Big Boss here! I forget to tell you something. This week’s Metal Gear cover story at 1UP is really rad! Over.

I think this week might be the first cover story we’ve tackled where everyone on staff was equally enthusiastic about the subject matter. The four of us don’t have a lot of tastes in common, yet all of us seem to have a definite affection — mixed as it may be at times — for Metal Gear. It’s all been good stuff!

Personally, I’m surprised by how well my articles have been received so far; as often happens when I tackle sort of abstruse, high-falutin’ ideas like The Snake and the Wheel and Patriot Games, I spend the entire I’m writing the article feeling sick because it doesn’t seem to be coming together into anything coherent. And once I’m done I can never shake the sensation it all seems like a load of bunkus. But just everyone seems to have enjoyed them. So that’s nice.

In preparation for this cover story, I finally played the MSX2 version of the original Metal Gear. I didn’t quite have time to finish it with all my other responsibilities, but I definitely did not expect the game to be so significantly different from its NES counterpart. I knew there had been some changes introduced in the porting process, but I didn’t realize they were so substantial or deep. The alternate building layouts aren’t that big a deal, but the existence of an entire sub-basement maze that has to be blown through with plastique? Jetpack troopers? Vastly less glitchiness and vastly more consistency? Better music? The game keeps surprising me.

And I can’t wait to fight the original Metal Gear (no, shut up, ZEKE doesn’t count). I’ve been waiting almost half a decade for the chance to face off against that amazing mech on the box cover. It always baffled me as a kid that the box art featured this incredibly cool bipedal mech, yet the machine itself never appeared in-game despite the game bearing its name. An empty spot in my gamer-nerd heart will soon be filled. And then, I will blow it up.