RETRO GAMING This 1998 game proved that video games can be art

A revolution on the gray PlayStation

While competing games like Final Fantasy VII impressed audiences with pre-rendered CGI movies, Metal Gear Solid took it a step further. Hideo Kojima, a man who openly admitted that he is “70 percent made of movies” and who dreamed of a career as a film director in his youth, used the game’s own engine to handle all the cutscenes. With this, he created a seamless transition between gameplay and story, drawing the game into the world in an unprecedented way. Every camera angle, close-up and dialogue exchange was carefully orchestrated with cinematic precision.

The story followed Solid Snake, a retired special forces soldier sent to infiltrate a nuclear facility in Alaska to prevent a terrorist threat. But beneath the surface of the classic spy thriller, Kojima has slipped surprisingly mature themes: genetic engineering, the horrors of nuclear war, post-traumatic stress and questions of free will. All this was explained through hours of professional voice acting, where David Hayter set the standard for the industry and became the iconic voice of Solid Snake. The game sold more than seven million copies and cemented the PlayStation’s status as a console for an adult audience.

A director who played with games

What elevated Metal Gear Solid beyond “interactive movie” status was Kojima’s ingenious use of the video game medium itself as a storytelling tool. The most famous example is the fight against Psycho Mantis, a telepathic villain who literally broke the “fourth wall” between games. Mantis “čreads minds” by analyzing data stored on the console’s memory card, commenting on what other Konami games it plays. owns. At a crucial moment, he used the vibration function to physically move the controller on the table, creating the shocking sensation that his power was moving. real. Decision? Gameč had to physically dig out the controller and move it to another slot on the console so Mantis couldn’t “mute” his movements.

That was not the only such moment. To get in touch with the character Meryl, the gameč had to find her radio frequency which was “hidden” on the back of the actual, physical CD case. Kojima didn’t just tell the story; he forced the player to become an active participant, erasing the boundaries between the digital and the real world.

The paradox of acceptance

The game was a unanimous critical and commercial success. Critics called it “the best game ever made”, and its popularity spawned a whole host of “stealth” games, influencing series like Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed. And yet, in spite ofč after all, wider culture and traditional artistic circles did not take it seriously.

The problem was Kojima’s unique style, a bizarre mix of heavy political drama, philosophical monologues and absurd Japanese humor. One moment the game confronts you with the moral consequences of cloning and the protagonist’s existential crisis, while the next it has you hiding from guards in a cardboard box or fighting a shaman who controls a flock of ravens. That combination of cartoon and realistic environment was too eccentric to be experienced as “high art”. It took decades for Metal Gear Solid to receive the recognition it deserved, culminating in its inclusion in the exhibition “The Art of Video Games” at the prestigious Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was the final confirmation of what gamers knew back in 1998: video games are not just toys. They can be art.