May 5, 2013 by

In my humble opinion, the Metal Gear series is the best series in all of gaming. Announcements for other series get me excited, but nothing comes close to peaking my interest as much as a new MGS title. I love Uncharted, Zelda, Mario, God of War, etc, but the all pale in comparison to MGS and the reason is simple:


Does any other series in the history of gaming have as long running of a narrative as MGS? Every single game in the series comprises basically one narrative, not unlike the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. All of the games from 1987's Metal Gear to the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V (which is the impetus for this blog) are connected. That's 25 years that Hideo Kojima has spent building one epic story. No other series comes close to that.

Kojima has taken us on ride that has spanned from 1964 (earlier if you want to include more backstory) to 2018 and every thing that has happened in between those 54 years is connected. We've seen two soldiers go from green to legendary.

Sure Zelda and Mario are 25+ years old, but the games in those series more often than not are not connected. Nintendo recently tried to proclaim that each game in the Legend of Zelda series is connected, but I don't really see how that can be since there is very little callback to things that happened in previous games. They may all be connected, but to me only a few are sequels while the others are just rehashes (albeit fun and great rehashes) of previous games.

Most people had their first encounter with the series playing Metal Gear Solid on Playstation, yet even that game harkens back to the MSX2 originals so much so that without some research it's tough to know exactly what's going on. The two early games even attempted story tropes that no other games were doing at the time: backstabs, Empire Strikes Back-like reveals, nuclear war, etc.

MGS took those ideas and expounded on them and included cloning, genetic manipulation and nanomachines. Despite adding such philosophical ideas, Kojima presented a grounded enough story that many people still enjoy today. It was hard to imagine things getting crazier.

Yet they did. My first experience with MGS was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Needless to say, I had no idea what was going on at any point of the game. Who is Ocelot? What's a Shadow Moses? Sure jumping in to a sequel inevitably leads to more questions than answers, but MGS 2 is barely a standalone game. It seems like a standalone title for much of the game, but the last few hours is a complete switch that makes no sense for people with no reference.

Even side stories like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance calls back to earlier games.

MGS3 filled in a lot of back story for the series and then story crescendos with MGS4: Guns of the Patriots. MGS4 is my favorite in the series simply because its a love letter to the fans of the series. It's a solid, pardon the pun, game featuring, but it definitely isn't for new-to-the-series players which, along with a copious amount of cut scenes, led to a lot of backlash. Yet probably every fan of the series appreciates what it tries to do even if they don't like to play it.

One of my favorite things to do is research things that I thoroughly enjoy. I try to become a sort of "expert" on the topic whether it be a movie, band, game, etc. I've done a ton of research on the MGS series and no matter how much you read about it or play it, it just gets deeper and deeper. Because of that, it's one of a kind and one of the best.

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