Today’s entry in this wintry feature is none other than Metal Gear Solid. Whilst some days of this features will be focused on a more traditional festive jingle as you saw yesterday. Days like today will focus on games to play over the winter if you somehow want to simulate the virtual weather you’re struggling to deal with.
Released in 1998 for Playstation 1 (or 1999 in Europe to much aggravated impatience). Metal Gear Solid was a HUGE deal at it’s release. I can still recollect my experience as a 12 year old kid who devoted as much time and pocket money I could into gaming and gaming magazines. Through “Official Playstation Magazine”, “PLAY”, and “Gamesmaster” I was made well aware that Metal Gear was going to be a big deal, and in turn it’d likely be something that would be brought up on the high school playground constantly in any N64 v Playstation arguments (thankfully I owned both so I didn’t feel I had to justify how great either was).
As good as the pre-release printed propaganda was, screenshots and write ups in mags were no match to the hands-on impressions when I finally had the game at home. In fact it’s almost insulting to simply refer to it as a ‘game’.
It was the first experience of it’s kind on any system that felt truly cinematic. Each cutscene had taken inspiration from hollywood in the ways they were framed, were as it’s contemparies mostly just used a single blanket shot of the character(s) or the scene in question. Metal Gear Solid had multiple cameras on the action, swooping angles, true big budget movie like direction, some solid voice acting and a fittingly atmospheric score.
I could go on and on about how great the game is and my memories of the time itself, but I’m sure I’ll find a reason to talk about the series some more another time. The reason Metal Gear Solid popped into mind as I stared into space with a notepad thinking of the topic of winter and video games is the games setting.
Metal Gear Solid see’s you on an island beside Alaska. The game pioneered great eye for detail for capturing that setting too. Little touches in the game design from things like being able to see characters breathing out air due to the extreme cold temperatures. Outdoor guards are seen wearing thick appropriate winter garb, and if you’ve been walking in snow you’ll leave footprints which they too will notice and follow the trail. Some of your earliest in game dialogue talks of how your “sneaking suit” is designed to prevent you from getting hypothermia whilst on this mission, and the howling sounds of wind gives you an added layer to the belief that you’re better behind the controller than out there standing in Solid Snakes boots. Oh and the foley sounds for walking on snow is different to other surfaces in the game which I’d guess at being one of the earliest uses of such audio in games.
Sure enough you do spend a majority of this game indoors, occasionally coming back out for some iconic boss encounters or the occasional back tracking. I’ll argue though that if we can consider Die Hard to be one of the greatest Christmas movies simply because it takes place then (yet only briefly reminds you), then I think you can definitely let this slide as fitting the winter theme.
My entire gaming life up until this point (1999) saw many new games that earned the right to be the new measuring stick for what other games in a genre had to live up to and this certainly became one of them. Sure enough Goldeneye was still being played at this time in history and was easily the best movie to be portrayed as a game, but Metal Gear Solid was hands down the best game portrayed like a movie.
If you find the time this winter, why not do as I’m now long overdue doing and revisiting Metal Gear Solid. If you hate the holidays then you can use Metal Gear Solid as a forms of venting your frustration. Picture the guards as the overly joyous festive people you’re sick of dealing with, sneak up behind them and press square a few times until they’ve quietened down (needless to say, never replicate this in real life).