Media over the past century have changed our notions of what monsters are. Contemporary horrors tend to be either figures of human cruelty (Jason, Freddie Krueger) or suggestions of incredible size (King Kong, Godzilla).

Ancient monsters were not merely huge. They crawled from the imagination as perversions of the natural order, built from the bodies of different creatures.

Minotaur: human's body, bull's head.

Manticore: lion's body, human's head, scorpion's tail.

Cockatrice: rooster's body, lizard's tail, dragon's wings – born from an egg laid by a cock and hatched by a toad.

Satyrs, centaurs, sirens, harpies, griffins, dragons… monsters were compounded beings.

MGS4 brims with such monsters.

Such re-mixing creates MGS4's form. Through referencing and recombining elements from the Metal Gear Saga, the game consciously exposes the Saga's tropes, incorporates the manipulation of those tropes into the plot, and prompts a sense of the Saga's identity by highlighting (and later taming) its recurring patterns.

MGS4 establishes its form through Flashback Events, enemy designs, and the five Acts' scenarios. We'll look at each in turn.
 

<< [Preface]      [Flashback] >>

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