Metal Gear Solid Once Featured An Apple Product

In "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots," players control a rapidly aging Solid Snake as he attempts to thwart his evil twin Liquid Ocelot from gaining control of a vital world-controlling A.I. system. As with all his missions, Snake is armed to the teeth with weaponry and an assortment of gadgets. These gadgets include rations, medical supplies, a camera, and the ever-reliable cardboard box, among other things. However, one item in the game seems to be a tad out of place — an Apple product.

The "Metal Gear Solid" series is no stranger to having real-life items appear throughout. For instance, players have access to CalorieMates in "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater," a real-life nutrition bar popular in Japan. But "Metal Gear Solid 4" was unique in that it contained a piece of contemporary tech that was virtually ubiquitous at the time of its release. This, of course, was an iPod. When "Metal Gear Solid 4" was released in 2008, Apple's iPod was the biggest MP3 player on the market. Apple's iPhone had been released a year prior and was quickly ascending in terms of popularity. However, the iPod was still king when it came to media playing and wouldn't begin to lose traction until the following year, making its presence in the game a product of the time and a source of nostalgia.

The way users controlled an iPod may sound counterintuitive to anyone who's never used one. Essentially, one would use their fingers to lightly touch and rotate the radial wheel to select an option while using a middle button to select either a subcategory or the media they wanted to hear. This is also how volume would be adjusted once a song or podcast was selected. "Metal Gear Solid 4" replicated this perfectly. 

As noted by Redditor RevenantXenos, "Metal Gear Solid 4" utilized the right stick to recreate this interface, rotating it around to navigate the in-game iPod's volume and menus or clicking it in to select something. The commenter went on to imagine how the feature might be received by today's players, saying, " will people even know how to use the Ipod? ... The Ipod interface was almost universally known in 2008, but today it would probably result in Reddit posts with people asking why they have to rotate the stick so many times to change the volume, rewind and fast forward."

Players would start with some tracks available early, with more to be collected throughout the game. Consisting of songs from past "Metal Gear Solid" titles and podcasts, audio could not only be listened to while in-game, but some even gave Snake boosts on the battlefield. For instance, "Rock Me Baby" — a collectible song that appeared in "Metal Gear Solid 3" — helped players heal more quickly when crouched (per Neo Seeker).