The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time--keeps on slipping into the future

The Legend of Zelda is an epic video game series by Nintendo about a princess, (who the game is named after) a hero in a green tunic named Link, and there enemy, the always evil, sometimes porcine, Ganon.  That's three major characters battling for the mythical land of Hyrule.  As in many mythologies, three is a significant number in this tale.  Hyrule was created by three goddesses, and the main symbol of the series is The Triforce which is constructed from three triangles.

   The most groundbreaking entry of this series came in 1998 with its fifth installment, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  Taking advantage of the R4300i processor of the Nintendo 64, it was the first Zelda game to be rendered in 3D.  It was more than a graphics upgrade however--while the previous Zelda games certainly had storylines, much of which had to be read in the manual, they focused more on gameplay than weaving a coherent narrative.  Ocarina of Time managed to balance story and exploratory gameplay, presenting the deepest look into the magical world of Hyrule at the time.  Most importantly it forced us all to learn what the hell an ocarina was.  Well played Nintendo.

The Genesis of Hyrule via the goddesses Din of power, Naryu of wisdom, and Farore of courage.


In this game the player experiences Link in two forms: as a child in the relatively peaceful land of Hyrule, and through the power of time travel via The Master Sword, as an adult.  Only as an adult the sunny skies of Hyrule have been enshrouded in darkness.  Ganon a.k.a. Ganondorf has taken over the land and must be vanquished.

Little did we know at the time what a big impact the time traveling elements of Ocarina of Time would have not just within the game--but with the entire Zelda franchise.  In December 2011, Nintendo released a book titled The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia which contained within the one thing fans have been constructing, speculating, and even reconstructing for years, the official timeline of the Zelda series.  All the major Zelda titles have been placed in chronological order, which is not to be mistaken with the games' release date orders.  This may be confusing for newcomers to the series as the release date of the games do not correlate with where their story falls into the timeline.  For example the latest Zelda for the Wii, Skyward Sword, was revealed to be the beginning of the world of Hyrule.  On the other hand, the Zelda games that were created back on The Nintendo in the 80's, take place well after Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time in the chronology.  Further more, from one Zelda adventure to another, the player is typically not controlling the same Link or interacting with the same Zelda (though that bastard Ganon seems to keep surviving--evil never sleeps).  Link and Zelda are beings reborn through the ages who come to assist Hyrule in its times of need.



To add to the complexity of the Zelda timeline, there are not two, but three divergent paths, all of which occur thanks to Ocarina of Time.  When Child Link pulls the legendary Master Sword from the Pedestal of Time (King Arthur style) he travels seven years forward into the future.  Here, we play as Adult Link who, Master Sword in hand, must rid Hyrule of Ganondorf, which at the end of the story leads to three possibilities:

• The Hero of Time fails to defeat Ganon.  This creates "The Fallen Hero Timeline."  Ganon has free reign with no hero to oppose him.  This would lead to The Seal War, which connects to Zelda: Link to the Past released on the Super Nintendo.

•  The Hero of Time succeeds.  An adult Zelda rewards the matured Link for defeating Ganondorf by sending him back seven years to his childhood so he could live a normal life.  Now following Zelda, this is "The Adult Link Timeline."   Unfortunately Ganondorf returns to life and wrecks havoc on Zelda's kingdom.  There is no Link to stop him as he was only recently sent back in time.  Rather than let Ganon have the world, the goddesses plunge Hyrule beneath a vast ocean.  This leads to Wind Waker, where players follow a new Link who sails the flooded world.

•     The Hero of Time succeeds.  Same as above only this time we follow things from Link's perspective as opposed to Zelda's.   Sent back to his original time, he is a child once more.  This little Hero of Time would have another adventure in the sequel Majora's Mask.  This is known as "The Child Link Timeline."  Despite having minor conquest, no one would truly know that Link was the great hero who went forward in time and saved all their ungratefully hides from Ganondorf.

Ocarina of Time would not be the last we see of this incarnation of Link, The Hero of Time.  In The Twilight Princess (which follows along the "Child Link Timeline") the new Link takes guidance from a ghostly figure known as The Hero's Spirit, who teaches him seven hidden skills, making the new hero into a better swordsman.  The Hero's Spirit turns out to be Link from Ocarina of Time.  His ghost stays in Hyrule begrudging the fact that he had no heirs to pass his skills onto, and that he was never recognized as a great hero.   Twilight Princess marks the first time we get to see one Link interact with another--hopefully it won't be the last.

A left-handed swordsman?  It is The Hero of Time!  Oh Link what woes have befallen thou?

  

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Clearly Nintendo realized what an impact Ocarina of Time has had on the series and released a remake for the 3DS on June 19, 2011

Robin Williams and his daughter Zelda who thankfully lacks her father's hairiness.

Hotline Miami--Let's make those white suits RED! pt. 2

"Right after you pass me the Cheerios you rude, dead, man."

 Things get bad--Jacket enters a convenience store to find a strange bearded clerk (who also seems to work at a pizza shop, a bar, and a VHS rental store) as well as the corpse of his enemy, Biker.  The creepy clerk informs us, "All this is not really happening" which may be a wink at the player, this is a video game after all.  To prove that this isn't reality, the corpse of Biker, and what's left of his head, attempt to speak...but mostly he just gurgles--and he's not the only member of the talking dead we'll encounter.  Corpses of the slain mafia men pop up all over the place.  Outside shops, in Jacket's apartment, pleasant stuff really.  Also it would appear that Jacket is being observed by a pair of green suited janitors who seem to have little to do with the plot (and have a strong resemblance to Hotline's creators Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin).  One even has the nerve to enter his apartment and when the player attempts to speak to the janitor his reply is "......" nil. 

This game has more talking corpses than a Chan-wook Park film

 Things get worse--raging through the levels to a funky electronic soundtrack that may be as addictive as the high octane gameplay, Jacket continues to leave blood splatters all over the flashy neon tackiness that was 1980's Miami.  The beats keeps the player flowing through what can only be described as an eerie murder trance.  It's all routine until Jacket returns to his home to see the unspeakable happen.  Another assassin in a rat mask named Richter has broken into his apartment and slain his new found girlfriend.  That rattin' bastard does him another favor by putting a bullet in his head--Richter too is following orders from his answering machine--the protagonist has outlived his usefulness to this shadow organization.

                                       Mega 64's hilarious take on Hotline Miami

Things get weird--the player gets an automatic Game Over.  The end...that is until we wake up in a hospital.  We learn that while the events we've seen did actually happen (though to what extent who knows) we have been witnessing a coma dream up until now.  Surviving a bullet to the head will do that to you.  From the rest of the game onward Jacket is in the "real" world.  His first mission in reality, escape the hospital and return back home. 


From here the storyline gets a change of tempo.  This is now a tale of revenge.  Jacket wants to wipe out every mafia bastard as well as the rat-faced Richter, for the death of his girlfriend.  Even though he succeeds in offing the rat (though you can show Richter mercy), plus the Russian's and their leader, Jacket's story ends with a dangling plot thread. Who the hell was leaving these threatening messages on the answering machine that led to the slaughters in the first place?  To find out Hotline Miami uses a unique character switching mechanic.  Time literally rewinds before our eyes.  Controlling the pink vested hitman Biker, we are led back to the fight between he and Jacket--only this time around Biker wins the fight and executes the game's hero with a not-so-gentle stomp to the head.  Unlike the mute Jacket, Biker wants to get to the bottom of things and find out who has been ordering him, as well as the other assassins, to murder the Russian mob.

Biker, getting to the bottom of things, like bikers do.

Gameplay as Biker works a little differently from Jacket.  He maintains the cleaver and three throwing knives he used from the earlier boss fight, and can not pick up additional weapons.  After following address leads from his own answering machine, and threatening the right people, Biker comes to the house where the assassination orders are being made.  Upon entering the house we see one of the janitors who was spying on Jacket flee into a sewer manhole.

Biker follows him down and confronts not one, but two of the janitors who are hiding down below.  "Who are you working for?" he demands

"No one" the blonde janitor with a smug smile says.
"We're independent, we did it ourselves!" replies his brunet accomplice through his jackal grin.  This statement is a reference to the production of independently made video games.  In this case the company who created the game Dennaton comprises of just two men.  The janitors jerk Biker around and give him no straight answers.  Biker is left with the option to kill or spare these men, but will never know why exactly all this killing had to happen.  But wait yet, there is a proper ending, we just have to rewind one more time, only not so far.

Back to the surface level of the janitors' hideout is a password protected computer.  There are sixteen puzzle pieces hidden throughout Hotline Miami, each a different letter that when combined reveals a phrase that works as the password for the computer.  Discovering this code reveals what is known in the video game world as The Golden Ending.

This password is brought to you by The Boss!



This time around having hacked into the mysterious janitors' personal computer, Biker confronts them without having to ask questions.  He already knows all he needs to about the shadow organization they run known as "50 Blessings."

Wiping the self-satisfied grins off the faces of these jingoistic bastards is one of the most satisfying moments in video game history.

50 Blessing it turns out is an overreaction to the 80's return of The Red Scare.  The janitors have been blackmailing and coercing people through phone messages to go on killing sprees against what 50 Blessings saw as a looming Russian invasion.  Now that he has his answers, once again Biker has the option to kill or spare these men.

 This was one weird ride, but it is definitely one I'll be willing to take again when Dennaton finally releases the sequel they're currently developing.  Hotline Miami is a series where the corpses don't fade away after you kill them.  They just lie there dead, lifeless and destroyed.  It's a design choice that one of the creators, Jonatan Söderström, expressed in an article by International Business Times, "There are moral implications in trying to sanitise violence and we just didn't want to do that.  It's better to make a violent game than to try and tone down the violence. We wanted to show how ugly it is when you kill people."

Hotline Miami--It's like that 80's song pt. 1

Hotline Miami by Dennaton Games

Another daily message on your answering machine, "This is 'Thomas' from the methadone clinic. We've scheduled a short meeting for you tonight. We're at NW 184th street, APT 105. And don't worry... We know discretion is of importance to our clients."  The only truth in this message--and all the other messages you receive--is the address, the rest is a lie.  When you arrive at the address in your stylish Delorean, you choose from a variety of animal themed masks, put one on, and lets the bloodshed begin.



Hotline Miami is set in the late 1980's (guess in which city). The ultra violent retro adventure was so inspired by the movie Drive that the creators mention the film's director in the game's credits under special thanks.  It is not the video game it seems to be at first, both from a gameplay and narrative perspective.  It's a top down game that has you playing as a nameless, violent, assassin who has access to a large variety of weapons.  Many are impromptu: baseball bats, lead pipes, golf clubs, and in one case a pot of boiling water.  Others are more official killing tools: katanas, uzis, and shotguns.  However the player must use these items with caution. 

Kill--but kill carefully.
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Running into a room guns a blazin' will only attract more members of  the Russian mob you've been contracted to kill.  A stealthier approach may be needed.  Precision, speed, and planning are necessary if one wants to survive Hotline Miami.  You don't want to go rushing into a room with four armed mafia men who want your head.  Instead you'll find yourself waiting for one to walk by a door--then you'll swing that door open from the other side knocking that gangster to the ground.  You throw a knife at one of his accomplices across the room cutting his life short.  You rush back over to the downed man and bash his head into the ground before he can recover.  Grabbing  his weapon you run over to finish off his two comrades before they finish you.  That's what the gameplay is like--fast paced and quick thinking--and you might want to leave a little room for improvising in case things go wrong.  This isn't just action, it's a puzzle game as well. You'll constantly ask yourself, "how do I best navigate through this maze of mafia men without them handing my ass to me?"

The storyline begins in a fog.  We don't know why Jacket (the name given to the main protagonist by the fans) is going from one mafia safe house to another killing the dangerous men within, but we know what's motivating him, mysterious answering machine messages he receives in his home giving him the address to his next "appointment." 

Hotline Miami tells a story in subtle ways all while using Nintendo era graphics.  In the level titled Decadence, Jacket rescues a junkie/prostitute from the clutches of the Russian gangsters.  He takes her home out of sympathy and we see them living together between chapters.  While not a word of dialogue is spoken between them, we see the hitman's home getting a "woman's touch" overtime.  The apartment gets cleaner, and we see their two beds being moved closer together over time.  It's story telling at it's most subtle, but also at it's finest.  Here lies the strength of indie games, they can tell a powerful narrative without the photo-realistic graphics of mainstream titles.


Nah man, nothing is alright in this twisted tale.
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The cut scenes in the game are chilling and confusing like a David Lynch movie.  Within each of the game's four acts, Jacket is confronted by three masked beings in a creepy undisclosed location.  Much like the disturbed protagonist, they wear animal mask.  The rooster Richard (representing the superego), Ramsus the owl (the ever brutal, ever rude, id), and Don Juan in her horse mask (the ego).  Richard, clearly the leader of the group, ask Jacket (and by proxy the player) these four questions:  

1. Do you like hurting other people?
2. Who is leaving messages on your answering machine?
3. Where are you right now?
4. Why are we having this conversation?

Whoever is leaving the messages on Jacket's answering machine guarantees one thing--the hitman is not alone on his masked massacre.  There are others running rampant at the orders of this mysterious organization.  Jacket will encounter a few of them, and it won't be pretty when he does.

In a chapter titled "Neighbors" the protagonist faces one of these killers.  The pink vested, helmet wearing, cleaver swinging, rival assassin has been dubbed "Biker" by fans.  Assuming Jacket has come to kill him, a boss battle ensues, and if things go well for the player, Jacket ends up playing a friendly round of golf with Biker's head.  With a fellow assassin dead you'd think things would be getting better for Jacket, but from here things only get weirder....

to be continued....

Proteus Effect: You! Are! Avatar!

 Proteus Effect: describes a phenomenon wherein the behavior of an individual operating under a digital persona, adapts to conform to that persona. This is an effect associated with digital self-representation.  Source

In 2012 (the year our world ended) a study was done titled, The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

 The study took 84 women from 18 to 41 and placed an HMD (head mounted device) on them.  Looking into a virtual world they were presented with a digital character to control (in some cases they resembled the player and were referred to as "virtual doppelgangers.") 

"We wanted to determine whether self-resemblance of the embodied avatar moderates the Proteus effect. Thus, in this study, participants were embodied in an avatar that was either sexualized (wearing tight and revealing clothing that accentuated a voluptuous body) or nonsexualized (wearing conservative clothing on a non-voluptuous body). Additionally, the face of the avatar was manipulated in that participants either saw their own face (Self) or someone else's face (Other) on the virtual body." (Fox et al., 2012)

After the virtual experience a questionnaire was given to the test subject in regards to the woman's perceptions on rape myths: the belief that when a woman is raped she is in some way responsible, because of the way she dressed, her behavior, etc.  The study found that the women who played as the sexily dressed avatars were more likely to agree with the absurd rape myths.

Let's walk it back some to the 2009 study  The Proteus Effect Implications of Transformed Digital Self-Representation on Online and Offline Behavior.   The study featured Nick Yee and Jeremey Bailenson who first coined the phrase Proteus Effect in 2007.  Building on their prior research they monitored online worlds such as the ever popular World of Warcraft and discovered an interesting find:

   "Overall, the findings suggest that avatar height and attractiveness do play a role in an online game, and tall attractive avatars do outperform other avatars... these findings show that an avatar’s appearance can influence a user’s behavior in an online environment." (Yee et al., 2009)

Damn, no wonder the dude in Avatar was so confident.  His was like ten feet tall!

I would definitely like to see research like this be expanded as it is only in it's infancy (hell, MMO gaming itself is still a fairly new phenomenon). An article on the 2012 study on NBC News says of the researchers, "Fox and Bailenson said that these are preliminary findings, emphasizing that critics of video games should not jump to hasty conclusions before more research can be done on the subject."


 My question for the 2012 Proteus Effect study is, would the results be different if all the women selected were experienced gamers?  Could they better differentiate between reality and fantasy?

It may be tempting to think that a gamer might be more susceptible, but could the opposite be possible?  We've played as Tommy Vercetti, Lara Croft, Commander Shepard, the list goes on.  Could trying on various skins and wearing many hats weaken the Proteus Effect?

In World of Warcraft it doesn't matter if the player is a hulking tauren or a squat dwarf--they'll hit you in the face with a blunt object all the same.

An interesting aside, the 2012 study also found that women who controlled the sexy avatars often felt the same physical insecurities as women who tried on swimsuits in real life body image studies.

Which is why TECMO decided to combine these elements into DOA Xtreme Beach Vollebally: The coup de grace to female self-esteem!

Oculus Rift--Plug into The Matrix!

For so long gamer-kind has been teased with the idea of virtual reality.  Some of us remember Nintendo's attempt with their system The Virtual Boy.  With its odd red and black image display, and the burning sensation players would feel in their eyes after 30 minutes of use. It was clear--we weren't viewing video games through those ruby lenses, but the blazing depths of Hell. 



Virtual Boy Born: July 21, 1995  Died: March 2, 1996

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                    Rumor has it that the Virtual Boy's creator, Gunpei Yokoi, was punished for the system's failure by being made to man a booth for the dead system at a 1996 gaming convention.  Despite the appearance and title of the console, it was in no way virtual reality.  The experience was more akin to sitting really, really, close to your TV while playing your Super Nintendo--after having been punched in the eyes.


The only other bit of virtual technology I could recall was back in the way rad early 90's.  When I was a little kid on a trip to Disney World I was lucky enough to be selected to beta-test a virtual reality game based on the movie Aladdin.  I remember putting on the virtual goggles and flying through the streets of an animated Agrabah on a rig that reminded me of a stationary motorcycle.  Thankfully a blog post by one of the men who worked on the project, Avi Bar-Zeev, confirms that the project was real and not one of my childhood hallucinations. 

Fast-forward to present day.  Not a lot has happened with virtual technology--that is until one hell of a Kickstarter project occurred in 2012.  Enter The Rift!  The Oculus Rift's goal was to reach $250,000 in pledges...it made it to $2,437,429 within 30 days.  It gained an additional $16 million in funding from Matrix Partners and Spark Capital.


Much like Gangnam Style and Miley Cyrus antics, The Rift has even attracted The Today Show's attention.  The system will be the first affordable virtual reality set to be used in households.  It should be interesting to see how this will change gaming, as well as other aspects of our lives.  An article on the Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry site explains future healthcare possibilities,
"The idea behind using VR for healthcare is to completely immerse patients in a computer-generated world where they can undergo therapy and training in a safe, artificial environment controlled by a clinician."

Some major games will be supporting the device.  Imagine how much creepier Ravenholm will be in Half-Life 2 when you walk through a dark room, turn your face, and see a headcrab leaping at you!

Virtual reality will allow us to immerse our selves in fantasies.  Some light, some oh so dark.

How realistic will VR become? What other sensations will we one day feel beyonds sights and sounds?        Throw in the omnidirectional treadmill and we're that much closer to having Star Trek's holodeck.

Speaking of sensations...not two seconds after the whole, "Hey they'll probably make porn out of this thing," joke was made, it stopped being a joke.  A naughty little Japanese title called Custom 3D Maid will be Oculus Rift compatible and will come with a special controller called Ju-C Air which can only be piloted by males--if ya know what I'm sayin'!  

Ah the human sex drive, well I believe Jeff Goldblum said it best in Jurassic Park "Life, uh... finds a way."

First we resurrect long-dead prehistoric beast, then we make sex with dead-eyed, virtual characters a reality.  For this we must endure the judgmental gaze of Goldblum!

Metal Gear Rising: Revengance--Our future wars pt. 2

Raiden is the Robin to Solid Snake's Batman...okay he's more of a Nightwing--a Robin who grew up and came into his own acrobatic heroics.

"I am my own man--I AM!"

Raiden (it's a codename, his real name is Jack) made his first appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2 where he upstaged Solid Snake in the role of main protagonist.
Metal Gear Rising is an action game that takes a departure from the Metal Gear Solid series.  Stealth is possible, but it's way more fun to engage the enemy and chop them into tiny little robot chunks with your samurai sword.

Raiden's childhood was a traumatic one, raised as a child soldier in Liberia by the evil Solidus Snake (not to be mistaken for his fellow clone from the Les Enfants Terribles project, Solid Snake), Raiden was such a vicious fighter in his youth he earned nicknames like "The White Devil" and "Jack the Ripper."  Fortunately he was able to get away from his sinister adoptive father and move to the United States.

Raiden: Child soldier, PTSD victim, cyborg-ninja, and... African American

Growing up Jack could not escape from the horrors of his past, displaying symptoms of PTSD (on top of constantly suppressing his Jack the Ripper persona), he felt the only thing he could do was be a soldier so he enlisted in FOXHOUND--who he would eventually leave for a private military security organization known as Maverick, as the lovable crazy-ninja-cyborg he is today.

Four years after Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Rising is set in the year 2018.  Things have escalated since MGS4--anybody who's anybody on the battlefield has been fitted with cyborg enhancements.  It makes sense considering this is a world were armies have robots with advanced AI's and Metal Gears: bipedal tanks capable of launching nuclear missiles.

There are futurist who believe that as technology advances around us at exponential rates, the only way humans will be able to keep up with it will be by integrating the technology within ourselves.  This future moment is called The Singularity.   In a way the story of Rising can be seen as a very physical version of The Singularity as soldiers must upgrade their bodies to stay in step with battlefield technology, as well as their enemies.  In the introduction of the game Raiden takes a major thrashing from rival sword swinging cyborg, Jetstream Sam.  Upon losing the fight (and some body parts) Raiden's first realization is--he needs to upgrade.  It's a funny thought, someday in the distant future we might be upgrading ourselves like we do our cellphones. 

As far as implementation in warfare, robotics are starting on the outside.  Exoskeletons, like the HULC, meant to increase a soldier's strength and endurance are in development.

And what of the other technology that is so prevalent throughout the Metal Gear franchise?  What about "Nanomachines son?" 

The final boss in Metal Gear Rising, who happens to be a U.S. Senator and 2020 shoe-in for the presidency, Steven Armstrong, is loaded with nanomachines making him a nearly indestructible foe.   

The Nanotechnology Initiative defines the science on their website:  "Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering."

In the Metal Gear universe the abilities granted by nanomachines in the blood stream range from the practical: monitoring the body's vitals, releasing painkillers and other medications, and links to personal devices; to the freakish: telepathy between soldiers, telekinesis, enhanced strength and healing, and just about every move Raiden's archnemesis Vamp makes.

It's impossible to say what the limits of nanotechnology will be:  Will they be able to perform micro-surgery?  Can someday nanorobots be injected into a patient to attack cancer cells?  Most importantly, will they allow us to stick to walls like Spider-man?

We have to keep an open mind when it comes to science even if certain achievements seem impossible in the present.  As science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said,"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Keep an open mind, or Arthur C. Clarke will return as a cyborg-ninja and kick your ass.
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The Metal Gears keep on turning--Our future wars pt. 1

The Metal Gear franchise has been with us since 1987 making it almost as old as The Mario Bros. series.  It wasn't until 1998 when it added the tag Solid (in reference to going 3D and to the main protagonist Solid Snake) to the title that it gained the popularity it still enjoys today. 

The creator of the series Hideo Kojima, is credited for inventing the stealth genre of video games (and has the Guinness World Record to prove it) where instead of constantly engaging in combat, the character must remain hidden from patrolling enemies. While he has made many sequels and prequels to the Metal Gear Solid franchise, it is the concept of war machines in Metal Gear Solid 4 :Guns of the Patriots (2008), and continued in Metal Gear Rising: Revengance (2013) that feels almost prophetic as technology marches forward.

In the opening of MGS 4 Solid Snake gives this now classic quote: "War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles fought by mercenaries and machines. War - and its consumption of life - has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities."  Set in the year 2014, how far off are we from the world Solid Snake describes?



"The ants go marching one by one hurrah, hurr....oh god please don't step on us!

 The idea seems far fetched at first,  scientifically enhanced soldiers fighting on the battlefield along with killer war machines.  Proxy battles being fought by machines?!  Kojima does the science fiction well but maybe he should dial back a little on the fiction and......

Oh...oh wait...those guys.

PBS.org recently published an article titled Empathy for military robots could affect outcomes on the battlefield.  Soldiers have grown used to having robots in war zones, and are even empathizing with them.

Drones of course are still controlled by humans unlike the robotic units, like the Gekkos, seen in MGS.  X-47B--the first autonomous strike plane--intends to change that.  As described in an article by Bernie Lopez in the Philippine Daily Inquirer:  "In the past, US drones launched in the Middle East were mainly controlled via satellite thousands of kilometers away at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. But recently, for the first time, the United States showcased the new carrier-based superdrone X-47B. That it has a longer range than existing drones and that it is based on mobile carriers mean it can achieve deep penetration of enemy territories."

X-47B--like the movie Stealth only people will actually want to see it.

What makes the X-47B special is it isn't automated, it is autonomous.  While most robots are automated, capable of doing the same repetitive task over and over, the autonomous X-47B will be capable of making it's own decisions thanks to A.I.   

How will robots reshape the battlefield in terms of ethics?  On December 1st 2012 a policy review was written by professors Matthew Waxman and Kenneth Anderson titled Law and Ethics of Robot Soldiers.  Here's the money quote in regards to our future, shiny, robot soldiers:  "As lethal systems are initially deployed, they may include humans in the decision-making loop, at least as a fail-safe — but as both the decision-making power of machines and the tempo of operations potentially increase, that human role will likely slowly diminish." 

"Ethics schmethics, I nailed it down to three rules."

MGS4 serves as Solid Snake's swan song.  The result of a cloning experiment in the 1970's known as Les Enfants Terribles, his body is breaking down prematurely and he is old beyond his years.  As an old school soldier he appears a bit outclassed next to the robotically enhanced enemies he faces (though I'm sure he's grown accustomed to that by now).  Snake's protégé Raiden however is all about getting jiggy with the cyborg enhancements.  Next week I'll discuss Raiden and his spin off game Metal Gear Rising and what happens when we do more than fight along the robots--we become them.

to be continued.....