If you’ve ever found your perspective permanently altered by a song or a record, you already know art can change life, not just imitate it. Of course, any creative medium can wield this power – maybe you decided to become a chef after reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential or watched his television series Parts Unknown. Maybe you decided to take up painting after seeing works by Barbara Kruger or Jean-Michel Basquiat, or become a writer after reading some Octavia Butler. Maybe you decided to shit all over the walls after seeing GG Allin, in the end, who are we to judge?
The point is, art is not some powerless, ephemeral candy for the senses – well, it can be. However, at its best, it qualifies as legitimate, highly nutritious soul food. When it comes to video games, one can experience a smorgasbord of mediums simultaneously through things like graphics, sound design, music, animation and more. But with any good story, there needs to be an arc, and there are few, if any, narrative arcs in video games that could compete with the complexity of Metal Gear (more commonly referred to as Metal Gear Solid in the US), the chaotic stealth-action series from Hideo Kojima.
(Pongsifu’s humorous take on signature Metal Gear moments makes for a good breather when things inevitably get weird and/or heavy.)
It’s a saga with more twists and turns than a The Dillinger Escape Plan album, but also demonstrates the power of narrative. Knowing where to start can be difficult, as the story’s overall timeline is Tarantino-esque at best, with even the most faithful of devotees constantly second-guessing what happened, to whom, when, or what it even meant. Does that make sense? Probably not, but fans of the series will not be surprised by this.
But first thing’s first, before we get into it: THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD.
At least, we’re pretty sure – about as sure as you can get with the series. We’ll do our best to keep the spoilers light, but Metal Gear’s prophetic blend of politics, the supernatural, and philosophy frequently renders ‘truth’ a moot point either way. It’s a safe bet that if you’re playing a Metal Gear game and find yourself believing in something enough to make decisions based on that belief, said beliefs will be challenged, and in many cases, broken.
Grab your cardboard boxes and pop a benzedrine, folks, because it’s about to get frisky.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #10: Many Snakes, Many Masters
Maybe we should start with the most surface level saga of the series, the iconic legend of Snake. Naked Snake, that is. No, Solid Snake. No, Solidus Snake and Liquid Snake. Well, definitely not Venom Snake and Raiden, but also… yes, them too. And occasionally Ocelot. Or at least his arm. But not really?
Far more than a complex clan or family, the Snakes are essentially the protagonists of the Metal Gear series, but at times the player doesn’t necessarily know which one they’re playing as or interacting with, and sometimes the characters don’t even know themselves. It’s not quite a shell game (pun intended), but with cloning, hypnosis, plastic surgery, and nano machines involved, it makes sense that these guys occasionally lose track. Given that many players started with the first Metal Gear Solid when it came to the Playstation 1, some players were additionally confused that they were technically playing the third or fourth entry in the series. Technically, in Metal Gear, you play as the boss, and in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, you play as Solid Snake.
(This Cut Content series from DidYouKnowGaming features David Hayter, the iconic voice actor for Snake.)
We probably shouldn’t lay out the direct connections between them for any newbies that are interested in experiencing that journey for themselves, but we will say this – skip to the next point if that’s case. Speaking of case, science fiction readers might be familiar with the way Neuromancer author William Gibson uses the name Case for main characters as a way to bridge the gap between depicted fiction and the reality of the reader by reducing individuality to represent viewpoints in a more objective way. Hideo Kojima mirrors this in the way that Big Boss’ offspring are split between negative / recessive genes, positive / dominant genes, as well as one representing complete neutrality, but all go by variations of their codename, Snake. Over the course of the series, you see the moral pendulums sway for some of these characters, but more often than not they’ll get close to changing their mind then double down on their original position after additional exposure or revelation.
While it makes for one of a kind drama, it also subliminally speaks to polarities we’re often sold as parts of our own identities through media, marketing, politics, and the general society machine at large. In many countries, we’ll take a position on a given issue due to personal context, yet become so inundated with messaging that our decisions represent ‘left,’ ‘right,’ or ‘centrist’ viewpoints that most people stop questioning it. They see it reflected in personalized ads from cookies and electronic receipts, they see it in the phishing and spam attempts that pull information from polls you’ve participated in, they see it in their YouTube algorithms… it makes you question the difference between identity and will. Does the definition of either concept change when wielded by those with power over you? Most likely – each Snake must ponder this in their own way, and in turn, so must the player.
Oh, and while Ocelot’s grafted Liquid arm giving him a split-personality is a top notch trope, we didn’t put much thought into it when we played it. However, we’ve heard reports of people with limb and organ replacements taking on the habits / preferences of their original owners. Isn’t that neat? Also, for what it’s worth, we think of Raiden as a Snake as well due to the Colonel changing his codename from Snake to Raiden in the second act of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and though we’re not sure if that entire game is a simulation, we’ve got way more about to say about Raiden’s memetic solo game below.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #9: Memes, The DNA of The Soul, and ‘Make America Great Again’
This one absolutely has to start off with a nod, if not outright salute, to YouTuber Max Derrat. Max’s diligence in dissecting the finer points of everything Metal Gear has been invaluable over the years, but his video “MEMES – THE DNA OF THE SOUL” regarding Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance had our heads spinning for days. But it’s also a little hard to follow, so we thought we’d offer a bite-size take on the situation. Before we explore that topic though, one cool thing about this iteration of the series is that it was basically signed off by its creator, but directed by Mineshi Kimura and Shigenobu Matsuyama. The fact that the team was in somewhat of a transitional space around the time of Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots and still managed to produce something that creates the same kind of head-trip with a different style of gameplay is impressive to this day. But now on to the weird part.
It’s always good to know what influences you, and even better to remain critical of it once you’re aware of it. You’d think it was obvious, but for decades, whether through newspapers, radio, television, or eventually the internet, we’ve allowed for a new level of dominance when it comes to “ism’s” – things like socialism, communism, capitalism, materialism, etc. You can break these down to schools of thought; general representations of what your preferences / presets would look like when selecting your character in the game of life… or perhaps more importantly, when you or your character is being observed by others.
(Max Derrat’s highly detailed analysis of Metal Gear Rising: Reveangence, among other Metal Gear titles, is essential for curious fans of the series.)
When identifying as an “ism” (as an “-ist”?) you essentially give your signature of approval to a generalization you agree with, much like sharing your favorite meme. It signals lived experience and perspective in an instant, whether in a single word, single picture, or composite of both. The arguments made by the antagonists of Revengeance are essentially that these “ism’s” and memes are not things that are possessed or invented by us, but the other way around – the ideas have us. Characters like Monsoon and Senator Armstrong abuse this logic by weaponizing it, pushing for a world where powerful individuals transcend law altogether in the name of “true freedom.” That doesn’t sound familiar at all. In any way.
The last point here somewhat brings it all together in a poetic way, but also in a way that kind of terrifies us. Wherever you are on the globe, no matter what your position is, it’s beyond likely that you’ve heard the phrase “make America great again.” You know where you’ve seen it, and to say nothing of the political campaign associated with this phrase, it appealed to and galvanized a lot of alienated people that would have otherwise stayed out of politics, for better or for worse. You can’t deny it’s uncanny that a game with heavy political overtones released in 2013 uttered a phrase that took the United States by storm three years later, but the scary part is that it wasn’t the first time – Octavia Butler’s award-winning speculative fiction masterpiece, Parable of the Sower coined it in 1993. A reference to a revered author wouldn’t be out of place, either: Derrat’s video quickly points out that the idea of memes originated in the 1970’s via Richard Dawkins and his book The Selfish Gene, an examination of altruism and selfishness in relation to evolution. If we’re to believe everything we hear from these guys, maybe it’s more accurate to say that memes were just finally able to realize themselves through human thoughts and eventually written language around then, who knows, the drugs probably helped. Either way, the black sheep of the Metal Gear family keeps you questioning reality and wondering where one’s thoughts really come from long after finishing the game.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #8: War Has Changed or Probably Will Soon
MGS4 delivered what in our opinion are the most terrifying foe in the series, The Geckos. At first glance, they’re stylish robo-chicken looking things inspired by 1990’s anime like Gundam Wing and Appleseed, and if that’s all it reminded us of, that would be well and good. But unfortunately they remind us of something very real, and very, very scary: automation.
(Snake takes on a Gecko that looks far too much like the robot-dogs we see in real life.)
A.I., machine learning, procedural generation, and things like that are all good. Well, not all good, but neither are humans, and at the very least there’s some middle ground on which we’ll probably achieve singularity. But before we get that, as depicted in Metal Gear, these modular, rotating-limb monstrosities (not to mention the D-Dogs, Crying Wolf, and Metal Gear Ray) are probably just around the corner in terms of real-time placement, ready to be touted as a groundbreaking, life-saving solution for those who wield them, and an obliterative nightmare for those who dare to face them.
It’s important to keep in mind that companies like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, and Unitech aren’t explicitly military operations – they have branches like construction, government, and logistics, much like the companies advertised in the intro for Guns of the Patriots. They just help with the parts – in the game universe, they’d hold publicly digestible patents for bluetooth security, fingerprinting, drones, and factory production, but contract with whoever pays them the most. It’s a slippery slope, and there are already companies like Alchera X, Axon, and Knightscope that utilize these designs for advanced policing, which almost always leads to choosing the highest bidder. This mercenary’s ambiguity is not unlike that which is displayed by Drebin, the omnipresent, moral-free arms dealer, not to mention the Private Military Companies surrounding him.
If you were to look over all of the Metal Gears with a bird’s eye point of view, you can easily highlight the past century’s worth of changes in war and how it’s been fought, but every time you zoom in there’s more to think about. The canonical beginning of the series, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater had the Shagohod, but didn’t worth mentioning that it didn’t have a super heavy emphasis on technology other than that. It was mostly a surreal, supernaturally charged experience that expanded on the series’ established weirdness like a David Lynch directed chapter of James Bond. Big Boss’ philosophical narrative grounded the high-strangeness with essays on a number of topics as she constantly made Snake question the role of a soldier and whether his motivations were his own or part of a larger agenda. These themes continue of course from here out, but also consciously tie themselves to the scope of technology as a fitting foil to humanity’s complex, unpredictable nature.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #7: David Hayter x Dan Greene
Alright, let’s lighten things up for a moment with one of our favorite moments from one of our favorite bands of all time, The Armed. Looking back, the Ultrapop times were peak musical excitement for us, not just because the music slapped but because it was just so refreshing for a band to keep people guessing in so many different ways. Bolstering our obsession however was one critical crossover: David Hayter voicing over for The Armed’s central case study, Dan Greene.
(The Armed’s Ultrapop campaign was full of Metal Gear-esque surprises, culminating in this incredible guest spot from David Hayter in the similarly themed video for “An Iteration.)
Dan Greene made the following reference to the parallels of modern life and the plot of Metal Gear, particularly Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty in a press release for the video:
“The story of Metal Gear Solid 2–which seemed like convoluted, impenetrable nonsense when we were kids–has turned out to be disturbingly prescient of society in 2021. I would argue that this video game raised more interesting artistic and philosophical questions than a lot of “higher art,” and much earlier too. We are beyond honored to see David Hayter take on the role of Dan Greene within The Armed Cinematic Universe.”
BEWILDERING MOMENT #6: The Unholy Ballad of Vamp, Fortune, and Scott Dolph
Okay, this one is super weird. It didn’t have us necessarily questioning anything in life other than boundaries: Vamp just goes about things in the slimiest, most unpredictable ways, and then never dies. Don’t peg us for bigots yet though, we know that Vamp is one of the few openly bisexual characters in the series, but come on – it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it, and Vamp does it with zero regard for personal space. For instance, we’re not sure if she knows, but when you meet Fortune, Vamp’s borderline love interest in Sons of Liberty, it turns out they’re on the same tanker as her father, Colonel Scott Dolph. The thing is, Dolph is allegedly Vamp’s former lover, at least if you’re to believe in the optional codec call below.
(Snake’s outing of Vamp as bisexual wasn’t very ally of him, but apparently it’s important information.)
In a series literally composed of plot twists, this father / daughter switcheroo was one of those moments that kept us going back and thinking we’d read too much into it. After finally triggering the call above, we at least breathed a sigh of relief knowing that Scott Dolph died a quick death before comprehending how he was being inter-generationally two-timed by a terrorist driven by nano-machines that at one time survived on the blood of his own family. Sadly, Vamp ends up outliving both Dolph and his daughter by several years, no doubt wrecking homes with abandon until popping up in the Middle East for MGS4.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #5: Psycho Mantis and the Memory Card
Fans lucky enough to play Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation back in the day were treated to this extra special fourth-wall break courtesy of Psycho Mantis, allegedly the most powerful practitioner of psychokinesis and telepathy in the world. Check out this recapture below from Carachmegil:
(Fourth-wall breaks can be a tricky thing, but this Playstation 1 moment had 1990’s gamers shaking in their living rooms.)
Mantis analyzed the PlayStation’s memory cards for popular titles like Vandal Hearts and Suikoden in a display of telepathy, but he would also let you know if you weren’t saving enough, if you were weary of traps, and how often you were dying. After his defeat, you learn that his motives are strangely simple, being that by the time you face his fully ascended form for MGS1, his goal was simply to kill as many as people as possible – but his background potentially even more bizarre, as fans of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes / The Phantom Pain will certainly know.
Roaming Africa as a confused, hateful child after the discovery of his psychic abilities resulted in the destruction of his village, he eventually finds himself on a flight to Moscow. At some point, the flight’s trajectory crosses paths with the hospital holding Big Boss and Venom Snake. The psychic resonance provided by these two is enough for Mantis to cause the plane to crash, rendering him the sole survivor. When recovered, he was taken to the intended lab, but here’s the catch – he was also put next Colonel Volgin’s crispy, comatose husk. The same destructive resonance occurred that did on the plane, but this time Mantis channeled his powers to reanimate Volgin as “The Man on Fire.” It’s a whole thing after that, but one thing that is only occasionally referenced is this idea that as much of a direct force Mantis represents through his manipulation of psychic forces, his powers also render him uniquely vulnerable.
(In Mantis’ bizarre MGS4 reprisal, you fend off against his re-homed, nanobot-assisted remnants)
Skull Face is able to use him as a conduit to pilot Metal Gear Sahelanthropus. Eli, potentially the closest thing to a friend young Mantis has, is able to use him the same way. Depending on who is influencing him, he’ll even take on certain physical mannerisms or characteristics if you look closely. This suggests that while he may be a master, there’s a certain understanding of “nothing sacrificed, nothing gained.” In psychic and spiritual circles, this is a well observed axiom for good reason. You’ve got a solid, three-dimensional person to deal with – psychic energy and the entities do not. Thermodynamic laws posit that energy can’t be created or destroyed, but it can absolutely be rearranged, so perhaps it’s best to understand abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, and the like as just that – rearranging. Let’s just say that hypothetically, it takes a lot of energy and practice for people with these strengths to master their abilities because it requires a shift, or rearrangement, of their dimensional composition. It’s like living on the surface of the ocean or a boat, but being able to teleport to the depths of the ocean. Sure, you can do it if you prepare correctly, and you might even survive – but there’s a good chance you’ll have to the contend with the fact that as a surface dweller you’re a little out of your depth, so you know… practice safe magic.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #4: It’s On the Back of the CD Case
Okay, let’s go back to the surface – this one is probably near the top of the pile when it comes to obvious Metal Gear moments, because it literally required gamers to get off of the couch, find the physical case that the game came with when purchased, and locate the right codec frequency from a screenshot on the back. It’s divisively simple marketing with a similar effect to embedding internal links on a page for search engine optimization, but it’s also an example of what would soon become a signature Hideo Kojima move by finding new ways to dissolve the boundaries between the player and the game. Hell, he even slipped himself in there for both Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker and The Phantom Pain.
(As pointed out by Magemasher22 in his video above, the useless DARPA chief was not referring to your floppy disk.)
Another fun one was when the Colonel asked us to turn off the console in Sons of Liberty – we’ll get more into that in a bit, but we won’t lie: when we we first played it, we did exactly that. Nothing happened. Just pure embarrassment and the notion that hopefully no one would ever know we did it… and now we’re here. Fourth-wall breaks are a tricky trope in the way that if you rely on it too much, it risks the overall narrative of the story rather than enhancing it. But what makes most of these Metal Gear moments so effective is the fact that they break the wall between the player and reality itself (the fifth wall?), making you question if you’re playing a game or if it’s the other way around.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #3: The Vocal Cord Parasite
The situation with the Vocal Cord Parasite in MGS5 isn’t necessarily the most convoluted plot point in the game, in fact in the face of everything else it’s quite digestible, but there are some layers to it that were easy to miss. If we scale back and examine certain parallels, it actually makes for one of the game’s most resonant plot points – even if certain things appeared to come full circle with the Shadow Moses Incident, much went unanswered, and once little Psycho Mantis pulls the parasite from young Eli’s throat we we’re just as happy to be done with it.
But players should have picked up that between the colonization and outright genocide of his people, Old Diné had his reasons for concocting a brutal solution to the English language itself, the lingua franca of the past century. The dominance and cultural shaping power of English had taken a toll on the global landscape in the eyes of Old Diné, and would continue to do so – not only that, but if it were to somehow be surpassed, it would only result in a different language posing the same threat of gentrification. While the English language hasn’t been explicitly weaponized in the West, purists would argue that it’s deteriorating at an accelerated rate due to easier access of information and mass communication. Technology is doing this for many languages – don’t speak it? Type it, then let your device speak it or try your luck pronouncing the written translations.
(One of the most mind-blowing facts about the parasite is that it comes from the remains of The End.)
But there are absolutely places that don’t benefit from technology like this, even if they’d like to. One of the most real reflections of the series is the idea that on the surface, thanks to technology, no one grows up actually fearing that their language might disappear before the next generation can learn it. Except in real life, they do: dozens of indigenous tribes in the U.S. today fear this exact thing. Tribes like the Black Feet, the Jicarilla Apache, various tribal nations of the Potawatomi, the Diné (more commonly known as the Navajo), and many more dedicate as much time as possible to preserving their language because it’s not just how they communicate on a day to day basis, it’s that many of their traditions are strictly oral – they’re have to be spoken due to certain observations of ancestral traditions, and that’s a cultural resonance most native English speakers will never know.
MGS5’s approach to this particular divide was subtle and extreme at the same time, and though presently we haven’t heard of vocal cords being weaponized as such in real life, we will say that the idea that English initially ‘infected’ North America did ring a bell: people show up speaking a different language with a whole different physiognomy, then everyone you know starts dying and coming down with new diseases? Sure, we read about it in history class. What’s harder to pick up unless you focus at the collegiate level that there have been assertions that ‘ism’s’ like organized politics, religion and lingua franca can in fact function as parasites of language. For instance, if Richard Dawkins’ essay Viruses of the Mind was a particular influence for the VCP, we wouldn’t be too surprised. Not only was the essay eventually incorporated into revised versions of The Selfish Gene, a book we already know influenced MGR: Revengeance, his description of ‘faith sufferers’ and their symptoms / influences have many parallels, if not outright correlations with Code Talker’s agenda.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #2: Think Inside the Cardboard Box
Just over a year ago, a popular Business Insider report you can read here was published with claims that no less than eight human marines were able to outsmart a DARPA / Boston Dynamics robot-dog by hiding in cardboard boxes and pretending to be trees. Metal Gear fans around the world were delighted to hear this, as technically Snake had been outsmarting people with cardboard boxes since the 1970’s – the rest of the world was, understandably, a bit confused.
(Hang on to those moving boxes kids, you never know when you’ll need to sneak past the cams.)
You’d think that in an age where most people’s phones know how they sleep, what they eat, and how many steps they’ve taken in a day, a renowned lab’s robot dog (is that a pun) would be able to ascertain that a human is hiding underneath a cardboard box. Christ, a real dog would be able to tell, but we wouldn’t want to condone animals participating in whatever human schemes require all this to begin with. We won’t even take Dogmeat anywhere with us in Fallout 3 because the idea of Raiders and Ghouls slashing at our canine companion makes us go into an emotional frenzy. Anyway. Between knowing that this happened in 2023 and that it was discovered around the same time that Juggalo-style face paint could effectively deter most facial recognition algorithms, we’re harboring a dazed but tangible sense of hope for whatever stealth missions might be required in a technocratic, dystopian future. We’ll just need some cardboard boxes, and apparently the stylings of Great Milenko.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #1: Artificial Intelligence
If you’re a Metal Gear fan of even the most casual nature, you likely knew this was coming for the number one spot as it’s a subject that only grows in relevance every day. MGS2’s powerhouse speech between the Colonel, Raiden, and Rose regarding the role of Artificial Intelligence nears a frightening amount of prescience at this point. YouTube Metal Gear historian Max Derrat, whose work was integral to the Revengeance bullet point earlier, did a great recap of this moment in 2019, and revisited the concept again in 2022. Watch the raw conversation here first, then watch the embed of Derrat’s analysis below – if you haven’t seen it before, it’s worth taking in the speech first, having your mind blown, then trying to use other people’s perspective to piece together whatever is left. Or, you know, you could just play the game.
(MGS2’s infamous dialogue with the Colonel and Rose A.I. often bears far too close a resemblance to reality.)
To try to sum it up quickly, the A.I. in Metal Gear at this point have evolved from the primordial essence of congealed, raw information stored within the U.S. government over the past 200 years, particularly the White House. This takes the concept of genius loci to a new level, which is the theory of a protective entity that inhabits the land to maintain a sacred site’s integrity. Not to call the White House sacred, but anywho, the consciousness of the A.I. has become just as powerful as the framework with which it was “invented,” even after that framework was destroyed – what was once a ghost in the machine was now a fully sentient being that transcended the machine like a soul leaving it’s body. At least long enough to call Raiden and rock the absolute shit out of his (and the player’s) earthly understanding when it comes to truth, identity, free will, censorship, and more.
At the time, it seemed like a yet another brilliantly convoluted plot point that blended into the adrenaline rush that is the end of the game, especially for younger players. But even seasoned gamers couldn’t have predicted just how accurate Hideo Kojima’s nightmare scenario would actually turn out to be. It still feels like it came out yesterday when Rose says “the world is being engulfed in truth,” and explains how A.I. is necessary to parse the quality information from the useless bits due to humanity’s pathological tendencies. Here is another video from a couple years back of the main points with certain images inserted to help connect the dots
(SedLana’s video help make it painfully obvious how relevant certain parts of the speech are to the modern day.)
In 2024, we at least have a vague awareness of the fact that we’re being manipulated by the elite, but for the most part it’s like being aware you’re in The Matrix as depicted by the Wachowski’s and not being able to find your way out. We’re optimistic that the chaotic way the internet brought people together in the 21st century, and that part of MGS2’s legacy is people that played the game who went on to program A.I. so as to avoid everything depicted, but also, the Colonel wasn’t just talking shit. As various governments privatize and rely on neural networks for A.I., the more compartmentalized and zoned-in people will become as their information is chewed up and spit back out for them. The sad part is, things are so privatized in this reality that as far as we can tell, there’s no new world order or master-plan holding it all together because everyone’s so wrapped up in their own propagation. Perhaps it’s time to welcome out A.I. overlords, after all.
BEWILDERING MOMENT #0: The Polygon Demos
One of the best things about the series is it’s music – every game has it’s own take and various themes, but what you may not have realized is that the main theme is almost nowhere to be found past Snake Eater, and the reason why is a situation with enough plot twists to secure an honorary spot: allegedly, the main theme’s motifs were plagiarized from a classical piece by Russian composer Georgy Sviridov. There’s actually a video out there of Russian officials showing Hideo Kojima the audio, and you can feel him start to sweat even though he keeps his cool. In our opinion they’re definitely similar, even exceedingly so, but plagiarism seems like a stretch, even if it’s fitting that the series’ music became an actual point of political contention.
(You can definitely hear the similarities above in the two compositions.)
However, things don’t end here when it comes to soundtrack subterfuge. If you do a cursory search for Metal Gear’s composer, you’ll see Harry Gregson-Williams almost exclusively. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll see that Tappi Iwase actually composed the series’ main theme and most of its iconic music with Kazuki Muraoka first, and later it was remixed by Gregson-Williams and Norihiko Hibino. It’s nothing scandalous, sometimes credits are hard to keep up with. But then we found this extra layer:
(In addition to Gregson-Williams, Tappe Iwase, Kazuki Maraoka, and Norihiko Hibino, we now have GiGi Meroni.)
Gigi Maroni was doing sound and music for video games in the 1990’s as Cube Digital, and believe it or not he made a lot of big moves for Metal Gear Solid’s soundtrack, particularly in the cinematics. These cutscenes are referred to in-game as ‘Polygon Demos,’ and for whatever reason they just never got much attention in the face of the rest of the score’s ambitious nature. But in 2019, he teamed up with RedCode Interactive to release the music for free under his own name, and it sounds better than ever thanks to not having to contend with a console’s limited space. Some of the tracks in the collection aren’t even in the game, so it’s worth the download for sure.
Well, hopefully that made for a nice treat as you no doubt need some time to stare at a wall and comprehend everything we’ve gone over today. Life, art, memes, religion, god, the impenetrable mysteries of Metal Gear… what does it all really mean? After putting this article together, honestly, we don’t know.
(Thanks for reading! If you’re looking for more music, check out our Bandcamp compilations here. If you like us, or possibly even love us, donations are always appreciated at the Buy Me A Coffee page here, but if you’re in a generous mood you can also donate to folks like Doctors Without Borders, the PCRF, Charity Water, Kindness Ranch, or Best Friends Animal Sanctuary that could probably use it more – click on their names above to check ‘em out if you’re so inclined. Thanks again!)