On a bright sunny day as I hopped and skipped around like a girl in Pink Tutu’s with my copy of Kojima’s master piece (MGS), never did it strike my mind that someday I would be sitting and speculating the future direction of the revered series.
The game born to take on action junkies head-on transformed many lives, for they learned to explore and experience an ambience that defied all norms of action gameplay, Metal Gear was the first game that required players to use the tact of avoidance instead of the routine run and gun gameplay techniques. I pause to wonder how the world of colors would have been seemingly different if Kojima had not been given one last chance at Konami in the summer of 1986, not too many readers shall be aware of the fact that Kojima San had no formal training in the world of videogames, he was on board to becoming an economist when he got captivated by the Italian Plumber, and joined Konami as a Game Planner (a concept unheard of in those ancient times).
His first game titled “Lost World” (a war game starring a masked female wrestler, like I couldn’t have guessed) was rejected. He had often been mocked by his colleagues for his rather eccentric and unconventional gameplay ideas, with such sour relations within, the master often contemplated on leaving the company numerous times but decided to stick on.
The crowning moment to fame came when he was commissioned by his superiors to create a war themed game for the MSX System in Japan. Kojima spent a lot of time and energy before nailing down on the concept of nuclear warfare as a means to an apocalypse of epic proportions, he managed to create a game which did not require players to exercise basic buttons of jumping, ducking and shooting, thus coining the term tactical espionage action. The game gathered Kojima numerous accolades from gamers across the globe as well as his own colleagues who had looked down upon him earlier. The gaming community was once again bestowed with an instigator who had learnt to think beyond his times.
Cutting short on the MGS history, the present state of affairs surrounding, the much anticipated MGS4: Guns of Patriots has been lost in transition, the last bits of juicy information that had been divulged was the fact that it was going to be a PS3 exclusive, notwithstanding what Kojima has to say, Microsoft (paid) fanboys are dying to bring Snake onto the 360. If the rumors are to be believed then Snake shall sneak onto every console on the planet.
These are a couple of intuitions that have been traveling down my spine and might just be true in the near future.
MGS 4 has been officially pushed back to 2008, KCEJ needs to spend more time to give gamers the perfect Metal Gear till date, besides the retina popping graphics, the game shall also take full advantage of the Playstation Network and help in building its community. Sony is trying to kill two birds with one massive stone, stripping audiences out of the MJOLNIR armor and taking war to a whole new battlefield online and justifying the 599 (+ an additional 60) units of currency spent in acquiring their commodity rather than splurging it on close substitutes.
The Patriots trying hard not to spread the conspiracy around, but majority of Snake’s adventures are crafted in a whirlpool of loopholes, there are grey areas, which can and are being touched upon to continue the SOLID series. Portable Ops on the PSP showcased the continuing saga of Big Boss, a character who had perished in Metal Gear 2. Snake’s time is far from over; do not let that attempted suicide in the trailer fool all of you.
The recent TGS remix trailer may have sent shrills of ecstasy down “Snake for 360” campaigners, but since the trailer was merely an extended version, the chances are Konami would rather showcase new footage from the game, hence they did not include the Playstation 3 logo at the end of the credits like the previous version, plus the original TGS’06 trailer never had the PS3 logo on it.
Snake’s current outing is set somewhere close to the near future, if going upwards in a vacuum, is the only charted way ,then we shall witness Snake taking on aliens in space, he’ll have to ditch his sneaking suit in favor of a shiny new armor which is going to protect him from the acid blooded creatures, who are planning to send a massive armada to earth, his puny tranquilizer gun shall give way to a state of the art assault rifle…wait a sec I think those guys at Hollywood have already done that, Aliens is what I believe was the name of the movie… no that’s not it… I got it… its Halo… Naa that’s the ring Microsoft has stolen from those Hobbit-sus… Mesa thinks its called Halieons… Bhatever… either way Kojima San is certainly not headed in that direction at all.
What I believe or like to believe is, Snake shall rise once again from the ashes and face his biological father Big Boss on the realm of outer haven or Zanzibar Island (get the thoughts of XBLA, VC and PSN out and away), a complete (inset jaw dropping, mind numbing, polygon screaming, heart wrenching) remake of the original 8-bit games is a possible direction of the series. Enthusiasts shall finally witness Snake when he was all gung ho action variety, maybe he’ll loose some of the sensible stuff he keeps ranting about in the series and take a rookie’s form instead, similar to Big Boss from Snake eater, all this in life-like realism.
Most readers might love to barrage with me with hate mail/comments when I make my next statement, the game shall be slated for the exclusively for the 360 with no PS3 port, the game will be scheduled for a 2009-2010 release, this game shall not be developed by Kojima,(He already has his hands full with the MGS movie, slated for release around that time), it shall be more of a collaboration effort between Microsoft Game studious and Konami(with the Money Money Money… score playing in the background).
A project of such a specialized nature needs a top notch developer to get the feeling of Metal Gear Solid; especially the intricate nature of the Characters…Only (a) Japanese can understand (another) Japanese…. Plunk down your dough on Mistwalker Studios to handle the project…. The Idea is too far fetched to transcend into the Virtual world, but what if it actually happens huh… It’ll be the “bestest” Metal Gear on the planet, “Sakaguchi doing a Metal Gear” – Tokyo times… A headline such as this shall send shock waves across the country. Like Japan did not have enough earthquakes to deal with…
If both companies decide to go Nintendo’s way then another Metal Gear coming from the studios of Silicon Knights has a chance in the game of probability. The possibility of Rare or Bizarre developing the game cannot be ruled out as well.
The storylines of both games can be given a complete overhaul, the real life socio-political events during which both Metal gear (’95) and Solid Snake (’99) were heavy hitters across the globe. 1995 saw the non proliferation treaty being made into a permanent International agreement and the year “one nine nine nine” saw the Sep 11th attacks that shook and changed the political stance of many nations towards terrorism. They finally recognized the potential threat of terrorists. The character of Big Boss fits perfectly into the mould the world calls a fanatic, “Naked Snake” did turn a mercenary post his departure from Foxhound. (Does the name Osama ring a bell?)
The other way for progression, is to trace the history of the remaining characters in the game, the most prominent one out of the lot stands out in the form of Liquid Snake, according to the History of Metal gear, Liquid is equally skilled as his twin brother and has had his share of action prior defecting, actually giving him the tag as a nemesis does not quite suit him, recent gaming trends show that an anti-hero or a character with shades of grey fits in better with the audience, its not like Snake ain’t cool enough, there is something really good about being Grey. Vader is the perfect example; scores of people choose to remember him as the Hero of the Skywalker clan rather than his “UGLY” son Luke. Liquid seems the perfect ruthless spy who kills for his own sadistic pleasure, a man on the path of vengeance does come up as a really strong character to tinker around with.
If Kojima can conjure up the history of Big Boss, this should not be quite difficult for him, Buuuuttt… then this game will not be exclusive to the 360, cause this would require someone who has thorough knowledge about the entire time line of the series, maybe a confrontation with the Boss himself can be planned out explaining Liquid’s strong feelings of resentment towards him.
Gray “The Cybernetic Ninja Punk” fox does have an aura of mystery surrounding his frequent appearance and disappearance in the series, but lacks substance to create a full fledged game based on his so called covert op missions….Campbell, well he’s kind of an old timer, if Konami ever sanctioned a game on him it would be probably set in the 2ND World war era. I think I’ve had my fill for world war games last generation….
The biggest shocker however will be if Kojima decides to make a game on the new foxhound unit, with Meryl in the lead… Ehhh… I never saved her in Metal Gear Solid, I can’t relate to her whatsoever, plus this game will and should come out exclusively for the Wii catering to female gamers( tear jerking soap opera all right).
I think that about wraps it all up… the rest of the cast does not seem to hold too much ground, unless they decide to include Medic in the next edition of “Trauma center: War Meroes” with Snake as an unlockable patient.
I do have a strong feeling about the original Metal Gear games returning sooner than everyone expects. Metal gear solid 4 and its exclusive platform will have to go up against some rather stiff competition, somehow I know for a fact that this game will change Sony’s fortunes considerably; the company needs to get its act together once the Snake’s out of the hole…
–Neelesh Mukherjee