Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24486170-20140912154621/@comment-3131736-20140912191912

 No you are not alone. ;-)

 I’m 28 and played MGS1 for the first time when I was 13. MG is the greatest work of fiction I have ever seen, by far.

 I think that, above all, Kojima wants to show people things that they rarely see in other works of fiction. Given that he’s such a great James Bond-fan, he could have easily written another average agent-saves-the-world-spy-story, but that was not good enough for him. He wants to entertain people in a smart way. He has a strong dedication to realism in terms of politics, history and bio-chemistry because he’s interested in how the world works. The unrealistic characters (Mantis, Vamp, Volgin, Cobra-Unit…) are only unrealistic for coolness-reasons.

 Characters are, for the most part, not only well flashed-out (Otacon, Mei Ling, Raiden, Emma…), but also hold different opinions on certain issues and their disputes do not get solved because the player is expected to think about these issues for himself. I also think this is the reason for Kojima never talking about the storylines in detail (then again, this might also happen due to him only being asked dumb, unimportant questions by fans and media (“Who’s your fav char ?” “Can we have co-op with Big Boss and Ocelot ?”)

 Example: In MGS1, when calling Campbell after Wolf dies, he and Naomi will be sad that the US abandoned the Kurds after the Gulf War and say that growing up on a battlefield made Wolf become a killer due to her unhappy life. Solid however disagrees, because he thinks people are responsible for their own fate and that things like karma are just excuses for giving up.

 The characters which demonstrate the overall tone of MGS the best, are IMO Nastasha and Rosemary.

 I also love how Kojima always lets unexpected things happen and how he tries to test people’s intellect. My favourite scene in MGS1 is Houseman arresting Campbell. Throughout the game, Campbell will tell Solid multiple times that the secretary of defense is in command, but Solid won’t listen. It’s utterly brilliant because Kojima always hints at twists.

 Example: In MGS1, when Solid is in the elevator with the stealth soldiers, Otacon doesn’t call and starts screaming right away. The dialogue is set up so that the player is supposed to realize why the weight-limit-warning was triggered.

 In MGS2, when the Colonel starts talking nonsense, Kojima wants to test if the player realizes that the Colonel is actually not Campbell, but an AI which is being attacked by Emma’s virus.

 The series is amazingly well-detailed, intellectual, free of chlichée and even features really beautiful and warm-hearted lessons on how to live your life,   it’s just that most people are too shallow and ignorant to notice.

 I’ll leave it at that for now.