Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
While it feels unearned (in the sense it comes out of nowhere), I think it's smarter than people give it credit for.
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Metal Gear Solid Community |OT4| God Bless the Chopper!
- Thread starter PrinceOfWhatever
- Start date
Would think it would have came off better if parts of it wasn't cut.
Crazy Diamond
Member
I agree. While there probably could have been a few more Venom-centric cassette tapes or side ops (such as
finding Volgin's body
The Boss' AI Pod
Kaz felt Venom had earned the right to know
which did in fact deliver the missing link
I liked how the ending
but at the same time Venom ended up overall
in the MGS universe as well.
And of course it had a huge effect on how I viewed
, in many ways.
It was an amazing way to close the loop on the series, the way it connected directly into the
was brilliant.
acknowledged the player
feeling like his own character
And of course it had a huge effect on how I viewed
Big Boss
It was an amazing way to close the loop on the series, the way it connected directly into the
original Metal Gear 1 and 2
Easy: from afar, you tranq the guards in the head and then the dogs. All in first person view, of course. When you practice a lot, you'll get really good at quickly aiming.
That certainly is a trick you can do, but it's not necessary. You can aim normally and still get pinpoint accurate tranq shots. Another thing you could have done is gotten another tranq suppressor in a nearby optional side area. Ponizovje West, which you can enter before you go to the warehouse exterior. It's also an area where you can get the sniper rifle early.
MGS2 and MGS3 are pretty similar length
Hope I'm not being condescending lol just pointing stuff out.
Heh. I guess with my recent MGS2 run I already had a general idea of what I was doing. It's not condescending at all. My first playthrough of MGS1 was absolutely terrible. My first run of 2 was slightly better. I actually felt pretty good in 3 lol but I'm not a great Metal Gear player overall. At least not yet.
I realized soon after that I had another silencer for the tranq but it doesn't self equip when the used one "dies"
In what way?
It's a retread of an idea already executed well in
Metal Gear Solid 2. Raiden is a far better player proxy than Venom Snake
it contorts the narrative in ridiculous ways to allow for the ridiculous concept (miraculous plastic surgery, voice changes, brainwashing, self-brainwashing)
It was just lazily implemented. It wasn't an idea that attached itself to the game with grace, but instead barreled through what little sense the game was making at that point. I couldn't describe it as "smart". Interesting, sure, but I couldn't say it was clever.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
If you're curious to see how hard this series can get, fire up MGS2 on European Extreme difficulty. See if you can get past the first boss haha
Undead Fantasy
Member
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
INCOMING!!!
I think the twist is not given enough credit in how it ties into the themes of the game. It's often dismissed as tacked on, which I kind of get given the lack of fanfare to the reveal. To me, it was clearly the end goal from the beginning, just poorly placed/executed. I imagine that's down to the working environment changing so dramatically.
Okay:
PHEW!
That's why I think it's a pretty cool twist!
I simply think (personally) it isn't given enough credit.
I didn't find any of that to be to hard to swallow. It's not like they jumped dimensions or fought crystal space zombies
The series has always played with
I didn't describe it as "smart", I said it was "smarter than people give it credit for". Huge difference.
I think the twist is not given enough credit in how it ties into the themes of the game. It's often dismissed as tacked on, which I kind of get given the lack of fanfare to the reveal. To me, it was clearly the end goal from the beginning, just poorly placed/executed. I imagine that's down to the working environment changing so dramatically.
Okay:
So a big narrative theme is centred on the 'forgotten' folk. TPP presents us with a soon-to-be forgotten culture and language (Codetalker and The WW2 Codetalkers), forgotten soldiers (the nutty dudes from Motherbase I), forgotten events (Skullface's involvement with MGS3), forgotten memories (Paz, Ocelot); even forgotten personalities, lives and identities (Skullface, Venom, Quiet, Paz, Volgin etc.). We're constantly confronted by the unacknowledged, the missing or the forgotten history that the legends we later know are built upon; hence, The Phantom Pain (natch!).
There is no one more forgotten in the entire series, no one who has arguably contributed more, than the player themselves. For all the talk of Kojima's ego, exemplified so perfectly by his name being insistently plastered across the screen at every opportunity, it turns out his final big statement is to thank us. We're the most 'forgotten', the ones which his own 'legend' is built upon. In that way, the twist becomes a kind of 'Here's to Us', so to speak. I find this is the point most often unfairly dismissed out of hand.
Mechanically speaking, it's no coincidence that the gameplay from the top down is built around giving the player agency. We build the base. We choose the missions. We decide on the when, where and how. The sandbox and the systemic approach allows us, the players, to generate our own stories through our actions, rather than have them dictated to us. That was the intention from the start, as shown in many pre-release interviews. I think it's interesting that we've spent the whole series in the shadow of Big Boss' legend, yet the final twist suggests that, actually, it has always been our own legend that we've been chasing. That's a neat reframing of an area of the narrative that has always remained fairly nebulous, if you ask me.
In many ways, TPP is an inversion of MGS2's handling of interactivity and player agency. In MGS2, we are taunted and mocked at every turn, set to follow a predestined path through various set-pieces to an inevitable confrontation. At the end, Raiden discards our agency and gains his own identity.
Whilst the cutscenes are set, TPP is all about our actions and gameplay decisions. We are weaving the tapestry of Big Boss' legend. At the end, it is the player discarding the Venom/Big Boss illusion and realising it has been us all along. That's cool!
It also carries on a Kojima staple in a really interesting way (bear with me here):
Since the end of MGS2's Tanker Chapter, Kojima has pointedly refused to let us play as OG Snake, even though we've figuratively begged to. We get to play his dad, a waifish whiny substitute, and a prematurely aged version, but never the 'real' thing.
Though not specifically about the 'real' Snake, TPP's twist is the first time we're directly confronted with a question about it:
If it looks, acts and is capable of all the same things, did it matter that you weren't the 'real hero' you were promised you would be?
Apparently, it did!
Further, as the deception is at the end rather than the beginning (a la MGS2), it asks us to consider our feelings during that journey when we did believe we were BB. It reframes that whole experience and essentially points to us, the player, as the common denominator in all the incarnations of Snake.
There is no one more forgotten in the entire series, no one who has arguably contributed more, than the player themselves. For all the talk of Kojima's ego, exemplified so perfectly by his name being insistently plastered across the screen at every opportunity, it turns out his final big statement is to thank us. We're the most 'forgotten', the ones which his own 'legend' is built upon. In that way, the twist becomes a kind of 'Here's to Us', so to speak. I find this is the point most often unfairly dismissed out of hand.
Mechanically speaking, it's no coincidence that the gameplay from the top down is built around giving the player agency. We build the base. We choose the missions. We decide on the when, where and how. The sandbox and the systemic approach allows us, the players, to generate our own stories through our actions, rather than have them dictated to us. That was the intention from the start, as shown in many pre-release interviews. I think it's interesting that we've spent the whole series in the shadow of Big Boss' legend, yet the final twist suggests that, actually, it has always been our own legend that we've been chasing. That's a neat reframing of an area of the narrative that has always remained fairly nebulous, if you ask me.
In many ways, TPP is an inversion of MGS2's handling of interactivity and player agency. In MGS2, we are taunted and mocked at every turn, set to follow a predestined path through various set-pieces to an inevitable confrontation. At the end, Raiden discards our agency and gains his own identity.
Whilst the cutscenes are set, TPP is all about our actions and gameplay decisions. We are weaving the tapestry of Big Boss' legend. At the end, it is the player discarding the Venom/Big Boss illusion and realising it has been us all along. That's cool!
It also carries on a Kojima staple in a really interesting way (bear with me here):
Since the end of MGS2's Tanker Chapter, Kojima has pointedly refused to let us play as OG Snake, even though we've figuratively begged to. We get to play his dad, a waifish whiny substitute, and a prematurely aged version, but never the 'real' thing.
Though not specifically about the 'real' Snake, TPP's twist is the first time we're directly confronted with a question about it:
If it looks, acts and is capable of all the same things, did it matter that you weren't the 'real hero' you were promised you would be?
Apparently, it did!
Further, as the deception is at the end rather than the beginning (a la MGS2), it asks us to consider our feelings during that journey when we did believe we were BB. It reframes that whole experience and essentially points to us, the player, as the common denominator in all the incarnations of Snake.
PHEW!
That's why I think it's a pretty cool twist!
Now, I acknowledge that the placement of the reveal is a bit pants; it's somewhat unearned, lessening it's impact. I'm also not saying it's worthy of Pynchon or anything.
I think that's a bit of a lazy criticism, if I'm honest, especially given MGS2 itself works because it's an intentional 'retread'/inversion of MGS1. TPP is, as I mentioned, an inversion itself.
I wouldn't say Raiden was 'better'; he's just a different kind of proxy with a different kind of point to make. I see Raiden as satire and Venom as celebration. Both have their place, I think.
I wouldn't say Raiden was 'better'; he's just a different kind of proxy with a different kind of point to make. I see Raiden as satire and Venom as celebration. Both have their place, I think.
I didn't find any of that to be to hard to swallow. It's not like they jumped dimensions or fought crystal space zombies
The series has always played with
doppelgängers, clones, and 'becoming', and, narratively speaking, there has been precedence for all those things before. Decoy Octopus in MGS1 and Liquid Ocelot in MGS4 cover the lot.
I agree, it felt somewhat unearned and just plonked at the end. I think that has a lot to do with why it's not considered a little more seriously. It does some cool things, as I suggested.
I wouldn't call the twist itself lazy though. It's clear from the amount of agency the player is given and the references to the 'forgotten' that this was the end goal all along. I assume events outside the game forced Kojima to staple it on where it was.
I wouldn't call the twist itself lazy though. It's clear from the amount of agency the player is given and the references to the 'forgotten' that this was the end goal all along. I assume events outside the game forced Kojima to staple it on where it was.
I didn't describe it as "smart", I said it was "smarter than people give it credit for". Huge difference.
GreyOcelot
Member
Well said bro. I absolutely agree. The mechanics/logistics of the reveal were not great... Likely due to the game being rushed and the Kojima situation. But the ideas, and themes presented fit the twist really well and make an interesting statement about games/player agency, and etc
My thoughts on the ending, a year later. I've come to terms with it.
That's my big problem with the ending.
I'm not disappointed that we played as Venom Snake. I had nothing against his character. However, the Big Boss arc feels incomplete. I wanted to see his fall from grace...and I got this instead, which is like his rise and fall from a completely different angle. I wish there was more closure for BB.
That's my big problem with the ending.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
How come...? 'Death of the Author aside', the conditions something was created in affect the final result.
I always saw
MGS3, PW and GZ as covering that fall from grace, with TPP being the final, offscreen nail in the coffin.
I can see why Quiet bothers some people but to me she was such a memorable character, especially from a story and characterization standpoint. A lot of memorable moments between her and Venom as well.
Gameplay-wise she was excellent, gave me a feeling of 'safety' that I usually never expect from partner AI. Sometimes I'd get carried away in tense situations and out of nowhere I would hear her humming, was nice to remember that someone legit capable was looking out for me. Felt like it wasn't just Venom building a relationship with her through battle but me as well.
Gameplay-wise she was excellent, gave me a feeling of 'safety' that I usually never expect from partner AI. Sometimes I'd get carried away in tense situations and out of nowhere I would hear her humming, was nice to remember that someone legit capable was looking out for me. Felt like it wasn't just Venom building a relationship with her through battle but me as well.
Roni
Member
The genius of Quiet is how she's expertly crafted to appeal to a wide portion of MGSV's target audience:
Quiet's good looking, which appeals to part of the audience that cares about eye candy.
Quiet's useful in gameplay, appealing to those that care specifically about performance during the mission.
Quiet shows subtle interest in the player, appealing to the audience that cares about building a relationship with the game's characters.
On top of all that, Quiet's
a mute; which pretty much makes her devoid of dialogue for most of the journey, meaning she has zero chance of pissing anyone off with a controversial opinion of her own.
She's designed to widen her appeal over the mainly male audience MGSV was bound to attract, since it is a military action game. Kojima knew that. Him and Shinkawa checked as many of those appeal boxes as possible in an attempt to get most of the player base to care about her for something.
Why is it so important that we care about her? Because Kojima wanted MGSV players to experience loss, just like many of the other key characters in the game have. The game can't cut one of our fingers, steal our money or kill our families. But it can make us care...
If we don't care about Quiet, then the conclusion to her story arc fails in making us feel for her departure.
Kojima knew it was impossible to achieve that for all of his players, so he settled for the majority of them by designing an emotional carrot he'd deliberately take away at the end of the game.
Many say her design is sexist, to which I'd agree: she is built to please and that's pretty much the definition of a sexist character. However, that doesn't take away from the genius that Kojima displayed in manipulating stereotypes and his players' emotions to make some of us experience something unique while playing MGSV.
My point is: Quiet's sexist, but just remember she's succeeding when she's being sexist and blatantly appealing to the male audience; she's succeeding when she's secretly becoming most player's object of desire, or gameplay crutch.
Quiet's good looking, which appeals to part of the audience that cares about eye candy.
Quiet's useful in gameplay, appealing to those that care specifically about performance during the mission.
Quiet shows subtle interest in the player, appealing to the audience that cares about building a relationship with the game's characters.
On top of all that, Quiet's
practically
She's designed to widen her appeal over the mainly male audience MGSV was bound to attract, since it is a military action game. Kojima knew that. Him and Shinkawa checked as many of those appeal boxes as possible in an attempt to get most of the player base to care about her for something.
Why is it so important that we care about her? Because Kojima wanted MGSV players to experience loss, just like many of the other key characters in the game have. The game can't cut one of our fingers, steal our money or kill our families. But it can make us care...
If we don't care about Quiet, then the conclusion to her story arc fails in making us feel for her departure.
Kojima knew it was impossible to achieve that for all of his players, so he settled for the majority of them by designing an emotional carrot he'd deliberately take away at the end of the game.
Many say her design is sexist, to which I'd agree: she is built to please and that's pretty much the definition of a sexist character. However, that doesn't take away from the genius that Kojima displayed in manipulating stereotypes and his players' emotions to make some of us experience something unique while playing MGSV.
My point is: Quiet's sexist, but just remember she's succeeding when she's being sexist and blatantly appealing to the male audience; she's succeeding when she's secretly becoming most player's object of desire, or gameplay crutch.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Call me a prude but I'd like to think a more deft hand in this department could've made us care about her without resorting to pandering bikinis and stripper dancing.
Dunno if it's because I'm a fighting game fan (hello Mai Shiranui, Cammy and many more) but I can easily look past a swimsuit for a design. Quiet at least has a story reason to be wearing little.
Stephanie Joosten's face is the key aspect of her design anyway, it's just so memorable and really makes the character for me from a visual stand point. Beyond that she's pretty damn badass with the black over the eyes when she gets pissed and her abilities.
Overall, she's a pretty unique character in many ways, from her design to her story.
Roni
Member
Perhaps to a more refined audience, an audience that actually thought about the entertainment they consumed. But I think it goes without saying the vast majority isn't like that: Kojima relied on more primal instincts to subtly appeal to a wider range of people.
Admittedly, at the expense of a portion of the more educated demographic within his player base, the ones that were really offended about her visuals, sure. Maybe even at the risk of alienating an entire gender. But he was simply playing the numbers, and from the reaction people had when they discovered they could actually lose Quiet, I'd say he succeeded.
Something about her stuck with you, which I'm guessing was the plan all along, have something in her almost everyone can appreciate, even if they don't particularly feel strongly about anything else.
Not to mention she actually does something very few female characters do in games, she rejects the player by going "Nope, this isn't going to work" and walks out on you. Just like that.
Which is why I always found the move to include a way to get her back a weak move by Konami. Her departure was such a strong statement that I think being able to reunite with her really detracts from the feelings players may have had to deal with otherwise.
Very true, she's a very strong lead.
The reunion was for gameplay and nothing more, story-wise she definitely left. Our Phantom Pain
I'm honestly very surprised with how well both Paz and Quiet's characters were handled in GZ/TPP, especially from the characterization/story standpoint.
KOMANI
KOMANI
W-what? What? Paz was treated like a meat puppet in GZ and Quiet was exhuming sexuality yet when we first see her, she's a deadly Assasin. At least with sniper wolf, it was always established from the introduction of her character that she was deadly but sexy.
And MEAT, the reason I think we can't criticize mgsv too much is because it really suffered from the inner conflict between publisher and developer. it's a miracle that we got a good game out of it. KP did a fine job (or as fine as they could considering that the game we were supposed to get was much larger in scale ) hiding the development hell the game went through.
Sorry but we are on completely different wavelengths here if that is all you think of Paz after MGSV. After Peace Walker yeah, I didn't think much of her but after GZ, it's tapes, TPP, the truth tapes etc., I can't remember the last time I felt this much for a character.
How different Quiet is before and after getting burned at the hospital is a big part of her character. She is a badass assassin either way, the differences are unusual and keep us guessing as to her motivations and state of mind till the end. They add to the mystery of her character.
If you can't look past the swimsuit/sexiness then there honestly isn't much else that can be said.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Christ, this sounds just the sort of thing I imagine a stereotypical Hollywood Exec to say.
I can't get behind that line of thinking at all, I'm afraid.
I believe people would connect to her in the same way, regardless of whether she was flapping her blubber nuggets in their faces or not.
Ah, I gotcha.
Crazy Diamond
Member
Christ, this sounds just the sort of thing I imagine a stereotypical Hollywood Exec to say.
I can't get behind that line of thinking at all, I'm afraid.
I believe people would connect to her in the same way, regardless of whether she was flapping her blubber nuggets in their faces or not.
Yeah, that was rather insulting. Kojima entrusted us to come together as a community in order to disarm nukes across the globe, yet we can't even help but condemn others for being able to disregard such a small aspect of a single character and appreciate what that character does, and does well. I wish him luck with his sticks and ropes.
KOMANI
KOMANI
Unfortunately "Paz" in Tpp
isnt a character but a hallucination
I believe that the only character that goes through any change in mgsv is Quiet, but awkward soft core porn is sprinkled through out her character development. Her design does not translate well from paper to game, the "love" scenes are really disgusting, and her story arc (albeit the best) is completely avoidable.
And another thing! There shouldn't have been a way to get her back. Sorry, but... Learn to play the game without a crutch.
Roni
Member
The reunion was for gameplay and nothing more, story-wise she definitely left. Our Phantom Pain
Yeah, I understand the reason why she was reintroduced: she was a huge piece of content that players were simply locked out of after completing the game. For Konami, that doesn't bold well.
But I feel like that was a heavily authorial choice: to develop her so much and engrain her in so many aspects of the game players would never consider the possibility of her departure. But Konami just wasn't on board with that.
I can respect their decision and acknowledge the validity of their reasoning, even if I don't agree with it. Besides, it's optional: I, myself, never brought her back.
That's fine, really, my point was never to turn people around. Therefore, you don't have to agree with it, but now you at least understand a new reading on it. That's kind of cool in its own right, eh?
Paz got a lot of great dialogue in Ground Zeroes' tapes - some were brought back from Peace Walker, sure, but Chico's Tapes were mostly original.
And I don't follow the line you're drawing between Sniper Wolf & Quiet. Was Sniper Wolf acceptable because she was introduced by Campbell as "the beautiful and deadly sharpshooter"? Kojima repeatedly remarked he wanted things to be conveyed in a more subtle way in MGSV, specifically by NOT exposing things through unnecessary, excessive dialogue exposition. So if Ocelot had used adjectives like "beautiful" and "charming" when introducing Quiet it'd be OK?
If we're going to nitpick, how about we pick apart the fact that her looks were at all of relevance when describing her combat prowess?
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Sure. It's an uncomfortable one, for me, but I understand what you're saying.
KOMANI
KOMANI
ehhh... I love ground zeroes, it's the closest thing to the tanker mission, and I have close to 0 problems with the tapes. But subtlety? That has never been Kojima's strength. Neither is writing, but that's been gone over by smarter folks than me.
To say there are no large useless/repeated information in Tpp is a complete falsehood. The wolbachia tapes especially go over the same thing to nausea.
And I find more subtlety in Sniper Wolf than I do with Quiet. Sniper wolf never took a shower in fishnets in front of a bunch of horny guys like it was some peep show booth. Nor did she give us a striptease in the cold rain. I don't find anything subtle or sexy with Quiet.
There are characters in pop culture like Catwoman, who are sexy and deadly. It's you're cliche archetype. Quiet is all over the place. She's a great Assasin, and yet she needs to rub her cooch all over the polestry of the ACC.
Although I admire what Kojima tried to do with her, I don't think he executed it properly. This is the same guy that wrote lines like, "I would eat anything off her ass" in Policenauts and Snatcher. There are times where I really wished Kojima would be as subtle as you guys imagine him to be. But he never is. He's either completely ambiguous (Miller is indeed blind according to The Japanese version of mgsv but in the NA version it's up in the air... And that ending, sheesh) or he takes large exposition dumps in your ear.
Roni
Member
I think you'll have to agree that whatever was shown in MGSV was handled with much more subtlety than most anything else ever shown in this franchise.
And human emotions can be conveyed with an implicit ambiguity science fiction simply cannot. A half spoken sentence in a conversation between two characters can carry a lot of meaning, a half written description of a science fiction plot device is a hole.
There's no way you could point to the exposition in the tapes explaining how the Wolbachia worked and claim it invalidated every other attempt at furthering character development in games.
You're listing things both characters did, while I'm talking specifically about those character's motivations. Sniper Wolf told us her motivations, Quiet's motivations are left ambiguous and the context into which she is inserted warrants multiple interpretations.
KOMANI
KOMANI
I don't have a problem with anything you said.
I do want to point out one thing.
In order to be subtle in a game, there are a few things you can do, but it's mostly confined to the motion cap of the actor. A smirk, or a gesture. The mo cap for mgsv isn't great. From chico's weird facial movements when Skullface hands him the tape to Medic smashing the mirror. I found it very difficult to understand what emotion they are alluding to. This was actually brought up during an ign recap of the GZ trailer before it went public.
Then I look at the Last of Us, and i know what those characters mean behind those gestures.
Less is more, and at times, doing less in more realistic, but when you don't go the extra mile in hiring good motion capture actors or a good writer, "less" falls on its face.
I understand we all have things we love and hate about the whole franchise, so don't talk anything I say seriously. It's just some fanboy going over the things he has disliked about metal gear since Mgs4: portrayal of women, the unbalanced exposition/ambiguity, and the mo cap.
(I also didn't think quiet's actions are ambiguous, and I don't have a problem with her overall arc, it's the needless smut that bothers me. You don't need vagina bombs and 80 stabs to the crotch to get your story told. It's for shock value, and unfortunately I was laughing more than I was shocked)
Roni
Member
I will say that MGSV has its (very few) moments, but I agree it doesn't hold a candle to the animation in Naughty Dog games and that definitely has an impact on how players will perceive a character.
I will also go ahead and say that characters in The Last of Us (since it's the example being given) are much easier to understand than characters in MGSV. But I'm not sure the disparity in clarity lies entirely with the actor's competence. In other words, I don't think MGSV's less-is-more approach fell flat to you because of its mo-cap actors.
Metal Gear has always been about espionage, that comes with baggage: it's in the series' DNA that the story must take both the player and the protagonist on a journey in which a mystery (or several) will slowly be revealed to them.
In order to achieve this, Kojima usually writes his characters to speak in code. They are purposefully hiding, omitting or dancing around small facts and emotions that would otherwise give away the plot's secrets if characters were to talk about them openly.
The game's plots are also technically complicated, they don't usually boil down to human relationships like most other stories. Titles, motivations, contexts all matter when you need to explain what's happening.
The series also has a very heavy Japanese influence, a culture which expresses basic emotions like love and hate in very different ways from those of us that live in the West.
So I'd say it's a combination of characters deliberately speaking in code, using mostly alien mannerisms to subtly expose a technically complex plot while being portrayed by somewhat inferior technology that hinders our ability to directly connect with the characters.
This is all, of course, in contrast to the simplicity of The Last of Us' story. And please don't take this as me saying that The Last of Us' story is inferior to that of MGSV. That's not the case at all.
While The Last of Us does offer a very much complete and sturdy science fiction background to the infection and the monsters, that is absolutely not the focus when you break down the game's narrative. The focus in on Joel and Ellie's relationship and the lengths to which Joel would go to keep his surrogate daughter alive. It's a tale pivoting around a relationship and this particular character's feelings towards that relationship.
I believe stories that revolve around relationships are easier for the public to grasp because they're so much more personal. There's an internal shorthand when trying to understand and empathize with characters struggling to handle relationships because we all go through that.
That game's story is also written and developed by a Western studio and can rely on perhaps the greatest real-time animation team in the industry.
So, I agree with you that The Last of Us is better at communicating its message and presents characters that are easier to empathize with. But there are reasons for that...
KOMANI
KOMANI
Very thought out statement.
When metal gear stays within the espionage genre, it's perfect. But when it ventures into sci fi, it shows its blemishes.
Metal Gear has always been a happy marriage of Japanese culture with American inspiration. But starting with localization of the series going 1:1, to mgs4 which is essentially an anime with bad "English" jokes (snake asking for a light in act 5's debriefing)And mgsv where the mo cap is so weird (venom's movement when he pushes a guard's assault rifle down when quiet enters MB) the perfect marriage became a messy divorce. Now I know how Jeremy Balustein felt. The localization for mgsv is particularly bad with the word "phantom" being used when it makes no sense. 1:1 localization has hurt the series. "Let the legend come back to life" is such a marble mouth of a quote when you could cut the fat of that line and make it more powerful. But I can't really speak too much on the writing because, disclaimer, I'm a Fukushima conspiracy theorist.
I think Metal Gear Solid V would have better suited to chase that Naughty Dog tail instead of the Rockstar one. Don't get me wrong, had we gotten mgsv the way it was intended (5 acts, level design like mariomaker etc) it would have been the game of the decade.
I'm sorry if my statement is a mess, I accidentally refreshed as I was typing so I had to type all this from scratch.
One thing I can agree with you, there are pockets where the metal gear series shines. It's just that, from mgs1-3, it was more than just pockets. There were more things right than wrong back then.
When metal gear stays within the espionage genre, it's perfect. But when it ventures into sci fi, it shows its blemishes.
Metal Gear has always been a happy marriage of Japanese culture with American inspiration. But starting with localization of the series going 1:1, to mgs4 which is essentially an anime with bad "English" jokes (snake asking for a light in act 5's debriefing)And mgsv where the mo cap is so weird (venom's movement when he pushes a guard's assault rifle down when quiet enters MB) the perfect marriage became a messy divorce. Now I know how Jeremy Balustein felt. The localization for mgsv is particularly bad with the word "phantom" being used when it makes no sense. 1:1 localization has hurt the series. "Let the legend come back to life" is such a marble mouth of a quote when you could cut the fat of that line and make it more powerful. But I can't really speak too much on the writing because, disclaimer, I'm a Fukushima conspiracy theorist.
I think Metal Gear Solid V would have better suited to chase that Naughty Dog tail instead of the Rockstar one. Don't get me wrong, had we gotten mgsv the way it was intended (5 acts, level design like mariomaker etc) it would have been the game of the decade.
I'm sorry if my statement is a mess, I accidentally refreshed as I was typing so I had to type all this from scratch.
One thing I can agree with you, there are pockets where the metal gear series shines. It's just that, from mgs1-3, it was more than just pockets. There were more things right than wrong back then.
KOMANI
KOMANI
And I would argue that Metal Gear's story is always strongest when it deals with that person to person relationship (solid/liquid, boss/big boss, snake/boss). There's a great codec in Ghost Babel where Solid Snake laments the events of Outerheaven and the death of his father Big Boss. I had more of an emotional reaction to that Sprite codec call to anything in mgsv (except that last Paz tape).
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
It's not canon, but I still like to think that Ghost Babel is a Raiden vr mission. Just because of that 'Jack' thrown in there, and the fact that the Colonel references Ghost Babel in MGS2.
Raiden doesn't know much about Outer Heaven in MGS2, but he doesn't know about Ames either despite Ames being mentioned a ton in Darkness of Shadow Moses which he clearly says that he read. So it will stay as my head canon.
Raiden doesn't know much about Outer Heaven in MGS2, but he doesn't know about Ames either despite Ames being mentioned a ton in Darkness of Shadow Moses which he clearly says that he read. So it will stay as my head canon.
KOMANI
KOMANI
I believe there are 4 references of ghost Babel in mgs2.
The poster
The colonel avatar makes a brief appearance
A crazy codec call
And the intro to spy ID 2.5
Coreda
Member
Alkastelca
Member
.Dark Horse has the official Art of MGSV along with an exclusive lithograph print: http://www.darkhorse.com/ /dark-horse-publish-art-metal-gea
Limited Edition: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Metal-Gear-So / /ref=as_li_ss_tl
Roni
Member
True. But I'd extend that to everything post MGS1. Even with all of its mistakes (Big Boss' comas being the most blatant) MGS1 had the best localization in the series. Sure, some things were slightly warped, but it worked in our context.
I'm guessing this is Kojima's fault, from the interviews I've heard, not his finest moment.
I believe that's the case for most stories, and the preference of most people; when you have clear personalities it becomes easier for the reader/viewer/player to build a mental map of the conflict and attach himself to one or more players. And that's something MGSV clearly had less of.
Its story is much more procedural in nature, rather focusing on the minutia of espionage like botched operations, false leads and repetitive iterations on a strategy to root out a particular entity.
Whereas MGS3 would have Snake and Volgin talking and developing their relationship over the course of various cutscenes as the story progressed, MGSV has Diamond Dogs chasing leads and investigating suspicious circumstances in order to expose Cipher's front companies and learn more about their operations.
There is a clear split in storytelling style: this transformed MGSV's story in something structurally similar to a procedural TV series; a point Kojima himself has made many times before the game was even released. While a procedural has an overarching plot, its development is much slower, happening in between episodes, with its development being loosely tied to the events of each episode.
This is a stark contrast from the coincidental, highly character driven narrative most games in the franchise had had up until then. Most Metal Gear games up until V, and I'd include even Peace Walker in this, had a structure much closer to a soap opera, where the entire plot was developing and revolving around a handful of key characters.
Is there a better alternative? Well, for my money, while the former style did offer a great connection with the key characters, the fact they kept running into each other with no real definitive conclusion broke my immersion several times. I can appreciate a more procedural structure where temporary characters are used to advance the plot, mimicking the fact that, in real life, regular people are also involved in circumstances.
onepiecefan
Member
Wow this thread still lives Some interesting discussions. I think in regards to whether or not TPP criticism was overblown, I'd certainly be part of the group that says it was overblown. It was easy to criticise the game with all the shenanigans going on at Konami, and even easier once more details emerged about all the missing content and whatnot. But the game is still very good despite its shortcoming, and the twist is not that lazy, as Meat has summarised very nicely.
Quiet was a great addition to the MGS, but I think the critiques of her are on point, a lot of unnecessary things which really didn't need to be there. A blemish to an otherwise good character.
Some interesting discussions. I think in regards to whether or not TPP criticism was overblown, I'd certainly be part of the group that says it was overblown. It was easy to criticise the game with all the shenanigans going on at Konami, and even easier once more details emerged about all the missing content and whatnot. But the game is still very good despite its shortcoming, and the twist is not that lazy, as Meat has summarised very nicely. Quiet was a great addition to the MGS, but I think the critiques of her are on point, a lot of unnecessary things which really didn't need to be there. A blemish to an otherwise good character.
Wow this doggo makes an excellent skullface.
Yeah, I listened to it a bit last night and was happy that I recognized tracks (Behind the Mirror being one).
I was surprised just how much music there is; iTunes shows it as two discs (and the booklet lists it as two discs), but there's over five hours of music.
mikezilla2
Member
dark horse amazon link is dead.........