We’re rocking a pretty great Metal Gear Solid EXCLUSIVE in this December’s Loot Gaming and you’re going to go insane for it. It got me thinking, do people know as much about Metal Gear Solid as I do? Well, you’re about to know even more.
1. Yoji Shinkawa is the reason Hal Emmerich has his lithe figure because originally Director and Writer, Hideo Kojima, wanted him to be portly and in love with chocolate.
2. Kojima was intensely inspired by American movies and he based a lot of his earlier Metal Gear Solid character types on actors and figures in Escape from New York. This is why Snake told Raiden that his name was Iroquois Pliskin, after Snake Pliskin from Escape from New York.
(Konami)
3. There are a lot of strong Titanic references in Metal Gear Solid 2, as the main character’s actual name is Jack and his girlfriend’s name is Rose. You can also take note of a tanker sinking in the beginning of the game, thus being the starting point for the story.
4. Metal Gear Solid 2 was rushed out to be sure that it would be released in 2001 which is the Year of the Snake on the Chinese Calendar.
5. The third game in the series, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was very firmly inspired by Sean Connery’s James Bond films. In fact, the theme song ‘Snake Eater‘ is meant to be a call-back to those iconic Bond themes.
(Konami)
6. The character of The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is modeled after actress Charlotte Rampling. Which, now that I know that, I can’t unsee it.
7. People were terribly confused by why Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots featured a much more aged Snake, deemed Old Snake. Interestingly enough, they also didn’t make Old Snake fight some new type of Metal Gear. In this timeline, there wasn’t much more they could do so they turned to show that humans were far more of a threat than the machines they could create.
8. Metal Gear Solid 4 had the widest assortments of weapons available up to that point, featuring 70 different weapons you could obtain and use.
(Konami)
9. Hideo Kojima was adamant about changing out the voice of Solid Snake from David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland. This comes from the fact that Hayter was, in his own words, always a second or third choice whenever he tried to re-cast Snake in every title. He tried to get Kurt Russell to no avail for Metal Gear Solid 3 and couldn’t, so Hayter returned. When Sutherland finally showed interest, Hayter did not get called back in. This heavily offended Hayter as he thought it was bad for business to change a voice in a game that was so iconic to the series. Trust me, us fans — we missed him also.
10. Kojima was heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rope in which consistent and continuous filming of scenes provided no jumps or cuts. If you watch cut-scenes, they rarely cut from face to face and that was thanks to a love for old Hitchcock film making.
