Overview

This collection, arriving in the wake of the 25th anniversary of 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, provides scholars and fans alike with a wide-ranging selection of critical essays on the franchise from diverse disciplinary and thematic perspectives. With the conclusion of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid video game series only recently behind us, it is now both possible and essential to study this critically, commercially, and culturally resonant series as a whole. The essays contained in this volume, which are all new contributions from both established and emerging scholars, take up this crucial opportunity to consider and reconsider the cultural, historical, political, philosophical, and aesthetic impact of the Metal Gear Solid games in analyses spanning the series’ canonical entries, adding to the understanding of both well-studied installments and under- examined ones. These contributions connect themes that emerge from the games—such as sexuality and queerness, rhetoric and ethics, and subjectivity and embodiment—while also demonstrating how the series opens up broader questions about ecology, race, gender, militarization, pedagogy, and game design, that demand continued analysis and application. Each essay develops new avenues for theoretical, rhetorical, and political exploration of the Metal Gear Solid series, for Game Studies, and for the study of Popular Culture writ large. As the first collection of critical inquiries into the Metal Gear Solid series, this volume serves as crucial exegesis of and critical companion to any future study of the series by celebrating, critiquing, and critically interrogating its entries’ rich cultural and disciplinary import.

Full Product Details

Author:   PhD Steven Kielich (University of Rochester, USA) ,  Dr. Chris Hall (University of the Ozarks, USA)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 15.00cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.600kg
ISBN:  

9798765123577

Pages:   320
Publication Date:   20 February 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

"Figures Tables Foreword: Twenty-Five Years of Metal Gear Solid David Hayter (Screenwriter/Producer, USA) Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Reading and ""Misreading"" the Metal Gear Solid Series Steven Kielich (University at Buffalo, USA) and Chris Hall (University of the Ozarks, USA) Part I: “This Is a Sneaking Mission!”: Genre and Design 1. Sustained Intrusion: Embodiment, Environment and Ensconcement in Metal Gear Solid John McLoughlin (Cardiff University, UK) 2. Metal Gaze Suture: Analyzing Metal Gear Solid through Psychoanalytic Film Theory Andrea Andiloro (Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia) 3. The Anti-Game: Metal Gear Solid 3 & The Stealth Genre Steven Conway (Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia) Part II: Metacommentary and Ludic Rhetoric 4. Intended Play Experience Emma Kostopolous (Valdosta State University, USA) 5. Cameo Kojima: Ludic Self-Representation in the Metal Gear Solid Franchise Bryan Hikari Hartzheim (Waseda University, Japan) 6. Become the Warmongers: Menus & the Fiction of Neutrality in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Evan Manzanetti (University of California Davis, USA) Part III: Ecology and Nonhuman Perspectives 7. Greening a Green Beret: Diamond Dogs as Environmental Enforcement for Hire in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Jacob Price (Brigham Young University, USA) 8. “So, the Snake’s Finally Come Out of His Hole”: Liminal Relationships Between Humans and Nature in the Metal Gear Solid series Morgan Pinder (Deakin University, Australia) 9. “Plant Your Roots in Me”: Rhizomatic Narratology and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Steve Nash (Leeds Beckett University, UK) Part IV: Gender, Bodies, Desire 10. Ideologies of the Body in Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid Series Rachael Hutchinson (University of Delaware, USA) 11. “Could You Be the One to Finally Finish Me?”: Impossible Queer Temporalities in the Metal Gear Solid Series Jordan Youngblood (Eastern Connecticut State University, USA) 12. Embodying Bad Feminist Characters: Gendered Biosemiotics and Narrative in Metal Gear Solid’s Women Cody Mejeur (University at Buffalo, USA) Part V: Technologies of the Self in and Beyond Metal Gear Solid 13. “I Used to Think I Could Use Science to Help Mankind”: What Can Metal Gear Solid Teach Us about Science, Technology, and Society (STS)? Yassine Dguidegue (Arizona State University, USA) 14. Integral Reality and Virtuality in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Madison Browne (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA) 15. “Think Like a Soldier:” Militarized Subjects and Techniques of Self in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Mauricio Ortiz Zaragoza (University of Nevada, USA) Notes on Contributors Video Games Referenced Index"

Reviews

This diverse collection of scholarly work on the Metal Gear series represents a critical area of video game studies. Hideo Kojima’s games, exemplified by the Metal Gear games, lend themselves to multiple lenses of analysis, and ask players to consider compelling and timely issues such as the impact of war, PTSD, and cyclical violence. Further still, the Metal Gear series invites consideration of video game aesthetics and a blurring of the line between video games and film. This volume covers all of these areas and more and is a compelling read. * Amy M. Green, Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA *

Author Information

Steven Kielich is pursuing a PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester, USA. He has published in Games and Culture and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. Chris Hall is Assistant Professor of English at the University of the Ozarks, USA. He works in media studies, literary studies, and critical theory and has published on immigration, COVID, and fascism, as well as on the Metal Gear Solid series and other works of popular culture.

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