

“I don't want people to play my games just for fun,” he said in a documentary about the making of MGS4. He's one of the biggest personalities and boldest innovators in the industry, and although his execution can be clumsy, he genuinely wants to make you think when you play his games-about politics, history, love, and giant nuclear robots. Konami recently released an 'HD collection' for consoles, including upscaled versions of MGS2 and MGS3, and they really should think about bringing it to Steam. Hell, I'm pretty well-versed in MGS lore and I don't understand half the stuff in the trailers. The problem is, if you've never played a Metal Gear game before, The Phantom Pain's story won't make a lick of sense.

There's even a management sim in there, which lets you design and manage a base, recruiting soldiers-and sheep -from the field.
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Fox is an impressive engine, and PC would be the perfect place to show it off. You were always able to choose how you approach objectives in Metal Gear, but never to this scale. But staying true to his love of systems, these aren't just for show: guard patrol routes and frequency will be different at night, freak sand storms provide helpful cover, and you can hide in enemy vehicles as they move around the map.

The game is set across a large map with a day/night cycle, dynamic weather, and vehicles. What excites me about this sequel is that Kojima is bringing his trademark stealth to an open world setting. He rarely gets credit for it, but Kojima used the fourth wall, subversion, and humour to question the nature of player agency years before The Stanley Parable and BioShock.īut back to Metal Gear Solid 5. Here's an interesting (and spoiler-filled) critical analysis. I won't spoil the story for anyone who's yet to play it, but Metal Gear Solid 2 in particular frequently suggests that the characters are in a video game, and even talks directly to the player-which is actually a huge part of the story and the overall themes of the game.
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You can really feel the love and passion that goes into every Metal Gear game.Īnother important part of what makes the series so special is its love of demolishing the fourth wall. The sheer amount of detail in Kojima's work is dizzying another reason why I think he's one of the best designers in the business. Mei Ling, who saves your game, will stick her tongue out and refuse to talk to you if you repeatedly call her and don't save. Call weapons expert Nastasha in MGS1 with a cardboard box equipped and she'll lecture you on the history of cardboard boxes. In most situations-whether you're being peed on by a guard or shooting seagulls-calling up a character on your codec/radio will reward you with relevant amusing dialogue. Individually these might seem like frivolous details, but in concert with the many other examples that litter every level, it makes for a compellingly detailed, interactive world. And in MGS4, shooting people with 'emotion bullets' causes them to break down in tears or burst out laughing. In MGS2, knocking over an ice bucket causes the cubes to spill out, and if you zoom in with your binoculars you can see them melt in real-time. In MGS3 there's a boss called The End, a hundred year-old sniper who can take over an hour to defeat normally-unless you set your system clock forward by a week, in which case he'll die of old age. Some are well known, like the psychic boss in the first game who accesses your PlayStation memory card and comments on games you've been playing, but there are many, many more. His games are also filled with what I call Kojima moments. The studio recently revealed that this new tech is designed with cross-platform in development in mind, which gives me hope that this new game will one day sneak onto PC.
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The latest game is Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, and although no Windows version has been announced-for now it's a PlayStation and Xbox exclusive-it's being built with Kojima Productions' in-house Fox engine. Rising, a spin-off that has very little in common with the main series, doesn't count. We got lacklustre ports of the first two games, but so far they're the only ones to escape console land. The Metal Gear Solid series has been woefully under-served on PC. He's a game designer first and foremost, and his unique brand of magic and madness belongs on PC. His long, indulgent cutscenes are notorious, yes, but they're only a small part of the whole, wonderful Kojima experience. He's often accused of being a frustrated filmmaker using the medium to live out his directing fantasies, but only by people who haven't played his games. He understands games, and the way people play them, more than any other developer.
