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.

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 Takeover 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 Sentinels 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 U.S.S. 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.

Revengeance


In 2018, Raiden, during his missions for Maverick against Desperado, utilized 3D Photo Frames containing a scantily-clad woman in a similar manner to how he previously used regular magazines in 2009, as a distraction method, as cyborgs do not read magazines due to their emotion-suppressed nature. Printed magazines still exist to some capacity, with the check-in guard for Solis reading a Japanese anime magazine that was implied to be softcore pornography.

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

- Book description in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

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.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
In Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the book's centerfold features Alexandra Roivas, the protagonist of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, rather than featuring a traditional female model. Eternal Darkness 's developer was Silicon Knights, who also developed The Twin Snakes. In Hal Emmerich's lab, there are various magazines spread across the floor and on the shelf, including a Metal Gear Solid comic and one detailing art from Alaska.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Weight: 0.1 kg. 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.

In addition to the Sabra magazines, other magazines, primarily gaming magazines that have Metal Gear Solid as the front cover issue, were 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. 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.

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 Unlock Arms Magazine (the first two being gaming magazines, while the last is a military weapons and equipment magazine published in Japan).



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.

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 is presumably a pornographic pinup magazine. However, the magazine is fake and cannot be used, being used only 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 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, as well as a magazine weapon based on Volume 6 of the manga 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 (although the latter isn't a completely new magazine as much as the regular MSF magazine with a different cover, as evidenced by the model viewer description and weapon name remaining the same). Another DLC package, released on June 24, contained a magazine weapon based on Volume 8 of Arakawa Under the Bridge. These DLC magazines are only available for the Japanese release of Peace Walker, presumably for the same reasons as why the Weekly Famitsu, Dengeki PlayStation, Dengeki Games/GAMES Blitz, and Weekly Shonen magazines were changed in the international version of the games.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
"A display that uses stealth camouflage technology to refract light into a 3D image. It'll take more than a girly magazine to to get the attention of emotion-suppressed cyborgs; this should do the trick."

- 3D Photo Frame description in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Although not technically magazines, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has a similar item, 3D Photo Frames, that carried out a similar purpose, which was revealed during the Boot Camp session at Santa Monica (although not covered in the Bootcamp videos), and eventually shown during gameplay in a January 31 gameplay trailer depicting stealth gameplay elements and AR mode. According to Kojima Productions producer Yuji Koreikado in his Twitter account, the woman in the 3D Photo Frame was the Type A Female Soldier from Metal Gear Online. An actual magazine does, however, make a brief appearance in the beginning of Chapter R-07.

In-game descriptions
"A picture book for "gentlemen." Full of stunning photos of young, female models."

- Book description in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

"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

"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

"A popular monthly magazine jam-packed with excitement on every page. It has a massive fan base that stretches all the way from the southern part of the U.S. to the Panama Canal, and a circulation of 1.1 million copies per month. One especially popular feature is the pen pal exchange. Some CIA mercenaries and MSF members are known to be avid readers of this mag. Put it in front of them and they just might drop everything else..."

- MGS Magazine weapons description in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"A weekly pulp magazine filled to the brim with outlandish and absurd sci-fi/horror stories. Roughly half of the stories are about men fighting Martians and are written by amateurs. Not to be taken too seriously. Lurid and sexually suggestive themes are a given."

- Solid Magazine weapons description in the English version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"A monthly pulp magazine that features mature content aimed at literary types. The real-life travel logs submitted by soldiers from around the world are a must read. Also boasts an ample supply of scantily-clad pin-ups."

- Liquid Magazine weapons description in the English version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"A quarterly men's lifestyle magazine aimed at discriminating adults. Features include articles on news, politics, and special interests such as the ever popular "bonsai" corner. Naturally, it also features its fare share of "adult content.""

- Solidus Magazine weapons description in the English version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"Bimonthly fasion magazine for women. Features articles that satisfy the needs of women soldiers who want to look good even on the harshest of battlefields. Pictoral spreads featuring lovely models in fashionable outfits have earned this periodical a strong following of male readers. (photo by Famitsu Wave DVD)"

- Super Magazine weapons description in the English version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

"A monthly cooking magazine, wildly popular among would-be gourmet chefs. This month's special feature focuses on a cooking show broadcast in over 20 countries worldwide and a runaway ratings hit. The magazine showcases a number of sumptuous recipes from the show with mouth-watering full-page color photos. Even a casual glance will leave you drooling. Whoever owned this copy apparently used it in the kitchen, as the rich aroma of food permeates every page. The scent might even be enough to attract some hungry wild animals..."

- Cookbook/Tomeat magazine description in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

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