Metal Gear: Difference between revisions

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[[File:rsz_rsz_1rsz_1rsz_snakesubart_8230_1907.jpg|frame|Not pictured: [[Smoking Is Cool|cigarettes]] and [[Cargo Ship|cardboard boxes]].]]

 

{{quote|''[[Parrot Exposition|"Metal Gear!?"]]''}}

The '''''Metal Gear''''' series, created by [[Hideo Kojima]] in 1987, is the [[Trope Maker]] and [[Trope Codifier]] of the [[Stealth Based Game]] genre. The idea came when Kojima realized that the [[MSX|MSX2]] couldn't show more than a few enemies at a time without flashing epileptically and generally breaking - so why not make a game where avoiding your enemies is the theme? This concept received a lot of criticism - one famous quote from Kojima's boss is, [[It Will Never Catch On|"Hiding from your enemies? That's not a game!"]]. But then they started playing it. And it became quite a hit, spawning a great many sequels (with countless ports and editions):

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' (1998, [[PlayStation|PS1]])

** ''Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes'' (2004, [[Game Cube|GCN]])

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'' (2004, PS2)

** ''Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D'' (2012, 3DS)

 

Plus a bunch of spin-offs:

* ''Metal Gear Solid Mobile'' (2008)

* ''Metal Gear Solid Touch'' (2008-2009)

 

The chronological order of the series is:

The series is acclaimed for a lot of good reasons - stellar gameplay, very complex plots with pitch perfect [[Deconstruction|Deconstructions]], excellent direction, intelligent character development and weird stylized dialogue. Just prepare for a lot of cutscenes. I mean, a ''lot'' of cutscenes. No, more than that. Honestly, you play the game for two-fifths of the time, watch a full-length movie the other three-fifths. If you like the plot, though, you'll probably love the cutscenes.

 

 

There is also ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'', a webcomic based off ''Metal Gear Solid'' which parodies certain aspects of the games as well as discussing some questions that were unanswered before ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', as well as another webcomic titled ''[[The Cobra Days]]'' chronicling the [[World War II]] adventures of a similar [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] from ''Metal Gear Solid 3'', and [[Hiimdaisy|hiimdaisy's]] [[Affectionate Parody]] comic series "Let's Destroy the..."

 

'''Please do not dump tropes that only apply to specific games on this page'''; put them on the appropriate pages or on the [[Metal Gear/Characters|character page]]. This page is for tropes that appear several times throughout the series.

**"Basically, the high-frequency upgrade sets the blade vibrating really, really fast, right? That vibration acts on the electron shells of atoms in the sword, and the local electromagnetic field. When the EMF achieves resonance, the blade's bonding is strengthened. At a quantum level, it's like the entire sword is made up of the exact same particle type. It also disrupts any atoms it comes into contact with -- say, those that make up the target. Their electron clouds shrink from exposure to quantum decoherence at the Planck scale. In other words, it electrically severs the bonds that keeps the target's atoms together."

* [[Absolute Cleavage]]: (EVA, even as {{spoiler|a much older woman}}). Naomi in ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', where she leaves her labcoat unbuttoned and is obviously wearing no bra.

*** Oddly enough, Johnny qualifies for this trope. He's patently useless in the majority of appearances, but his actions at the end of ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' cement his status (considering he was just a normal completely unmodified human soldier).

* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: Most of the ''Metal Gear Solid'' games (barring ''Metal Gear Solid 4'') has the main characters actually unwittingly allowing the bad guys from behind the scenes to succeed in their overall evil plan, usually revealed in [[The Stinger]]. ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and, to a certain extent, ''Peace Walker'' are notable exceptions to the whole Stinger route, where it is made pretty clear that the behind the scenes villains won even before we get to [[The Stinger]].

* [[Banana Republic]]: Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland in the original MSX2 games. Oddly enough, the ''Metal Gear Solid'' games mostly avert this, with the exception of "Army's Heaven" in ''Portable Ops''. The side-story installments also have Gindra in ''Metal Gear: Ghost Babel'' and the Moloni Republic in ''Metal Gear Acid''.

* [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]]: None of the games actually has the player's [[Mission Control]] yelling "Snake? Snake?! SNAKE!!!" ''exactly''. It's usually something like "Snake, what's wrong? Snake? SNAKE!!", but [[Memetic Mutation]] would have you believe otherwise.

** Otacon himself is a pretty good example as, while (as far can be told) he's entirely European in origin, he is an emphatic Japanophile. Likewise, Raiden, while not a Japanophile, seems like he walked straight out of one of Otacon's Japanese animes.

* [[Butt Monkey]]:

** Raiden has it pretty rough as well. In ''MGS2'' he is nagged by his girlfriend, is urinated on, he gets {{spoiler|beaten up and used as bait for certain people}}, it is revealed that his {{spoiler|parents were murdered by Solidus}}, and that's just his first appearance. In ''MGS3'' he was parodied by Volgin's gay lover Raikov, a usable face mask that Major Zero and Sokolov both apparently dislike, and ''Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser'' where he travels back in time to kill Big Boss so that he could become the main character of MGS. To say he failed miserably there would be a understatement. In between ''MGS2'' and ''MGS4'' he is told by Rose that {{spoiler|she suffered a miscarriage, don't worry Rose was lying}} after which {{spoiler|1=he is tortured by the Patriots and used as a guinea pig for their experiments, his head is severed from his body at the jaw and transplanted to an entirely synthetic body, which is later upgraded to the exoskeleton we see him wearing in ''MGS4''}}.

* [[Camp]]: So very, very much.

* [[Elite Mooks]]: The Hi-Tech Soldiers, Arsenal Tengu in ''MGS2'', the Rocket-men and FROG units in ''MGS4''.

* [[Enemy Chatter]]: Only during Alert, Evasion, and Caution phases. However, there is some chatter to be found in most games, if you look hard enough.

* [[Equal Opportunity Evil]]: The ranks of the various Quirky Miniboss Squads tend to be quite diverse. {{spoiler|And then there're The Patriots.}}

* [[Escort Mission]]: Raiden and Emma; Big Boss and EVA; Old Snake and Drebin's Stryker; Old Snake and the Van.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: The cover artwork of the original ''Metal Gear'' is blatantly traced from a well-known publicity still of Michael Biehn in ''[[Terminator]]'', while the character designs in the MSX2 version of ''Metal Gear 2'' are clearly modified photographs of actual celebrities such as Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Tom Berenger, Richard Crenna, and Albert Einstein. In the cellphone and PS2 ports of ''Metal Gear 2'', the character designs were revamped to resemble Shinkawa's designs from the later ''MGS'' games.

* [[No Fourth Wall]]: One of the trademarks of the series. Characters explicitly describe the game's controls with a straight face; the [[Copy Protection]] involves a character asking you to look at the back of the game package; one of your [[Voice with an Internet Connection|Voices With An Internet Connection]] provides constant real-world advice on how to play your video game properly and healthily; a [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]] scene involves the resident [[Magnificent Bastard]] warning you not to try to use autofire to beat the [[Mini Game]]; and ''everything'' involving Psycho Mantis, who used your save game content to "read your mind," the rumble feature on your controller to move it with "telekinesis," had a special move that caused your screen to turn black, and could only be defeated by unplugging your controller and plugging it into the second port (or by already having a second controller in the second port, and picking it up). And that's only what the first game does; the second, which explicitly aims to break the fourth wall, was [[Mind Screw|worse]].

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Volgin to Snake in ''Snake Eater,'' and even worse, Ocelot to Snake in ''Guns of the Patriots.''

* [[Non-Linear Sequel]]: Has one of the most messy chronologies known to man - ''Metal Gear Solid Mobile'' is a good example. It seems to clearly fit in to the main timeline between ''MGS'' and ''MGS2'', but the game's ending apparently makes it [[Canon Discontinuity]]..)

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[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Existentialism]]