The original Pac-Man had been a culture-shaking success in 1981 – an arcade game so popular that it's still the highest-grossing video game of all-time, entirely due to the sheer avalanche of quarters shoved into its coin slots over 30 years ago. The video game industry's first leading lady was created out of impatience. Hideo Kojima has spent the past two decades building upon this amazing foundation with some truly iconic moments, but none stuck with us quite like the time we spent with Psycho Mantis.

you like Castlevania, don’t you?” a few months after I had finished Symphony of the Night left me absolutely shook.

Then, most memorably, he has the ability to read your memory card and comments on other Konami games you might have played. He makes your think your TV is broke by cutting to a black screen with the word HIDEO in the upper-right corner. It starts off small, with Mantis addressing the player and displaying that he can make your controller move by activating the rumble. Fighting the gasmask-wearing member of FOXHOUND is an absolute crash-course in breaking the fourth wall. Solid Snake’s mission through Shadow Moses pushed the boundary of cinematic storytelling in games, gave us a playground to experiment in with a litany of strange items and weapons, and introduced us to a cast of unforgettable characters that paved the way for one of the most iconic series in our entire medium.īut if we had to pick one single moment that encapsulates not only Metal Gear Solid, but Kojima himself, it would be the way Psycho Mantis blew our collective minds during his boss fight. It’s hard to quantify how many ways Hideo Kojima changed the video game industry with the release of Metal Gear Solid in 1998 on the original PlayStation.

Modern combat versus minu mantis