Why Metal Gear?

If you know me, you’ve probably heard me gushing about Metal Gear at some point. I’ve also been posting about the games pretty often lately, leading friends to ask me what the series is all about.

This article is my attempt to rationalize my admiration for Metal Gear and illustrate, as spoiler-free as can be, why these games deserve your attention.

What is Metal Gear?

It all began back in 1987 when Hideo Kojima designed the original Metal Gear for MSX2 computers. Initially meant to be an action game, Kojima changed the design, in part due to hardware limitations, to instead revolve around sneaking and avoiding encounters. That makes Metal Gear the longest-running stealth game series and a pioneer of the genre.

Metal Gear (youtube.com)

Kojima's Metal Gear series achieved worldwide popularity in 1998 with the release of Metal Gear Solid (MGS1) on the Sony PlayStation. This was the first 3-D game in the series, and was a highly praised commercial success. MGS1 is often cited as one of the most influential games of all time thanks, in part, to its ground-breaking 3-D gameplay.

Metal Gear Solid (loser-city.com)

So, Metal Gear gameplay is considered innovative and influential. Is that it?

Style and storytelling

Ask most fans why they love the series, and they'll tell you that they play for the storyline. So what’s the Metal Gear saga all about? I won’t even try explaining the many arcs in this admittedly convoluted plot. Instead, let’s examine what makes the storytelling feel so unique and memorable.

Kojima always tackles serious and novel themes in MGS games, like gene therapy, child soldiers, information control, meme theory, war profiteering, and much more. While the narrative themes vary from game to game, they nearly always involve nuclear weapons and the ethics surrounding their construction and use. Oh, and giant robots. Can’t forget about those! Even though most central characters are American, the nuclear themes and robot mechs are but a few elements that reflect Kojima’s Japanese culture.

One of the many Metal Gear mechs (metalgear.wikia.com)

Despite these heavy themes, there's always plenty of silliness in Metal Gear. Hiding in cardboard boxes, distracting guards with porno magazines, and catching a cold are a few examples of how MGS gameplay can be funny. There are often comic relief characters as well. When discussing his latest Metal Gear game, Kojima explained why he adds humour amid more serious subject matter.

Banana holdup (wikihow.com)

"He did WHAT?!"

Kojima, being the crazy auteur genius that he is, pulls crazy stunts that mess with your head. This started back in the original Metal Gear when your commanding officer orders you to shut off the game console.

Kojima’s most infamous stunt is arguably the big switcheroo from MGS2: Sons of Liberty. I didn’t experience this when the game released in 2000 (I was only a kid at the time), but the way Kojima fooled his audience is unparalleled to this day. MGS2 is a divisive game, but you can’t deny its depth and ambition – just read this amazing formal analysis. Kojima sure knows how to play with his audience's expectations.

Raiden and Ray (trueachievements.com)

Kojima also breaks the fourth wall on occasion, referencing the player or even the physical game itself. Who can forget the Psycho Mantis encounter? Fun fact: this scene holds the Guinness world record for most innovative use of a video game controller. Kojima delivers outside-the-box experiences you just can’t find anywhere else.

"I can read your mind!" (redflagdeals.com)

There is also impressive trolling surrounding the latest MGS game, which I’ll get to in a moment. But first, know that…

…there are valid reasons why people dislike Metal Gear.

(pixelbedlam.co.uk)

For all their praise, MGS games also receive their fair share of criticism. Lengthy cinematic videos, exposition dumps, and bad writing are common complaints. MGS games can be pretty cheesy, and my girlfriend aptly described MGS1 as a mix of macho 80's movies and anime. But for some, the over-the-top dialogue and movie-style cutscenes are part of the charm.

So, where is the series at today?

Metal Gear Solid 5, Hideo Kojima's magnum opus, has been in development since at least 2012. The first part of MGSV, Ground Zeroes, was released in 2014. GZ serves as a prologue to the full MGSV game, The Phantom Pain, Kojima’s most ambitious project to date. According to voice actor Troy Baker, it may be the biggest game ever made. Check out the latest trailer, which shows the darker tone and the impressive new graphics engine:

Joakim Mogren (neoseeker.com)

Secretly revealed in this trailer, the game was simply announced as The Phantom Pain (TPP), with no apparent connection to the Metal Gear series. This psychological action game was supposedly being developed by Moby Dick Studio. The CEO of that company, Joakim Mogren, gave interviews about the game before finally revealing himself to be none other than Hideo Kojima in disguise! Even though fans figured out the truth by analyzing clues from the trailer, this was nonetheless an entertaining way to announce MGSV.

In terms of gameplay, MGSV is the first open-world game in the series. Kojima's team is radically changing the gameplay style in order to create a more open-ended stealth experience.

The story in MGSV acts as a bridge between the two primary Metal Gear story arcs, or sagas, sort of how Star Wars: Episode 3 connected the original and new trilogies. It’s incredibly cool for long-time fans, and the internet is running wild with crazy speculation as to MGSV's plot.

"I'm already a demon." (reddit.com)

New technology, new gameplay, and a new story that is crucial to the entire series. Needless to say, hype levels for this game are off the charts.

The Metal Gear series evolves with each new entry. No matter how much the technology improves, it's Kojima's creative direction that really distinguishes Metal Gear games from the rest. 

Hideo Kojima, the creative force behind Metal Gear

Pokémon Dusk

Experience a different kind of Pokémon adventure!

Click Download on itch.io below to get the game! (Play time: about 10 minutes)

If you'll be playing on a Mac computer, click here for more instructions. 

Once the file is downloaded, extract it with a program like 7-Zip, WinRar, or WinZip. Then to play, click on the orange Game icon. As the game instructs you, to see the proper fonts, you have to copy the files in the game's Fonts folder to the Fonts folder of your computer's Control Panel.

About the game

I came up with the idea for Pokémon Dusk last year when I discovered the Pokémon Essentials resource kit for RPG Maker XP. I started thinking of the possibilities for Pokémon games that deviate from the usual formula.

Last week, I finally decided to sit down and tinker with Pokémon Essentials. After reviewing my old design documents, I started creating this Pokémod. Working with Essentials is great: it lets you modify all aspects of a Pokémon game with relative ease. The online Wiki had all the information I needed to get started.

Click here to check out more fangames made with Pokémon Essentials! Some are mighty impressive, like 4chan's Pokémon Sage.

Pokémon Dusk is just a small project and I have no intention of creating the full game. If only I had an unlimited amount of free time on my hands… Anyway, thanks for checking out my games. More to come in the future!

Thanks to Suzanne Lapointe, Bernard Thériault, Rosiane Comeau, and Normand Pothier for testing!

Update: the game was featured on popular pokétuber giancarloparimango11's channel! Check it out below:

 

2014 year in review

2014 was an interesting year in video games, to say the least. We've seen huge buyouts, botched launches, death threats, and more! I'll try to keep this article brief, so click on the hyperlinks for more details on whatever subjects may interest you.

MASSIVE ACQUISITIONS

Let's start with the three big acquisitions and what they mean for gaming:

In March, Facebook acquired Oculus VR, makers of the Rift virtual reality headset, for 2 billion dollars. That's a lot of money, considering that the virtual reality market is still uncertain. But with this huge buy-out, Sony's Project Morpheus, and Valve's strong support of VR, industry leaders seem very confident in virtual reality. I personally can't wait to try out the Rift once the consumer version hits store shelves as early as 2015.

Oculus Rift (image from popularmechanics.com)

In August, Amazon.com acquired the video streaming service Twitch for about one billion dollars. Twitch is a very popular streaming site used for live broadcasting of gameplay over the internet. I have no clue what may change now that Twitch is in Amazon's hands.

In September, Microsoft acquired Mojang, the developers of Minecraft, for 2.5 billion dollars. That much money for a small indie studio can seem like a terrible deal, but don't forget that Minecraft is arguably the biggest game of this generation. The game is used in schools too. I'm curious as to what Microsoft has planned for the property.

Minecraft (image from deadline.com)

CONSOLES AND AAA WOES

So there’s a lot of money involved in the video games industry, and the current-gen home consoles are faring well. Even the WiiU has also seen a boost in popularity given the increasing amount of cool games in its library.

Unfortunately, we also saw negative effects of big-budget game development this year: several high-profile games were launched in broken or buggy states. Many couldn't play Battlefield 4 for months. Assassin's Creed Unity had such poor performance that their third patch fixed 300 bugs, and their fourth was a massive download. It was so bad they even gave a free game to those who purchased the season pass. Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched with buggy online matchmaking. Driveclub had many features inaccessible for weeks.

One of Unity's frequent bugs (image from gamespot.com)

Not exactly an encouraging state of affairs, is it? Hopefully this doesn't become the norm.

“IT'S REALLY ABOUT ETHICS IN GAME JOURNALISM”

The Gamergate controversy, as Wikipedia's nearly 9,000-word article calls it, was huge. The story was even on the front page of The New York Times. I found Gamergate extremely interesting for many reasons.

First, Gamergate exposed the misogyny that has been ever-present in the games industry. I will admit that sexist depictions of women in video games wasn't something I had questioned while growing up. But with all the attention brought to the subject by critics like Anita Sarkeesian, I was blown away by the blatant sexism in many games I loved. Following Gamergate has made a feminist out of me.

The attacks against female designers and critics this year were surprising and unfortunate. There's a silver lining, though: awareness was raised with respect to the lack of diversity in the games industry. More people are talking about it than ever before. I believe games will become better and more inclusive in the future because of it.

Gamergate also highlighted a change in games that I'd felt for years. When Gamergate was in full swing, many articles decrying the end of gamers started to appear. As a kid, it seemed like I had a lot in common with anyone who played video games. But today, I find myself having almost nothing in common with a lot of gamers. I think that's because "gamer" as an identity is as meaningless as "reader" or "movie watcher".

OK, you're a gamer, but what kind of gamer? Do you play eSports? RPGs? Casual games? Indie games? Video games are more diverse than ever, so a label for all fans of the medium doesn't mean a whole lot anymore.

COOL GAMES

Despite the turmoil, great games were still made. Some of my favourites were Never Alone, This War of Mine, the new Super Smash Bros., Monument Valley and Shovel Knight. And I have yet to play these, but Dark Souls 2, Valiant Hearts, The Banner Saga and Shadow of Mordor all seem really great.

If I had to pick a "Game of the Year", I'd choose This War of Mine. This subversive take on war games made me live through some of the most intense moments I've ever experienced in a game. For more on This War of Mine, check out my article about the game or the trailer below.

Still, I feel like there were less game-of-the-year calibre titles this year than in 2012 and 2013. Maybe because of all the disappointing AAA launches? Is the crazy amount of games that are being released making it harder for me to choose a single best GOTY? Maybe I've just grown more critical of games since last year.

THE GAME AWARDS

In December, the first Game Awards show was hosted as a sort of replacement for the infamous Spike Video Game Awards. The awards show was popular, but not everyone was impressed. As explained in this blog post, the Awards (and video game culture in general) are very consumer-oriented. There's a huge focus on the fans, hype, and money. It's all about the gamers. But with the Oscars, to which The Game Awards compares itself, the event doesn't revolve around movie-goers: it's about the achievements of professionals working in the movie business.

Hype! Trailers! Doritos! (image from 2012; taken from eurogamer.net)

BAER WITH ME

In other news, Ralph Baer passed away on December 6. Back in the sixties and early seventies, he pioneered the first video game home console. Baer is widely considered to be one of the founders of video games

(Image from ign.com)

Think about that: until December 2014, one of the FOUNDERS OF THE MEDIUM was still alive. How crazy is that?! It goes to show how young video games are, but also highlights how far we've come, both in terms of technology and creativity, in such a short time.

WHAT’S NEXT?

With the new year just around the corner, what do we have to look forward to in 2015?Among other things, we'll experience virtual reality, explore an endless universe, learn to master the 4th dimension, experience a tragic cancer story, feel phantom pain, dial the wrong number, and return to Hyrule. I'm excited to discover what great interactive experiences 2015 will have in store!