Game-Art-HQ

Solid Snake vs. FOXHOUND Elite member Sniper Wolf by Guilherme “Danaki” Gabarrão

Our Art Judge & Admin Shinragod wrote the following description for this piece:

“The pivotal moment in the game where you had to leave Meryl behind and go out of your way (REALLY outta your way) to get that dang sniper rifle.

Metal Gear Solid: Tactical Espionage Action

– first released on September 3, 1998, in Japan before the US Version in October and eventually the PAL Version in February 1999.

Hideo Kojima created the first Metal Gear back in 1986 when he was just 23 years old and created two masterpieces with Snatcher and Policenauts already but the game he is still most known for is without a doubt Metal Gear Solid.

Back in 1998, the majority of the stories in video games were still told through texts and some animated movies or drawn sequences while Kojima used in-game cutscenes and voiced characters to tell a deep  – for its time – story with many thought out characters, environments, and graphics that were among the most detailed on the Playstation. 

But while the graphics and the story-telling played an important role to make Metal Gear Solid a giant success for both Hideo Kojima and Konami, the gameplay was also nothing to be shy about. Be it the factor of exploring “Shadow Moses” and trying to come forward without wasting bullets for random enemies and knowing + using the environments to sneak right behind an enemy soldier or the absolutely badass boss fights like the mind-game playing Psycho Mantis or, like in our submission by Danaki above, the cruel Sniper Wolf.

Along with other big releases in 1998 like Tekken and Resident Evil 2 it helped the Sony Playstation to be the Number one system while the Nintendo 64 got great games in the same year and the Sega Dreamcast launched in Japan. 

Over 6 million copies of Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation were sold, it received 4 main series sequels and a couple of spin-off games. Today in 2019, it is totally unclear however if we will ever see another big Metal Gear Solid game due to big differences between Konami and Hideo Kojima..who created probably another masterpiece of a video game with the upcoming Death Stranding in November.  

Metal Gear Solid’s characters like the main protagonist Solid Snake are popular till today, he even is one of the playable characters in the Super Smash Bros. games. Other characters, especially Revolver Ocelot are still cosplayed due to their badass designs often. MGS influenced countless other video games,

The Artist behind our Illustration for Metal Gear Solid:

Guilherme Gabarrão from Brazil, also known as Danaki draws as a hobby and like to illustrate the video games he had fun with. He is also a part of the Game-Art-HQ community since 2012 already and participated in our first big art collaboration, the Mortal Kombat tribute with an excellent artwork of the scary Tarkatan warrior Baraka for it. This was just the first of many contributions by him. Others covered Baiken from Guilty Gear, Demitri from Darkstalkers and now also Metal Gear Solid and Crash Bandicoot: Warped for our Video game History Project.

Of course, he drew a lot more in the last years including a lot of stuff that is not video game-related, I recommend to have a look at his whole gallery there on deviantART here and look forward to his future contributions!