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

I'm guessing Kojima is one of those rare "creative" Japanese people. He's a Haruki Murakami, an Akira Toriyama, a Yu Suzuki, a . . . dare I say it . . . a Shigeru Miyamoto.

In case you can't tell, my position is this:
         Kojima intended Metal Gear Solid 2 to be as wacky as it was.

Here's my evidence:

Haruki Murakami says that his novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicle , started with one idea: a guy in his kitchen, cooking spaghetti. Where it went in the following 607 pages, well, he didn't know until he started writing. That's freeform postmodernity, and it works, when you're feeling wacky.

I've written stories like that, and they turn out just fine. One of them even won me a scholarship to a writer's conference a while back. So these Wind-up Bird-style setups are fine for a story or a novel, where one person is responsible.

They don't work in group situations. They don't work in journalism projects where you want to do a breakdown of the morality models of reality TV shows and your partners are three sorority girls who want to do an "exposé" of lingerie ads -- "They're made for men! Look at them! They show girls wearing lingerie!'

{ . . . My partners were named Holly, Chrissy, and Angie.}

Something tells me, seeing as more than a dozen people were behind Metal Gear Solid 2 , that the postmodernity was actually quite thought-out.

Then again, Kojima, being the big cheese around his team, can do more of what he wants than I could in a room of sorority girls with big water bottles.

They love water bottles. They love taking big sips, making that cracking plastic sound, whenever I try to say something.

That's another thing altogether, though.

Ahem. Postmodernity.

Look at Shigesato Itoi, the producer of Mother and Mother 2 .

The postmodernity in his case came from satire. "Satire? In a videogame?" people were thinking.

Metal Gear Solid 2 's postmodernity is in its structure.

See, Snake is a loner until the end of MGS1. Whether Meryl lives or Otacon lives, he's not alone at the end.

In Metal Gear Solid 2 , we see a guy who's a loner in a different way. Yes, Snake is always there -- and maybe it was Kojima's intention to make Snake even more beloved by not letting us control him. Maybe it was Kojima's intention to make us feel the great difference between the two characters. Snake is a hardened military stereotype. Raiden is just a guy.

Raiden reminds me of the two main characters of the film "Chungking Express," by Wong Kar-wai.

Remember when Rose says to Raiden (paraphrase): "I've been to your apartment. Your room is empty. No pictures, no posters -- just a bed."

And Raiden defends himself, "I only use that room for sleeping."

Kojima is saying something about something with Metal Gear Solid 2 , and saying it with such boldness that maybe you don't notice it.

And what is he saying this "something" about?

The US military?

Sure, I'll buy that. Hideo Kojima's done his share of reading. And I'm not just talking Tom Clancy.

Is he saying this "something" about US Special Forces agents? Navy SEALS? That they're the kind of people to have empty rooms used "just for sleeping"?

Sure, I'll buy that, too.

However, seeing as Metal Gear Solid 2 is just a recreation of Metal Gear Solid , which is, essentially, just a videogame, it's safer to say this:

Snake is a person .

In Metal Gear Solid , we played as this person called Snake.

In Metal Gear Solid 2 , we play as Raiden, a newcomer, a loner with an empty bedroom back home, who's currently going through a training mission based on the events of another game.

Raiden -- Jack -- is a videogame character.

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