Metal Gear Solid (Boss Fight Books, Volume 9)
Ashly Burch, Anthony Burch
Language: English
Pages: 95
ISBN: B012JJILNC
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Before they co-created the hit web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?, Ashly and Anthony Burch were just a brother and sister who shared a weird obsession with Solid Snake and his 3D debut, Metal Gear Solid. And why wouldn't they? Hideo Kojima's 1998 game featured groundbreaking stealth mechanics, a gruff and hunky leading man, a brilliantly claustrophobic setting, tons of cinematic cutscenes, shocking fourth wall breaks, and terrifying bosses.
The only problem: The Burches grew up but their all-time favorite video game didn't. After nearly two decades, Metal Gear Solid's once-innovative stealth mechanics seem outdated, the cutscenes have lost some of their action movie punch, and the game's treatment of women is often out of touch. Witness a celebration/takedown of this landmark game with the combination of insight and hilarity that Ashly and Anthony have made their careers on.
The President of Vice: The Autobiography of Joe Biden
Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
Shopaholic & Sister (Shopaholic, Book 4)
Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life
Doctor in Love (Doctor Series, Book 4)
onto Shadow of the Colossus. With its minimalistic story and its emotionally charged mechanics, it became my new ideal game. Sure, Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life were cool, but they paled in comparison to the moment in Shadow of the Colossus when you realize, without a single line of spoken dialogue, that the things you’ve done as a player weren’t as heroic as you thought. Just as suddenly, dialogue-heavy cinematic narratives were no longer interesting to me. Then: BioShock. However
on the gender of the protagonist, and only 39% of high school-aged boys even cared about playing as a man at all. Our study focused more on gender itself than the personality of a protagonist, but the evidence points to a relevant conclusion: Boys don’t care that much about who they play as. Macho wish fulfillment isn’t high on their list of priorities, which means that protagonists like Snake shouldn’t be treated as a foregone conclusion. We don’t have many Otacons in games. They’re
length. If you hide behind sarcasm and wry jokes and winking insincerity, you can’t ever really be hurt. Yeah, people said some mean stuff about Borderlands 2, but I can always wave my hand and say, “eh—it’s a comedy game about shooting bandits in the face with a lightning shotgun.” There are a few scattered moments of genuine emotion in BL2’s story, but they’re buried under snark and cynicism. If I think about it, I’ve never had a legitimate discussion with anyone about what BL2 is trying to
refusal to kill Gray Fox proves it in the most fourth-wall-breaking of ways. Unlike most game series whose protagonists get more brutal and “heroic” as time goes on,22 Snake gets more nuanced through the years, increasingly challenging his grizzled hero status. Throughout his section of Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake is at his most gruff and emotionless. But as the game begins to unveil its labyrinthine thematic structure, however, things get more interesting. At the end of MGS2, Raiden throws
Anthony: I wonder if this is because Snake immediately wants to fuck Mei Ling, whereas Meryl is somebody he has to warm up to. If you actually accept that logic, it means that Snake’s questions about Mei Ling’s family are really disingenuous—he’s feigning interest so Mei Ling will remain interested in him. 9 Ash: The plot thickens for those three guys on YouTube who think I’m a lesbian. 10 Ash: I was on the wrong side of history. 11 Anthony: “She admitted to