Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection continues the series’ endless relevance

It’s ne'er been a amended clip to replay nan Metal Gear Solid bid — and that fills maine pinch dread.

Usually, I’m overjoyed anytime I person an excuse to urge an aged crippled I love. While I’ve spent my life gaming unsocial successful various surviving rooms, I judge those experiences are meant to beryllium shared. There’s joyousness successful getting to present thing typical to personification who’s ne'er played earlier and past getting to spot their reactions. But erstwhile it comes to Metal Gear Solid, that proposal usually comes pinch a somber undertone.

That’s wherever I find myself pinch nan merchandise of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1. The caller compilation is undeniably a must-own, bringing together immoderate of nan finest games of each clip into 1 bonus-rich package. Whether you’re a bid seasoned quiet for a replay aliases a newcomer trying to get up to velocity earlier nan Metal Gear Solid 3 remake, it’s a cleanable clip to revisit nan stealth classics.

And it’s ever nan cleanable clip to revisit them. It’ll ne'er extremity being nan cleanable time. That’s because Metal Gear Solid’s prescient commentary connected warfare and nan powerful group that perpetuate and promote its atrocities has ne'er stopped being relevant. As agelong arsenic we’re stuck successful a rhythm of government-backed unit and misinformation, Metal Gear Solid will ever gain different replay.

Weapons of wide destruction

The landmark Metal Gear bid would begin its life connected nan NES successful 1987, introducing nan world to Hideo Kojima’s eager spy thriller series. That crippled would battalion plentifulness of communicative into a constricted cartridge, telling nan communicative of ace worker Solid Snake arsenic he foils a mercenary group’s plans to power a mechanized limb of wide destruction, nan mechanized Metal Gear. While it would quickly spawn 2 sequels (one of which was quickly made without Kojima’s input), nan bid would really return disconnected betwixt 1998 and 2004 pinch a speedy trilogy of games nether a caller Metal Gear Solid branding.

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is simply a ceremony of that lineage, packing nan series’ first 5 mainline entries into 1 package. That includes aggregate titles that wouldn’t beryllium retired of spot connected an “all-time best, database for illustration Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I don’t request to opportunity overmuch much to waste conscionable astir anyone connected nan package. The HD remasters included don’t messiness pinch nan originals and each crippled comes pinch immoderate fantabulous bonuses that make this consciousness for illustration a definitive collector’s edition. The inclusion of scripts is particularly a highlight, giving a small highest astatine really Kojima’s dense stories are structured. I’m judge those who person played these games complete and complete will person their nitpicks (it’s profoundly annoying that each crippled is downloaded arsenic its ain abstracted app), but astir players should beryllium happy pinch what they’re getting here.

But it doesn’t really matter really these games are packaged. Whether they were haphazardly dropped connected Steam aliases fixed a glitzy remaster, it’s each nan same: The Metal Gear Solid bid continues to guidelines gangly arsenic 1 of gaming’s astir captious and upsettingly enduring stories. Going immoderate further needfully requires immoderate spoilers, truthful if you haven’t treated yourself to nan bid yet, beryllium forewarned.

Konami

To this day, Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid installments stay immoderate of nan fewer big-budget games that situation to opportunity thing important astir our world’s military-industrial complex. Never mind nan cybernetic ninjas, representation card-reading psychics, and convoluted cloning schemes — underneath each its techno silliness, nan Kojima-directed entries connection a sprawling critique of nan world’s obsession pinch warfare and nan measurement superpowers proceed to push nan civilized limits of powerful weaponry. At its heart, this is simply a bid astir nan irresponsibility of atomic weapons and high-tech decease machines. In nan first Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake is sent connected a ngo to retrieve nan deadly Metal Gear Rex from a violent statement threatening nan U.S. It’s a emblematic rah-rah American rescue ngo … until it isn’t.

Metal Gear Solid takes a sharply captious move heavy successful its story, arsenic it’s revealed that Snake is conscionable a instrumentality of nan U.S. authorities — an unwitting limb himself. The Pentagon isn’t concerned pinch thwarting terrorists truthful overmuch arsenic it’s trying to get its hands connected Rex, to springiness it power of nan astir powerful warfare instrumentality imaginable. There’s thing conscionable aliases righteous astir nan operation; it’s conscionable a convulsive powerfulness play.

And we’ve been surviving successful a existent world bid of those ever since then.

Controlling information

The first clip I ever really knowledgeable nan Metal Gear Solid franchise was sometime astir 2002. I was an angsty kid still grappling pinch nan horrifying aftermath of September 11, and I’d caput complete to my cousin’s location to play. At nan time, he was heavy into Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which had conscionable been released for PlayStation 2 successful November 2001 — only 2 short months aft those violent attacks.

It seemed for illustration nan cleanable crippled for nan moment. For its first fewer hours, it presents itself arsenic an all-American spy thriller, arsenic Solid Snake thwarts a violent threat connected an lipid tanker disconnected nan seashore of New York City. He must extremity nan bad guys from obtaining weapons of wide destruction. Even now, it’s a small eerie reasoning astir really that story, which had been successful improvement for years, would driblet truthful adjacent to September 11. It almost felt prophetic astatine nan time.

Konami

And it was, though not successful ways I’d realized astatine nan time. Metal Gear Solid 2’s nationalistic pridefulness is simply a smokescreen that originates to dissipate halfway done nan game. For nan bulk of its runtime, players power nan blonde-haired Raiden (a twist that infuriated fans astatine nan time) connected a quest to prevention nan president from terrorists 2 years aft Snake’s mission. It’s each modular 2000s spy movie fare, but that gets subverted successful nan aforesaid measurement nan first Metal Gear Solid does. A midgame twist reveals a grander conspiracy: A protector group called nan Patriots secretly runs America and is looking to summation power of a monolithic limb called Arsenal Gear. The violent threat is simply a convenient screen for them to propulsion disconnected their shady scheme nether nan American people’s noses.

The Patriots person 2 objectives. The much evident 1 is that they wish to power nan astir unstoppable limb suite known to man, successful a bid to holding connected to America’s position arsenic a subject superpower. Their 2nd extremity is overmuch much nefarious. As nan crippled is group during nan emergence of nan net age, nan Patriots consciousness that accusation is astir to go easier to administer to nan people. They look an era wherever they’ll nary longer beryllium capable to perpetrate their astir heinous warfare crimes successful nan shadows. Arsenal Gear contains nan powerfulness to power nan travel of information, making it nan world’s astir valuable commodity.

War — and its depletion of life — has go a well-oiled machine.

As nan 2000s marched on, it would retroactively go a searing critique of America’s War connected Terror. Retribution for nan horrific attacks of September 11 would mutate into a convulsive hunt for oil. Media would parrot nan Bush administration’s fishy lines astir hidden weapons of wide destruction. Middle Eastern civilians would get caught successful nan crossfire arsenic America turned warfare into resource-rich profit. It would almost hap nether nan American public’s radar, but nan rising democratization of accusation would gain nan Bush management power from vocal detractors. No magnitude of wool could hide what was happening from watchful eyes.

War becomes routine

Despite knowing that communicative intimately, I wouldn’t acquisition it firsthand until playing done it arsenic portion of nan Master Collection. As it turns out, it’s still arsenic bleakly applicable now arsenic it was upon its release. I’d find myself playing it amid another heated world conflict, arsenic Israel continued its all-out onslaught connected Gaza successful retribution for a deadly violent crippled carried retired by Hamas. The group’s grotesque massacre was met pinch a barrage of bombs that would termination thousands of Palestinian civilians. Regardless of which broadside of nan conflict 1 whitethorn autumn on, nan images of innocents caught successful nan crossfire are difficult to stomach. Even worse is that it’s been difficult to abstracted truth from fabrication amid conflicting reports connected nan collateral harm from media and authorities officials alike.

Terrorism, revenge, massacred civilians, misinformation fueling nan fire. It brings maine correct backmost to nan chaos of nan 2000s, arsenic I’m forced to watch my ain authorities uncritically support a subject cognition that’s already claimed countless guiltless lives. With a deficiency of patient accusation to explain nan situation, I can’t thief but consciousness pressured into falling successful statement pinch nan world warfare machine’s insatiable hunger for blood. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty erstwhile again puts words to those anxieties, arsenic it has truthful galore times successful my life. I’m Raiden struggling to support up pinch a convoluted conspiracy that feels for illustration it was designed to mislead me.

Konami

As I grappled pinch those achy feelings during my playthrough, my mind went to a crippled not included successful nan Master Collection (at slightest not successful this first volume). Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of nan Patriots opens pinch a striking speech that sets up its dystopian early wherever nan communicative of never-ending conflicts is held successful an ironclad grip by those invested successful them.

“War has changed. It’s nary longer astir nations, ideologies, aliases ethnicity. It’s an endless bid of proxy battles fought by mercenaries and machines. War — and its depletion of life — has go a well-oiled instrumentality … The property of deterrence has go nan property of control, each successful nan sanction of averting catastrophe from weapons of wide destruction. And he who controls nan battlefield controls history. War has changed. When nan battlefield is nether full control, warfare becomes routine.”

Metal Gear Solid is erstwhile again nan video crippled bid of nan moment. God, I wish it weren’t.

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collect Vol 1 launches connected October 24 for PlayStation 5, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Editors' Recommendations

• We played 4 upcoming Konami games, including Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection
• Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection contains first 2 Metal Gear games, Konami confirms
• Hideo Kojima NFT scare ends pinch beingness collectible confirmation
• Kanye West wants to meet ‘Metal Gear Solid’ creator Hideo Kojima, for immoderate reason