A majority of games offer very little depth plot-wise which is perfectly understandable since most games are more a test of memory, problem solving, and reflexes than anything. Trouble is, these qualities gives me very little to sink my artistic incisors into. A few games try to touch on "deep" themes but often fail so miserably that they are embarrassing to talk about. There is one game, however, that manages to masquerade as an action game but is, in fact, a meditation on life with various allusions to other genres, be they literature or cinema. This game is Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake's surreal quest to understand the human condition and occasionally shoot people in the back of the head.

Metal Gear Solid -or MGS- is billed as a straight ahead action game. Your character is the oddly named Solid Snake, a former secret agent who has been called back into service to stop FOX HOUND, a group of renegade agents who have taken over a weapons research facility. The whole thing sounds pretty basic, and, on the surface, it is. Run around the base, grab weapons, and use them to blow your opponents to smithereens- it's the same basic story structure that has been used in countless games and Jeremy Bruckheimer movies. What sets MGS apart is how it presents this oft-told plot.

The first and most obvious difference is the amount of time that Solid Snake spends talking to people. Not only does he carry on long conversations with people he meets while on the mission, he also spends an incredible amount of time talking on his CODEC radio receiver. Fully over half the game can be spent with Solid Snake gabbing it up on the top secret espionage equivalent of a chat room. All this exposition might be expected if the characters were discussing elements that directly related to the game, but a majority of the discussion has the characters ruminate about their pasts, their place in the world, and the purpose behind their actions. In fact, the game goes so far as to have some of the enemy characters -with their dying breath- explain and try to justify their actions. In a move that's even more out of character with a story that normally would take itself seriously the characters even occasionally acknowledge that they are in a video game and that reality doesn't apply to their situation.

Why should a game that is considered a weapon-heavy action thriller be so concerned with the motivations for it's characters? Why does Solid Snake, who one would expect to either be a pitiless killer or one of those hot-shot types who is never short of a smart-ass comment to make, turn out to be an amateur philosopher who acts as a mentoring figure to some of the characters in the game? Why does so much of the game center around Solid Snake's past to such an extent that the game feels more like a disfunctional family reunion than an internal military conflict?

It has been noted that one of the selling points of the game is it's cut scenes; cinema style scenes where the plot moves forward. Thing is, there are well over three hours of cut scenes in the game, meaning the game player has to sit through interruptions in the game play that are longer than most movies. When one realizes that MGS is doing things like this in order to step away from the traditional aspects of video games you begin to realize what MGS is trying to accomplish.

Why does MGS take such an unorthodox approach in it's presentation? I suspect the answers can be found when Hideo Kojima, the game's director, discusses his influences. Kojima states that not only is he a fan of movies and the conventions that they use to present a story, but that he is also a fan of Japanese literature, especially the writing of Kobo Abe. The works of Abe feature nameless characters who are thrust into situations they don't understand. The surreal stories -such as having a family move into someone else's house with no explanation for their motivation, a man being held captive inside a pit by a town, or a man who, without explanation, turns into a stick- deal with people trying to come to terms with post-war Japan and the inexplicable nature of life itself. By combining his favorite interests Hideo Kojima has created a video game that is a surreal adventure told in a style that mimics cinematic story telling techniques.

Little touches are sprinkled throughout the game that point out Kojima's influences. Solid Snake and Otacon -another character in the game- joke at one point when they realize their given names are "Dave" and "Hal," the same as the main character and the insane computer from 2001. At several points in MGS Solid Snake can make use of cardboard boxes to hide in. While it is doubtful that this is a literal reference to The Box Man, one of Abe's more well known works, the boxes in MGS are also used to conceal someone from the world around them. It's not the obvious cues however, but the sub-text of the game itself that show Kojima fully understood the stories that inspired him.

The traditional set up for a video game is both exploited and deconstructed to show the inherent pointlessness of Solid Snake's mission. The game is set up so that Solid Snake has to fight through the members of FOX HOUND one at a time. After losing the characters will explain their motivations to Solid Snake. This doesn't make them sympathetic, but it does make the actions of the enemies understandable and gives the opponents a human face. Thing is, this glimpse is only given as the characters lay dying. The FOX HOUND operatives are made out to be more than obstacles to be overcome only after they have been eliminated by the player. In fact, one of the few truly despicable members of FOX HOUND, the sadistic Revolver Ocelot, is the only character that Solid Snake doesn't manage to kill. In his quest to complete a quest for a country that has betrayed him Solid Snake kills people who he has more in common with than the people he is fighting to protect including his own brother, but he is unable to kill the one character that most deserves Solid Snake's violent form of justice. This is a far cry from most video games where there is no questions raised about the morality of the characters' actions or any qualms shown about eliminating opponents. A video game concerning a secret agent fighting a group of terrorists is hardly the most traditional mode for discussing life, but it's this surreal juxtaposition that makes MGS so successful.

Solid Snake is a man without an identity, the perfect protagonist for a story paying homage to Abe's work. The more that is revealed about Solid Snake's past he paradoxically becomes both more human and more inhuman. It's also worth nothing that nearly every action Solid Snake makes in the game is wrong. Instead of being the hero who is overcoming impossible odds it turns out Solid Snake has been played for the fool. This particular plot twist isn't revealed until near the end of the game but players are encouraged to play the game more than once, meaning that they are encouraged to lead Solid Snake down the same incorrect path and watch him make the same errors in judgment again and again.

While his name is David the main character of MGS is always referred to as Solid Snake. Also, the members of FOX HOUND still refer to themselves by their similarly structured code names [Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, and so on] in spite of the fact they have cut all their ties to the US government as well. Refusing to address the characters by their actual names distances the characters from themselves. It also produces the same effect that Kafka achieved when he only referred to the protagonist in The Castle as K. Stripping the characters of their names allows them to more easily represent the ideas the author is trying to convey and to show the reader -or, in this case, the game player- that they are to view the characters as everymen who represent more than the immediate story they are in.

An interesting aspect of MGS is that while there are multiple endings in the game there is no happy ending. As the game progresses it's revealed that Solid Snake was injected with a lethal virus before the start of the story. Even if Solid Snake somehow overcomes the impossible odds of the mission he is doomed to die even before he starts. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the game is that not only does Solid Snake lose, but the biggest decision the player must make in the game is deciding by how great a degree he should lose by. To determine which one of two endings you receive in MGS you have to decide whether Solid Snake gives in during a torture session. If Solid Snake folds during the torture Meryl, a young woman who had been helping Solid Snake during his mission, dies. This grisly fact is told to the player up front at the start of the torture. Instead of being a trick ending that surprises the player at the end of the game, the player is forced to decide whether or not to allow a character to die for no other reason than to move the plot along. It is only after this decision is made that it is revealed that Solid Snake has been poisoned, meaning that whatever decision is made -whether Solid Snake becomes a hero or a coward during the torture- is rendered moot and absurd since he will die soon no matter what he does.

In the end Solid Snake is shown to be an existential hero who doesn't fight for his country, for the people who are his allies, or in order to understand his past, but because it's the only aspect of his life he understands. His desire to fight is what ultimately kills him but it's also the only thing that made him alive. This interpretation of MGS is by no means the final word in the matter. Players can play through the game and enjoy it for the action elements or the hours of dialogue or any other aspect of the game that may grab their attention instead of looking for hidden themes that the director may or may not have included. MGS, like all good works of art, is open to interpretation.

Yeesh, maybe next time I'll explain the exploration of consumer culture that is found in Pac-Man and the significance found in the fact that it's gender-flipped sequel Ms. Pac-Man is more popular. Questions, comments, and top secret messages can be sent to gleep9@hotmail.com. Hide inside your cardboard box and head on back to either the Pop Culture or Main page.