May Media Recommendations

Myles talks through two recent favourites — Metal Gear Solid and Ford Vs. Ferrari.

Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima (1998)

Commando-crawling through the cold, mechanical depths of late 90s Japan comes perhaps the most influential video game you’ve never played. Metal Gear Solid tells the story of a lone operative, codename Solid Snake (silly I know, but trust me it gets sillier), sent to a secret nuclear facility in the Bearing Sea to stop a group of terrorists from using a mysterious new weapon on the free world. With an average score of 94 on Metacritic, a horde of adoring fans and a franchise that’s been going for over 30 years, there’s no doubt this game has captivated audiences since release in 1998. It must be a blast to play right? Not quite. Fixed cameras, janky 3D graphics and infuriating control schemes (saving the game requires you to video call another character) make playing Metal Gear Solid a challenge for the modern gamer. So, why do it?

What it might lack in user interface controls or high-quality graphics, it more than makes up for in its story and the way the game presents that story to you, the player. Director Hideo Kojima hit on a unique formula in the hybrid ‘tactical espionage action’ genre of stealth games that puts you in the shoes of its badass main character, for better and for worse. No intel, no weapons and to paraphrase Colonel Campbell, your shady mission leader, if you’re caught there’s no backup and the government will deny any knowledge of you or your actions. The game does a fantastic job of selling you the story that you’re a silent, lethal one-man army. That is until things get twisty. Nothing is as it seems, and distinguishing friend from foe becomes increasingly difficult.

What the game achieves with its very limited technology is phenomenal; the characters’ faces are so low texture that they have almost no discernible features past the Codec video calls that feature illustrated character portraits. But it’s amazing how quickly the brain fills in the gaps when concentrating on the story. And what a story this is. With its melodramatic characters, cheesy over-acted dialogue, cyborg ninjas and nuclear mech suits, something here has probably influenced a favourite game of yours that’s been released in the last 20 years. Metal Gear Solid broke the mould for stealth gameplay both within its own franchise and the genre itself through limiting the player and forcing them to take things slow; by learning guard patrols, exploring the environment and using limited resources for maximum effect, you become the ultimate stealth operative, learning not to take everything at face value and dig deeper for the truth. Old, gold, and well worth the time. Metal Gear Solid, you’re pretty good…

(Metal Gear Solid is available to play on the Nintendo Switch as part of the Metal Gear Master Collection Vol. 1, as well as PC, PS1, PS2, Gamecube as ‘The Twin Snakes’ and PS3 in the Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection)

Ford vs. Ferrari, James Mangold (2019)

The last movie to make me care this much about cars had a certain 'kachow' quality that let it take its Piston Cup with a few victory laps in between. Suffice to say, there are few films as emotional as Pixar’s Cars that are, well, about cars. So, when a film comes along waving a banner that says ‘Ford vs. Ferrari’, AKA ‘machismo all the way’ you might be sceptical as to if it falls into the category of so many other films like it; that category being style over substance. How many ‘based on a true story’ films have left something to be desired on an emotional level, or worse, cut and splice the lives of real people for the sake of an afternoon flick? Perhaps it comes as a surprise then that Ford vs. Ferrari is one of the most underrated biopics in recent memory, and lays out much of the groundwork for later films in the genre such as Oppenheimer (2023) to work as well as they do. Ford vs. Ferrari shines light on the legendary 1966 Le Mans race that pitted two titans of the car industry against each other. At the centre of it all is down-on-his-luck mechanic come racer Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who’s stake in the plot begins by test driving Ford’s race car. He’s soon encouraged by retired racing legend Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) to race for Ford at Le Mans, aiming to beat blood rival Enzo Ferrari.

Fundamentally, this film is a fantastic blueprint for successful biopics; it makes you care about something you otherwise might not have any interest in — in this case, race cars. I went in thinking that, at best, it would be an intriguing look at an industry and time in history and at worst, a self-indulgent historically inaccurate slog about men and fast cars. But I left with new ideas about ambition, masculinity, success, and no pun intended, drive. At its core is an emotional father-son narrative about a man pushing the boundaries of his art in the hope that he can keep his family afloat and prove to everyone why he’s the best. It also contains a unique and very quiet philosophy intertwined with its history that, without spoiling, comprises a narrative and visual treat for anyone who may be on the fence about this one. It also helps that the performances from Bale and Damon as the two lead characters are phenomenal, and make me question if the film would work without these two actors specifically in the roles they are in. On that note, the typical error made by this type of film when it comes to casting based on real people is not present here; often when you look up the people a biopic is based on, you may be horrified to see that their on-screen counterpart looks nothing like they did in real life. While this may be somewhat true of Damon’s character Shelby, the opposite can be said for Bale’s, as the likeness is uncanny, suggesting perhaps there’s something genuinely special under the hood here. How best to summarise this film? Blink and you’ll miss it. But ride with it and you won’t want to get out of the driver’s seat.

(Watch Ford vs. Ferrari on Netflix, Amazon Prime [£2.49], and Disney+)