Metal Gear Solid 2 and Postmodern Video Games
Channel: The Game Overanalyser
Date: 2020-12-18

Metal Gear Solid 2 is often cited as the first Postmodern Game, invoking metafiction and playing with the relationship between player and game to craft its narrative. However, is Metal Gear Solid 2 simply revealing what was true of video games all along, that it is inherently a postmodern text? Games require player participation, can be altered, mediate between multiple worlds, and are cybernetic vehicles built for escapism. This video examines the structure of metal gear solid 2, and how its subversive ethos can extend to both the design and playing of games. 

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Sources

- The Selfish Gene , Richard Dawkins

- More than a Game , Barry Atkins

- Reality is Broken , Jane Mcgonigal

- Essays on Algorithmic culture , Alexander Galloway

- Cybertext, Espen Aarseth

- Gregory Bateson  , A Theory of Play and Fantasy 
http://courses.bloodedbythought.org/play/images/7/7e/Bateson%2C_Gregory_A_Theory_of_Play_and_Fantasy.pdf
 
- Monstrous Textuality : Game Fiction between Modernism and Structuralism, Tamer Tabet
https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/97

- The Postmodern Condition, Jean Lyotard

- Postmodernism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

-The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture, Ihab Hassan

-Additional Footage from Shirrako
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZrGfCI1hbc