Feature By

Thom Moyles

The original Metal Gear Solid is one of the most important and most distinctive titles in video game history. Like its sequel, Metal Gear Solid created a considerable uproar when screenshots and movies were first leaked to the public. When it was released in 1998, it quickly became one of the most popular games ever, causing a heated debate over the merits of the game. The biggest complaint was that the creator of the game, Hideo Kojima, had piled on too much story and not enough gameplay. Over time, the public opinion of the game grew, as people recognized the game’s strengths as well as its weaknesses. Looking at this title now, 4 years after it was first released, it is still one of the most polished games ever produced and a game that challenges the status quo in terms of how people experience video games.

Since Metal Gear Solid is a famous game that has been out for a considerable length of time, this article will focus less on its gameplay, and more on the methodology of how the game is presented to the player. Additionally, references will be made in the course of the article to aspects of the game that could be viewed as spoilers for those who have not played the game, so be warned.

There are three elements that one could use to describe the basic attributes of a game. The element that gamers are most familiar with is the genre of the gameplay—like the "platformer" and the "sim". "Action/Espionage" is probably the correct category for Metal Gear Solid here. Another element is the genre of the story. In the case of Metal Gear Solid, the story is fairly standard action/espionage fare, such as one might find in a book or film of the genre, complete with the usual dance of betrayals and mistaken identities. The third, and for the purposes of this review, the most important element is the presentation of the narrative, that is, how the game shows the story to the player.

The truly revolutionary content of Metal Gear Solid comes from its use of cutscenes, which form the basis for the presentation of the narrative. More specifically, the cutscenes used in the game indicate a conscious attempt on the part of Kojima to borrow numerous methods of presenting the narrative from the world of film in order to create a more involving story for the game. Although Kojima succeeded in centering the game on a remarkably complex story, by using techniques cribbed from film he presented his narrative in a way that was not integrated with the gameplay.

From the opening sequence, it is clear that Kojima has been influenced by the world of film, and by Hollywood action movies in particular. Metal Gear Solid is introduced as "A Hideo Kojima Game" and a place stamp appears soon afterwards, setting the scene in the Bering Strait off the coast of Alaska. The place stamp that follows is a common trope used in film to give the audience a sense of where the action is taking place—Hitchcock, for example, used this device to great effect in his films. This ties directly into helping the audience suspend their disbelief. By placing the action in a real-world location, Kojima is making a gesture towards convincing the audience of the realism of the game, something not traditionally attempted in video games. However, the fact that we are informed of Kojima’s artistic ownership of Metal Gear Solid is a bit more significant.