Metal Gear Solid 3: Through the eyes of a Snake
by Daan Leysen, 18.09.2004

I've always thought it was obvious that the 'Metal Gear Solid' series was about passing something on using the "magic of the digital age" (videogames in this case). There have always been moral messages in these games and I'm certain that 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater' will be no exception. Now I think the main question is: what will this game have to tell us? Well, I think it will show us the "messy and sad history" of Metal Gear and Big Boss "by its light".

I think that line in the beginning of the trailer meant something, it didn't just mean that the game would take us back to the birth of Metal Gear and the experiences of Big Boss, I think it meant that we'll get to see a coloured version of this history which will mainly focus on the ideals Big Boss had - hence reading the messy and sad history by its light. What the differences will be between what actually happened and the version we are given, I do not know, and I don't have any proof of what I believe, but there are a few things that I think deserve some attention.

All we know so far about the first Metal Gear, about Big Boss in his earlier years, is information that in the game was probably given through military records etc. Who was (presumably) in control when that information got to Solid Snake (and to the player)? The Patriots.

I think that whatever went down in the 60's was not to be known, a lot of information was probably altered if not erased, the puzzle has been given a different shade and several pieces have been missing. The story - how Solid Snake (and thus the player) knows it - is but a vague representation of what happened, we're seeing history by its only (and maybe artificial) light.

But that's not all, what I meant by saying that we'll get to see a coloured and maybe slightly altered version of the story is that I think we're actually going to see this story through the eyes of Solid Snake. He now knows all he could find out about "Les Enfants Terribles" and the events that lead to that point, he knows Big Boss to a certain extend (and he's his own flesh and blood after all) so I suppose he does have a perception of what happened. We do not know what happened, no one knows, all the facts were probably altered or coloured long before they were released to anyone else in any way (whether by The Patriots or by any other organisation), as Solid Snake said in the last cut-scene of 'Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty': "There is no such thing as absolute reality, most of what they call real is actually fiction." In short, I believe that we will see the story how Solid Snake imagined it, and who could imagine it better than a living, breathing recreation of Big Boss.

This would also explain all the look-a-likes in the trailer. If Solid Snake was to imagine what the CO of Big Boss looked like, I suppose he'd think of someone like Roy Campbell, same for many of the other characters. When one tries to recreate a story in his mind that he himself did not witness, he tends to identify many aspects of that story with aspects of his own experiences, his own stories.

I do not think we'll ever know what exactly happened, all we'll get to see is what we can make up out of the information we're given (and the information Solid Snake was given). I think this game will recreate the story of Big Boss, it won't tell it how it was for that information is long gone, it will show us the idea we should have about this history. This also makes every bit of the story essential, if you recreate a story using only what mattered (the ideals, perhaps a more romantic view of certain events and characters) you can easily stress that which you want to pass on, and I think that's what it's all about.

No facts, no absolute reality, but a recreation of a story that has been forgotten, a story again seen through the eyes of a snake.

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