Gears of August

Or rereading Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater’s novelization made I started to dislike the game it’s based on and replaying Gears of War through Reloaded on Steam Deck

As the sovereign states of this world just cannot help themselves with their bloody and ultimately pointless dick measuring contests, my mind keeps going back to the Guns of August by Barbra Tuchman. I heard a lot about this book covering the early days of World War One though never have the pleasure of reading it as the time of writing. Hopefully it’s just paranoia induced by consuming media about fake wars that made me fear for real ones…

The Last week of August, 2025 certainly feels a lot like Fall, 2006 to me. Back then, I experienced MGS3 story for the first time through Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater “the movie edited by Hideo Kojima” and played Gears of War on a borrowed Xbox 360. As the time of writing, there were the novelization of Snake Eater and Gears Reloaded. It’s bit uncanny with one in the interactive form and the other not.

Both games cover science fictional warfare in a time before Call of Duty 4 made current day conflict into a hot commodity. Both told one that “Beyond the Call of Duty” as an expression is actually utter bullshit, for some duties take one’s whole life to fulfill. Hard to go beyond that, isn’t it. Anyway time to take my “knife” out for something else.

Part 1 Knife out for 2K: Reading Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater by Satoshi Hase

When I wrote my impression of Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater back in 2023, I made a big mistake. The gun in one hand and knife in the other close-quarter combat stance is in this book (Serve me right to write on years old notes.). It’s just not as pronounced as it is in the game and Snake certainly does not man-explain it to Eva, the PRC spy, as he defaces the gun she gets him. Snake pulls his knife for the first time facing the Ocelot Unit, indicating that it’s serious, so knife out.

As much as I despise the publisher of Grand Theft Auto franchise nowadays, the “2K” above just means Konami Digital Entertainment and Kojima himself. I for one would gladly wear Fuckonami on one hand and Fuckojima on the other. Reading the MGS3 novelization by Satoshi Hase (Now a certified Master of Science Fiction with a Seiun award for Best Japanese Novel win in 2023.) does not swing me from such mentality.

For Kojima got the balls to release antiquated for 2004 game more than 2 decades ago and presented himself an innovating video game author. Konami, on the other hand, released a barebone as fuck from everything I saw remake and dared to say they are back in the good grace of “gamers”. Oh, fuck you, you corporate bastards (Yes, that is all Hideo Kojima really is by the end of the day.)!

Why I typed “close-quarter combat” instead of “CQC”?

I for one can never be a Kojima groupie, at least not for long. Whether is hearing a firearm expert busting the myth proposed by “his” game, kept my mind sharp and criticizing by reading for amusement or just “worship” Michael Mann instead. I caught the final chase of Heat on tv back in 2008, thought it’s “Absolute cinema” while the cut scenes of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of Patriot are just wank in comparison. Now to compare Mann’s 2004 outing with Kojima’s.

Above is a screenshot of City of Night: the Making of Collateral. Sorry, got to get Mann’s sentence being subtitled with lower case “close-quarter combat” so the 2 gentlemen have their backs to the viewer. The man in red on the left is Mick Gould, an ex-SAS operator that added sense of combat to Heat’s gunfights before this one. The man in black is Tom Cruise, a couple of years before he jumped upon Oprah Winfrey’s coach.

Those 2 were in LA County Sheriff’s Firing Range. Notice that Gould having thick pats on both of his hands, as Cruise would be drilled in close-quarter combat: stun hostile within arm reach by whacking them effectively and then quick draw to shoot target farther out. And yes, Vincent played by Cruise only pulls his knife out once and it’s for being in some real deep shit.

So, I guess while Hase was more hellbent on justifying most of the wacky bullshit Kojima crapped out, knife always out is a bridge too far even for the science fiction novelist. Well, that and as the aforementioned firearm expert said that it’s impossible to put a tranquiller dart into a pistol bullet.

Slashing towards Kojima…

I for one would not purchase 2025’s Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater Delta. Both design choices made by Kojima’s crew in the aughts and Konami Digital Entertainment in these twenties are to blame. Hearing Michael Higam saying that he found all the item placement to be the same was alarming then seeing a thrown down enemy’s assault rife disappear into thin air was the true deal breaker.

The whole “player cannot pick up weapon and ammo from enemies” design was out of date in 1998 when Metal Gear Solid came out, just ask 1993’s Doom or 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D. Consoles has always been behind, however MGS 1 and 2’s then future setting allowed some narrative justification. In MGS3’s Cold War setting? Nah, no such luck.

Otherwise, set-in-1980s Phantom Pain would play very different. The novelization would not have Snake picking up this or that Soviet firearms just after he took out them through close-quarter takedowns either.

It was said in one documentary that Kojima once envisioned MGS3 as a PS3 title. I dare say that they should have waited just so Snake’s acquire on site can be more convincing and convenient. But I guess the lazy bastards over at Konami would have that one in the vault as they do with MGS4.

…stabbing at Konami…

Konami Digital Entertainment is still run by greedy, lazy and corporate bastards, there is no nicer way to put it. Back when Delta was still Unknown for the Steam Deck, I intended to revisit Operation Snake Eater in interactive fashion by purchasing a piece of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 and what a disappointment that turned out to be.

As I saw the boot up screen saying “Metal Gear Solid HD Collection”, my heart sunk into a dark and cold place, then the title screen says “2011”, the year MGS3 was ported to Xbox 360. Yet I soldiered at least for bit. Cleared Virtuous Mission, took care of the Ocelot Unit, heard On the Beach referenced after a save (After about the second time that hack named Kojima referencing that flick in "his" work) and get pass arguably the best line in the game.

But contrast to how reviewers felt that Delta made the world of Snake Eater felt smaller to them, yours truly went “Huh? There are more screens between Ocelot Unit and Major Ocelot than I remembered”. Combine that with the PS2 mechanic started to grinding my nerves in these still dog days of summer, I quitted and uninstalled the game. Guess this user made Collection on Steam is all the game is good for.

…and shot them both dead.

Konami bafflingly kept Kojima’s casting choices that for Delta. I am as big fan of Akio Otsuka and Kikuko Inoue as Hideo Kojima, but I just don’t’ think they were right for the role. I prefer the pitch of the English cast a lot better, especially Eva’s sweeter tune compared to one Ms. Watanabe’s low pitch and intended to be bitter voice.

In the world of anime, remakes of comic or otherwise adaption can be exciting as newer generation of audience is bound to look forward to all new all-star voice casts. Remake of video game, on the other hand, always tends to keep the voice casts (Looking at you, Atlus.), but at least the script is adjust and voice files are rerecorded. What Konami did with Delta just sounds like laziness.

Hideo Kojima is a bloody old man, there is no two ways about that. His idea of how “heroic lead”, “dame in a noir” and “amazonian” should sound like is of his time, to put it nicely. Booming, lower plus bitter pitched and tough talking were what he heard in his youth. And it’s even different from English. I for one think the trio behind Spy Family’s Forgers would be fitting.

While not pitch perfect, Takuya Eguchi is much closer to David Hayter pretending to be Clint Eastwood than Otsuka’s booming voice. Atsumi Tanezaki’s radio voice is perfect for Eva to me and anyone who played Metaphor Refantasio knows how seethingly stoic Saori Hayami can be. Oh, well, I can imagine whoever I want reading the novelization, and switch out for someone else when I felt the line read can be done better by another voice actor.

The novelization had truly polished the rough stone of Snake Eater into a shiny jewel. Whenever I think the speaking lines in the game should have been narration in the book, I was right about 80 percent of the time. The book is just a much better pace spy thriller the wanky game can only dream of.

So, fuck Hideo Kojma and fuck Konami Digital Entertainment. When the current lousy iteration of video game industry crashes and burns, they can both die screaming next to it. And before they both go: thanks for leaving a kernel for better story tellers to polish, now rest in pieces.

Part 2 The roof needs to be repaired: my thoughts on Gears of War Reloaded

I would have written a user review for Gears of War Reloaded for PC but in good conscience I cannot. I did not and probably never will touch the multiplayer being why. Still I bought and played it instead of the MGS3 “remake”. On the surface, the reasons are obvious enough. Delta is full-priced, takes up 100 gigabyte of storage and is ultimately Unsupported on Steam Deck while Reloaded costs 20 us dollars, takes up 30 percent less storage and Verified.

For one thing, the macho horseshit in Gears franchise is not something I dislike. Marcus Fenix in this one and Gabe Diaz in Tactics are both reluctant heroes for they both despise the authoritarian regime they fight for just a sense of duty compel them to continue their missions. Braid being a complete asshole is comedic relief, and the campaign is about this rag tag squad learning to trust each other. Neither the Riddick game nor 2007‘s fake John Woo joint goes through such arc.

It’s very funny to see that Jeff Grestmann did not like Gears of War Ultimate one decade ago even though the update addressed one problem the man had with the 2006 title. Namely adding back the Normal difficulty first introduced in Gears 2. It’s a better way to play, the enemies are not as spongey while the player usually has 5 seconds to live out of cover facing more than one gun.

The campaign is overall decent enough. Moving forward in a brisk pace for about 7 hours with one firefight after another. It is funny to see the additional chapters of the fifth and final act being the only good bits of the endgame while the original 3 train centric chapters are a shit awful to end this game.

Overall it holds well. I for one am just glad that there is Steam access for it. While it is of its time (Like the at least planetary scale purge games of Xbox 360/PS3 love to put in their ends.), it does lay the foundation for what came after. I will die on the hill that Persona 5 became popular for adding button push based cover in its dungeons.

Epilogue: impossible to go beyond the so-called duty

There is no permanent enemies or comrades, only permanent duty.

-----the Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

Oh, Joel Martinsen, you are truly a lousy translator. The original Chinese was laconic for using only 17 characters, yet you used a 9 letter word to completely butcher it! Still, doesn’t this line sound like something the Boss would say?

We all come to this world to be feed bullshit. Doesn’t mean that we should take it laying down. Grow one spine and make up our own bullshit respectively is just return this world in kind. Nake Snake, Eva, the Boss, Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, August Cole and Braid all have impossible duty to fulfill. And we admire them all for having backbones and their own way to bullshit.