![]() ![]() Since then, Kojima has only grown more obsessed with bridging the gaps between fiction and reality cinema and gaming ropes and sticks. #DEATH STRANDING CAST MOVIE#People complained that the cut-scene-heavy “Metal Gear Solid” was more of a movie than a game, but one moment was all it took for series mastermind Kojima to shatter the fourth wall that had sealed off the art form since its inception. ![]() But, as with many of the bosses strewn across the “Metal Gear” saga, there’s a hidden secret that makes beating him a breeze: Players have to get off their butts, go over to their Playstations, and plug their controller into a different console port. The word “HIDEO” appears in the upper-right corner of the screen, written in the blocky lime green letters the television industry once adopted as a universal symbol for “Input.” When the image eventually winks back to life, Psycho Mantis is invincible, essentially predicting the player’s every move. The screen cuts to black, the music stops, and the controller becomes a worthless hunk of plastic in your hand. Then Psycho Mantis breaks your television. Psycho Mantis gets a bit more personal from there, scanning the player’s memory card and citing some of their favorite recent Konami games a fun and clever gambit, but more of an advertisement for the developer’s other products than anything else. Even back then, that part was kind of a yawn. He starts with some parlor tricks, as the leather-clad bad guy makes the player’s controller rumble as evidence of his power. Anyone who’s played “Metal Gear Solid” already knows what I’m talking about: Psycho Mantis, the telepathically enhanced fourth boss that you encounter in Kojima’s landmark tactical espionage game, begins to read the player’s mind. It’s a journey that can be traced back to September 1998, and one of the most famous moments in the history of interactive entertainment. Kojima has been trying to make that game for at least 21 years. “We don’t need a game about dividing players between winners and losers,” he once wrote in his now-defunct Rolling Stone column devoted to the intersections and overlaps between digital media, “but about creating connections at a different level.” Kojima, an obsessive cinephile who abandoned his filmmaking dreams in order to pursue a form of storytelling that can reach beyond the confines of a screen, has always thought of a controller as the rope. Most video games think of a controller as the stick. The rope and stick were wherever humankind was to be found.” ![]() Both were the first friends conceived by humankind. The stick to keep evil at bay, and the rope to bring that which is good closer. “The rope and the stick are two of humankind’s oldest tools. It’s a key excerpt from a Kōbō Abe novel called “The Rope,” and the words dangle in front of you for just a moment before they’re replaced by some cryptic narration about the Big Bang: “Death Stranding” begins with a quote that distills the ethos of his entire career. Oscars 2023: Best Animated Feature Predictions Norman Reedus Shares Details About His 'F*cking Epic' European 'Walking Dead' Spinoff 'The Last of Us' Sets Early 2023 Release at HBO: Here's Everything You Need to Know At a time when video games can finally look like movies as much as movies have started to look like video games - when people like Kojima and James Cameron are working towards similar ends with many of the same techniques - Kojima has created a bizarre masterpiece that doesn’t just blur the line between these mediums, but also illustrates the power of knotting them together. Is it a film that you play? A game that you watch? Does it invite all of the same criticisms that have been leveled at Kojima’s work since last century? Yes, yes, and yes. “Death Stranding” could be described as the best “video game movie” ever made, but that doesn’t quite capture what makes it feel special. The open-world experience has enough contemplative moments to make it feel like a “Grand Theft Auto” sequel directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and it’s the greatest achievement yet from the most eccentric and forward-thinking designer of a medium in which virtually every large-scale project is created by committee. Hideo Kojima’s “ Death Stranding” is massive, moody, and - as usual for the video game auteur - weird as hell. ![]()
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