Myth: Metal Gear Solid never had true analog controls
Fact: It did.
By RS, Posted on October 31, 2023
Metal Gear Solid (1998), like many of Hideo Kojima’s works, took full advantage of what the platform it was built for offered. When the Sony PlayStation was first released in 1994, it came with the standard PlayStation controller that lacked analog sticks and vibration. In 1997 they released the Dual Analog and DualShock controllers, which added analog sticks and vibration. Neither were required to play Metal Gear Solid, but they were supported. Some people playing Metal Gear Solid could not enjoy vibration as they didn’t have a DualShock, a real shame as they missed out on Psycho Mantis moving their controller. Others could not enjoy analog controls because they only had the original PlayStation controller that lacked analog sticks, missing out on an easier way to play the game. Or they simply didn’t know how to enable Analog controls by touching the Analog button on the controller. Those who played the game on backwards compatible platforms had to do the same—by pressing the Analog button on the PlayStation 2’s DualShock 2, or within a system menu as was the case on the PlayStation 3.
To say it was simply being able to use the stick that made the game more enjoyable to play is actually a surface level understanding of analog controls. It is actually possible for a stick to operate as a digital input that simply measures an approximate position of the stick to corresponding static directions like up, down, left, right. You can experience this by playing an emulator for a classic game that didn’t support analog controls and mapping the stick to the directional keypad. This is, in fact, how the analog stick can be used when playing Metal Gear or Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake in every re-release since Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, where you can move in 4 directions. Just because you can use a stick to control the game doesn’t mean the game supports analog controls.
True analog directional controls means the exact position of the stick within its full range of motion corresponds to movement. Metal Gear Solid supported analog controls, which meant that using the control stick enables you to move Snake in 360 degrees of direction. Digital controls were also supported, but limited you to moving in 8 directions based on which directional pad buttons you pressed. Think of it like this compass, where pressing one or two buttons gives you the ability to move Snake in 8 individual degrees of motion (blue), as opposed to all 360 degrees.
On a side note, analog controls can sometimes enable the player to dictate speed based on how far the stick is pushed beyond the axis. This was not the case for Metal Gear Solid, which kept Snake’s running speed constant. But having full 360 degrees of directional control made the stealth-action title and it’s expansions and re-releases such as VR Missions and Integral a much more enjoyable experience.
Metal Gear Solid was re-released in 2023 as a part of the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1. The release has been plagued with various bugs and issues, but one glaring issue was the lack of analog controls. Yet as some fans try to voice this concern to Konami in hopes a fix will get patched, a few have astonishingly claimed that the re-release is fine as-is because it’s supposedly accurate to the original release. This is false, and both arguments actually contradict each other. The first argument is that the game never had analog controls. As explained earlier, the game did allow full 360 degrees movement for Snake using the stick when analog controls were enabled. Here is a video demonstrating the difference.
The second argument concedes that the game was released with analog controls in 1998, but conflates use of the control stick with analog controls. It is true, Master Collection Vol. 1 on release allowed players to use a control stick to control Snake—by simply mapping the control stick to the digital directional pad. That means while you can use a control stick to control Snake, it only enabled 8 directions much like a digital stick input would register movement. This is not how the game played in 1998, nor is it how it operated on any platforms that supported the game, including PlayStation Portable and even the unofficial bleem!cast release.
The fact is that the game dropped in 1998 with full analog controls. Maybe you played it with the old PlayStation controller that lacked analog sticks and you’re used to playing the game with just digital controls to the point of preferring them. Fine, but to suggest that removing full 360 degrees of directional control is somehow true to the original is like a lifelong vegan insisting that just having watermelon steak is totally typical for a classic American BBQ—yeah fine maybe that’s what you had and want to have at a BBQ, but most of us had some animal protein on the grill. Ultimately, it’s absurd that an official emulated version of the game has to rely on fans to mod the emulator being used to run the game just to enable what was easily enabled in a 1998 game.
Ah yes, the location with the hostages. Mr. X also refers to this room as a conference hall.
It’s clear what this location is normally intended for. Anyone who has worked in an office has likely even sat or stood in one of these places for a meeting, presentation, or a company-wide “town hall” meeting or panel. It’s also where press and public-facing events are usually be held. There was a major VIP tour of the Big Shell happening on April 29, 2009 with James Johnson, the President of the United States, in attendance. It’s possible the room was scheduled for an event on that day, internally or even open to the press, perhaps with Johnson himself giving the employees a motivating speech.
How the room could have been used on that day is all speculative of course and honestly doesn’t really matter. The point is the purpose of the room checks out, even as you enter the room. I’ve never had my eyeballs scanned in order to enter a place like this, but hey, I also never visited or worked on a weird offshore facility that was actually hiding a giant nuclear vessel. The raised platform with a giant screen, a podium, and a flag of the United States of America is pretty expected though. But the flag itself is curious. At first glance, it appears like it’s upside down. It has looked this way since the original 2001 PlayStation 2 release, and hasn’t been changed since.
People have sparingly discussed it online and we’ve even shitposted about it.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) | Shell 1 Core, B1 Hall https://t.co/dEiPyHVk3W
— The Snake Soup (@thesnakesoup) August 11, 2022
With the release of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 on modern platforms, Nitroid of the Kojima Frequency made a tiny little mod for the PC version that fixes the flag. While some joked that Nitroid was fixing something that’s not broken, some have unironically argued that it was, indeed, an intentional choice from Hideo Kojima or the rest of the KCEJ development team to have the flag look like that.
Despite what some of these people claim though, the flag isn’t upside down. It’s mirror-imaged. I don’t mean it’s reversed either, which is common on 2D depictions of the flag on military uniforms and even space vessels to visually mimic the flag flying in the wind. In fact, the Shell 1 Core flag should be reversed as it hangs to the left of the pole it’s attached to (to anyone looking at the raised platform). As it is in the game, the flag literally has attachments on the wrong side of the flag. Here’s a shitty mockup of how the flag would theoretically look if it was blowing in the wind:
Like the flag in the shitty mockup above, the flag in the Shell 1 Core uses ropes to keep it’s top and bottom corners secured to the pole. So whatever it’s using to be secured to the rope—header and grommets, D-rings, thimbles, or whatever—is on the wrong side of the flag. If we accept this as an intentional choice, you are saying a mirror-imaged American flag is something easily obtainable. This isn’t like asking your dad to bring home Coke and he instead brings Diet Coke, it’s more like him bringing home an 8-ball of cocaine he accidentally picked up in the soda aisle of a family-friendly grocery store. It would have to be a deliberate purchase, if one is even possible outside of someone getting a custom job or movie prop made. Realistically, you’d have to go out of your way to get an American flag you can attach the wrong way, and someone is gonna notice before, y’know, the President shows up. There’s no symbolic meaning behind the flag being like this except that you made a mistake.
But wait, you say. Maybe this is a fuck up because the flag is supposed to be upside down. That they intended it to be upside down, messed up the texture, but didn’t think anything of it because it kinda looks upside down. Sure, there is a meaning to flying the US flag upside down, one possibly intended by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in our shitpost above.
Some total “freaks” (hey, just quoting Ocelot here) led by a guy who looks like the disgraced former President claiming he’s a dead ecoterrorist who hired an entire Russian PMC hijacks the Big Shell, has hostages among which includes the current President, and is threatening to cause another large ecological event in the New York Harbor. Yeah, that’s for sure “dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” Fair enough, buddy.
But what are you saying Kojima intended here, then? To suggest that a brave soul reattached the flag upside down before they got captured (or shot)? Okay, but for what purpose? This isn’t a flag flying outside for others to see. It’s in a basement that has intentionally been isolated from the outside world. The only people who would be able to see the flag are the terrorists, the other hostages, and anyone trying to make a rescue attempt. All of these people would be more than aware of what’s going on. Maybe someone from Dead Cell or a Gurlukovich soldier did it, but why would they? It makes no sense.
What did Kojima mean by not having full collision detention with first person aiming and enemies? Is it a commentary on the emptiness of NPC minds as opposed to the concrete walls in the game? Genius!Mistakes happen. A lot of people have played Sons of Liberty without even realizing the US flag in the Shell 1 Core is messed up, especially with the original SD resolution or the fact that you don’t really need to be near the podium to get past that part of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers and testers never noticed it, nor Bluepoint when other errors like the “Smithsonian” typo were fixed for the HD Edition. And who knows, maybe they noticed it but thought it was upside down, intentionally so, and left it as-is.
But if you think this myth is still possible, you’re suggesting that there’s some lore here Kojima or his team intended, involving a Big Shell employee getting a mirror imaged flag OR going out of their way to fly the flag upside down even though it wouldn’t help anyone or serve any purpose. To which I shrug and say, “Cool head canon, bro.”