THE IMPACT METAL GEAR

KONAMI'S METAL GEAR SOLID INFILTRATED THE PLAYSTATION IN 1998, POPULARISING A GENRE WITH ITS BLEND OF TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION AND CINEMATIC STORYTELLING. FROM CLONED BROTHERS AND CYBORG NINJAS TO EXCLAMATION MARKS AND CARDBOARD BOXES, RETRO GAMER DECODES THE MULTITUDE OF WAYS THAT HIDEO KOJIMA'S GAME LEFT ITS ENDURING FOOTPRINT IN THE SNOW ON THE GAMES INDUSTRY

- ADAM BARNES

At the risk of giving the game an inflated Christly significance, it's impossible to think back on a time when Metal Gear Solid didn't exist. There is the now and the time Before Snake and no in between. But that's the interesting thing, for most of the gaming world Metal Gear Solid was kind of a sudden divine bolt of lightning from out of nowhere.

The Western world hadn't really seen much of Hideo Kojima up until that point, what with a lot of his projects - however significant they are sidelined onto doomed consoles or stuck without a localised version for years. Even the earlier Metal Gear games kind of just passed much of the world by without too much attention, and then, one day in 1997, everything changed. While footage of Metal Gear Solid had already been shown at Tokyo Game Show back in 1996 and earlier, it wasn't until E3 the following year that gamers really got a glimpse of what would go on to be one of the PlayStation's defining games. And from that point on, the hype was tangible.