I wasted no time in tracking down and playing the next few entries, though it’s still hard to top the original Metal Gear Solid. The story, the action scenes, the characters, the completely out of place but somehow endearing easter eggs and goofy moments as the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but realize how stupid I was for taking so long to track down and beat this amazing game. Obviously, the first game I booted up on my shiny new (but still, at this point outdated) console was, you guessed it, Metal Gear Solid. Up until that time, video games (especially console titles) didn’t have lengthy cutscenes, voiced audio conversations, and that cinematic feel that has become synonymous with the long-running series. The Konami jingle, the start screen, the sound effects they are all effectively burned into my memory (I really can’t stress how much this demo blew me away). I didn’t know a whole lot about video games then, but I immediately knew that we had a game changer on our hands. The minute the PlayStation 2 arrived at my doorstep, I was whisked back to my younger years (specifically age seven), when I had the chance to try out the Metal Gear Solid demo that was distributed via disc. But really, the reason I (finally) picked up a Sony console was because of Metal Gear. I have little to no experience with JRPGs because of this, and there are a few other key franchises which have eluded me up until recently. This has, unfortunately, left a rather giant hole in my knowledge and experience of gaming. Up until late 2010, I had never owned a Sony console (that’s when I picked up a PlayStation 2), and I only acquired a PlayStation 3 less than three years ago. Throughout the years, my family stuck with the Big N, complemented by Sega’s hardware up until their demise, with Microsoft and their Xbox line quickly picking up the slack.īy now you’ve probably realized that that Sony hasn’t been mentioned, and for good reason. This made sense of course, as the original Nintendo Entertainment System trounced the competitors.
In the early years, we were a Nintendo family. With an older brother who also played games, and a father who did some of his own scouting, I was often left at the mercy of other people’s decisions when it came to what games and consoles we would buy. Like most kids at a young age, I never found myself in a position to have any say on what direction video games would take in our house.
Even at the age of seven, I knew I had stumbled onto something special.