With game studies still mostly in a nascent stage of development, the most effective way of navigating the amorphous, undefined nature of the field, and which should provide considerable definition to it as it progresses, is simply by studying video games. There are any number of ways to shade a critical examination of these cultural and creative artifacts, as much as there a variety of approaches to deconstructing literature or film or any medium, whether it be in a socio-political context or a more structuralist approach, etc. What video games, then, are worthy of study? As much as every film produced or book published is not necessarily deserving of serious, extensive inquiry, the parameters of the current discussion are such that the possible video games to consider are a relatively small amount of the overall games ever made – these are video games that are pan-generational, intellectual properties that have rooted themselves within our culture and continue to flourish. These are what could be described as foundational games that have exacted an incredibly disproportionate amount of influence over the shape and direction of the industry relative to the thousands and thousands of games that have been released.
Several of these games were already mentioned in the introduction. For this discussion the focus will be on the Metal Gear series, first released in the United States as Metal Gear in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game originated in Japan from Konami’s division dedicated to developing games for the MSX2 computer system and was the brainchild of Hideo Kojima, a young developer at the time who was tasked with completing the project after his first game was rejected (Szczepaniak ). Today, Kojima is one of the most revered game developers, taking his place among those Japanese developers who first gained attention after the crash of the early 1980s – such as Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and Zelda; Hironobu Sakaguchi with Final Fantasy; Gunpei Yokoi, who also worked on Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. and was chiefly responsible for Metroid and Kid Icarus – and the great developers of the West, like Sid Meier (Civilization) and Will Wright (Sim City, The Sims). While he has developed other titles, none surpass his work with Metal Gear and its follow-ups.
Kojima was not involved with porting the MSX2 version of the original Metal Gear to the Famicom/NES, which contain several significant deviations from the original design. Regardless, the game stands as one of the defining titles of the stealth action genre, incorporating a style of gameplay that went against the dominant conventions at the time. An early influence on this genre was Castle Wolfenstein, released in 1981 for the Apple II. Players traversed the levels of the castle searching for top secret plans, avoiding enemies and with the goal of escaping alive:
The original Metal Gear builds on the template offered by Castle Wolfenstein, retaining the top-down 3/4 perspective and general aesthetics of play while offering noticeable graphic enhancements afforded by advancements in hardware and new layers of stealth action. Interestingly, it was the constraints of hardware at the time that largely influenced the style of gameplay featured in Metal Gear as Kojima wanted to avoid the graphical glitches that often arose in war-themed games that were “sprite-heavy,” such as the screen or game elements flashing/flickering. He worked around this problem by anchoring progression through the game in hiding and avoiding enemies, effectively limiting the number of sprites that would appear on the screen (meaning fewer soldiers and graphical elements like bullets).
The player starts the game unequipped, with no weapons or items other than a transceiver that enables non-player characters to communicate with the player’s avatar, Solid Snake. This functions chiefly as a means for conveying exposition of the game narrative and to enhance critical moments as the game unfolds (such as the game’s climax, which features a dialogue between Solid Snake and the chief protagonist, Big Boss, mediated through the transceiver, that reveals several plot twists; this is also one of the ways in which the game series employs remediation and hypermediacy through other mediums rendered in-game).
Tasked with infiltrating the enemie’s jungle compound, known as Outer Haven, the player must avoid contact with guards, turrets, and dogs; avoid traps like poison gas; and use what items are available in an efficient manner (for instance, rations to replenish health are sparsely located throughout levels; game bosses must be overcome using the appropriate weapon, or, put another way, the player must determine which weapon will be most effective against bosses – for brevity, a game boss here is simply a non-player character that represents the culmination of a series of actions or progression through the stage that the player must overcome in order to advance to the next level). If the player is spotted, the game enters an “alert” phase. This means that all enemy NPCs on the current screen are aware of Snake’s presence and the player must navigate Snake to another screen to to return the game to normal status, effectively regaining stealth cover in the game world. The MSX2 version of the game featured a second “alert” phase that generated off-screen enemies and was triggered when Snake activated a trap or used a non-silenced weapon. Snake could only regain his stealth cover by eliminating all of the incoming enemies, moving to another floor of the compound or exiting the compound altogether. This second phase was one of the features excluded from the NES port, removing some of the nuance of Kojima’s original design and resulting in a game that was substantially more difficult than the designer originally intended (though the game’s difficulty was certainly not unique, as anyone who has played these 8-bit games can attest).
From the Metal Gear game manual:
To triumph you must gather necessary information, weapons, and equipment as you press forward into the enemy’s domain.
Weapons and equipment can be found and captured in three various[sic] ways. Find them in enemy trucks. Find them in enemy storehouses. Or snatch them directly from certain enemies.
…along the way you’ll rescue grateful hostages who’ll offer crucial information as to the whereabouts of Metal Gear.
As Snake navigates the compound, he acquires new weapons and items, most of which serve a contextual purpose, such as key cards to unlock specific rooms and buildings, and frees prisoners. Kojima’s creative choices necessitated by technical limitations meant that he had to create not only a new way of playing war-based video games but incorporate a different mode of conveyance. Most war/combat games of the era were either like the side-scrolling classic Contra or Capcom’s early top-down shooter, Commando. Perhaps it was fortuitous synchronicity but the technical constraints converged with Kojima’s initial inspiration for creating a game based on the classic Hollywood film, The Great Escape, which concerns the efforts of the film’s protagonist, portrayed by screen icon Steve McQueen, to organize an escape from a Nazi POW camp. The very narrative of the game Kojima had in mind demanded that the gameplay deviate from traditional 8-bit generation shooters and the technical limitations required as much to ensure a rewarding experience for the player.
The influence of cinema on Metal Gear‘s narrative, however, is significantly deeper than merely remediating the basic plot of The Great Escape; the set-up and overall conceit for that film has roots in a much broader and older cinematic tradition (though it also based on an actual event). McQueen’s role in the film can be traced back to the swashbuckling films of Lionel Barrymore and Errol Flynn, though McQueen’s on-screen roles of the 1960s and 1970s, much like the era, are more characteristic of the anti-hero than the dashing heroes of earlier. McQueen is the outsider, who enters from the wilderness of the war into the specialized society of the prisoner camp, where the community is confronted with a particular goal to achieve or obstacle to overcome. It is a pattern that dates to the film Shane (1953, George Stevens), is exemplified in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo & Sanjuro, transposed to the spaghetti western by Sergio Leone with his The Man with No Name trilogy of the 1960s starring Clint Eastwood, and that has long been established as a common narrative conceit for films.
Several films of the late 1970s and 1980s continued this tradition, though these films also signify tonal shifts that reflect the era and were instrumental in further shaping Metal Gear‘s narrative. Many action films of this period center around an anti-hero, typically with a military background, who usually faces a situation where he must infiltrate an enemy facility and either rescue captives/hostages or dismantle/disrupt the antagonist’s operation. The conflicts in these films are based on socio-political realities of the era and usually represent a direct confrontation between Cold War powers or some attempt to validate the honor of those who fought the Vietnam war by re-fighting the conflict through the conceit of the anti-hero returning from the “wilderness” (outside the military-industrial hierarchy/complex) to those who were left behind. Films like Missing in Action (1984) and First Blood (1982) are two such films. In the first film, Col. Braddock (Chuck Norris) returns to Vietnam ten years after he escaped from a prisoner of war camp to rescue American soldiers who were left behind; in the second, John Rambo is haunted by the horrors of the war and its legacy on the lives of the men in his unit and hunted by a town sheriff.
Other films like Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), The Terminator (1984) and Star Wars (1977) were influential for promoting science fiction and ushering in a grittier, ultra-realistic projection of the future often featuring technological dominance or deeply integrated throughout society, bleak urban or overly mechanized environments, and a sense of agency instilled within the protagonist that largely hinges upon that character’s realization that the forces in opposition are overwhelmingly powerful and that even supposed allies (often represented as an entity employing the protagonist) cannot be trusted. These protagonists are often challenged by forces far beyond their control, representing feelings of anxiety and insecurity in the wake of the cultural, political, and cultural issues of the 1960s and 1970s, the sense that the individual had little power when confronted by gasoline shortages, the taking of hostages by terrorists, unemployment and stagflation, all while living in a world that was increasingly automated and mechanized, and, therefore, increasingly distant from the needs of the individual and communities (or was at least perceived to be as such).
The gameplay elements utilized by the player to traverse Snake’s mission are complicated by the substantial narrative elements incorporated into the game to provide a more compelling and immersive experience. It is one of the earliest examples of a game employing a complex narrative structure. Solid Snake is an inexperienced member of a secret military organization of highly trained specialists known as Foxhound. In what is his second mission, he must follow-up on the whereabouts of his mentor, a fellow agent, and gather the necessary information to destroy the mechanized weapon being developed by the mercenary organization he must overcome. This weapon – known as Metal Gear – is clearly influenced by two factors: one, the Cold War era fear of nuclear weapons and, second, increasing sophistication in weapons design systems as a result of technical and mechanical innovations. The Metal Gear, simply put, is a mobile tank unit capable of deploying a nuclear weapon. At the game’s climax, and after disabling Metal Gear, Snake discovers that the leader of the mercenary organization is the man who has been giving him orders (and from whom the player has received clues) – Big Boss. It is a significant moment in the development of the character, especially in regards to the character of Solid Snake as he has been developed across the games many iterations. On a final note, several changes were made to the game’s narrative in the original NES manual that reflect a more overt effort made to appeal to Americans. The most prominent revision is the alteration of the antagonist’s name to Col. Vermon Cataffy, a clear play on the name of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, who was, at the time, seen as an enemy of the United States. Solid Snake was also mentioned as a veteran of the invasion of Grenada, a minor military incursion undertaken by the Reagan administration in 1983.
Metal Gear
Return to Section 1: Introduction
Links:
Read the full Metal Gear narrative here.
jaywillie
Metal Gear Solid: A History of Narrative & Gameplay, 1987-2008 