Metal Gear

Metal Gear is a series of stealth-based games created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. The player takes control of an elite military operative (usually Solid Snake) repeatedly facing off against the latest incarnation of the eponymous superweapon, "Metal Gear", a bipedal walking tank with nuclear launching capabilities.

Series overview

The games take place in near future scenarios (with the exception of one game) and focus on stealth and finesse rather than brute-force combat. The player starts out with few or no weapons at all. On the highest difficulty settings in some of the more recent games, being seen by an enemy even once may result in a game over. Through the course of the game, the hero (either Solid Snake, Raiden or Naked Snake) gathers equipment and weapons to help accomplish his mission objectives, and gathers information by rescuing captives.

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Metal Gear's purported purpose within the games is to allow a nuclear strike at any location with no advance warning and no clues as to who made the attack (unlike the obvious launch of an ICBM). In principle, this would allow a hostile nation to use nuclear weapons with no fear of nuclear retaliation. While this could be performed adequately with a nuclear submarine, two of the games make a case for the nuclear weapons system. ''s manual claims it expands the operating area of such a strike to include the land. Metal Gear Solid's proposal is more robust, with Metal Gear REX able to perform an uninterceptable strike which cannot be detected until the weapon hits its target.

Related Topics:
ICBM - Nuclear submarine - Metal Gear Solid - Metal Gear REX

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