wow that sounds really lofty for a video game series with that many piss jokes, huh? unfortunately it was extremely influential on me and changed my life about as much as a singular piece of lowbrow art possibly can. I first played Metal Gear Solid (1998, playstation) on June 18th, 2021. I can't remember what or who prompted me to pick it up, it might've just been a list of "best playstation games" on some clickbait website while I was trying to play around with an emulator. at the time I was an incredibly stereotypical 14-year-old boy and was initially hooked by the ephemera of it all. the characters all spoke in cool one-liners, the guns and tanks and helicopters were cool, and sneaking around amidst the sounds of shadow moses reminded me of movies I liked (I was super into Escape from New York at the time, as was hideo kojima for his entire early career. at least I assume based on everything, and I've played policenauts and snatcher so you know I'm serious about this). I beat the game in a few days and by the end I was completely blown away by how captivating the storytelling was. the characters are so captivating and have such incredible growth over the course of a roughly 10 hour long story. overall it's so thoughtful and has such an optimisitic view of the human spirit and our ability to determine our own paths.
where it really clicked for me and transcended just another month-long fixation was my playthrough of metal gear solid 2 immediately after. that was the first piece of art I remember feeling the need to really dissect in every possible detail. it was my introduction to postmodernism, to intense thematic analysis, to stories through dissection and breakdown of medium. I remember breaking down crying at the ending, at the rejection of predetermination following a freaky breakdown of the fourth wall the likes of which I'd never even considered before. snake's speech about leaving a better world than the one you were saddled with burned into the recesses of my brain. it meant so much to me at such a vulnerable time in my life.
I spent the rest of that summer and then all of my sophomore year of high school utterly obsessed with metal gear. I still go through periods where I think about it a lot, but nothing as intense as that initial year and a half or so. I played all of the mainline games, most of the spinoffs (I don't play about ghost babel, I've played ac!d 1 AND 2, damn near gave myself carpal tunnel playing portable ops, I even have survive but I haven't put much time into it because it's so unbelievably boring), got 100% completion in peace walker which I don't really recommend because it's grindy as hell. did not 100% mgsv because I don't have that kind of patience but I have finished the story. the only game I watched a playthrough of instead of getting through myself was mgs4, and despite having a ps3 now I still haven't actually played it. it's incidentally my least favorite game in the series for reasons I've written about many times. might write about it again here sometime, who knows? but across everything I adore the cycles, attentions to detail, intersections of gameplay and cutscene, and determinism of it all. it got me into so many other things, be it movies or philosophy or david bowie albums. it encouraged me to be curious about stories and the way they're told in a way that completely changed my worldview. awesome thank you metal gear solid. the guns and tanks and stuff are still cool though. I'm entirely against war, its proliferation, and its artifacts but man they're pretty cool in a fictional setting.
visually, this page is mostly based on MGS1 with some elements from MGS2. those are my favorites in the series, peace walker and MG2 are also up there. MGS3 is a classic and I've played it an absurd amount of times but it doesn't resonate quite as much for me personally.
hover for some words and stuff.
icons come primarily from illustrations by yoji shinkawa and are largely sourced from his book "The Art of Metal Gear Solid I-IV". peace walker characters are taken from that game's cutscenes, illustrated by ashley wood.
return home. more updates to this page will likely come in the future, so be sure to check back sometime.
