Editorials
Celebrating The 20th Anniversary of ‘Metal Gear Solid’
With the Western release of Metal Gear Solid Happening on this day 20 years ago, we revisit last month’s celebratory article for Hideo Kojima’s classic.
The PlayStation had been out for a little under four years come September 3rd of 1998; it was on that day that Metal Gear Solid would make its debut in Japan. While there had been previous Metal Gear entries beforehand, Metal Gear Solid would end up becoming one of the most significant titles in gaming history.
Developed by Konami and directed by the prestigious Hideo Kojima, the action-stealth adventure placed gamers in the role of Solid Snake; a special-ops soldier entrusted with a mission to break into a secret facility and rescue hostages, all while stopping a nuclear crisis. What starts out as a typical espionage game, however, quickly changes pace, as Snake finds himself up against supernatural forces and deadly mechs.
Metal Gear Solid received immense applause from critics and fans alike. Since its inception, it has spawned numerous sequels and prequels, with the majority receiving their own outstanding acclaim. From their riveting stories to their unique characters and their exploration of philosophies, the Metal Gear Solid series has become one of gaming’s proudest achievements.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid (with August being the 31st anniversary since the first ever Metal Gear game). To celebrate this entry in the series, I’m going to take a look back at Metal Gear Solid and what makes it such an astounding work in video game history.
The Dawning of The Stealth Genre
While there are plenty of thrilling moments, including gun-toting action, Metal Gear Solid (MGS) puts much of its focus on stealth. Providing gamers with a small radar at the bottom of the screen, they are able to keep track of not only where enemies are walking, but in what direction they are facing in.
Stealth throughout the game is further affected due to the setting. While taking place in a large facility known as Shadow Moses, the outside environment of MGS has lots of snow; walking through said snow leaves footprints, alerting enemies to suspicious movement. These sorts of small details make MGS all the more interesting, providing an extra level of awareness when playing stealthily.
On a similar note, in regard to the game’s stealth, MGS starts players out with a tranquilizer gun. You can go ahead and pick up other weapons, but the tranquilizer gun is significant to MGS. Even though future Metal Gear titles have leaned towards more action-oriented gameplay, the tranquilizer has always been a means of progressing through each entry.
These stealth elements were essential in Kojima’s design; MGS was not only the beginning of a whole new genre in video games, but its influence has echoed throughout the years. The way MGS handled action was unlike any other game before it; the limiting of weapons, the encouragement to quietly take out or dodge foes, were all ideas not common in games; as gamers, we were always expected to kill the enemy. This concept of stealth and taking out the opponent through non-violent means would become an integral part of Kojima’s gaming philosophy.
Even almost two decades later, his final Metal Gear entry (Phantom Pain), offers the chance to quietly go about missions or to kill. It’s such a simple idea that has gone on to influence such video games like Dishonored. The way the player maneuvers and stalks the shadows throughout MGS has also influenced games like Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
MGS can be marked as one of the biggest turning points in gaming; it’s a title where one can go back and find innovation and technology coming together to present a more immersive presentation. But even though MGS is successful on a game mechanic level, it also presents a truly exhilarating, cinematic story experience.
A Video Game Of Cinematic Quality
While the game takes place in a fictional 2005, it embodies many Cold War Era tensions; this is due to the heavy dialogue and themes revolving around espionage, politics, and nuclear war. As Snake makes his way through the facility he comes across a wide variety of extravagant characters; many who he finds to have passionate political and personal beliefs.
With a love for film, Kojima came into MGS with the understanding of how important drama is to a story. Rather than give us flat characters that just gun it out, he provides numerous characters with depth; each one brings their own identity, adding more substance to the plot. An example of this is found in the game’s main antagonist, Liquid Snake; even though it isn’t his only motivating factor, he is driven by jealousy towards his brother Solid Snake. Their confrontations are consistently heated, with the former stating his desire to surpass his “genetic history” (referring to their “father” Big Boss).
The Horror in Metal Gear Solid’s History
One major concept that made MGS so different back in the day (compared to other video games), was just how cinematic it was in nature. In one moment you’re playing a game and in the next, you feel like you’re watching a movie. As Kojima has said in interviews, “70% of my body is made of movies.” His passion and knowledge of film can be felt throughout MGS; dynamic camera angles, conflict-driven dialogue, as well as the physical action taking place in the game’s cutscenes, come across as elements you would find on a big theatre screen.
Given that MGS is such a cinematic experience, one place that it greatly shines is that of its boss fights. MGS is home to some of the most unique and innovative boss battles in video game history. Two worth major notice are that of the battles between Sniper Wolf and Psycho Mantis.
When battling Wolf, you find yourself at the end of a long narrow path. A shot blasts towards you, and you know somewhere Wolf is in the distance. What takes place is moment-to-moment tension in holding your breath, looking down the scope of your rifle, and searching for her before she gets you first. It’s a superb sequence that pushes the player into a state of constant awareness, requiring them to have fast reflexes.
The battle with Psycho Mantis is one of the biggest moments in fourth wall breaking techniques via gaming. Upon confronting him you learn of his psychic abilities; but rather than be just any old boss who levitates and uses telekinesis, Mantis takes it one large step further. Depending on past or current save files in your PlayStation memory card, Mantis will actually comment on said saved data. If you’ve been playing Castlevania for example, he’ll say something along the lines of how much of a fan you must be. On top of that, he could also dodge all your attacks by reading your movements via the game controller. It’s only upon research that you learn that by switching your controller to a different port on your console, that you can throw Mantis off.
These innovations were/are mind-blowing; and even with how far technology has come since then, feats like this have been rarely accomplished so well. The cleverness found in these fourth wall breaking moments adds a level of immersion to an already in-depth, fascinating story.
MGS was one of the first big games to shape itself around the impact of war and violence. At times Kojima’s characters will discuss the politics and economics of war, and specifically, the cost in human lives. MGS, in particular, works itself around these ideas throughout its story, taking more time to center in on the nuclear conflict at hand. But by including such mature concepts, MGS became one of the first major examples in how games were capable of mature stories.
Considering past and present commentary, negative criticism towards video games has stated that games are forms of entertainment that are about and perpetuate violence; MGS flipped this idea on its head, offering more of a conscious statement about violence. Much contemporary gaming journalism has looked at the impact and commentary throughout the Metal Gear series; and specifically, how the games point out the horrors of violence, offering players the chance to avoid violent actions.
Kojima’s efforts helped to bring about the idea that video games could be cinematic experiences; that one could infuse game mechanics into the human need for stories. We’ve seen games today that strive to bring about those cinematic vibes (via interactive button prompts), but what Kojima has pulled off through Metal Gear is on a different level; it’s that intricate balance between immersion and voyeurism, allowing the player to participate and to experience all at once (but with much more interaction). Starting with MGS, he has taken so many traditional elements from different mediums, meshing them together to present a new medium of sorts.
MGS not only stands as an incredible feat in gaming but is a testament to the emotion and immense quality that games are capable of presenting.
A Solid Legacy
Since Metal Gear Solid’s release, the world of gaming has massively changed. We have photorealistic graphics, AR & VR technology, innovative ways to use a game controller, and many more mature stories. All of that, in one way or another, is thanks to Metal Gear Solid.
The game isn’t just responsible for helping to establish a new genre of titles, but more importantly, set the bar for rich stories. Metal Gear Solid paved the way for future video games to pursue intellectual adventures, balancing the line between drama and action. It demonstrated to future developers how you could take creative chances with games; how utilizing story and game mechanics together allow gamers to immerse themselves further into an experience.
In the 20 years since it was released Metal Gear Solid has made a name for itself as one of the greatest video games of all time. In 2018 we have thousands of players who have fond memories of experiencing it; we have loyal fans who stand by Kojima and whatever new project he touches; we have artists looking to do what they can to even create a film out of it.
As time moved forward, the Metal Gear series continuously built upon the foundations established in Metal Gear Solid; its following entries offered other unique means for us to interpret our playing experience, while still providing stories that embodied action, stealth, politics, and emotion. From the moment it was born, Metal Gear Solid was meant to embark on a legacy that would not just alter how we play video games, but how we perceive what a video game is and what they can teach us.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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