*Intense music* *falling rain* *thunder crashes*
Snake: "Kept you waiting, huh?"
*ruins mood* Matpat: "For a Game Theory episode on 'Metal Gear', am I right?"
*Game Theory theme music*
Hello Internet!
Welcome to Game Theory!
The only show on the Internet that DIDIN'T
start their "Metal Gear Solid" episode with a codec joke
You know what else we're NOT gonna do?
Talk about a topic you would expect us to cover from these games
I mean this franchise has so many potential topics
private military groups, nanotechnology,
governmental conspiracies, cloning,
walking tanks, DNA-Kill devices,
naked cartwheels, the validity of escaping capture by hiding under a box
And we are covering NONE OF IT
Yet.
Though I've always wanted to do the box one
No, today we're looking at a small detail that appears in every one of these games
One that is absolutely ICONIC to this franchise,
but one that always tends to go a bit unnoticed:
Snake's smoking habits
Even before "Metal Gear" solidified,
cigarettes were the first item you received in the game
Equip them, and most of the time all they did was deplete your health
*laughs* *small bleep as text comes on screen* Oh, hilarious anti-smoking statement
But in certain circumstances they could help
Steadying Snake's nerves when he was aiming,
detecting lazer alarms using the smoke
stuff like that
But one property that caught my attention was the ability to alter time
In the original "Metal Gear" way back in 1987
the cigarettes were USELESS until the final moments of the game
The facility you're in is about to self-destruct, and Snake has to escape
Equipping the cigarettes suddenly EXTENDS the amount of time you have to get out of there
Time has, in essence, SLOWED
It's weird, right?
Now jump from the first installment to the last
to a game that isn't even out yet
"Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain"
Even though, according to some trailers it's been out for 31 years...?
*mat leans into mic* Marketing departments are weird...
ANYWAY
This game doesn't follow Solid Snake,
it follows Big Boss
Known as the "greatest soldier who ever lived"
First introduced in "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater",
which is one my all-time favorite games,
and the guy who just happens to be the FINAL boss of the FIRST game of the franchise that we just talked about
Got all that?
No?
Good!
Welcome to "Metal Gear"!
This is a Kojima production
Anyways, in this one Big Boss is now called "Venom Snake"
Because again, *super manly voice* "METAL GEAR" MUST BE COMPLICATED.
During the E3 2014 gameplay demo of "Phantom Pain",
I witnessed something that got that little, mini-theorist
riding the electric bicycle that powers my brain a'peddalin'
It's called the "Phantom Cigar"
And it looks a little something like this: (above clip)
*time on clock is manipulated while a woman's voice is heard singing "Woah-woaaaahhh"* *solid snake trips balls*
Did you see that?
Lets do it one more time
*snake takes another hit* *repeats same clip, same in-game audio*
(Matpat cuts in): "Hi-YaaAAAA"
(Matpat continues narration) Welcome to flavor country.
Slightly racist Middle-Eastern music aside,
this got me thinking
In "Metal Gear Solid V",
smoking once again results in time-bending properties
Here, Venom Snake has an electronic cigar that speeds up the way he perceives time
But we're given even more detail
If you look closely at the item menu here's exactly what it says:
Quote: *reads top half of the above in-game description*
It also adds, *proceeds to read bottom half of the same description*
But that's...crazy, ...right?
Is there REALLY a medicinal herb that can make time pass like this?
Well theorists, order some munchies
and break out your dad's "Grateful Dead" records
because this week's theory is taking us on a
*hippy Matpat* "far-out journey into the world of illegal drugs, maaan"
*normal Matpat* Oh, and I should probably mention at this point that
all the research I've done is via READING,
NOT first-hand experience
Call me "lame" or whatever,
but I've never smoked,
gotten drunk,
or gotten high on anything stronger than sugar
or...caffeine, I suppose
As someone who values being in control of my body and my decisions,
it's a choice I've made with my life, and I'm proud of it.
But hey!
It's not for everyone, and I get that *mat self evaluates how much of a loser he was in college*
So you do you, theorists!
No judgement,
and I would hope that you would offer the same courtesy to me
*reads above words*
*continues* Cue "The More You Know" rainbow effect *cheers*
Perfect. ^__^
So lets start with the new kid on the block,
Methamphetamine -theres no way you read that or this in time
who recently starred in "Breaking Bad" alongside "Malcolm in the Middle"s dad and
the "Science, b*tch!"
In a 1981 study published in the journal of experimental psychology,
methamphetamine was given in tiny doses to rats
who were trained to receive food after correctly guessing the duration of timed signals
The meth was shown to increase the speed of a rat's internal clock by about 10% in small doages
And if we consider that Snake is constantly dosing himself throughout the day,
I'd say it's at least possible that the drug could successfully exhibit this time-quickening effect
Unfortunately though,
rather than being a medicinal herb,
meth is COMPLETELY artificial
first synthesized by a Japanese chemist named
*Matpat struggles to pronounce* Na-gai...Na-gaaa..yo-shi
YOSHI, druggy.
Oh
and uh...
It's also a borderline neurotoxin that causes
*reads above list*
*continues* in low doses
aaand *continues to read the rest of list*
*continues again* in high doses
I guess Venom Snake WOULD benefit from the increased focus
and probably wouldn't be opposed to a little, uh,
"TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION"
if you know what I mean ;)
But those benefits are FAR outweighed by the consequences
Quite frankly,
at the frequency Snake would be using this in the game,
he would overdose and die.
So yeah,
I think it's safe to say we can knock this guy(meth) off the list
What about cocaine?
Doesn't it have some medical applications?
Actually, yes.
Cocaine can legitimately be described as medicinal
because it's sometimes used as an anesthetic for nasal surgery
AND as a part of a diagnostic test for Parkinson's Disease
But more importantly, it comes from a plant
And yes, it IS the same plant that they use in Coca-Cola,
but the soda itself hasn't contained traces of cocaine since 1929
So get over it, Internet
That said, it's still as addictive as ever
*long slurp*
*swallows*
(Matpat) Ahhh...smooth.
SO, knowing that, lets jump back to Snake
First of all,
if you are smoking cocaine
it would have to be it's free-base, "crack-cocaine" form
because that's the only was to inhale it without heat burning off much of the active chemicals
Crack Cocaine
Sound familiar?
It should because crack was the extremely popular
illegal street-drug associated with the 1980s drug culture
of L.A., New York and Miami
You know all those weird, drug related arcade games that JonTron talked about?
Crack had a little something to do with those guys
But the question is,
would smoking rocks give us our time travel effect?
According to Ruth Ogden and Catherine Montgomery of Liverpool John Moore's University,
Quote: *reads above quote*
*Matpat continues* So yeah,
everything seems to line up with Venom Snake being a crackhead except for one thing:
crack cocaine highs only last between 5 and 10 minutes
So imagine you're Snake
After your first puff of the cocaine "Phantom Cigar",
your brain would be hit with a rush of dopamine
But then,
10 minutes later the dopamine levels plummet,
your high is gone,
and you need more.
But because your brain takes a while to replenish dopamine,
the more hits you take, the less powerful the highs get
Snake would need to constantly be smoking to achieve the effect that we see in the game
And that comes with some serious consequences.
You would develop insomnia,
become paranoid,
and before you know it, he'd have gone on a three day crack binge
Not a great mindset for a stealth-action, super spy
Repeated use, as he does throughout the game,
would also lead to full-blown psychosis,
potentially "Crack Lung", where your lungs constrict and prevent oxygen and blood from properly circulating,
or even "Delusional Parasitosis"
where Snake would begin to believe that he's got "cocaine bugs" crawling under his skin.
sometimes to the point where he actually would SEE them,
and FEEL them,
and start to scratch at them and-
*grossed-out Matpat* ughh...it's nasty.
ooh*chills*...drugs man.
Drugs can really mess you up sometimes.
*back to normal Matpat* Okay,
so hallucinatory bugs aside,
maybe cocaine's not right either.
In fact, maybe Snake doesn't need an "upper" at all
Maybe instead he needs something to...
"mellow him out"
so that he doesn't notice time passing around him,
taking him down river into a never-ending ocean of calm
*hippy Matpat returns* Faaar ouut, man
Enter Opium
*normal Matpat* Opium is often used to chemically create other opioids, like Morphine,
for use as medicine
So yes,
It's medicinal
It's ALSO made from poppies,
so it passes the plant test
And it works!
*audio clip from "The Wizard of Ozz"*
Wicked Witch of the West: "Poppies will put them to sleeep."
Dorothy: "I'm so sleepy..."
Scarecrow: "Oh, you can't rest now! We're nearly there!"*fades out*
*Game Theory resumes* Yeah, kind of like that.
According to...*laughs* ooh boy
Mmmmmmm...
According to the guy whose name you see on screen right now,
In his 19th century book, Le Livre De l'Opium,
Opium causes the smoker to quote: *reads the above quote from book*
*Matpat continues narration* End quote.
So it seems like time passes more quickly,
but the way Te Duc puts it,
it also seems like the experience might be closer to blacking out,
or entering a weird trance
It dulls your senses,
and sometimes can even leave you on the edge of a coma
which doesn't quite coincide with the description of
Snake being able to snap back into alertness if spotted
So if meth isn't it, and cocaine isn't it, and opium isn't it,
then...what's in the cigar?
If only there were some other
SMOKE-ABLE herb that-
("Reefer Madness" clip): "MARIJUANA!"*dramatic piano music*
*Matpat continues* Oh yeah!
"Ganja",
"Reefer",
"Grass",
Marijuana
I know, I know
I get it.
It seems TOO easy
Call Snake a "pot head",
put a big ol' weed leaf on the thumbnail,
do a bunch of Snoop Dogg and Willy Nelson references
and call it a day
But it's not as simple as that
because despite it's perfect role as a plant
and as every strip mall in L.A. wants to remind me that it's
"Medicinal Herb Usage"
unlike the other drugs on this list,
the time-quickening effect of marijuana is DEPENDENT on the user
Take a look at this other quote from the Ogden-Montgomery study:
*Matpat reads quote above*
*Matpat continues narration* Which means that if
Venom Snake was pulling a "That 70s Show" with his "Diamond Dog" buddies,
and yes, his unit's name is actually just a David Bowe reference this time around(look it up)
Then yes,
time probably would move quicker
But according to this study,
The way we see him using the drug in-game
would produce the OPPOSITE results of what we see
So is there any way for Venom Snake to get around this?
Why, yes.
Venom Snake would've had to fully upgrade his pot-smoker skill tree
in order to do it
Like seriously,
we're talking "Big Lebowski"/ "Cheech and Chong" status here
Let me explain
In 1963,
a sociologist named H.S. Becker released a report explaining that
most of marijuana's effects are actually LEARNED,
rather than being a direct result of the drug
What that means is that
only stoners who fully understand the drug's effects, are able to wield them properly
So going back to the skill tree metaphor,
it's like having a weapon, but not enough experience to use it
Then, in the 1972 book, Altered States of Consciousness,
(edited by Charles T. Tart)
it explains, and I quote,
*reads above quote from the mentioned book*
*Matpat continues narration* You don't have to high to understand THAT one
it means that by tuning your brain to focus on certain things,
the time travel effect just sorta happens
In addition to the classic marijuana "mellowing",
there's also many hallucinogenic and psychoactive effects
which include introspection,
and increased ability to focus on the intricacies of humor,
music,
and other stimuli
You know the stereotype of the giggling stoner?
This is where it comes from.
They're just deeply focused around these small details
Now, lets watch Snake smoke the "Phantom Cigar" again *roll original gameplay clip*
(Matpat continues over clip audio) Notice that music?
The serenity on his face as he's smokes?
The super detailed Seiko watch face?
To pass the time, Venom Snake is just a big-time stoner
who is killing a few hours by doing the equivalent of lighting up a doobie,
taking in the outdoors,
and getting REALLY into his neat new watch
*Hippie Pat returns for the last time* "Snake is a pot head, maaaaaan.
Stick some 'Iron Butterfly' on the turntable and order some White Castle."
*normal Matpat returns* But it also makes sense from a characterization standpoint
Snake's in the early 80s,
knee-deep in the Cold War,
fully embroiled in an awful globe-spanning age of terrorism, black-ops, and paranoia
The fact that he smokes weed in the face of it all,
doesn't just make sense from a gameplay perspective,
it makes real sense to him as a PERSON
That he'd be down to "420 blaze it eryday" to calm his nerves
So with that mystery solved,
now I gotta wonder what drugs Psychomantis was on
Now THAT guy was weeeeird.
But hey,
that's just a theory
A GAME Theory
Thanks for watching! :)
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*bouncy outro music*