Spring 2016 | ADES 5515 Logan McLaughlin
“There Are No Heroes in War”: A Zeitgeist Critique of Metal Gear Solid
Introduction: Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid is heralded as one of the greatest videogames of all time by critics. The game itself more or less defined the genre of stealth action in games and its cinematic story telling was revolutionary for its time in 1998. Metal Gear Solid is a product of its time, absolutely dripping with cultural references that help the game’s narrative and mechanics shine as one of the most complex and compelling stories in gaming to date. Labeled as a tactical espionage game, it is heavily influenced by the global tension of the 1990s, painting a near future science fiction common to the cyberpunk movement. Built on the gritty dystopian outlooks of the cyberpunk genre and developed by a Japanese studio, Metal Gear Solid, reflects much about world events at the time and draws heavily upon tropes and influences of Western science fiction and film. For the purposes of this critique, I will be examining some of the contributing elements to Metal Gear Solid in terms of literary and media influences as well as real world sociopolitical circumstances that set the stage for the creation of this game.
A Very Brief Introduction and Synopsis of Metal Gear Solid While it may have been the first Metal Gear game that many millennials played, Metal Gear Solid is actually the third game in the series that began on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. The Second Game in the series Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake released exclusively in Japan in 1990 on the MSX2 home computer. After a small modicum of success seen by Metal Gear 2 production on the series halted and Kojima’s team was moved to working on games for the 3DO console, a system that was short-lived due to poor sales. In 1995, thanks to the release of the Playstation, a system which could render 3D polygons in real time, Kojima could work on a game with a more active camera, three dimensional environments, and a cinematic story. Kojima and his team set out to make the best and most realistic tactical espionage game possible, going so far as to hire military consultants and participate in SWAT training in San Diego (Bartholomew 1997). Kojima envisioned a game wherein players had to rely on stealth rather than firepower to dispatch their enemies. Metal Gear Solid released in 1998 to critical acclaim scoring a 94/100 on Metacritic, an aggregate of review scores from critics.
The plot of Metal Gear Solid is anything but simple. The game follows the main protagonist Solid Snake, a retired member of the Special Forces unit Foxhound, through a stealth mission on a nuclear weapons facility off the coast of Alaska. A cell within Foxhound has
1 Spring 2016 | ADES 5515 Logan McLaughlin rebelled and seized control of a mobile nuclear weapon platform known as Metal Gear Rex. They threaten a nuclear attack if the remains of their former leader, known as Big Boss the greatest mercenary to ever live, are not returned and if they do not receive a billion dollars ransom. The game takes place in 2005 long after the thaw of the Cold War in a near future of secret wars and espionage in the wake of less than successful nuclear disarmament.
Outside of its decidedly anti-nuclear stance, one of the key themes of the game is genetic determinism. The main antagonist, Liquid Snake, reveals later that he and Snake are both clones of Big Boss who were bred for their genes as soldiers as part of a top secret government project. At the game’s climax, Liquid laments that the world no longer needs warriors as the world marches toward peace. Liquid proposes that he and Snake are unable to fight their nature and must carve out a niche in the world by creating a world in which warriors can thrive. With the billion dollar ransom Liquid plans to realize the dream of Big Boss by ending the exploitation of soldiers an independent nation of soldiers. Liquid is ultimately killed by a genetic virus designed specifically to target those with Big Boss’s DNA which include not only Liquid and Snake, but a whole host of genetically modified soldiers at the base. Snake, ultimately wins the day in classic 1980s action movie style, escapes the facility with his female partner and subsequently goes back into retirement.
This is a grossly brief summary of the depth of the plot of this game, but it conveys the general idea of some of the themes the player encounters. The story is one that is both deeply serious and sometimes humorous while dealing with the very real themes of post- Cold War fear and politics, technological advancement, and scientific ethics. Each of these themes is directly informed by world events at the time and draws not only on tropes of science fiction, but influences from real world events.
Character Designs and Traits Snake was designed to have the physique of a Van Damme and the face of Christopher Walken (Hodgson 1998). It goes without saying that the character is thus heavily influenced by action movies of the 1970s and 1980s. However, Snake’s distinct jaded demeanor and grim humor also echoes the quintessential anti-hero of the cyberpunk novel. In addition to this yet another trope of cyberpunk makes an appearance as a key character, Gray Fox the cyborg ninja who is later revealed to be one of the antagonists of a previous game. The idea of a character that is not truly human nor truly machine, an altered cyborg is a trend that goes all the way back to Asimov, Capek, and Lang. The
2 Spring 2016 | ADES 5515 Logan McLaughlin association of body modification with samurai or ninjas is something we see in quintessential cyberpunk novels such as Nueromancer.
The character of Solid Snake including the character’s name and personality were also heavily inspired by Snake Plisskin the protagonist of the 1981 film Escape from New York (Kojima 2002). This curiously pulpy mix of humor, fourth wall breaking, and action found in other John Carpenter films have also worked their way into the narrative style of Metal Gear Solid. While the characters may be inspired by movies, the narrative is alarmingly close to real events.
After the Thaw: The Post-Cold War The events of Metal Gear Solid showcase some alarmingly real fears people had in the late 1990s. From acquisition of nuclear weapons by independent entities, to genetic engineering, the game showcases some very real possibilities of scientific advancement projected forward from the late 90s. The game itself is set only 7 years after the year of its release, again a theme seen in cyberpunk novels like Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. This near term dystopian view of technology is for the most part a cynical one. As early as 1994 there was global worry at the rise of the “Nuclear Mafia” and worries that independent crime syndicates and KGB enclaves would use leftover nukes to hold the world hostage (Mullen 1994). This was paired with a general unease that the world could not come back from the tension of the Cold War. This general air of distrust carried into the 90s on the tails of the Gulf War. Considering the fear that the massive militaries built up during the Cold War could not simply fade away was a fear of global proportions; it makes sense that Kojima and his team would choose to use a clandestine branch of the US military as both antagonist and protagonist of the game.
Fear of military cells going rogue was closer to home for Kojima and his team than the US. In Russia at the time, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, an illegal trade of nuclear materials kicked off almost instantly (Vek 1995). There were fears that this illegal weapons trade and rogue KGB cells would end up holding the world hostage with soviet nukes. Fears that were all too real in Japan, the only country to experience a nuclear strike and close neighbor to the now unstable Russia. These fears were paired globally with growing unrest in the Middle East and the threat of nuclear proliferation. This period of uneasiness not only involved global powers, but scientific advancement, in more ways than just nuclear energy.
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Genome Soldiers and Genetic Determinism One of the running themes through Metal Gear Solid is genetic modification. The Next-Gen Special Forces, who have seized the nuclear facility are all genetically modified in some way and the climax of the game discusses the role of genetics in shaping us as people. The human genome project was a hot topic in the 1990s as the number of genes discovered and catalogued each year skyrocketed around 1992 (NIH.gov).
Similar to other works that addressed genetics such as Gattaca (1997), Metal Gear Solid challenges the ideas of genetic determinism that were cropping up at the time. The game presents two archetypes based upon the same genetics of the mysterious “Big Boss” in the form of Snake and Liquid. Both of these characters were bred to be soldiers, but Snake chooses not to take his brother’s offer and continue propagating global conflict despite his supposed genetic programming. Serving as a counterpoint to much of pop-science at the time which speculated on genetic predispositions to everything from criminal tendencies to financial success. The game then closes on a black screen containing a few lines about the state of nuclear disarmament in the world after the START2 agreement.
Conclusions Metal Gear Solid is a product of its time, and the product of the culture experienced by its designer. The game draws on a massive amount of historical and cultural context relevant to the decade of its release, but also draws on literary and film movements of decades past. Arguably this context is what contributes to the game being so influential and the continued success of the Metal Gear series. These original influences have carried forward through the series even to the final installment released in 2015. The rich sociocultural context from which Metal Gear draws inspiration helped to accomplish Kojima’s dream of creating a game that seemed realistic. This idea of realistic sci-fi, the artistic bent of authors like Gibson and Dick is also alive and well in Metal Gear. Kojima harnessed the world events of his own era and the tools of cinema and cyberpunk writing to issue a grim warning about the nature of the war culture still alive after the Cold War.
Works Cited Bartholomew, Peter, “Metal Gear Solid Casts its Spell,” Gamespot, September 6, 1997, http://www.gamespot.com/articles/metal-gear-solid-casts- its-spell/1100-2467579/
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Hodgson, David S.J. Metal Gear Solid: Official Mission Handbook. Millennium Publications Inc. 1998.
“Human Genome Project,” National Institutes of Health, retrieved March 5, 2016. https://report.nih.gov/NIHfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=4 5&key=H#H
Kojima, Hideo, “Hideo Kojima at the Movies: Escape from New York,” Official Playstation Magazine, May 2002
Mullen, Shaun D., “Russian Mafia is Newest Criminal Threat to Hit the U.S. From Murder To Smuggling Drugs…” Philly, August 17, 1994, http://articles.philly.com/1994-08- 17/news/25843099_1_russian-mob-nuclear-mafia-plutonium
“The Nuclear Mafia in Russia. The Truths and Myths."General Gennady Yevstafiev answers questions from "Vek", Vek, September 22, 1995. Retrieved from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nukes/rea dings/yevstafiev.html
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