IlluminatiRex

For the record, I'm procrastinating on my Metal Gear series review (MGS, MGS2, MGS3, MGS4, MGS: PW, MGSV:GZ, MGSV:TPP, MGR:R, MG, MG2) for the Gamer's Gazette while writing this; I figured this would be at least something topical and I just needed to get this written down somewhere.

I've played video games of all sorts for nearly my entire life. I remember in Kindergarten playing various different kid's PC games; my teacher would even burn us copies to bring home if we wanted. Games like Treasure Mountain! were a personal favorite. It wasn't until 2nd grade however that I would get my very own game system. For Christmas that my parents got me a blue Gameboy Advance SP, that thing was like a child to me (in fact I still have it in working order). I don't remember what games they gave me except for one - Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon. I spent a lot of time with that game, don't think i ever truly beat it.

The next year, my Parents got my brothers and I a PlayStation 2. Played that thing to death; not to mention other handhelds like the DSi my brother and I bought with our money, or our Wii. Point being, I've had a lot of consoles and played a lot of games over my years. At the same time as that, especially when I was in middle-school, I started actually getting into PC games. Primarily strategy games like Age of Empires III, Empire Earth, and Age of Mythology. Put countless hours into those, of course I didn't have a very exceptional computer at the time and could barely run a game like Napoleon: Total War on low.

However, I tried - and I sorta succeeded. I was in 8th Grade when I had first heard about Napoleon: Total War as my friend had brought a Game-Informer with him to school and there it was in the review section. As I was fairly interested in Napoleon at the time, it had my attention. It wasn't until a few months later when I'd get the game (It was like days before my Freshman year of High School started). If you look at my join date here, that's when I started to find mods. With me being introduced to Steam through N:TW, I started to really enjoy PC gaming and since then have built myself a gaming computer (and upgraded it), and bought countless PC games that I may or may never get around to playing.

December of last year I felt burnt out of video games. I barely had any motivation to play them at all, save for Napoleon Wars for Mount and Blade: Warband (but that's more to do with playing with a really close group of friends). When I did play them, I'd give up quite easily. Die once? I'd just Alt+F4. Get stuck? Give up and not come back to it. I could barely play anything for 20 minutes before wanting to do something else. I was frustrated and bored with Video Games, I wasn't gleaning much enjoyment out of them at all. I was bored. Gaming had lost that magic spark for me it once had.

Then something came out on PC that I didn't know was coming to PC at the time; Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Having heard people praise the series, and knowing only a bit of information that I had gleaned from my days of reading Nintendo Power whenever MGS was brought up, and as playing as Snake in Super Smash Bros: Brawl I decided to give it a whirl. Feeling even the discounted price was a bit steep, I bought it was some coupons on GMG and ended up spending only ten bucks.

Little did I realize at that time that that ten dollars would change my view of video games. It was a small download, as it's not that big of a game. I started playing, not knowing what was going on at all. I knew who Snake was, but that was it. 1975? Cool; didn't know it took place in history. Kaz? Paz? Chico? Who are these people? Even though I had a question about EVERYTHING, I was blown away. The graphics, the characters, the cutscenes, what I understood of the story at the time, and most of all - the gameplay. I loved how everything flowed and was dynamic and I needed more.

That's when I started visiting the Metal Gear Solid megathread on the Facepunch forums. There they ended up convincing me to buy "The Legacy Collection" which includes all the main games of the series from MGS1 to MGS: Peace Walker. I spent 60 dollars on 5 games (not counting the original 2 Metal Gear games, plus the VR Missions for MGS1). The weather was on my side for a gaming binge. The winter was rough, at first it was mild, but then at the end of January into February (which is the time slot I bought the Legacy Collection in) we got snow storm after snow storm. Classes were cancelled and I live 45 minutes away from my school, so driving wasn't always a smart decision in that weather.

So my copy arrived and I started downloading MGS1 off of the PSN (it gave you a PSN code for MGS1). I didn't know what I was getting in to. It was about 4 O'Clock in the afternoon when I started playing the first Metal Gear Solid. I didn't stop until 5 O'Clock in the morning when I had finished the game. I've NEVER beaten a game in one sitting before (well technically it was 2 since I went to eat dinner for like 15-20 minutes :P). I was absolutely in love. The characters, the story, all of it - Just like Ground Zeroes (and even then the story of Ground Zeroes started to make more sense). I can't even count the amount of times I was killed by Revolver Ocelot or Liquid Snake, I didn't see my death as a defeat but as a challenge to get better! I had a spark for gaming I hadn't had for ages, what I was playing was something so absolutely special that it made me want to keep playing.

I finished the series in 2 weeks. I played every waking moment I had available, I was addicted. Not to mention, I got to see the series evolve before my eyes. What it culminated in was me loving games again; what specifically about Metal Gear Solid showed me that? Was it that I was playing a console where switching games was difficult? Or was it something more? I feel that it was something far more than the fact I was playing on a console. I feel it's because Metal Gear Solid encompasses everything great about video-games: Ridiculous over the top storylines that still manage to be fun and enjoyable, memorable dialogue, memorable music, great set pieces, awesome bosses, fun level design, engrossing mechanics, and more. I mean I really could go on and on about what I love about the MGS series. However, what I listed just boils down to one thing: FUN! Sure, the games had their challenging moments, but it was a fun challenge, the story is fun, the characters are fun. Hideo Kojima just has fun, engrossing games boiled down to a science.

There are a lot of reasons I was burnt out; and I think the biggest reason was just being overwhelmed with the amount of stuff available for me to play. It's just too much choice and I couldn't ever really make my mind up, and if I got stuck I just felt that my time could be better spent int something else that I wasn't stuck in, but I still would just quit at my first death, or losing battle in a TW game, or anything like that. It's such a volume of choice to where I somehow interpreted me getting stuck as not having fun. Metal Gear changed that for me.

Metal Gear may not be for everyone, but it sure as hell showed me what is great about gaming again.