MY HISTORY OF METAL GEAR PART 1: In 1987 an unknown game developer named Hideo Kojima created a unique game in which action was not encouraged but rather stealth. Metal Gear was born but it wouldn't be the legendary franchise it is now until 10 years later when Metal Gear Solid hit in 1998. MGS has gone on to become one of the most beloved game series of all time, each installment a major event. Few series have as passionate a following. In this blog series I will explore my personal history with this franchise. Outside Zelda, Metal Gear is my favorite gaming franchise. I believe it is the most consistently great franchise in all of gaming with each installment evolving in bold new ways. Now here we are at the end, the final Kojima MGS game it is time to look back and share why I love this series so much. This should spark tons of memories of your own as well and I hope you share them. It all began with a game cover... It was the late 80s and everyone had an NES. Back then neighborhood kids would share games because we didn't have money to buy them all. One day one of my brothers friends came over with a few games, one was Mega Man 2 (masterpiece) and the other this game called Metal Gear. I saw the game cover and instantly recognized the terminator influence (because my dad had me watch Arnold movies since I was a kid). What kind of game is this i thought? This was the NES version which at the time I had no clue was a butchered version of Kojima's original. I tried it and enjoyed how different it was but I never got far. I laughed at the terrible translations, "the truck have started to move". The game and series went out of mind for nearly a decade. 1998 the greatest year in gaming history, groundbreaking games coming out left and right. The year before I remember an EGM article on the Tokyo Game Show and it talked about Metal Gear Solid. I remembered that game I played back in the NES games and the description of the trailer was incredible. A game that looked like a movie, with crazy stealth gameplay. Enemies would follow noise, even follow your footsteps. Sounded amazing so I was instantly hyped for it. Then came the OPM demo disc of MGS, I made sure to get the issue the second it hit. The demo allowed you to play the first two areas, the underground area and the helipad. My mind was BLOWN. Never had I ever played anything so cinematic, so realistic in how enemies reacted. I was leaving footprints cause my shoes were wet and guards were noticing. The cutscenes were like watching a hollywood blockbuster, voice acting was in japanese for the demo so I had yet to hear Hayter's iconic voice. I played that disc countless times, there was so many different ways to approach what was two small areas. I had all kill runs, full stealth runs, silent murder everyone runs. The game hooked me from the second I touched it, this is the kind of gameplay freedom I have been looking for. The wait till release was excruciating but it finally came and I got it day one. I remember trying the VR missions first and hearing the old Metal gear tune that I recognized. I watched the full briefing, it felt like one of the 80s action movies I grew up with, such a colorful cast of villains, Solid Snake was the perfect hero. I remember the moment when I finally could crawl through the air duct to the tank hangar, past the demo portion, finally!!! That's when the game really picks up. MGS is a rollercoaster ride with loads of scripted segments strung together with a super fun spy thriller plot. I cared about everyone, loved Meryl, Otacon was the perfect sidekick and Liquid the perfect villain. It tied the previous games plots beautifully which made me want to go back and experience the first two games. But the best part of the game is how it constantly surprised the player with new ideas. Right after rescuing Meryl, Snake is ambushed and a huge firefight breaks out, that leads to having to get through laser sensors then to a tank boss battle. Right in the middle of that you need to contact Meryl through codec and the games only hint is "look at the back of the box snake". So here I am running around the base looking at boxes in first person. I take out my cardboard box, it has to be there, nope. This was before the Internet was a wide spread thing so I couldn't just hop online and get an answer. I figured I would stop playing for the day and went to put my game away in the case and looked at the pics on the back of the box and there was meryl with the codec number, amazing. It was that moment that the genius of Kojima became apparent, this man has me doing stuff in real life to interact with the game. It just kept getting better and better with every moment and boss battle. Of course the Psycho Mantis boss fight was a huge highlight, another example of ways Kojima breaks the fourth wall. I remember being thrilled by the epic snake versus ninja hand to hand combat. Rappelling down a building while a helicopter was shooting you only till later take on the helicopter yourself. An actual sniper battle in the snow, incredibly thrilling. Every boss and every section made use of a new weapon or item and most had multiple ways to tackle them. The story was incredibly thrilling as well and the end practically had me at the end of my seat. I remember figuring out the Master Miller fake out because I recognized the voice actor of Leonardo in TMNT and I could tell he was voicing both liquid and miller. By the end of all of it I was super hooked, I wanted to learn everything about this universe Kojima created. The music was incredible as well with the alert theme to me still being the piece of music that I think of when I think of the MGS series. The post credits sequence set up one hell of a potential sequel where you go up against the president! Metal Gear Solid was the greatest game I had ever played up till that point. It quickly became my favorite game at the time and I played it over and over again. It represented everything gaming should strive to be, cutting edge graphics that could tell a movie like story but always keeping the focus on the player. That is the key aspect of this franchise, Kojima is always thinking how to involve the player in interesting ways, it is game first, everything else second. I was hooked and now it was time to go back and play the games I missed out on.