The hallmark of the Metal Gear Solid games isn’t the presence of one of the Snakes. It isn’t nuclear dread or even hide-and-seek, often involving a cardboard box. And it’s not tactical espionage action. I think it’s a tone, or rather a carefully un-careful blend of conflicting tones. On one side there’s a movement towards steely realism. On the other, there are these bright lunges at absolute fantasy. It’s realism and its opposite. I just tried to google what realism’s opposite actually is, by the way. There is no one standard answer as far as I can see. How very Metal Gear.
None of this is a criticism, by the way. I love this stuff about these games. And it’s in there deep. I noticed this jarring combination the first time I saw Metal Gear Solid in action – or rather the first time I saw it in action again. Many years ago, my housemate at university had the game. I ducked into his room one evening and he was playing the early stages. Here was this game about avoiding enemy patrols and searchlights, a game where your character’s breath or cigarette smoke might give him away to a passing baddy. Cor, I thought. Games are getting – I was 19 at the time – games are getting
And then I ducked in again a few days later. Same game. Same room-mate. Same protagonist, but now he was fighting with an intermittently invisible ninja who was talking about how much he enjoyed being killed. Or something.
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That was an ideal introduction to Kojima’s work. I’m not sure if I could have crafted a better one for myself. Even so, I think the greatest expression of these two impulses – realism and whatever its opposite is called – and the weird dance that unfolds as these two opposing things flow together, is in Metal Gear Solid 3. I’ve spent the last few weeks waiting for Delta, the latest version of this game, and watching various bits of footage old and new. I think if anything, the new version actually only heightens the thrilling collision between realism and whatever realism is not. More detailing: more gleeful confusion.