slop. You get a vague sense of what he is trying to communicate, and if it is something worthwhile, you feel a twinge of sadness that he isn't able to properly convey his vision. For some reason, the whole experience just makes me think of a drug addict trying to tell a story. Whether this is true for Hideo Kojima, or whether he is just drunk on his own success, I don't know for certain.
The cut scenes just seem like storytelling where the teller assumes that his audience has truckloads of patience and good grace when it doesn't. I get the sense in my mind that Kojima and his staff envisioned us all spell-bound with his forty-minute plus cut scenes detailing the plot, which is convoluted to the point of meaninglessness.
I get some of the overarching themes (purely commercial society is bad, material living without any deeper morals leads to a meaningless existence ultimately controlled by others), but they are loss in a haze of chauvinistic exhibitionism and grade-school humor. It is as if the game doesn't quite know if it is a commentary on human existence or a love letter to adolescent boys. I think it tries to be both and fails.
Thus is my mental debate. Is there genius behind all the madness? Is there some deeper meaning, as I suspect there was with the second game? Perhaps. But if so, I think it is lost on myself and the vast majority of people that have played it. Maybe Kojima is a genius and there's something here that I'm missing.
But maybe he just screwed the pooch on this one.
Now, lest you accuse me of being a overly serious grouse, let me assure you - I gave Hideo Kojima and company the benefit of the doubt. I played the game tip to tail, and took my time to stop and smell the roses. I approached it with a light heart and low expectations. I no longer need video games as some type of adolescent power fantasy, so I don't think I'm wearing the same blinders I was when I critiqued these games as a teenager.
Regardless, I think it still came up lacking. Part of any good storytelling (linear or not) is to have a clear vision of what you are trying to accomplish (which needs to be somewhat narrow, by necessity), and then executing it to the best of your ability.
And I just don't see that in the fourth game.
Ah well. The fact that an artist creates a brilliant work is a rare thing. Two is a certifiable miracle. It really is unfair to expect more. While it would be nice of Kojima was a proverbial "golden goose" of games and only laid "golden eggs", that is not how human art works. You try, you fail, and you fall victim to the foibles of humanity. In the end, I think you've just got to appreciate the good in anything that is produced. No one has a right to expect perfection out of every human endeavor, and if you feel like you do... you are in for a disappointing life.
