Looking Back

I recently recorded a podcast with fellow Character Select Network collective known only as Cane and Rinse. I was invited on specifically to talk about Metal Gear on the first episode in what will be an epic multi-game Metal Gear extravaganza.  The first episode was all about Metal Gear; the original games that spawned so many unique and ground-breaking experiences from 1998 to now. Talking of 1998, that is when the game I just watched the credits roll on was released to huge critical acclaim and almost immediately became a global gaming phenomenon: Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation.

My memories of playing this game back when I was 15 are fond to say the least.  When I rented it I had no idea what to expect and when I sat down to play it was almost like learning another language.  Today it’s rather difficult to convey just how much this game stood out in my mind as being wildly different from every other game on the system.  I will try and talk about playing the game way-back-when on the podcast but for now I want to talk about how the game plays today.

Games have come a long way since then, right? The graphics in games such as Uncharted, Heavy Rain and of course Metal Gear Solid 4, still invoke awe in me. The polygon count on Drake’s boots probably surpasses that of the entire cast of Metal Gear Solid.  That said the PlayStation game shrugs off any inferiority complex easily because it’s still, 14 years on, one of the best games I have ever played with, unarguably, the most iconic and unique boss fight ever.

When I was playing through it there was a feeling of immersion brought back to me that I haven’t felt so strongly in a long time.  You know that feeling when a game clicks with you?  It kind of encompasses your mindset. It’s all you think about when you’re not playing it and you can’t wait to get back to it? When all exterior influences become indistinct and it’s just you and the game it feels exciting.  It was this engrossed feeling mixed with the nostalgia of these exact feelings echoing over a decade later that really took me by surprise.  Why did this game, with eyeless characters and lego-snow, manage to suck me in so much when the games of today with HD graphics and full-motion capture often fail to do so?

It’s because, when it comes down to it, graphical fidelity is ancillary when it comes to telling a story and expressing mood and feeling.  No matter how high the budget or how ground-breaking the technology is a shit game is a shit game and if it’s very pretty then it’s just a pretty shit game. There is something in how I felt when going back to this game that wasn’t nostalgia. It felt refreshing. Which is just hugely ironic.  I will go in to more depth later but the one thing I think that is of paramount importance is simplicity.  Sure, there is nothing simple about MGS’s story, far from it, but there is something very simple about the game structure, level design, weapons, aesthetics and boss design.

Perhaps it’s just that the genre has waned since then and it’s entire M.O of stealth, restraint and de-emphasis on mindless action has receeded with it.  If a game like Metal Gear Solid came out today, one that shunned action in favour of restraint, would it be lauded or lambasted? Can a game like that exist today and if so where would it come from?  I would really love to see someone shaking the gaming world like Kojima did 14 years ago. I’m sure it will happen but I would like it to be sooner rather than later.


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