Beyond simple narrative tricks unique to gaming, a few videogames have begun to incorporate flourishes of meta-narrative into their storylines. Metal Gear Solid’s story touches upon several themes such as the question of nature vs. nurture and the perils of developing technology for its own sake, but both the PlayStation original and its PS2 sequel also have room for a commentary on the currently running debate on the adverse effects of violence in videogames.
In Metal Gear Solid, the leader of the terrorists eventually has the protagonist, codenamed Snake, in captivity. While jeering at him, the terrorist leader tries to break Snake’s resolve by comparing Snake’s fondness for battle to the terrorists’ own unabashedly bloodthirsty mindset. "Are you denying it?" he asks. "Haven’t you already killed most of my comrades? I watched your face when you did it. It was filled with the joy of battle."
Similar moments can be found in a great deal of military- and spy-themed stories; James Bond was taunted the same way in The Man with the Golden Gun. But in the medium of videogames, which carry the high degree of identification discussed earlier, this exchange invites the player to reflect on more than the similarity between Snake and the terrorists—he or she is also invited to reflect on the similarity between themselves and the terrorist mindset. The enemy leader’s words apply equally to Snake’s actions and the player’s own, all the more so because the game has been designed specifically so that killing the enemies is enjoyable. The player, who has been riding the thrill of battle throughout the game, is suddenly brought up short and asked to take a hard look at what has kept him or her so excited up until now, and his or her own part in the slaughter.
Metal Gear Solid 2 takes the parallels even further, offering a new protagonist codenamed Raiden who has received extensive virtual-reality training but has no field experience. Taken on its own, this piece of Raiden’s history would be only circumstancial evidence, but the game’s director underlines the comparison by referring to his own previous work: a companion to the original Metal Gear Solid used that game’s base code to construct a series of 300 "VR Missions." Brief clips illustrating Raiden’s training program as he reminisces about it are taken directly from these "VR Missions," and he refers to several of the scenarios by name. The unsubtle implication is that Raiden is a literal stand-in for the player, and the Metal Gear Solid 2’s director goes on from there to suggest that videogame-based training is no substitute for the real thing (challenging the oft-suggested notion that schoolyard killers learned their marksmanship from violent videogames), in addition to cautioning players against mistaking the game world for reality.
The most extravagant use of metafiction in a game thus far belongs to .hack, a game that puts the player in the unusual role of a schoolboy playing a game. The offline, standalone game is carefully designed to mimic the experience of playing a popular online role-playing game—one not unlike the previously discussed Phantasy Star Online—complete with AI helpers to substitute for online teammates and a virtual "desktop" where the real player can check the fictional player’s email and read news briefs regarding the game world.
Meta-game aspects, invisible foreshadowing, and side quests are interesting tools in the developing arsenal of narrative devices unique to games. The real jewel of an interactive medium, however, lies not in the potential for the creators to play tricks with the story, but in the potential for the audience to do so.