Review of Metal Gear Solid (Boss Fight Books) by Ashly and Anthony Burch

Not long ago I got the Humble Bundle for the Boss Fight Books. I’ve got a huge backlog of game design books to get through, hopefully I can make a dent in it this summer. So of all the books I got, this is one of the games I’ve had experience with. Granted, it was nearly 15 years ago, I didn’t even play it on the original hardware (my friend introduced the game to me by downloading the ROM and its emulator on my PC. So a lot of my memories of this game are rather sparse, but I remembered just enough to make this book make sense.

So I read Metal Gear Solid by Ashly and Anthony Burch. I found that this book had a very different tone than the previous books from the series (as I read Derek Yu’s Spelunky and Daniel Lisi’s World of Warcraft). With the two authors, they decide to split into their separate thoughts, and frequently engage in a dialogue (sometimes just in the footnotes). This fourth-wall breaking was interesting, perhaps even a little refreshing. At times, it felt awkward (maybe a little too personal as they are siblings), but most of the time it was a pleasant way to engage with the text and the game.

Overall, this game did have some thoughtful analysis. It broke down various components of the game from its characters to its story, and outlined their strengths and weaknesses. It also included a lot of personal history that the authors had with the game, their feelings and adoration of the game, while also critiquing it as necessary. I think this is the kind of analysis I really want from these kinds of books: personal experiences that also break down objectively what works and what doesn’t in the game.

Games are played by people, not machines, so naturally there should be some human flavor to the review. And realistically, every review or analysis is subjective, so it is a delicate balance of embracing that while also still attempting to be empirical. In the end, I guess I wish I knew more about the game so that I could follow along some of the analysis a little better, so really that is my fault. I know that I have made that critique before (wanting something to be more targeting fans instead of non-players), so I can’t really hold it against the authors.

For the thoughtful analysis, fourth-wall breaking, and unique dialogue between authors, I rate this book four out of five hearts.

The Game Boy: 30 years later

This month (July) is the 30th anniversary of the North American release of the Game Boy, (which was released in Japan in April). This past April there were a lot of editorial articles on the anniversary of this classic console.  As my research interests are in video game nostalgia, I took time to read many of these articles and found them to be enjoyable to learn more about the history of the release of this console, as well as random insights about its library of games.

As I was born in the same year as the Game Boy, I didn’t have much experience with it. But I did have a neighbor who introduced me to most of my video game experiences, and he had an Original Game Boy that I played from time to time. The only game I remember playing on it was the Looney Tunes game, and how I would attempt to get past the falling boulders and never really get that far into the game, no matter how many times I tried.

My first gaming experiences though did come in the transition phase, in between the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Color. I was caught up in the Pokemon craze in 1997, and played a lot of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow Version. I honestly can’t remember if I owned my own copy, I think that I just played my brothers’ cartridges. I do know that in my Pokemon obsession, I was later introduced to a Japanese ROM of Gold/Silver at that same neighbor’s house. We had somehow found a preliminary strategy guide of some sorts (in my memory it was very short, very terse, and didn’t mention much about the actual game play), and were trying to compare our notes about what the English primer said and what we were experiencing in this totally Japanese game. I think we even found fan-translations of the ROM that partially inserted some English into the game. We were incredibly hyped and eager to play the game that summer, and couldn’t wait until it’s release in North America.

Which then led to my owning of Pokemon Gold Version. That was my game, and I poured my soul into it on our family Game Boy Color (the common purple edition). On the Game Boy Color I also played War Locked, but really Pokemon was my favorite and main game. And to me, while I later would continue to play video games on handheld consoles (with a later GBA and DS Lite), my memories of the Game Boy and the Game Boy Color are inextricably tied and enmeshed with Pokemon. I really only played the later on the former, so to me this console was the vehicle and medium that I played Pokemon on.

So for me, I wanted to take some time to reflect on what this console meant to me, and why it matters. I mean, there is a movement and subculture of fans who are still obsessed with this console. There are developers who are working together to continue to code for the Game Boy, including the recent release of an easy tool to make simple Game Boy ROMs that can also be played on original hardware (which is a source of inspiration for me, I’m learning to use GB Studio to start my hobby of game development). As a console, it’s relevance and influence is obviously still around, with a growing list of homebrew games developed for it long after the end of its lifetime.

Thanks Game Boy, you inspired my love of video games and Pokemon.