Come to think of it, there's a lot of real-world developments that Kojima has accurately predicted in his games about the life of the Snake family, all of whom seem to end up with an eyepatch for some reason. And a lot of those predictions actually come true, given their initial basis in reality, if you ignore all the stuff about walking sentient tanks and invisible techno ninjas. In fact, Snake himself - the cloned soldier - is something that could happen today, with the increasingly advanced cloning technology we've got going. It's not all Dolly the Sheep these days. The gene therapy used on all the villainous soldiers in the games - which up their aggression and alertness, but seemingly weakens their necks - is a real thing, although it tends to get used more in medicine than warfare. The NES Metal Gear 2, most bizarrely, foresaw the oil conflicts of the modern day and suggested algae juice being used as fuel, which is actually starting to happen. The 9/11 attacks also got a look in, as terrorist attacks on US soil were a big part of Metal Gear Solid 2's plot (the Twin Towers themselves were cut out of the game, which was a good ways into development when they came down). That game also featured drones which, y'know, are a pretty big topic these days. Thankfully we've yet to get to the terrifying unmanned GEKKOs in MGS4, and Kojima has flown right past the mark a number of times - nanomachines aren't quite at the level of sophistication he expected, and private armies of mercenaries have yet to take the place of our nations' militaries - but the Metal Gear series has made enough accurate predictions that we're fully prepared to have him burned at the stake like the witch he so clearly is.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
