Last week, I picked up a copy of The Jak and Daxter collection for my PS3 and relished in a game I grew up with. Suddenly, as I was playing, I felt like I was back in 2001 (I was six back then) and just in amazement in the open world that was the first "Jak and Daxter," but then it dawned on me. It literally took me two years to finally play the game because I had games that I could never put down when I was a kid. The likes of "Gran Turismo 3," "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" (until I got it taken away from me), "Driver 3," and of course my favorite game of all time, "Metal Gear Solid 2." One of the first memories I had from my childhood was the PlayStation magazine demo disc that included a Japanese voiced game called "Metal Gear Solid." I was too young to competently play the game myself, but I would watch my brother sneak by the guards in white suits and eventually learning the terrain of the demo and taunting the guards in the beginning level. We would laugh at the Japanese commentary because we were young and couldn’t understand the language (I still attribute this exposure to our yearning to learn Japanese in high school), but the game was so fun for us, even though it was a 15-minute demo. We never got the real game until the PS2 was already in our house and my cousin sought it out.

When "Metal Gear Solid 2" came out in 2001, my brother and I rented a copy at a little place called Blockbuster. We had picked up a copy that included a side game called VR missions, which were mocked by Solid Snake in the story for falsely training soldiers, but we spent hours playing the game and I think I have literally beaten "MGS2" 50 times. I adored the character Solid Snake and loved his harshness and humbleness in his plight to take down terrorist organizations to protect the world. Always claiming to be a nomad, Snake didn’t fight for a particular country but rather a cause. Also, the games laid out the dangers of nuclear weaponry if put in wrong hands, and how the world was shaping after the fall of the Soviet Union.

That is where the series took a dramatic turn. "Metal Gear Solid 3" featured Solid Snake’s father(?) as he went behind Soviet lines and took part in a mission that would get nuclear weapons out of the hands of a radical Russian operative. The proliferation of nuclear weapons by creating bi-pedal mobile tanks. Ideology is the name of the game. I initially did not like the game and found the story rather confusing because the timeline went back to 1964 rather than 2009 when the events of "MGS2" took place. But then, as I grew older and put more of the pieces together in the puzzle, I grew to love the game. In fact, so much so that when I decided I wanted to be a history major I decided that my focus would be the Cold War era. Espionage is fascinating to me, and the Cold War had plenty to go around. "Metal Gear Solid 4" wrapped up the series and tied up loose ends between Big Boss ("MGS3" Snake) and his three sons (Solid, Liquid, and Solidus Snake). "Metal Gear Solid 5" is based on Big Boss rejecting the idealisms of nations and creating his own type of government, Outer Haven. I still have yet to complete the game, so I can’t provide as much detail as to the exact happenings in the timeline.

Now that I have the baseline set for "Metal Gear Solid," I am going to make a case for why the series is an all-time great and should be on a gamer's bucket list. First of all, the series has plenty of resourceful information about the history of the world during pivotal eras of modern history. Secondly, it is an incredible story that will twist and turn your mind as you try to figure it out (which I would need hours to explain the series to you). Third, the series focuses on the slogan ‘Tactical Espionage Action,’ which requires sneaking skills, solving complex boss battles, and using precision rather than playing online first-person shooters. "Metal Gear Solid" is an incredible series. The only gripe that I could come up with is that it's a PlayStation Exclusive for the original "Metal Gear Solid" and "Metal Gear Solid 4" (both pivotal to the series). So, sorry Xbox gamers, the series requires a PS3, at least to get all of the games in one place. Also, there is a particular blonde protagonist that is really annoying.

Overall, I highly recommend playing the series if you haven’t, and feel free to look up the story online, because the story is insanely difficult to follow.