Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel

1998's Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation is widely regarded as a classic action adventure title, one that firmly established Solid Snake as a gaming legend. Players had to eliminate the rogue members of the FOXHOUND squad, rescue hostages and defeat Metal Gear Rex. The story was retold in 2004 with Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the Gamecube, with new cutscenes, replay options and game mechanics. Now, Hideo Kojima and Konami are graphically re-examining the Shadow Moses incident for a third time with the Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel.

Unlike the previous two installments, the Digital Graphic Novel really isn't a game; it's more like a visual interactive experience that depicts the incidents of Shadow Moses in a graphic novel format. The entire disc is broken down into three modes: the VR Simulation mode, the Mental Search mode and the Memory Building Simulation mode. The VR Simulation mode is the primary thrust of the title, and starts up almost immediately once the disc has been loaded. Running about two hours long, The VR Simulation mode is comprised solely from images by Ashley Wood, an Australian artist who is rather familiar with the Metal Gear Solid universe (he's drawn the official comic book for years).

Wood's Expressionistic images are presented in two separate ways: normal pages are somewhat akin to those you might find in a comic book or graphic novel. For the most part, these pages are used to explore story and transitional elements between areas. The other way is by movie sequences that often roll through multiple frames and break out of the standard "comic" convention to bring action sequences or dramatic moments to life. It's fascinating to note how Wood's visual style changes from page to page -- some of the normal pages are roughly drawn, while others are more photorealistic or visually evocative. Some of the action movies eschew detail in favor of faster moving animation and the emphasis words to point out what's going on: the "Bang" of a pistol or the rapid "Budda-Budda" flashing words of machine gun fire comes to mind. Although there are sound effects and a soundtrack to match up with the images onscreen, there is practically no dialogue: in fact, you'll only hear some laughter or grunts for the most part.

While viewers of the Simulation mode can choose to have the sequence automatically run from start to finish, there's a specific reason to manually turn each page. Scattered throughout the VR Simulation are a number of icons, items and objects known as Memory Elements that pertain to Snake's mission and the Shadow Moses incident itself. By hitting the Square Button at any point, you enter the Mental Search mode, where you'll be able to zoom in and out of the current scene (from 100% to 300% of the normal magnification) to find and collect these items. This mode gives you two separate tools to help you track down these hidden elements. The first one is the zooming cursor itself. The closer you get to an item (or group of items), the faster the cursor will rotate. The other way is a graph known as the sync rate. The more peaks you happen to see on the graph and where they happen to be located on the chart lets you know if there's something on a page you've already passed, hidden on the current page you're on or if there's something coming up in the next few pages.

Searching for all of these Memory Elements can be a meticulous process: I once spent about six hours in the Mental Search mode analyzing just about every pixel in the various scenes to collect as many elements as I could. I discovered that there are some scenes, particularly with close up shots, where the analog nub on the PSP wasn't as precise as I would've liked it to be -- the cursor will sometimes slide all over the place depending on how close you zoom in, which can frustrate you in your acquisition of these items.