"dreaming in an empty room"
by Tim Rogers, 30.07.2004

Japanese superstar novelist Haruki Murakami once spoke on the creativity of the Japanese people. As much as I would have liked to, I didn't hear him speak about it in person. So let me paraphrase his main ideas:

"The Japanese are not, by nature, creative. Those Japanese who are creative are quite creative. Those who want to be creative because they don't want a job in a company can only imitate the truly creative."

Look at any of numerous Gundam(n) clones. Like Yu-Gi-Oh , Digimon , and Monster Rancher (the TV shows) compared to Pokémon .

In a way, Sonic the Hedgehog to Mario.
Legend of Dragoon to Final Fantasy VII .
                 The original Mother to Dragon Quest . . . ?

Mother set the mark for postmodern games. It was obviously postmodern. Mother is a Yoko Ono teacup-cut-in-half. It's Takako Minekawa's song "Kangaroo Pocket Calculator," in which the only lyrics are: "47 is a magical number. 47 plus 2 equals 49. 47 times 2 equals 94. 49 and 94. 94 and 49. The relationship between 47 and 2: It's . . . magic."

We hear this, and think: "Funny. Cute."

Metal Gear Solid 2 is another level of postmodernity. Metal Gear Solid 2 is Yasuharu Konishi's seven-minute remix of the one-minute "Son of Godzilla" march. For four minutes, we hear a Brazilian woman narrate a Godzilla movie in Portuguese, with ambient sounds in the background. For three minutes, we hear the Godzilla march, techno beats laid down in the background.

We hear this, and think: "What the hell?"

There's something . . . wrong with the picture. You don't understand the motives. Maybe you're not supposed to.

I won't dare say that Metal Gear Solid 2 was "flawlessly crafted." Its story was not "well-constructed." It wasn't supposed to be.

That's the nature of the postmodern: to attack the societal/literary dogma as it has been written since the beginning of time: "All stories must make sense, all love must be true, all endings must be happy and easy to understand."

MGS is not easy to understand. It gets downright bizarre. It'll make you throw up your hands and scream, "What the hell?"

Metal Gear Solid 2 in the beginning:

A lone vigilante spy jumping off a bridge, boarding an ocean liner, and beginning a mission.

Metal Gear Solid 2 in the end:

A giant robot, a super spy in chains, a guy with a sword, Doctor Octopus, a lady with an enormous gun, all standing on the deck of a ship within viewing distance of the New York City skyline.

In all honesty, it was a little too X-men-like for my tastes.

Still, confusion didn't make me dislike the game. People who dislike Metal Gear Solid 2 because they don't understand it remind me of my dad. He can't stand to watch a subtitled movie.

They remind me of some of the students I taught English to in Japan. Afraid to make mistakes. Afraid of what they don't understand.

The postmodern attacks people who are afraid of what they don't understand. It says, "Hey, you! If you hate this game so much, why are you still playing?"

(Okay, so the gameplay is perfect. We've already covered that.)

One could say you're still playing because there are individual elements strewn throughout the mess that intrigue you.

Such individual scenes that got me. Fighting Vamp -- a vampire, for god's sake, a vampire -- sniping, taking down the harrier. Fighting Fatman -- a bomb-happy fat guy on rollerblades, for God's sake, rollerblades. At those times, I was in the action movie.

The whole scene with the parrot. The scene you hate most. The first time you watched it, you couldn't turn away, could you? The confession of semi-incest (his stepmother, people -- step mother). The eerie pixilated flashbacks to the first game. The romantic interludes . . .

TURN THE GAME CONSOLE OFF NOW!!!

This is modern Japanese literature, people.

As Japanese game developers get the power to make games better than movies, you can bet about 25% of them are going to be like this.

I'd suggest you start reading up. Haruki Murakami is a good place to start. Go to Borders, grab A Wild Sheep Chase , and see if it grabs you.

Then again, there's an all-important question. A negative answer could prove me both wrong and stupid. That question is this: Did Kojima intend to make the game this way?

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