During 8 long years between 1994-2002 I only played PC games, and thus missed out on a lot of important console-oriented series. One of the biggest missing pieces in my gaming education has been Konami's Metal Gear Solid, but in 2012 I finally started exploring the byzantine world of Hideo Kojima by finishing MGS1-2 for the first time that year (I remember being thoroughly impressed by MGS1 but less enthusiastic about the sequel). In late 2014 I continued with MGS3 but stopped halfway and only resumed and finished the playthrough earlier this summer (watching Metal Gear Scanlon helped me regain enough focus and motivation to power through the last few bosses). After that I swiftly moved on to MGS4 and yesterday I also finished Peace Walker, which means that it was now time to move on to the latest release in the series, Ground Zeroes (and yes, I have pre-ordered the PC version of MGS5).

The gameplay of MGS1-3 frustrated me a lot and the otherwise innovative Peace Walker included some awfully punishing boss fights. But even when the poorly explained mechanics, clunky controls and unnecessarily impenetrable storylines conspired to deplete my patience once and for all, I was always able to appreciate how Kojima's breadth of interests and obsessive attention to detail were reflected in the games. The politics of nuclear proliferation, Cold War deterrance theory, the history of American and Japanese genre films, experimental military hardware from the 1960s onwards and even postmodern reflections on the illusion of personal identity are just some of the topics you find yourself immersed in while playing through the MGS series. For all his obvious flaws when it comes to constructing plots that make even a little bit sense, Kojima's vision of video games as an entertainment medium within which to discuss all sorts of issues not directly related to killing bad guys and finding power-ups is certainly a laudable one.

And quite apart from its place in the sprawling MGS multiverse, Kojima Productions's swansong The Phantom Pain looks like it could be one of the most ambitious and exciting open world games yet (and that's no mean feat in a year that's already given us CD Projekt RED's highly impressive The Witcher 3). The fully modernized third-person controls and versatile Fox Engine introduced in Ground Zeroes combined with the in-depth base building of Peace Walker is more than enough to have me impatiently awaiting MGS5's September release...