Bit of a writing slump, so that would explain the lack of posts. That and I have yet to do anything interesting.
Metal Gear Solid 1. I am just behind the times by about 11 years when I say I just beat it. I guess I’ll agree with some of the points made by James Edwards of Select Button/Action Button fame. As a series of well-constructed, well-designed, and interesting action/stealth moments it bounces back and forth between mildly entertaining and ground-breakingly stupid. At the time I’m sure stealth gameplay was fascinating. Actually, I don’t have to beat around the bush here: I remember people going batshit insane that Metal Gear Solid featured realistic enemy AI that could spot your footprints in the snow (then forget your footprints twenty seconds later – blame the “genome soldier cloning process”). An action game where killing everything in sight wasn’t always the best option was sort of an amazing and bizarre beast in 1996/7/whatever. Today in the age of Splinter Cells and roadie runs it falls flat on its face in a pretty train wreck. You might even be able to argue (as an apologist) that some of the clunky Zelda-in-a-skinsuit moments sort of encourage stealth in such a way that makes the player’s actions line up with the intended thematics that Kojima went for. You would be stretching thin to say that, but you could.
MGS did succeed in being a narrative and thematic mishmash that simultaneously attempts to be 4th-wall-breaking satire, twisty-turny thriller, a dissection of war mentality, and a nuclear disarmament PSA at the same time. The end product is ultimately flawed but impossible not to appreciate on one level. In freshman year of college my class debated the hell over The Wife of Bath in Geoffery Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Was she a satire of women? A critique of women? A critique of the imagined concepts of women? That we could even argue about if this portrayal was 100% misogynistic was pretty incredible given the reprehensible characterization of most women at the time. That’s kind of how I feel about Metal Gear Solid. That at the end of the day I can argue about it from multiple standpoints and not really be precisely sure what Kojima intended from it all is sort of incredible. I mean, even if the work itself doesn’t succeed entirely at any of the things it appears to set out to do, there’s something to be said for doing so many different things competently. When the Colonel tells Snake to change the controller port on the Playstation or when the DARPA chief tells you to look on the back of the CD case it’s jarring and hilarious, but the pre-credit message about nuclear warhead disposal feels (just as jarring, but) sort of heartfelt. What anyone is supposed to make of something that campy, brilliant, and stupid (clones of clones of clones that are controlled by what? Okay yeah) baffles me, but the ride is worth it.
New band name added to Listotron:
Tony Stark’s Blue Mullet
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