A Stealth Game: The Kojima Code, Part II: 2 Paperback – 23 July 2020

I now know that there was so much I didn't notice in Snake Eater and MGS4 that I'm almost embarrassed about it. Not to mention the struggle in Kojima's mind for video game supremacy, especially against the GTA series and Halo. Kojima has some crazy ideas which he put in the game in plain sight, for all of us to ignore. Both genius... and also foolish.

Unlike a certain negative review here seems to think, this book never asserts that the analysis is factual and rather admits right off the bat that this is all nothing but speculation, albeit incredibly insightful and well-reasoned speculation.Also unlike that review seems to think, Wolfe makes it very clear how much effort and work was put into Metal Gear Solid 4. That reviewer clearly is just an average fan of that game who cannot see the forest for the trees and mistakes a deep analysis of a work made under negative circumstances for an indictment of said work as a hunk of garbage. It's not a hunk of garbage at all, which Wolfe makes clear. It's a brilliant piece of bitter, postmodern expression unlike anything the world of video games has ever seen except Metal Gear Solid 2; it's an extension of the same bitter, postmodern expression with which Kojima created that game. Kojima hated the fans who demanded MGS4 and hated that he had to make it, but he is not a man that leaves any job half-finished if he can avoid it. He fully committed himself to making a game that should never have been made, and his strong feelings about being in that situation are abundantly clear in the game itself, so the only way someone could read this analysis of Wolfe's on MGS4 and reject it is as hateful ignorance is if that someone is exactly the kind of ignorant fan Kojima despises. Wolfe isn't anti-MGS4. Kojima was. Some are just too blind to see it even when all the signs are flashing bright neon.As a book of analysis of the work of an auteur director/designer, A Stealth Game surpasses the quality of The Kojima Code with flying colors. The writing here is tighter and moves along at a much better pace than that of The Kojima Code, and while the step-by-step plot summaries of the first book worked for that book, especially for a reader unfamiliar with Kojima's games, Wolfe does away with them in this volume, which is a benefit for those familiar with the games like myself but a detriment to anyone reading who is not familiar with them.The analysis in this book goes deep...far deeper even than the already deep analysis in The Kojima Code. Here Wolfe brings a hard look at world history to shine a hard-to-deny spotlight directly on so many aspects of Kojima's Metal Gear series that have been previously overlooked. The case Wolfe presents is incredibly strong and endlessly fascinating. He has a mind for artistic analysis that few possess. I can confidently say that my appreciation for Kojima's work has been expanded in huge ways by Wolfe's work, and I can't recommend them enough to others, be they fans or detractors of Kojima's work, or even anyone just interested in auteurs and the polemics they hide in their work.The book's stellar analytical and writing quality is only subdued by an incomplete editing job, albeit one clearly not so desperately rushed as the editing on the first book. Someone took their time editing A Stealth Game, unlike the wildly inconsistent editing on The Kojima Code. However, while you have your average typos, what hurts the readability of this book the most is its paragraph structuring. In many cases, paragraphs will literally go on for an entire page or more without a break, and it becomes very tiresome on the eyes. I noticed so many places where these enormously bloated paragraphs could've been broken up into smaller chunks, which alone would've helped make the book so much easier to read. I hope Wolfe improves in this area on the next volume.Speaking of a next volume, this book ends with a pretty clear assertion that another volume is on the way, which is super exciting and makes sense of the lack of updates on Wolfe's site as of late; he's clearly putting all his time and energy into the next book, which is thrilling to think about. The first book covered everything from Kojima's upbringing up through Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, and this book covers everything from Metal Gear Solid 3 to the failed Kojima-envisioned version of the Metal Gear Rising project. I can't wait to read Wolfe's wonderfully fascinating analysis of Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V in the inevitable next volume.