An Uncomplicated History of the Metal Gear Franchise

Written by Jason Cisarano  on March 19, 2009

Special: You could fill two cardboard boxes with all these games!

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And Kojima kept up that high standard with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in 2004. This time, the game bounced back into the past to give players a view of the early life of the Big Boss, called Naked Snake at the time. The game is set in Russia in 1964 and has Naked Snake pursuing rogue Soviet agents who have detonated a nuclear device, and captured a top scientist who they've put to work making a nuclear-capable tank called УShagohod.Ф Now Shagohod isn't a Metal Gear predecessor, but it would be able to launch a missile around the world. In this mission, Naked Snake finds out about the Philosophers, an ultra-rich, ultra-powerful, ultra-secret international organization that once pulled the strings behind the scenes in governments around the world. The group is disbanded by the time of MGS3, but Naked Snake is still able to recover about 50 billion dollars of their money for the U.S. government.

MGS3 introduced a camouflage system that players could use to hide in the new jungle environments that the game offered. Naked Snake changes clothes and face paint patterns to match his surroundings, and the HUD includes a meter that shows how visible he is to his enemies. The game also includes a more fully-developed close quarter combat mechanic including chokeholds for interrogating or knocking out enemies. It also gives more information about the damage Snake takes: it has locational damage that requires treatment appropriate to the location. For example, if Snake breaks a leg, he'll need a splint in order to fix it. To lighten the mood a bit, MGS3 has a minigame known as УSnake vs. MonkeyФ in which Snake tries to capture a cartoonish monkey using some of his non-lethal weapons.



Throughout the life of the franchise, Metal Gear has made appearances on handheld platforms including mobile phone ports for the first two installments. The PSP has proven a popular MGS platform, with at least four game titles. The first two, Metal Gear Acid and Metal Gear Acid 2, are popular turn-based trading card games featuring cards based on items and characters from the whole MG series. Then, with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (2006 and 2007), the series's Уtactical actionФ gameplay came to the Sony handheld. Portable Ops is set in 1970, six years after the events of Snake Eater, and once again features Naked Snake as its main character, now with the title of УBig Boss,Ф even though he still prefers УSnake.Ф This time, it's U.S. FOX agents who have gone bad and have kidnapped Snake so he can help them get their hands on some of the Philosophers' cash from Snake Eater. Snake escapes and now, of course, must destroy FOX, and along the way, he destroys a Metal Gear RAXA prototype, uncovers government corruption, and gets his own hands on wads of the Philosophers' cash. In short, he gets the funding and starts down the path that will allow him to build Outer Heaven years later.



Unlike other MGS games, Portable Ops focuses on squad play. Before each mission, the player chooses a four-man team, each member having his or her own strengths and weaknesses. The player only controls one at a time, thoughЧthe others hide in their cardboard boxes until needed. Since only key characters (i.e. Snake and a few other operatives) persist if killedЧothers die a brutal permadeathЧthe player can recruit enemy soldiers to the cause by capturing them and then waiting a short time for them to be converted. During on-line multiplayer matches, players can actually steal these recruits from opponents, and once they're lost, they're gone for good. Portable Ops Plus does away with the story-based campaign to focus only on multiplayer and includes more playable characters than the first and adds some game balancing elements for new players.

So that brings us up to the last chapter in the Metal Gear sagaЧthe one that Kojima says will be his last, anywayЧMetal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which was released last June. This installment, which takes place in the near future, has a world-weary Solid Snake (who now goes by the codename УOld SnakeФ) facing down yet another group of rogue paramilitary agents. This time, the inspiration seems to to come from the private security companies that the U.S. has relied upon in Iraq: in the future world of MGS4, these groups have become the norm world-wide and one has grown so large that it threatens these United States. Of course, it's up to Snake to sort out the situation.



The game brought an update to the camouflage system of Snake Eater. This time Snake wears a high-tech camo system that allows him to blend in chameleon-style with any nearby surface. It also arms Snake with a special piece of hardware: the Metal Gear Mark II, which is a drone that Snake can send ahead to recon dangerous areas and even engage enemies and light them up with a stout electric shock.

The MGS4 story continues (in a way) on the iPhone/iTouch platform with yesterday's release of Metal Gear Solid Touch. The epic story of MGS4 has been redone as a touch screen shooter that looks absolutely gorgeous. It should be available on the iPhone App Store right now for the lower than expected price of $7.99.

It's worth noting that Metal Gear hasn't been limited only to games. 2002 saw the release of The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2, an interactive resource for the PS2 that gave players a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the game, including things like storyboards, 3D models, scripts and so on. Two years later, a comic series began that covered the game's storyline. Then, in 2006, players got their hands on Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, which was based on the earlier comic, but also included an interactive mode that allowed the reader to click on items and get more information about certain items. There's also a puzzle game based on piecing together clues from the story. Another digital graphical novel is supposed to be in the works. Also reportedly in production is a live-action movie based on the Metal Gear series. No actor has been cast as Snake yet, and there's no idea yet what the plot might involve, but so far Kojima has a writing credit and Kurt Wimmer (Ultraviolet, The Thomas Crown Affair) is in talks to direct.

The End?
With releases on just about every platform from the past twenty years, numerous sequels, remakes and non-canonical spinoffs, Metal Gear is one of the most prolific and longest-living series in gaming. It paved the way for stealth gaming in general, and in particular, broke ground for tech-stealth games like Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Syphon Filter. It's impossible to do justice to such a wide-ranging experience in so few wordsЧthat this history can only hope to scratch the surface is a testament to the depth of the Metal Gear experience.

And that experience will only get deeper as Konami has recently posted a help wanted sign looking for developers interested in continuing the franchise. But where we go from here is anyone's guess.