What is the metal gear solid of books?

would The Illuminatus! Trilogy be an acceptable answer?

I've always wanted to play MGS for it's lore.

Can you give me a quick summary to convince me to it?

GR TBHFAM

Clones, conspiracy and anime.

Full on summaries are bullshit, just play them.

Alright. Should I start from the MSX or the PSX?

Typical reccomendation is MGS1-4, then PW/GZ/TPP and Rising in between those

You can play the MSX games first but its not really mandatory. Absolute must-plays are MGS1-4, and MGS3 already comes with the MSX games prepacked if you get the Legacy Collection on PS3

The series references itself a lot and now that 5 has just come out it, the msx games are a little more relevant. If you can play older games start with msx.

Whatever you do, play them in order and git gud. Easy as the games are, everyone I've recommended them to who didn't pick them up on their own seems to transform into a raging mongoloid when they play MGS. Hence the contingent of users who absolutely adore the series is often as loud as the one that ignorantly proclaims Kojima to be a hack when he's the truest artist the corporate cesspool known as the video game industry has ever known.

Like any breakthrough in literature or film, each MGS (the important ones, 1 - 3) were cutting edge when they came out. Where games truly shine aesthetically is the ungodly amount of attention to detail. I was blessed to have played them all at the time of their respective releases.

The murderers' rows of bosses you face in the first three are the closest you get to a Shakespeare-like characterization in a video game. These are huge, eloquent, theatrical, and tragic souls and instantly quotable. Falstaffian mad bombers, opiate-addled femme fatale snipers, perverted practitioners of telekinesis, all hailing from the most remote corners of the Earth.

>"I used to hang around department store counters just to here the ticking sound!"
>"I watched the stupidity of mankind through the scope of my rifle"
>"This bitch is wearing perfume!"

Sort of like Melville or Pynchon, Kojima presents the reader with poignant and useful information about world politics, biology, history, geography, nuclear weapons and technology into these mystical encounters. All this coming from a perspective that is original and bold, but also refreshing and laced with a bizarre sense of humor. It's all very nuanced.

In almost every way, the first three games are perfect.

Thanks mate, this is just what I wanted to motivate me.

...

I thought this was Veeky Forums?

>/v/

wacky characters with 10 minute long expositions dont make them shakesperean. I love the MGS series, but I'd be dumb to think it's some pinnacle of story telling. please be bait.