Metal Gear Solid: 20 Things That Made You Love Hideo Kojima

14. Everything About The Psycho Mantis Fight

Playing into Kojima's love for breaking the fourth wall even back in the original MGS, during the Psycho Mantis battle if you hadn't realised he was 'reading your mind' through the controller's input, the screen would occasionally cut to what (at the time) looked like your TV's blank feed, with only the word "Hideo" at the top. Naturally everyone thought either their console or TV had broken down, but luckily Kojima had planned this blackout to last a good few seconds - long enough to get people worried, but not so much that you had time to dart over to your set and start fiddling. This turned into one of the greatest boss battles in history, as even before it could happen Mantis would deduce certain things from your memory card based on which other Konami titles you'd played - "You like Castlevania, don't you?" - before vibrating the newly-released DualShock controllers with "the power of his mind". For a late 90's internet-starved audience fully engulfed in the wonder of video games, this was straight-up magical.