Well it wont work, you swines!
Whats that?Suikoden remasters?
Well, it still wont work!Metal Gear Solid on Steam, you say?
MGS1 has, of course, been available viaGOGfor quite a while now.
And MGS1 is still dramatic, still goofy, still alternately comedically overwrought and genuinely touching.
We might best describe MSG1s tone as haunted Tom Clancy.
So far, soSplinter Cell.
The slanted camera angles.
The slimy, grey-green environments.
Things like Meryls clavicle that looks like a badly stitched up wound, or Bakers ghoulish non-face.
These werent blanks I filled in with my tiny 1998 mind until they looked likeCyberpunk 2077or whatever.
These were things I remember clearly, and just accepted as part of the games whole schtick.
Not for nothing, that tone has more in common with Silent Hill than it does Resident Evil.
A creeping, atmospheric, and ultimately tragic brand ofhorror.
Both the soundtrack and voice acting go a long way to prop up the creepy unreality of Shadow Moses.
Take the DARPA Chief.
The man sounds absolutely broken.
This isnt a slick spy thriller shootout followed by a tense bomb disarming.
The whole thing is too medieval, too analogue.
Ocelot isnt a smooth operator, hes a showman, a camp theatre conductor.
Kojima, you sly dog!).
It isnt scary that Mantis reads my memory card and vibrates my controller (or, did anyway).
Its actually quite cute, and thats the scary part.
Mantis being cute is somehow more threatening than his actual threats.
And its here the slightly magical unreality of the whole thing starts to come into focus.
I find the distinction between horror and magical realism an interesting one to try and unpick.
To use a neater comparison, then: magical realism is dreamlike, horror is nightmarish.
Both are flaps of the same cardboard box, but they point in opposite directions.
Again, its that disarming thing.
The cavernous, oddly empty military complex.
The sense of being incredibly out of your depth at all times.
Lets hope Kojima and Del Toro finally get that collab off the ground at some point, eh?
I reckon the mans got at least one more horror all-timer in him.
