Metal Gear

Metal Gear (メタルギア Metaru Gia) is a stealth game franchise created and owned by Konami. It is represented in Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale.

Series Description
The history and legacy of the Metal Gear franchise is deeply intertwined with its creator Hideo Kojima. In 1987, the then-unknown video game planner, working at Konami, was asked to take over a project that had been intended as a wartime action game for the MSX2 home computer. Technical limitations to the MSX2 prevented Kojima from creating a game that had many bullets and enemies onscreen at any given moment, though, so Kojima made a decision to design and direct a game that drew inspiration from the film The Great Escape, wherein the focus of the game was to avoid visual contact and direct confrontation with patrolling enemies. His bosses' questioning over this decision nearly prompted Kojima to leave Konami, but after one of his bosses encouraged him to continue, he proceeded to complete and release Metal Gear on July 12, 1987. It is credited by many today as the progenitor of the stealth action genre in the video game industry. The game was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System without Kojima's involvement, and published under the Ultra Games label in North America. This port was successful enough that Konami began development on a sequel, Snake's Revenge. Kojima was likewise not involved with the development of Snake's Revenge, and had no plans for a sequel, only changing his mind with encouragement of a colleague who was on the development staff of Snake's Revenge. Kojima's sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, was released on July 20, 1990. This game pioneered the franchise’s reputation for twist-filled narratives and introduced many of the evolved stealth gameplay aspects that would be present in the rest of the series.

The series became dormant after Metal Gear 2, with Kojima working on a number of unrelated projects in the meantime. But it was only with the release of the seminal third game in the series, Metal Gear Solid, for the original PlayStation), that brought the franchise and its creator into the mainstream on September 20th, 1998. Universal critical praise and chart-topping sales propelled the Metal Gear intellectual property into a flagship franchise for Konami, and it is often recognized as one of the key titles involved in popularizing the stealth-action game genre. As a result, Metal Gear Solid became a killer app for the console and Solid Snake became a de facto mascot for the system, like Squaresoft's Cloud Strife before him, with the choreography of voice actors Akio Otsuka and David Hayter cementing Snake as a symbol of character complexity in video games. In addition to featuring the gameplay style of the previous game, only now in three dimensions, Metal Gear Solid made extensive use of cinematic storytelling to tell a gritty, twist-filled narrative like a blockbuster film. It proved to be a huge success, and both it and its sequels have been regarded as being among the greatest video games of their respective platforms.

Each release in the central Metal Gear chronology adds to the series' ambitious lore, which is closely grounded in the politics of real-world Earth from the Cold War onward. Core themes explored include many issues about nuclear deterrence, social engineering, artificial intelligence, information control, conspiracy theories, questioning integrity, censorship, the manipulation of free will, post-truth politics, alternative facts, and social taboos. This takes place throughout narratives that are rife with betrayal, revelations of identity and family, and other plot twists that span many games. Depictions of Snake and other Metal Gear characters and elements in a more lighthearted air are usually relegated to non-canonical side games and cameos, such as when Solid Snake became the first third-party character to be featured as a playable character in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, revealed in 2006 to be playable in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

During the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, disputes were frequent between Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami over the game's development. The game, along with Kojima's other concurrent project, Silent Hills (a return to form for the Silent Hill series), were coming at a time when Konami began their transition away from AAA studios like Kojima Productions and towards mobile and pachislot games. Kojima's name and studio would be removed from any Metal Gear Solid V promotional material, including the box art, and the much-anticipated Silent Hills would be cancelled and its playable demo removed from digital stores. The Phantom Pain would eventually be released to universal acclaim, though this was a bittersweet accomplishment as this would be Kojima's last project for Konami. The undisputed tension between Kojima and Konami ultimately culminated in him leaving the company in December 2015, thus giving him the opportunity to re-establish Kojima Productions as its own independent studio, ultimately developing Death Stranding alongside Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

After the departure of Hideo Kojima and his company from Konami, the series has slowed down in releases. Besides the pachislot remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in 2016, Metal Gear Survive for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows is the first title in the franchise to switch to the survival genre of video games, and the latest title in the franchise as of 2018. Though it is not canon from it, the plot is set months after the Ground Zeroes incident from the eponymous game.

The Metal Gear franchise, often referred to with the name Metal Gear Solid due to almost every subsequent game featuring "Solid" in its title, proceeded to release a large number of sequels, prequels, interquels, expanded re-releases, and non-canonical side games on a regular basis. In most of the games, the player takes control of an elite, artificially enhanced special forces operative codenamed Snake - either it is Solid Snake (real name David) in games set in the postmodern present, or it is his father, Big Boss (real name John), back when he operated as Naked Snake in games set after the Cold War era. A younger secondary protagonist codenamed Raiden (real name Jack) is also sometimes featured in a leading role. The games have Snake, operating under the command of the highest orders of government, sneaking into the compounds of militant enemy forces that threaten Earth politically with revolutionary nuclear weapons technology, which in many cases take the form of a bipedal walking tank named "Metal Gear". Snake uses his stealth skills and cunning to bypass enemy guards when necessary, neutralize guards and elite enemies that stand in his way with weapons procured on site, and interrogate hostages and enemies alike to gather intel and gain access to where he needs to go to complete his mission to neutralize the war weapons and the villains that threaten to use them.

Connection with All-Stars

 * Raiden is a playable character in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
 * Franzea crosses over LocoRoco and Metal Gear.
 * Sam appears as Raiden's Minion.
 * Many of Raiden's Icons feature him doing attacks, intros and throws in the game, such as the High Kick Cut, Charging Cut, Single Hand Cut, Backward Stab, Iai-giri, Forward Throw, Counter, You'll Make My Blade Happy, Savor Your Last Breath and the Jumping Roll Cut,
 * One of Raiden's alternate color schemes resembles Gray Fox from the first Metal Gear Solid.
 * Raiden's Level 3 Super is a reference to one of the main protagonist of the series, Solid Snake.
 * Ocelot is referenced in the 2v2 title "Revolving Ocelots". Solid Snake is also referenced in the title "Soul Hid Snakes".
 * Raiden's pre-order costume is from Metal Gear Solid 2. This is one of the things that relate to the Solid series, not Metal Gear Rising

Games

 * Metal Gear (MSX2/NES) - 1987
 * Snake's Revenge (NES) - 1990
 * Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX2/i-Mode/PS2) - 1990
 * Metal Gear Solid (PS1) - 1998
 * Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions/Integral (PS1) - 1999
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2) - 2001 (Raiden's first appearance)
 * Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance (PS2/PS3/PSV) - 2002
 * Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Gamecube) - 2004
 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2) - 2004
 * Metal Gear Acid (PSP) - 2004
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence (PS2/PS3/PSV) - 2005
 * Metal Gear Acid 2 (PSP) - 2005
 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP) - 2006
 * Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (PSP) - 2007
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) - 2008 - (Raiden's 2nd appearance)
 * Metal Gear Online (PS3) - 2009
 * Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP/PS3) - 2010
 * Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (PS3/PSV) - 2011
 * Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3) - 2013 (Raiden's Latest Game)
 * Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (PS3/PS4) - 2014
 * Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS3/PS4/Xbox) - 2015
 * Metal Gear Survive (PC/Xbox/PS4) - 2018

Guest Appearances

 * DreamMix TV World Fighters - 2003 (PS2)
 * Ape Escape 3 - 2006 (PS2)
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 2008 (Wii)
 * Super Bomberman R - 2017 (Switch, via update)
 * Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 2018 (Switch)
 * Super Bomberman R Online - 2020

Trivia

 * Metal Gear is the oldest franchise represented in All-Stars, with its first game, Metal Gear, being released in 1987 and its first PlayStation game, Metal Gear Solid, being released in 1998.
 * As a result, it is the only franchise from the 80s, and thusly is the only franchise to debut prior to the release of the original Playstation.
 * Metal Gear is the first series in the game to also appear in the Super Smash Bros. series with a playable character, followed by Tekken.
 * Unlike Tekken, Metal Gear's representative, Raiden, only makes a minor appearance as a sticker in Brawl and a Spirit in Ultimate.
 * Metal Gear is the only franchise who has appeared in more than one Platform fighter, as Snake had made an appearance in the Japan exclusive DreamMix TV World Fighters, a crossover between Konami, the then independent Hudson Soft, and toy manufacturer Takara.
 * The Metal Gear series has 22 games, the most a series represented, beating out Ratchet & Clank.
 * Metal Gear is the only series in the game whose icons only show one character (Raiden), as well as the only series without an icon for Rank 6.
 * Metal Gear and BioShock are the only third party series in the game whose first installment on a home console (whether exclusive or simultaneous upon release) wasn't on the Playstation or any of its subsequent consoles.