This entry was posted June 21, 2007 as an editorial in the portal http://www.metalgearweb.net/ .
Every era has had its gaming spokesman: some time ago - more or less even when I was born - you could not help but have fun with Tetris and PacMan. Then came the game more challenging, as the famous Super Mario Miyamoto. Only years after our saga, which had already seen the birth of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land, who had enchanted the Japanese, came to the attention of the media and the public as a real blockbuster: when it was presented the first trailer of Metal Gear Solid E3 1997, all a miracle and declared in disbelief. Do not believe their eyes and even less in their ears, while the maestro Kojima - then a boy - he spoke, was explaining what in effect is his ambitious but also very successful project.
But why? Why Metal Gear Solid has never been, nor ever will be, a simple game and disengaged? What Will most of the other blockbusters that tried and still try to attack his throne, as Syphon Filter and Splinter Cell? Pointing out the fact that this editorial is not intended as a spokesman for war-game (because there would be absolutely racing), but simply an analysis of the character pillars of our favorite saga, I retain the right to continue.
First of all, Metal Gear Solid has never been in any profile and in any event, nothing obvious: Enfantes Les Terribles project from the Patriots, the legacy of the Philosophers to the son of The Boss, the theme of patricide friendship Solid and Fox. The maestro Kojima has never fallen into the trivial and, above all, never fell into the pathetic, lying down on the wave of commercial success and rocked by profits, masterpiece or not, would come anyway. Never. And here is a first characteristic carrier of our masterpiece, the producer of Metal Gear Solid loves it. He does not solely for profit or because it has to, but because he wants to. And thus we see the image of the maestro Kojima, pen in hand, sits at his desk, trying to explain in the next episode, where it finished the son of Olga, who are the Patriots and, damn, damn what a fine will Solid Snake?
Metal Gear Solid has never claimed to be a simple video game: criticized by jealous lovers, and the gameplay for the immediate infinite amount of video sequences that perform the plot throughout the game, has always been more like an amazing film not a video game. But his screenplay lets him, and not get bored. Playing Metal Gear Solid is like reading a great book: the desire to get to the next chapter, eager to discover what could happen and, above all, how it will end. Starting assumptions always simple - stop a terrorist group threatening to launch a nuclear missile, bring home the evidence of the presence of a ship in Ray Marine, back in the U.S. Dr. Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov - Kojima manages to send out the story, for expand more without ever fossilize on a protagonist and an antagonist, but by creating dynamic characters and real, even if fanciful (see Mantis, Octopus, Vamp or the Cobra Unit) that, in his words, do not appear, but breathing.
Thus, to cite a common example, if an agent Gabriel Logan is all muscle and machine gun to the words that much prefers the facts, Solid Snake is a man tormented from past and patricide, covered with a mask that hides her fears revealing only his rough side of a soldier. Syphon Filter Logan And if the past is the same as it was in the first, no Snake, because Snake is a character who has lived with us and for us, which was the story of the protagonist, is a character that the facts do not washes. Kojima wanted to tell us how "to teach others, learning from each other, just so we can change the world." And we arrive to a Snake who has learned to love, to make friends, to fight, to die. If
Lian Xing is a more static character, contained in Syphon Filter simply to shoulder the main character and give a touch of femininity action, Meryl Silverburgh is dynamic even within the same episode: the shoulder is not Solid Snake, but a character of its own, much more than just a voice on the Codec. So, if we start a Meryl arrogant but scared at the end of the first episode we have an adolescent who has just become a woman who understood the value of his life and has discovered what it means to love. And he has learned to fight, to the point of becoming, in Guns of the Patriots, in turn, the new leader of the new Fox-Hound. What we say instead of Gray Fox? Fox, perhaps the only true image of the classic hero par excellence, which fights for an ideal, without ever losing sight, at the cost of dying and that does not turn our backs on those who have ever loved, human and generous, but also determined and blood, is a character button, one of the most beloved series, if not the most loved. And Raiden? We are talking about perhaps the deepest and most complex character of the whole saga and the history of video games, because Raiden ourselves side by side with Solid Snake. It is we, deceived by the false reality, we believe we have a normal life and do not we ask too many questions, we are fighting in the immediacy and not against it, which Solid Snake we have so much to learn. What to say then
antagonists? How many of us love the fantastic character of Revolver Ocelot, immortal and infallible triplogiochista (or maybe more) but irreplaceable in the hearts of fans of the series. And Sniper Wolf? We are fighting against her in revenge for what happened to Meryl, because it provokes and insults us, because - damn it - with all the hate ourselves as we are and how to act. The riddled with bullets, and after? After watching the sequence mourn his death.
not talking about The Boss, then. The woman Naked Snake's mentor, a perfect heroine, who in order to defend his protege and his country agrees to die, that does not hold back even before the fear. One of the characters that, in these twenty years of Metal Gear, has taught us more. And do not forget him either, Naked Snake, on which everything begins. And who knows, maybe because of where everything ends.
In all this, what actually refers to the concept of classic video games? What? By setting the film, a screenplay and amazing scenery, a cast of assorted characters and incredible, a sound department and a Hollywood dubbing always excellent, even back in 1998, Metal Gear Solid can not be considered a simple video game, or claim to be. Indeed, it is much, much more: it is the union of many forms of art. Graphic art, the art of design, art, music, the art of narrative, art film.
The conclusion comes spontaneously.
Metal Gear Solid is not a video game. Nor is it a movie. It is a work of art created by exceptional minds and hands. And that's why hardly find his equal: those minds and those hands will be working exclusively for him. And for us.
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