Magazine (book)



Magazines are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They cover a wide variety of genres, including literary, gaming, pop culture, sports, current events, fashion, and pornography (the last of which often being called "dirty magazines").

Usage
During Operation Snake Eater on late August 1964, Naked Snake procured some magazines. After he was captured, his belongings were retrieved by EVA, where she discovered the magazine. After he broke out of the prison, Snake asked EVA if she threw anything away, to which she told him that she won't throw anything away, not even the magazines. She then expressed irritation that he'd actually read the magazines in the middle of the mission, and that he could have at least asked for her help in distracting the enemy.

During the San Hieronymo Incident in late 1970, Big Boss and his resistance group procured several magazines to distract enemy soldiers, as well as to cope during the long period of the mission.

In 1974, the Militaires Sans Frontières procured design specs for the MGS Magazine while on a demolition mission in Selva de la Leche, Costa Rica. The MGS Magazine eventually became popular from the southern U.S. to the Panama Canal, gaining 1.1 million readers and even having CIA mercenaries becoming fans of the magazine.

The MSF also procured a set of hobby magazines while trying to destroy supplies for the Peace Sentinel in the Rio del Jade boathouse. They eventually procured copies of and copied the Solid, Liquid, Solidus, and Super magazines, which were a weekly sci-fi/horror genre magazine, a monthly mature literary magazine, a quarterly men's lifestyle/political magazine, and a bimonthly fashion magazine geared for women, respectively (the latter also experiencing its 23rd anniversary during the events of the mission). The Solid, Liquid, and Solidus magazines had their fair share of "adult content." They also managed to procure a cooking magazine, the Tomeat monthly magazine.

Aside from their primary use to distract the enemy, the MSF soldiers also used these magazines for their own personal leisure, although Big Boss had a tendency to borrow the soldiers' magazines for use in a mission. When the MSF subcommander Kazuhira Miller was going to propose to Big Boss to create an Intel team for MSF, Big Boss jokingly asked if Miller was planning to advertise MSF in the "local gossip rags." In addition, Chico also leaked a photo of the AI weapon Chrysalis to a tabloid magazine.

Post-Peace Walker
By the 1980s-1990s, Big Boss had been made the subject of various popular magazines across the world at the time, due to his becoming something of a legendary icon to the world.



Raiden procured several magazines during the Big Shell Incident, providing him a method with which to distract enemy soldiers. Solid Snake, while disguised as Iroquois Pliskin, told Raiden that he read such magazines for their "educational value," while giving advice to him on their use. In addition, a magazine rack was on board the USS Discovery tanker.

During Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection, Solid Snake utilized Playboy magazines to distract PMC troops and also as a means of relaxation for his own benefit.

Although magazines fell out of use with cyborg soldiers, due to their emotion-suppressed nature, printed magazines were still read by non-enhanced personnel, such as the the check-in guard at Solis Space & Aeronautics, who read a Japanese anime magazine during Raiden's visit in 2018.

Behind the scenes
The Book or Magazine is a recurring item in the Metal Gear series, first appearing in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It is a placeable weapon that can be used to distract enemy personnel who discover it. In later games, certain characters are immune to the Book's full effect, such as Major Raikov and EVA in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, along with female soldiers, and soldiers with the "Artist" career, in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the 3D Photo Frame serves an identical function, as does the Stuffed puppy weapon in Metal Gear Online 3.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
In Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the Book's cover features Ellia, while the centerfold features Alexandra "Alex" Roivas. Both are playable characters in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, with the latter being the main protagonist of the game. The book is unique because it doesn't feature a traditional female model. Eternal Darkness 's developer was Silicon Knights, who also developed The Twin Snakes. In the latter, Alex can be seen holding the Winchester Model 1300 Defender shotgun on the centerfold's right page, which is one of the more powerful weapons in her arsenal in the same game. In Hal Emmerich's lab, there are various magazines spread across the floor and on the shelf, including a Metal Gear Solid comic, a magazine with the Eternal Darkness logo on it, and one detailing art from Alaska.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Sabra, a magazine featuring Japanese gravure models and articles geared toward young men, serves as the Book item in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The magazine was published from May 2000 to March 2010, with only special edition magazines remaining in publication since then. The Sabra models shown in the game are Akiyama Rina, Hanai Miri, Ookubo Mariko, Shimomura Mari, and Yabuki Haruna. The Book is assigned a weight of 0.1kg for the Backpack, in the Survival Viewer.

"A picture book for "gentlemen." Full of stunning photos of young female models."

- Book description in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

In addition to the Sabra magazines, other magazines, primarily gaming magazines that have Metal Gear Solid as the front cover issue, are seen within Groznyj Grad's library on a magazine rack. In addition, there were Metal Gear Solid magazines and a Playboy magazine in Graniny Gorki's Western portion of its basement.

If the player kills a soldier while they were reading a magazine, their ghosts will later reappear reading the magazine while fighting The Sorrow.

In the Nintendo 3DS remake, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, some magazines included in Graniny Gorki were issues of Nintendo Power. At least 11 magazine covers (the amount in the Japanese version) can be found in the background including magazines such as TV Bros., Popeye, Cut, Newtype, and the like. In addition, the magazine item itself was redone completely, featuring six bikini-clad women with colors of orange and white on the cover, as well as the title on top MGS SE 3D. According to Yuji Korekado on his Twitter account, the cover was derived from a cover for Hooters Japan magazine. The old Sabra magazine does appear at one point, however, when contacting EVA from the prison, see below:

Calling EVA shortly after escaping from the Prison area of Groznyj Grad, should the player have the book weapon in his/her possession up to the player's capture, will have EVA comment on the magazine and sarcastically referring to it as a "fine piece of literature" to Snake's embarrassment.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops features a mission in which the player can recruit a strong soldier for their unit from the Research Lab. Since he is physically indistinguishable from the other soldiers in the area, his only identifiable feature is that he carries magazines on his person. EVA serves as the magazine's centerfold in-game.

"An adult magazine packed with alluring photos. Perfect for those long, lonely nights on the battlefield."

- Magazine weapon description in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

In the expansion, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, another variety of magazine, called the Fashion magazine, was also included. Rather than distract the enemy, they are used to boost various soldiers' stats and leave them in a specific pose. In the Japanese version, although the magazine brands themselves don't appear in the game, soldiers can be obtained via passcode that represent Famitsu, Dengeki PlayStation, and Arms Magazine (the first two being gaming magazines, while the last is a military weapons and equipment magazine published in Japan).

"A must for today's fashion-conscious soldier, this magazine has the latest scoop on fabulous new poses. Once read, everybody gains its effect."

- Fashion Magazine description in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
The Playboy magazine is featured in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, along with a variety of "emotion magazines." The latter feature the Beauty and the Beast members on their covers, which cause enemy soldiers to well up with various emotions, or in the case of Haven Troopers, perform a salute. During multiple playthroughs, the emotion magazines will include articles using their beauty forms after the first playthrough.

"An adult magazine. Provides stress relief for men on the battlefield. Useful for distracting enemies and slipping by while they are occupied. Staring at one in first-person view curiously raises Snake's psyche..."

- Playboy weapon description in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

If the player turns the pages of either the Playboy or "emotion magazine" 100 times or more, the player will be awarded with the Rabbit codename, a reference to the fact that the mascot/logo of Playboy magazine is a bunny rabbit. Also, if the player downloaded the trophy patch and then exposed an enemy soldier to an emotion magazine, they'll unlock a trophy achievement called "emotion control."

Metal Gear Online
A specialized harness called the Magazine Carrier could be unlocked by the player for the right amount of points, carrying a magazine on the front and back called M.G. GAL (Metal Gear Gal), a magazine that was presumably a pornographic pinup magazine. However, the magazine was fake and could not be used. Instead, it was meant to highlight the trickster aspect of the player.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
The Solid, Liquid, Solidus, and Super magazines, in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, were originally the Weekly Famitsu, Dengeki PlayStation, Dengeki Games/GAMES Blitz, and Weekly Shonen Jump magazines, respectively, in the game's Japanese release. They were added in by Hideo Kojima as product placement, though these were changed for the international releases, presumably due to copyright issues. Their menu name was given as simply "Hobby magazine" with little distinction between either of the four.

On June 17, 2010, Kojima Productions made a special collaborative project with romantic comedy manga series Arakawa Under the Bridge where players could download three DLC T-shirts containing characters from within the series. It also supplies magazine data that replaces the cover with Volume 6 of the manga, although screenshots indicated that it was initially planned to be a separate item called "Comic Mag." The same DLC package containing Volume 6 magazine also contained a special magazine item based on the July 2010 issue of SF Magazine Like Volume 6, it replaced the regular MSF magazine (or Volume 6, if the player downloaded it already) with a different cover. Another DLC package, released on June 24, contained a magazine weapon based on Volume 8 of Arakawa Under the Bridge. Each magazine data costed 16 KB to download, and requires only one magazine data per game save. These DLC magazines are only available for the Japanese version of Peace Walker, presumably for the same reasons as why the Weekly Famitsu, Dengeki PlayStation, Dengeki Games/GAMES Blitz, and Weekly Shonen Jump magazines were changed in the overseas versions of the game.

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
 * Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
 * Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker