Initial Capitulation and Metal Gear Solid

Initial Capitulation

It's truly official now: I'm part of the odiously named "blogosphere," a place where I can sign on, think aloud, and general feel like I'm intelligent because I'm on the internet (where anything therein is automatically true). So that's my initial capitulation: giving in to the trend of writing a web log.

Well, if nothing else, it'll have correct spelling in (almost) every post, and the grammar will make sense to normal folk–none of this "it's the 21st century, who needs rules?" garbage.

So on to my current thoughts.

Metal Gear Solid

Any gamer who deserves the monikers of 'gamer' is at least vaguely aware of Hideo Kojima's latest installation on the immensely popular Metal Gear Solid series. I don't doubt that it will be a huge commercial success, will help salvage Sony's flagging PS3 sales, and simply and thoroughly kick butt. In a lot of ways.

That being said, I've been meaning to post small interpretations of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for a while. Then I read a phenomenal article by James Clinton Howell and realized that he essentially coalesced on the reason why so many fans of the series were taken unawares by MGS2 and, as a result, really didn't like the game.

Read the article. Be dazzled.

So I felt like there wasn't a lot for me to add to it. Not that his analysis was by any means comprehensive or complete–rather, it's just so good that I feel ashamed to even link to it in my measly blog (no offense blogger.com). But, for my own sanity and interest, I'll go ahead and say a couple of things. This is very much a vindication of the plot, an apology of Kojima's masterpiece, and an intuitive response to the story.

Postmodern = Confusing

The above equation is perhaps the fundamental stumbling block of for MGS2 because it is, unexpectedly, a postmodern game. Postmodernity, however, often carries the stigma of being not only overly academic, cerebral, and obtuse, it also has to deal with the fact that it is uncomfortable. It's a shoe that doesn't quite fit right, so rubs and rubs and rubs until a blister forms on the foot.

So why bother with pomo thought in the first place, if all it results in is pain? Well, the shoe also happens to have rocket boosters on the bottom, so, once you get used to it, you can fly.

To me, there's an allure within postmodernity that is as attractive as it is inescapable. The allure of postmodernity is like that of the great visual accomplishment of the early '90s: Magic Eye. Yeah, it can be a pain to figure out how it works, and a lot of people have to really think and concentrate to see anything. But once they do, they can see things that aren't immediately available, that aren't immediately comprehensible. The apprehension of something that was always already there is thrilling.

That's postmodern; that's emancipation from reader response and "right answer" thinking. (Note: Neither reader response nor seeking out a right answer to a question or interpretation is wrong. They're simply lower level, a place from which to stop a mode of thought, not resolve it.)

To return to MGS2, what we have in this game is the assumption that we will get a Realist painting, and instead we get a Magic Eye. What is expected and what is given is what Howell analyzes in his article, and the entire idea of having the experience of Shadow Moses (from MGS1 on the old PlayStation) repeated "but better" in MGS2 is what is frustrated.

Solid Snake, though present–in fact, it could be argued that he's so big of a character that you can't get around him–is not the avatar that the gamer controls. The ideal of the American 'hero' is replaced by the ideal of the Japanese 'hero'–a replacement that garnered widespread scorn (and this forum is but a sample) of the game. Not only is what was expected frustrated, the replacement was unpalatable.

Further manipulation of the player's expectations continue throughout the game. As a good friend of mine complained, "The story sucks, I hate Raiden, but it's really fun to play." Gameplay overpowers personal taste, a phenomenon that seems to pervade a lot of franchises (yes, I'm looking at you, Master Chief). On just about every level, MGS2 lacks the catharsis of its predecessor.

Then the hour-long "talking heads" ending takes place, answering all of the question that you had up to that point, opening up dozens of other questions that you didn't know you had, and then, with your head spinning, you have to fight with a rather frustrating sword mechanic that is not nearly as much fun as using the rocket launcher.

All of the feelings of manipulation, of being let down, of having what you wanted to have happen not come to pass...everything that so frustrates you about Raiden is what the Patriots want to do. Control, they argue, is their responsibility. Even my blog would be part of the digital censorship that the Patriots would perform using Arsenal Gear.

In short, playing MGS2 could be considered a sample of what the world would be like if the Patriots won.

What? What? The coolest (arguably) character of all video gamedom being replaced by a wussy rookie is what the Patriots want? I don't get it.

Well, wait, we're still missing the point. If any human- or digitally-built establishment, founded on the express purpose of harvesting and maintaining power, were to take full control of real lives–the lives that you and I are living right now–the end result would be a permanent frustration of all expectations.

The diabolical plan of the Patriots would be to remove the beauties and horrors that are part of humans exercising their autonomous will. That autonomy–effaced by the tyrant and worshiped by the hedonist–is why the world, in all its variety and frustrations, exists. Sans the capacity to choose, Big Brother rules, and who would remain to have a voice to say that he's ruling wrong?

Hideo Kojima took all of the expense, time, hype, and promise of an immensely popular gaming franchise to shove players' faces in their own foolishness: they thought that they were playing a game, but the game was what was playing them. MGS2 is a game on rails–about the only choice a player has upon playing the game is if he or she decides to continue playing or not.

Improvisation is discouraged by the game, though sometimes a choice of advancing through the Big Shell clockwise or counter-clockwise is present. However, a player will not get very far if every guard is gunned down or blown up, if the constant codec communications are completely ignored. You can gun down the seagulls, sure, but they'll poop on you for having wasted your time and ammo–and Rose will call you on animal cruelty. (Incidentally, exposing this aspect of Raiden through the heartless murder of the birds expands a little bit of the character–a child soldier who has claimed more lives than he can remember. When I first played through the game, I had heard that you'll get a "funny codec call" if you kill the seagulls. I didn't realize that I was actually fulfilling the violent tendencies of an abused man.)

But there's another way of looking at this.

The confusing conversation after the credits (ending with the line, "What the hell?" or, in other words, the exact phrase that the player has been saying for the past 2 hours or so) has a bit of irony to it: Otacon says that the Patriots have been dead for the last 100 years. But this should come as no surprise to the player, who has been told that the Patriots are a type of philosophical evolution in "the crucible of the White House" that has been going on for decades. But the true irony is that the Patriots–an entirely fictive entity, one that can not be 'dead' because it never is, nor ever was, 'alive'–is, to a certain extent, the player himself.

The Patriots as an entity should be defeated if there is to be anything for the video game world's citizens to live for. But the player-Patriot cannot be defeated by Snake, by Raiden, by Otacon, or any of the other characters that inhabit the Metal Gear universe. The player-Patriot is external to the game, yet the game exists only to please the player-Patriot.

Without the money-making motivation of capitalism, expressions of postmodern thought like MGS2 simply would not be made. It would be too expensive to make a game of the caliber of the Metal Gear series and then not charge for it. It would be glorious if they could, but they can't. So the consumers have to purchase the game. The game, therefore, exists only to please the player. Then, Patriot-like, the player manipulates the avatars, controlling more than just their values and their histories and their information (like the in-game Patriots would like to do). No, the player-Patriot imposes his will completely over the avatar. You want Snake to jump? He'll do as you ask. Shoot the guard in the privates? Without qualms. You want Raiden to die? Leave him in the colon of Arsenal gear for too long without pressing the Attack button, and you'll get your wish. Or you can have him leap off an edge, take too much damage, walk over his own claymore. In this, there is plenty of improvisation.

How many games do you know of turn the player into the bad guys that the player is trying to defeat?

MGS2 absolutely changed what video games can do. Though not everyone can appreciate postmodernity for what it is, Sons of Liberty shows that it can be done. The story told within it could not have had the impact that it has sans the characters used. More thought went into this game's story than most summer movies, and that fact should be celebrated.

So, on the eve of the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, I say, "Bring it on, Snake."