Hello its blogging time again and its time for another video game history tale.
Who's there?!
When it comes to the Stealth game genre, Its hard not to talk about Metal Gear. First released in 1987, the series both pioneered and popularized stealth video games, mixing cinematic cutscenes, intricate storylines, offbeat and fourth-wall humor, Hollywood film references,and exploration of cyberpunk, dystopian, political and philosophical themes. The series has sold 61 million copies worldwide and has also been adapted into other media, such as comics, novels, and even drama CDs.
However there's more to the origins of the game franchise than meets the eye as the groundwork was laid before the Playstation, before the MSX2, and even before Hideo Kojima's own birth to the bloodiest conflict of the 20th century and a tale of a brave group of men, ruthless enemies, and a prison breakout that inspired a silver screen classic that ultimately inspired Kojima to create his crowning jewel game franchise, saving the project and his career.
1943, the world is at war. As the Germans began gaining more control of Europe, Thousands of Allied airmen from the US, Europe, and the Pacific are captured by the Nazis and held as Prisoners Of War. Many of these German POW camps are infamous for for brutally treating their prisoners, but the cruelest and most feared of all these POW Camps is Stalag Luft 3. Surrounded by guards, multiple layers of fence, and sandy grounds, the chances of escaping were slim to none, no one could get in, or out.
The North camp of Stalag Luft 3 (1944)
However, despite the high security,there have been a few attempts by POWs to escape from the camp, The first escape occurred in October 1943 in the East Compound. Where POW's Lieutenant Michael Codner, Flight Lieutenant Eric Williams and Flight Lieutenant Oliver Philpot, made a modern Trojan Horse to conceal men, tools and containers of soil. Each day the horse was carried out to the same spot near the perimeter fence and while prisoners conducted gymnastic exercises above, a tunnel was dug. At the end of each day, a wooden board was placed over the tunnel entrance and covered with surface soil. The gymnastics disguised the real purpose of the vaulting horse and kept the sound of the digging from being detected by the microphones. After three months, on October 19 1943, Codner, Williams and Philpot made their escape. Williams and Codner were able to reach the port of Stettin where they stowed away on a Danish ship and eventually returned to Britain. Philpot, posing as a Norwegian margarine manufacturer, was able to board a train to Danzig (now Gdańsk) and from there stowed away on a Swedish ship headed for Stockholm, from where he was repatriated to Britaint.
A sketch depicting the Trojan Horse made by Lieutenants Codner, Williams and Philpot (1943)
There were also special versions of Monopoly containing tool and maps passed out by fake charities designed by British MI9 intelligence officer Clayton Hutton in a partnership with Waddingtons Ltd (The British company parker brothers licensed monopoly to for distribution in the UK) which was used in the escapes of servereal POWs, including the escape of US Lieutenant David Bowling at Stalag Luft 3.
One of the special "Wartime Edition" versions of Monopoly containing tools for escape (1940)
However the most well known of these escapes began in March 1943, when Roger Bushell, A Squadron Leader for the British Royal Air Force, came up with a plan to escape the compound, they were going to dig not 1, not 2, but 3 tunnels underground from their huts.
Squadron Leader Roger Bushell in 1944
Codenamed Tom, Dick, and Harry, each of them were hidden in certain huts to lower the risk of discovery. Tom was located in a darkened corner next to a stove chimney in hut 123 and extended west into the forest, Dick was hidden in a drain sump in the wash room of hut 122 and had the most secure trap door out of the 3 tunnels, and Harry was hidden under a stove located in hut 104. In May, the operation began. One group of men excavated the tunnels, Another distracted the guards with musical performances and gymnast routines, and a third group discreetly scattered the excavated dirt around the camp.
A map of the tunnels used in the escape
However they soon ran into a problem, As the tunnels grew longer, it became harder to breathe. To remedy this, they build a makeshift air pump out of they build a makeshift air pump out of bits of wood and a leather sack, and pipes out of empty powdered milk cans from their rations. there was only enough supplies for one pump, so the men focus on the one with the greatest chance of success, Harry.
Finally, on March 24th, 1944, the tunnel is complete. That night, 76 POW's put on civilian disguises made from stolen fabric and uniforms and escape through the tunnel. Then, they scattered into the woods in different directions. Of the 76 escapees, 73 were recaptured by the Germans, and 50 were executed.
The 3 surviving escapees Left to right: Per Bergsland (Norwegian pilot of No. 332 Squadron RAF), Bram van der Stok (Dutch pilot of No. 41 Squadron RAF), and Jens Müller, (Norwegian pilot of No. 331 Squadron RAF)
In 1945, the camp was liberated, and the remaining 11,000 POWs (Including the 23 surviving escapees) were marched out of camp with the eventual destination of Spremberg. After the war ended, the 23 surviving escapees were able to return home, One of these escapees was Paul Brickhill.
Paul Brickhill
Although Brickhill was a journalist by trade, he enlisted as a Spitfire pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force that was involved in the escape attempt by taking charge of "stooges" (the relay teams who would alert prisoners that German search teams had entered the camp). He was originally scheduled to be an early escapee but when it was discovered he suffered from claustrophobia, he was dropped down to the bottom of the list. After the war, he returned to journalism, working as a London-based correspondent for Associated Newspapers. Meanwhile, outside of working hours he had typed up his and fellow POW Conrad Norton's stories and selected David Higham as their literary agent. With Higham's help the manuscript was accepted by Faber & Faber and published as Escape to Danger in 1946.
Eventually, he decided to turn his experience in the Stalag experience into a book, and it was published through Faber as The Great Escape in 1950.
The first hardcover edition of The Great Escape (1950)
The book became a bestseller, soon catching the attention of Hollywood, With United Artists being granted the film rights to the book, And in 1963, 20 years after the daring escape was planned, The movie The Great Escape was released on June 20, 1963 in London, and July 4, 1963 In the US.
The original poster for The Great Escape (1963)
The film depicts a fictionalized version of the escape with numerous compromises for its commercial appeal, including its portrayal of American prisoners' involvement in the escape. The plot concerns USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts (Played by Steve McQueen), A recent addition to the POW camp who teams up with fellow inmates to plan an escape by tunneling under the camp without raising suspicion from the camps guards.
The original trailer for The Great Escape (1963)
Despite its fictionalized story, The film still had enough going for it to become a critical and commercial success, grossing $11.7 million at the box office, making it one of the highest grossing films at the time, as well as being nominated at the Academy Awards for Film Editing and at the Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture.
Coincidentally, the same year the film is released, a man named Hideo Kojima is born in Japan.
Hideo Kojima in 1983
Born on Born on August 24, 1963, in Setagaya, Tokyo, He grew up watching movies at a young age. After his family moved to Osaka when Kojima was 4, his parents began a tradition of the family watching a film together each night, and he was not allowed to go to bed until the film had finished. They were fond of European cinema, westerns, and horror, and did not limit the type of films he was allowed to see. By the time Kojima was in middle school, he took an interest in filmmaking when a friend brought a Super 8 camera. They began filming movies together, charging other children 50 yen to see them. He also began writing science fiction stories stories and screenplays in hopes to work in the film industry.
However, tragedy would soon strike bringing Kojima's plans to a halt, His father passed away when Kojima was just 13 years old. Being that he was a successful pharmacist, his loss sparked financial struggles in Kojima's family.
When Kojima entered college, He was was encouraged by his mother to study economics, but this left him with a lot of free time which led him to discover a new love, Video Games. The timing for this discovery couldn't have been better as the Nintendo Famicom was spreading like wildfire throughout Japan. Kojima was one of those people to get their hands on a Famicom, and he spent many of his off hours playing Super Mario Bros and the Famicom port of Enix's Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Or more commonly known in English as The Portopia Serial Murder Case).
Left to right: Super Mario Bros and Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (1985) (Fun Fact: Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken was one of the first games designed by Yuji Horii, who would later go on to create Dragon Quest.)
Playing these games made him realized that you could do similar things in game deisgn that you could in filmmaking, and with this in mind he decided to find a job in the game industry and despite some backlash from his friends and professors joined Konami in 1986.
He certainly made a good choice because at the time, Konami was one of the biggest leaders in the Japanese video game market with games like Frogger and Gradius being popular in both the Japanese and American Arcade and console markets.
Left to right: Frogger (1981) and Gradius (1985)
However by this point they were looking to expand more into the home market, and wanted to focus on developing for the MSX standard, which was becoming increasingly popular. They soon open an MSX division to develop games for it.
Kojima hoped to get a job in the Famicom Division, But he ended up getting assigned in the MSX division instead as a Game Planner. Although disappointed, Kojima was still determined to make a name for himself. His first job was working on the sequel to Antarctic Adventure, Penguin Adventure. Which went very well as when it was released, it was praised for it's action game elements, a greater variety of levels, role-playing elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings.
Penguin Adventure (1986)
After this proved successful, Konami then assigned him to work on a side scrolling platform game called Lost Warld. However Kojima didn't know much programing and struggled for 6 months until it was canceled.
He became the only one in the company who had never had any of his games released, and people instead of saying: "hi" would come and say: "At least complete one game before you die!".
Around the same time, Ascii had introduced the MSX2 standard. It bosted more expansion capability, more RAM, and most importantly, better graphics.
Sony HitBit HB-F1 (1986)
The graphics chip used in the MSX2 standard was the Yamaha V9938. Not only was it backwards compatible with the TI TMS9918 to allow older MSX1 software to run, but also boosted Higher resolution graphics modes, a 256 color palette, an 80 column text mode and a horizontal scrolling register.
The Yamaha V9938
Now while the MSX1 could do scrolling it had to be done in programing, taking up code and CPU time, now scrolling games could be made much easier. Realizing this, Kojima was assigned to come up with a military combat game similar to Capcom's Comando. But the problem was that the MSX2 still couldn't display more than 4 sprites per scanline, making it impossible to design such a game. Realizing this, Kojima decided to take the game in a different route, rather than make the game about shooting the enemies, he would make it about hiding from the enemies. Inspired by The Great Escape, he made it were you don't fight but run away. Initially his bosses were unhappy about the idea and Kojima thought of leaving the company, but after getting advice from a colleague, he continued work on the game.
His bosses changed their minds too, as by the time a working prototype was finished, they realized it could be a great game. After some more development the game was finally released as Metal Gear in 1987.In the game, players take the role of solid Snake, a special forces operative who must defeat a walking nuclear tank called Metal Gear.
Metal Gear (1987)
Metal Gear wasnt the first stealth game, but it did cetranly popularize the concept as the game was critically and commercial claimed in Japan and was followd up by a Famicom version and a locilized version for the NES in North America in 1988 and sequels to the NES and MSX2 games Snakes Revenge and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake in 1990.
Left to Right: Metal Gear (1988) Snakes Revenge, and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake(1990)
After looking at the Playstation in 1995, Kojima revisited the series ading 3D graphics, an introcut storyline and voice acted characters. After a few years of development, Metal Gear Solid Was released on September 3, 1998 in Japan, October 20, 1998 in North America, and February 22, 1999 in Europe. In the game, Snake has to infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from FOXHOUND, a renegade special forces unit. Snake must liberate hostages and stop the terrorists from launching a nuclear strike.
Metal Gear Solid(1998)
The game made history as one of the first 3D stealth games, as well as one of the first cinema quality story driven action adventure games. It introduced many mechanics in 3D games that are used outside of stealth games like the wall cover mechanics. The game was a critical and commercial success selling more than 7 million copies and earning several sequels and releases, as well as inspiring similar games like Splinter Cell.
Today Metal Gear Solid is franchise with its games still loved more than 20 years later, and it all traces back to the brave POWs that dug their way to freedom. Thanks for reading! see you next time!
.png)
