There's quite a few people who would like to discuss the Metal Gear franchise, and there's a whole lot in the franchise to discuss. So let's have a Metal Gear Everything Thread, wherein we will talk about everything Metal Gear.
So, what is Metal Gear you ask? The answer is that this is a terrible thread for you, because we're gonna drop spoilers like there's no tomorrow, and the spoilers are one of the main things that makes the games worth playing. The other is the (usually) top notch stealthy-combat action, one of the series that defined the idea (although that was mainly MGS1). Anyway, it's great stuff, of which we'll recommend playing about two or three out of eight distinct titles. I'm also not the grand high Metal Gear guru by any means, but whatever.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
The "start" of the story (at least what will ever be playable, the game's mythos rivals the Knights Templar), in 1964, wherein badass secret agent soldier of no particular rank or branch "Naked Snake" AKA "John" infiltrates (twice thrice) a secret Russian army base in a geographically anomalous jungle, to save the Kruschev administration and the world from a rogue general with a crazy supertank. One of the few titles in the series that was never pressed for development time, it was pretty awesome except for an atrocious camera. The Subsistence re-release is easily tied for the best game in the series and one of the best action-stealth games of all. Notable for having a like billion codec calls, physics-defying vehicles everywhere, a chick who can't keep her boobs in her jacket, and some of the silliest/coolest bosses.
Metal Gear: Portable Ops (2006)
(Naked) Snake is called out to hunt his former unit, FOXHOUND, and chase Nazi gold or something in South America. Introduces a lot of characters who become important later, and explains why they're all so psychologically knotted up in each other and Snake, as well as where the man himself will get some of his crazy ideas. Oldest canonical appearance of a Metal Gear. It's also a PSP game, so not many people played it.
Metal Gear: Peace Walker (2010)
More secret agent shit with nukes happens in South America again. The man who was Naked Snake fully assumes the mantle of "Big Boss", and by the end of the story, embarks on his quest to save... the world? Save soldiers? Big Boss's obsession with soldiers and countries of mercenaries and stuff is supposed to start to make sense somewhere around here, but since it's another PSP game, I don't know anything about it. Supposed to be pretty good.
Metal Gear (1987)
The chronological progression of the titles is the first clue to how little sense things make from here on out. The world's greatest soldier, Big Boss, has holed up in his mercenary nation of Outer Heaven with nukes and "Metal Gear". Only one man is good enough to take down Big Boss, top-notch secret agent Gray Fox. But he fucks it up and gets captured, so presciently-codenamed rookie Solid Snake has to save the world instead. Notable for being a game remembered as far better than it really was, with some hilariously bad English translations, and the starting point of, like, a third of the plot-points and design-theories the rest of the series obsesses over.
Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge Solid Snake (1990)
Big Boss resurfaces in Zanzibar Land, identical to Outer Heaven but totally different, with another totally different Metal Gear. Solid Snake is back on the case, and saves some scientists and kills some ninjas and rekills some majors characters who didn't die. Was actually a pretty good game, released on a bunch of different Japanese systems, but totally unknown to anyone else until it was rereleased in English on Subsistence. Notable for having good Czech translations in a Japanese game, being the other third of stuff the rest of the series obsessively references, poisonous Zanzibar hamsters, and some of the most outlandishly retarded item-puzzles seen outside of a LucasArts point-and-click.
Metal Gear Solid (1998)
Rogue agents of the FOXHOUND unit have captured a nuclear-warhead storage facility in Alaska, and Solid Snake is dragged out of retirement to stop them from launching a nuke or something, after it's quickly revealed that the base was actually the secret research center for a new Metal Gear (REX). Where the series started for 95% of its' fans, and the other contender for best in the series and genre. Notable for having the exact same plot of almost every title to follow it, some of the series' better attempts at mind-benders and reveals, and being the game that made the PlayStation along with Final Fantasy 7. Rereleased as "Twin Snakes", with the boss-fights made laughably easy by the updated technology, and cutscenes that put Hong Kong wire-fu to shame.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)
The blueprints to Metal Gear REX leaked on Usenet, and now Solid Snake and Otacon are professional Metal Gear hunters, on the case in New York when shit goes down. Cut to two years later, where a needlessly huge derrick-thing is in the Hudson River and the President is kidnapped by rogue secret agents, and a total rookie with fabulous hair has to save the world. Then a whole lot of melodramatic bullcrap happens. MGS2 was the definition of a sequel, literally incorporating into its story how much it was a hi-tech retread of MGS1; it was also crippled by development shorts, which had some obvious impacts on the pacing and design. Notable for cartwheels, a needlessly overdeveloped physics engine, tons of rereleases with stuff like Metal Gear Skateboarding, and some of the balls-to-the-wall looniest characters and conversations in the history of videogaming. It says a lot when the two most acclaimed parts of the game are the first and last chapters.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)
Solid Snake is rapidly aging, either because of his clone body (he's a clone btw) or his weird anti-plot-characters virus (he's a biological weapon btw), so much so that people don't call him Solid anymore. Several years in the future, warfare is dominated by autonomous war machines and magic nanomachines in everybody's blood, and everybody is paid by everybody to fight everybody and somehow this enriches somebody who's supposed to be evil (you literally won't believe who it is/was). So everybody from every game who was still alive (and some who weren't) comes back for a reunion tour while the two biggest douchebag villains of the game return as one guy (again) to... uh... the story isn't all that clear at any point, especially not to Snake and his heterosexual life partner Otacon, who raise a super-autistic little girl in a flying house. The game basically exists for two reasons - to either explain the plot of MGS2, or outdo it in high-octane nonsense so people stop wondering about MGS2 - and to show a Metal Gear on Metal Gear fight with Snake piloting one. Notable for a huge cast of characters you will love and hate (and love and hate to see again) in equal measure, the best dicking-with-soldiers technology yet and very impressionable soldiers, and the only actual mercenaries and giant fighting robots in a series about mercenaries and giant fighting robots.
I had planned to make similarly snarky dossiers for the major characters and recurring themes and elements of the series, but that's more than enough for now, and the rest will appear of its own accord. This is the intro after all. If you want to know more than you really wanted to about all the events and characters, you can go to
The Metal Gear Wiki, which is loaded with unmarked spoilers like this thread will be. If you want the story-telling experience (and experience is the word), there's plenty of
Let's Play videos of most of the series - by far my best recommendation is
Chip and Ironicus, because the guy playing knows the entire series inside and out so he doesn't miss anything, while his co-host is seeing every game for the first time. They also LP'ed Metal Gear 2, buried in the MGS3 videos.
[snake]...
Videos?[/snake]
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Topic: Metal... GEAR? (Read 133433 times)