Metal Gear

A soldier meant to hide rather than shoot — in 1987 that sounded almost like heresy, and yet it was this very idea that gave birth to one of the most influential genres in video game history. Metal Gear was not born on a console, as many would expect, but on the Japanese MSX2 computer, with a then still unknown designer named Hideo Kojima at its cradle.

The game's key mechanic came partly out of necessity and partly out of genius. The MSX2 hardware could not render the number of enemies and the amount of gunfire that a classic action game would require, so Kojima turned the problem into a virtue: instead of blasting your way through, you have to avoid the enemies. You sneak through the Outer Heaven base, dodge the guards' fields of view, search for cards and items and advance more with your brain than with the trigger. That is how stealth was born as a full-fledged gameplay principle.

For its time it was a remarkably thoughtful design. The game forced you to think about movement, about sound, about where the enemy was looking and when it was safe to slip past. Layered on top were inventory management and the gradual unlocking of new areas, which turned a simple „action“ experience into something far more strategic and tense.

The historical value of Metal Gear can hardly be overstated. It became the cornerstone of a franchise from which the Metal Gear Solid phenomenon and Kojima's entire career as one of the world's most acclaimed game authors later grew. The fact that many people first met the later installments or the botched NES conversion only underlines how important it is to return to the original on the MSX2.

Playing the first Metal Gear today means seeing a great idea in its embryonic form — still without cinematic scenes and without fame, but with the pure essence of why it pays to be invisible. It is a lesson in game design written by a man who turned a hardware limitation into a revolution.

Why play it: To experience the complete birth of the stealth genre from the hands of Hideo Kojima and to understand how one of the most influential ideas in the history of games arose from a hardware limit.