General MacArthur once famously said “old soldiers never die; they just fade away,” but in Solid Snake’s case he may face both fates on the same battlefield.
Creative Staff
Story: Project Itoh
Translation: Nathan Collins
What They Say:
Solid Snake is a soldier and part of a worldwide nanotechnology network known as the Sons of the Patriots. Time is running out for Snake, however, as he will soon succumb to the FOXDIE virus, but not before spreading the disease to nearly everyone he encounters – in essence becoming a walking biological weapon. Snake will need every advantage he can get, as the SOP network is about to be hacked by his old enemy Liquid Ocelot, and whoever controls SOP controls the world.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The soldier known as Solid Snake has had a very long history with warfare from his first introduction where he took his first steps toward becoming a legend when, as the newest member of a secret and highly skilled special mission team known as FOXHOUND, he is sent to infiltrate a South American fortress known as Outer Haven in order to rescue a captured member of the squad. He discovered however during the mission that he had been lied to and the man who commanded the special ops team, Big Boss, was actually the power behind Outer Haven and he intended to use the power he had accumulated as well as a giant bipedal robot named Metal Gear- a frightening weapon which possesses the ability to launch nuclear weapons from anywhere making it a weapon of mass destruction- to craft his ideal world.
Despite his apparent victory over Big Boss on that day Snake later discovered that the genie that is the idea of the Metal Gear was now well and truly out of the box and he would wind up encountering its successors over many years and many battlefields as he was often the only person who could be counted on to stop it. This would be problematic enough for any soldier but each encounter seemed to lead to bigger mysteries as Snake started to learn just what the secret history was behind Big Boss and how the man was unbelievably linked to his own fate, both past and future. When Snake was dispatched to a new battlefield on an Alaskan island known as Shadow Moses to try to stop another generation of Metal Gear he learned the shocking truth that he is a clone of the Big Boss, but even more stunning was that he was not the only clone of the man as he encountered another “brother” known as Liquid Snake. Liquid was believed killed when a virus known as FOXDIE that had been injected into Snake that was designed to target those with the Big Boss’ genetic pattern appeared to fell him, though Snake discovered soon after that while the virus wasn’t immediately fatal to him it was merely a matter of time before he to succumbs to its effects as a fellow “child” of Big Boss.
It was during the mission on Shadow Moses that Snake first meet Dr. Hal “Otacon” Emmerich, a young anime obsessed genius who was behind the program that helped design the Metal Gear REX under false pretenses and whose guilt at the events that take place on Shadow Moses had him ally with Snake, eventually becoming the best friend that the soldier had as the two become partners in trying to rid the world of the various sins that are related to their existences and the actions the men undertook. Between the time of Shadow Moses and the opening of the events of this book 9 years have passed and the FOXDIE virus inside Snake has eaten away at his physic leaving the man trapped in a body that has aged far beyond its actual years. As if his physical status weren’t bad enough, Snake is further burdened by the knowledge that the virus inside his body is mutating and within less than a year it will turn into a plague that will spread to all of mankind. Seemingly at a point where he should be able to proclaim that he earned his rest having done enough for king and country fate has one last nasty twist for him as all the events that have surrounded his life are being spun together as the people behind the various Metal Gears and Snake’s own existence have launched a plan to take over the world- and standing in their way appears to be a reincarnation of Liquid Snake who has plans of his own to co-opt their machinations to his own end.
When the world calls needing him to save it one last time Snake finds he can’t just walk away despite being in far less than ideal condition and he takes up arms one last time, though this time he won’t be alone as the various friends he has made over the years will assemble to help him, though not all of them will seem to be acting toward the same goal and Snake may find that his trust at times is misplaced. With time running out on both his body and to stop those who have been pulling strings behind the scenes for decades Snake is going to face perhaps his greatest challenge ever, but in doing so he may go find that beyond granting salvation to a world on the brink of being lost that he will discover the whole truth behind his life and that of his progenitor and the secrets that have long been hidden from the light of day.
One of the hardest things for a popular property to do is to try to take its success in one medium and replicate it in an entirely different medium and in the case of video games this often seems to be doubly hard as even the transitions to other visual based media, be it comics, TV or movies, has a long and rather inglorious at times track record where successes are measured in percentages of attempts- and not high percentages either. Part of this comes from the difference in storytelling methods that shows off the difference between an active and passive medium (though in some games with incredibly long cut scenes one might feel they are sitting in a mixture of the two types) and some of it just comes from the conventions that have sprung up around videogames over the years that won’t work credibly in a different form of storytelling (items that heal instantly all damage or incredibly convenient yet not at all realistically placed item drops for example).
This difference in approach to mechanics is further compounded by the fact that when playing a videogame the gamer can get so wrapped up in the action on the screen and trying to survive it that the mind has little time to question some of the whys behind events and which can be blurred in part and covered by the game creators in retrospect thanks to an adrenaline buzz the moment can create on screen (which also can and is used in many action movies to get past some rather thin logic). The practical approach of this means that trying to use events that lay out in a story in a game don’t always translate as well to film for example and the transition to the printed word can often be worse as it is harder to create an overwhelming and distracting narrowing of vision that can come with the player actively trying to just survive the stage without having time to process all the events.
These factors working against an adaption from a videogame to something else, in this case a novel, are made worse by the fact that the Metal Gear franchise has gotten progressively more convoluted over the years seemingly in an attempt to outdo its previous stories but the practical result is that trying to write an adaption of the final entry into the franchises cannon that will be accessible to both those who have played every (or at least the main) game(s) in the series while also making the book friendly to new readers becomes a Herculean task. To try to accomplish this the author made what is probably the best move in using Snake’s friend Hal “Otacon” Emmerich as the narrator as he guides the reader through the events of the story as he witnessed (or in a few cases later was informed of) them through the eyes of a stealth robot that accompanies Snake through the story. While the premise of this may be a bit farfetched the upswing is that the author now has the ability to use a rather well worn (because it is effective) literary device to infuse some emotions behind the events described rather than trying for a third person or object narrative stand point which would have left the reader far more in the dark and emotionally removed from the character as Snake isn’t one who is given to long soliloquies of exposition to get the reader up to speed or to mention what thoughts are going through his head at any given moment.
The problem is that even with this technique the story still has a tendency to get horribly jumbled as the author often attempts to work in some historical points from previous games to help the reader get a handle on things but the complex (and sometimes ridiculously so) nature that the stories built up over the years often leaves the reader swinging in the wind without a really firm place to attach to unless they are already familiar with some of these exploits. One can’t help but wonder if having a summary of each game (written as historical context in the tone of the novel) might not have played out better in the long run as it would have provided a way to reference events without breaking up the pace and flow of events that the novel is trying to develop for the current events by introducing them as things go along.
Even with such a change to get the readers up to speed one would still be left having to deal with the overwhelming feeling of coincidence and absurdity that comes from a number of events in the book as characters appear and disappear at the most opportune times (and even the explanation for some of these events given at the end of the book still doesn’t serve to make them anymore believable outside the video game environment) and some of the biggest moments in the book play off from what were almost certainly some major visual treats for the player but which in this format not only don’t carry the same punch they actually come off as often ridiculous in the extreme.
In contrast to these over the top action moments though the author seems to have a very strong grasp of the emotions that he want the characters to display and how to best bring them forward as can be seen through the eyes of his narrator and what he wants to say about the characters even in the face of the most outlandish moments the story brings. As one reads the subtleties and complexities that the author gives to Otacon and from there the ones he projects onto the people around him in the story one can’t help but wish that rather than an adaptation of someone else’s tale that the author had been free to tell his own story as just from the parts he does get to expound on one gets a tale where the characters are more the driving force with the peculiar moments that the game team created to satisfy their primary audience used as a reason to explore the characters more than as the main spectacle itself. With such an odd mix at play the book likely won’t be a hit outside those already familiar with the game but even those without such a background who do venture into it anyway will find some wonderful characters and motivations in the midst of a sometimes amazing, sometimes bizarrely impenetrable (at least to newer fans anyway) plot.
In Summary:
The various plots and masterminds behind them as well as those who fought against them for their own purposes over the many years of the Metal Gear franchise and stories are all coming to a crucible while at the same time the only man who has even temporarily stood in their way in the past is suffering heavily from the effects of his encounters over the years. With time running out for him will he find the ability to stand up and save the world one last time or will his expiration mark the end of humanity as it is known? With impossibly high stakes Solid Snake will traverse the globe trying to finally untangle all the knots that are related to the circumstances of his birth, and to do so he will need all the help he can get as he no longer possesses the prowess he worked so hard to build while his enemies are seemingly as strong as ever. Will the curtain close on this legend finding he has achieved his greatest victory or will his failings leave him with no legacy for those left behind? In order to tell this tale in a new medium Project Itoh will show the events through the eyes of one of the few people who calls Solid Snake a friend as he shows the power and toll that these events will take on this hero as he faces his greatest- and last- challenge as this time failure may not be an option but that doesn’t mean it won’t be inevitable anyway.
Content Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B-
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: June 19th, 2012
MSRP: $15.99
