In 1998, one of the most important and groundbreaking games ever made, Metal Gear Solid, came on the scene with unprecedented complexity in storytelling and revolutionary stealth gameplay mechanics. I'm sure you know that, but what you don't know is that in the early stages of development director Hideo Kojima attempted to craft a fully realistic story in which all logistic questions are answered and no suspension of disbelief is required to understand the story. Armed with only a silenced pistol and a cardboard box I snuck into the Konami offices and found an early draft of the script of a Codec conversation between Snake and his support team. Most of this dialog was ultimately left out of the final game, but I hope you'll find Kojima's attempt to fully commit to explaining every facet of his plot as admirable as I did.
CAMPBELL: Remember, except for your binoculars you're naked. You need to arm yourself with whatever weapons you can find.
SNAKE: I remember. First I'm strip searched by Doctor Naomi here, and then all my weapons are taken away. Imagine yourself put in that position.
NAOMI: Well, if you make it back in one piece, maybe I'll let you do a strip search on me.
SNAKE: I'll hold you to that doctor. By the way, sorry to disappoint you but I did manage to smuggle out my smokes.
NAOMI: How did you do that?
SNAKE: In my stomach. Thanks to the shot you gave me that suppressed my stomach acids.
MEI LING: Cigarettes? How are those things going to help you?
SNAKE: You never know. Okay, I'm ready to attempt to…
CAMPBELL: Wait a minute, how the hell are you going to use those?
SNAKE: Use what?
CAMPBELL: Your cigarettes. They're in your stomach, but how did you get them out?
NAOMI: Colonel, I don't think we have time for this.
CAMPBELL: You get to exchange clumsy sexual banter and come onto him like a truck stop slut and I can't ask him this?
SNAKE: He has a point, Naomi.
NAOMI: Oh fuck both of you. (Leaves in a huff)
CAMPBELL: Can you believe tits-on-a-stick has filed three sexual harassment suits against me?
SNAKE: I can't see what would have her upset.
CAMPBELL: So how'd you get the cigarettes out?
SNAKE: Well, the shot that suppressed my stomach acids also rendered me unable to vomit, so the rear exit was the only way those bastards were coming out.
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
SNAKE: I already took a crap an hour or so before the mission began, so I knew it would be another day before I would pinch one out. My pipes run like clockwork.
CAMPBELL: Your file states that you're by far our most regular operative.
SNAKE: Yeah, so I infiltrated the base's medical facility to get my hands on some hospital-strength laxative. A security camera and three soldiers were patrolling the area. I tampered with the wiring of the camera to make it loop a single static image, and I silently took out the men with quick lacerations to the neck.
MEI LING: Took out? As in killed?
SNAKE: No, I fucking invited them to Applebee's and paid for their Ultimate Trios.
MEI LING: You took three human lives just to poop out some cigarettes?
CAMPBELL: Mei Ling, the men are talking. (cuts her mic) Go on.
SNAKE: I took the bottle of laxative. Unfortunately, the instructions were in Russian so I had to just guess how much I needed to take. I think I overestimated and ended up taking 20 times more than I should have.
CAMPBELL: Snake, I don't think I like where this is going.
SNAKE: I've taken dumps before. I've taken huge craps before. I've had extreme diarrhea plenty of times in my day. But this is the first time I, or anyone I've ever known, have blasted a shit fountain. I slit the throats of three more personnel to get to a supply closet and grab some toilet paper to deal with the mess, but by this point my bowels were unleashing such an unquenchable fury that the comforts provided by common paper proved to be worthless.
CAMPBELL: Please stop talking.
SNAKE: Colonel, you asked and I'm going to fucking tell you. Anyway, by this point I quit trying to stop the fury and I gave up on trying to clean up the mess. The diarrhea became a force of nature with its own personality, desires, and dreams. I begged it to stop and show mercy on my soul, but the crap was deaf to my pleas.
CAMPBELL: Where's Naomi? Only her fine ass can wipe away the mental image scarred across my brain.
SNAKE: The fury finally subsided and the demon was exorcised from my bowels. I dug through the crap that was left on the floor, walls, and ceiling and found six of my twenty cigarettes. I made my way to the dining facility and killed the sous chef, the main chef, six cooks, three Mexican dishwashers, and twelve waitresses on my way to the kitchen.
CAMPBELL: Waitresses? You killed twelve women?
SNAKE: You just magically became a women's rights activist?
CAMPBELL: Good point.
SNAKE: In the kitchen I washed the fecal matter off of the cigarettes. I then killed sixteen people to get to the laundry facility where I could put the cigarettes in a dryer. Most of the people I killed were men. Are you happy, Susan B. Fucking Anthony?
CAMPBELL: I will never provide radio support for a mission again.
SNAKE: After a lot of work and 45 dead bodies, I finally had a smoke. I had that first inhale of a man who knows he finished a job well done. The problem was that even though I cleaned them, every inch of the cigarettes were still completely soaked and browned with poop particles. Colonel, have you ever inhaled the vapors of human shit in gaseous form?
CAMPBELL: I never should have asked how you got those cigarettes out.
SNAKE: Nope.
The suits at Konami scrapped most of this dialog from the final game. They felt their games didn't need every single loose end in the plot tied up. It's just another example of corporate bastards interfering with art. Hideo Kojima, your vision may have been ruined, but I'll raise a glass to you.
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