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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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 Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:16 pm |
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I am being no more a dick here than I am being in, say, the Bioshock thread, where you seemed perfectly ok with interacting with me. The difference? The subject of my incredulity in that thread are people who are not in that thread. Here, the subject of my incredulity are people who are in the thread. If you think this means a line was crossed, then you should reexamine your principles.
I also find it a little odd that all of a sudden people here are angry at somone saying MGS4 was trash, while MGS4 being trash has kind of been about as common a perpection on these forums as any for as long as the game has been publicly available. I realize the demographics of a community change over time, but christ, I can't be expected to keep up with it all. |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:21 pm |
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good lord, with the amount of suicide jokes I make around here it ought to be obvious in which direction that sentence was directed, if it was directed at all.
your "challenge" to me is not a challenge. I say the inbred over-canonization of a property as a rule is poisonous, and you responded by telling me that MGS canon is coherent enough for it to allow you to predict the content of future products. these are not compatible arguments (though I will note that the celebration of basic competency seems to speak more to my stance than yours). |
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parker
a wolf adventuring
Joined: 31 May 2007
Location: suplex city
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:24 pm |
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No, it must be everyone just can't handle the mind blowing wisdom nedge offers by calling a videogame dumb. It couldn't possibly be his personality as an insufferable asshole that makes people sick of his bullshit time and time again.
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TXTSWORD
Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:25 pm |
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| Mgs4s story was so dumb the whole series is dumb now and has no redeeming qualities and liking it makes you a fanboy whose wallet belongs to kojima and I'm posting in this thread because ??? |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:32 pm |
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| TXTSWORD wrote: |
| I would assume that "V" is a reference to big boss being referred to as Vic boss, Vic voss, at the end if peacewalker. |
Quickposting here to note that this might also in some way connect with the V-is-for-victory/peace handsign ambiguity in PW. They made kind of a big deal out of that.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:34 pm |
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| Rei wrote: |
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| As unbelievable as it can seem, there are people who go around carrying horns in their heads. It is believed that these horns are the result of exposure to radiation and that they are cutaneous horns. |
It's a phenomenon among the elderly in China, and Big Boss has certainly been exposed to radiation. The horns can also be surgically removed, so this is at least one reasonable possibility as to why he doesn't have a horn in the later games.
http://news.priceperhead.com/entertainment/people-with-real-horns-19652 |
Phantom Pain is the postquel to Ico?!
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TXTSWORD
Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:34 pm |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| TXTSWORD wrote: |
| I would assume that "V" is a reference to big boss being referred to as Vic boss, Vic voss, at the end if peacewalker. |
Quickposting here to note that this might also in some way connect with the V-is-for-victory/peace handsign ambiguity in PW. They made kind of a big deal out of that. |
Right, and isn't the Vic meant to mean Victory? |
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meauxdal
militant atheist
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Location: georgia, usa
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:35 pm |
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Some say, if you listen very closely to the wind on a cool summer night, you can hear a faint voice whispering "ban extralife"
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:38 pm |
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| Rei wrote: |
| I responded to your initial post at the bottom of the last page before everything when to pot. I just wasn't aware almost a dozen posts would crop up in ten minutes. |
I don't see anything that would constitute a response. You have said two things. The first is the point I just mentioned. The second is the idea that engaging with the Metal Gear canon is "fun." That's not an argument, because there are no parameters within which I (or anyone) could fashion a response. Your stance is essentially GTFO--which is cute and all, and I probably will, but you should consider the repercussions of such an attitude, and ask yourself whether or not you are willing to admit to it as a principle. |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:38 pm |
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| composerzane wrote: |
| Some say, if you listen very closely to the wind on a cool summer night, you can hear a faint voice whispering "ban extralife" |
its not very faint |
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:39 pm |
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| thestage wrote: |
| I am being no more a dick here than I am being in, say, the Bioshock thread, where you seemed perfectly ok with interacting with me. The difference? The subject of my incredulity in that thread are people who are not in that thread. Here, the subject of my incredulity are people who are in the thread. If you think this means a line was crossed, then you should reexamine your principles. |
No, you are definitely being more of a dick here, but I like how you implicitly admit that expressions of incredulity and being a dick are the same thing to you. I don't like it enough to respond to anything else you have to say right now, but as a serious piece of advice I suggest that you compare the tones of the two threads.
The Bioshock thread is full of snark within which your... unique attitude fits without too much friction, while here you just came in and, within a pretty serious context, made posts that had no purpose other than to shut people down. As I said, yes, you do want to be mean. I get that; believe me, I enjoyed telling Rudie off on the last page because he was way off-base and deserved it.
Your two problems are that you either fail or just don't bother to read a situation before you go stomping around, and you either fail or just don't bother to have any decent justification for acting that way. If you want to act like a dick, you need to look for either an appropriate setting or an appropriate target. Otherwise, dial it back. A lot.
| Rei wrote: |
| Done with this thread, fuck this place, etc. |
Don't let a single asshole affect your feelings about an entire community.
Last edited by internisus on Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:43 pm |
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It's weird that there's the notion that people say they like MGS4 without offering defense or articulation of why and therefore fandrool.
Because we did.
So your move?
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:04 am |
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| internisus wrote: |
| MGS4 is crappy not because of its relationship with prior canon but because it is very poorly written and full of stilted, weirdly paced melodrama. |
I guess a tl;dr of Monstrous Births is that MGS4 effectively MGS2s MGS2. MGS2 MGS2'd MGS1, which was a much straighter narrative to compound with self-reference. That was risky enough as a means for creating a coherent story the first time; the second time pushed things to operatic levels of rumination (ruminate, cow chewing on cuds, regurgitating, chewing more, etc).
Operas tend to visit and revisit themes via arias and other formal conceits. MGS4 does much the same thing, albeit in different ways. Opera's probably as much of an acquired taste, actually, so that comparison might have more life in it than quick and dirty comparison
MGS2-2
MGS2 Squared = MGS4
Kind of surprised that didn't show up as a Kojimaism at some point.
I would expand on points about MGS4's self-evident stupidity by arguing that the self-evident stupidity is one of the biggest signposts that something else is going on.
It's a creative experiment that probably won't happen again, and it is not an entire success, but I'm glad it was made. It's like a novel I'd expect to have been reviewed in Stanislaw Lem's A Perfect Vacuum.
It's a minority position, but it's defensible, which is better than asserting that MGS4's existence is an argument and evidence in itself.
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Ni Go Zero Ichi
Joined: 10 Sep 2011
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:11 am |
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| Ni Go Zero Ichi wrote: |
Jesus christ what happened to this thread
It was going so well a page ago |
Good news! It's going OK again!
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Renfrew
catchy, and giger-esque
Joined: 31 Dec 2006
Location: Hometown: America
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:14 am |
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Now that I finally watched all the Rambo movies I'm really disappointed that a now and arrow never popped up in any of the Big Boss games
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diplo
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Location: Brandy Brendo's bungalow
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:15 am |
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| I never saw that essay as a qualitative defense of MGS4, though. To me it was well-researched interpretation. I mean, "Here is how Videogame completes narrativistic knot x" doesn't seem to me a preferential justification, if M.B. is in fact intended to be that. |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:16 am |
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| Renfrew wrote: |
| Now that I finally watched all the Rambo movies I'm really disappointed that a now and arrow never popped up in any of the Big Boss games |
Not like this?
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Renfrew
catchy, and giger-esque
Joined: 31 Dec 2006
Location: Hometown: America
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:19 am |
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Not like that. I mean equip-able. Shoot-able
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:20 am |
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| diplo wrote: |
| I never saw that essay as a qualitative defense of MGS4, though. To me it was well-researched interpretation. I mean, "Here is how Videogame completes narrativistic knot x" doesn't seem to me a preferential justification, if M.B. is in fact intended to be that. |
That's a correct understanding of how I approached MB. It's also the mode in which I talk about most of this stuff. I mean, yeah, I really enjoy a lot of this stuff on narrative/canon grounds because it's fun and detailed and nuanced and stuff. It's something that I understand, and it's a place where I feel in some sense at home, imaginatively, despite sharing that space with many personally uncomfortable elements (Kojima's sexism being the biggest of them).
I generally don't take statements about MGS4's badness as qualified enough to be anything more than preferential justification. Preferential justification interests me a whole lot less than having something to say about the game.
I understand why people don't enjoy MGS4. Most of my replaying of MGS4 came through researching and writing the essay, actually, and I haven't touched it since outside of way more MGO than anyone should have played. If it's a game that I get more out of thinking about than I do out of playing, that's worth more to me, in most cases, than the other way around.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:22 am |
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| Renfrew wrote: |
| Not like that. I mean equip-able. Shoot-able |
Oh!
That's a good point. I always wondered why, as gun fetishizing as MGS4 was in game and title both, Little John (the hand bow of The Fear's that Ocelot twirls when passing on news of The Fear's defeat) never made an appearance as a buyable weapon.
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:25 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
It's weird that there's the notion that people say they like MGS4 without offering defense or articulation of why and therefore fandrool.
Because we did.
So your move? |
if a "formal analysis" is supposed to be a defense of a "like," then it is an extremely disingenuous formal analysis. I can formally analyze a cereal box (people actually do this). I'm quite content in saying that MGS4 is terrible, it does not bother me that I have not produced a screed on its inequities. though others have, if this is admissible to the court of select button. I don't believe I have accused anyone of liking MGS4 without a reason, anyway. but your argument essentially boils down to "its so bad there must be a reason!" which is not a road I'm interested in going down for anything. considering you are tacitly saying that you produced that analysis as a means to defend a pre-existing like, I don't think it would be unreasonable to question the grounds of your argument |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:33 am |
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| thestage wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
It's weird that there's the notion that people say they like MGS4 without offering defense or articulation of why and therefore fandrool.
Because we did.
So your move? |
if a "formal analysis" is supposed to be a defense of a "like," then it is an extremely disingenuous formal analysis. |
Answered above, rendering the rest of this post moot.
I'm pretty sure this is how you're going to try to push this, though, which isn't worth my time to address. If you have another direction, I'll respond again.
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:36 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| I generally don't take statements about MGS4's badness as qualified enough to be anything more than preferential justification. Preferential justification interests me a whole lot less than having something to say about the game. |
Aaand it's for exactly that reason that I don't feel obligated to justify my saying things about the game with some sort of defensive articulation of the game's worthiness of engagement. Every engagement of a thing is already its own argument for engagement of the thing in general, so every engagement should stand on its own merits as such, not be forcibly predicated on whether or not the object of engagement has earned some right to be engaged, as if the object's earning anything could be more than very weakly decided in advance.
Honestly, I don't find the "but, but, lol @ MGS4, right, everyone???" position/attitude/whatever compelling enough to think there's much to it that I should address head-on prior to addressing the game itself. |
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klj5j6li
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:56 am |
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for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2
d-does monster birds talk about that... |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:07 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| thestage wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
It's weird that there's the notion that people say they like MGS4 without offering defense or articulation of why and therefore fandrool.
Because we did.
So your move? |
if a "formal analysis" is supposed to be a defense of a "like," then it is an extremely disingenuous formal analysis. |
Answered above, rendering the rest of this post moot.
I'm pretty sure this is how you're going to try to push this, though, which isn't worth my time to address. If you have another direction, I'll respond again. |
Yes, you did, which I saw afterward. But if my response is "moot," it is only because you essentially took back the original post. If you hold that there is a relationship between the quality of a thing and the existence of an analysis of a thing, then you have to justify that relationship, which falls outside the parameters of the analysis. You don't get to point to an analysis of a thing as evidence of the quality of a thing (to say nothing of the quality of the analysis). I would hold that if you "get [something] out of thinking about MGS4," then either the thought is banal or there is nothing unique about MGS4 that would produce the thought in the place of anything else. You did not say that the narrative/canon grounds holds any value, you said that you felt "at home" with it, which is just another way of describing fandom, which falls into the loop of the empty, minute canonization that produced it. Hey look, it's Mei Ling! etc. That MGS has latched onto you in this way is an accident. For a generation of up and coming would be ideologues, the accident is Harry Potter. So it goes. In this case, if MGS1 were as bad as MGS4, this periphera would not even exist in the first place, and neither would your interest. The game exists as the weight of the mindset you are evincing. To apply that mindset directly back into it reads like a vulgarity to me. At any rate, you are tying the "value" that you have taken from MGS4 specifically to the act of "researching and writing" your essay. That's methodology, not object. There is a huge cottage industry (largely academic) in analyzing any and everything under certain, specific methodologies, and then producing scholarship. But the worth, such as there is any, comes from the methodology and the texts that have formed it, not the object in question (another topic, but whatever). If you enjoy ruminating on MGS4, that is because you enjoy ruminating. And if you get to get something out thinking about MGS4, then I get to get something out of thinking about what that might mean. You don't get to privilege one and denounce my harping on the other without confronting the mindset you've already said you hold. |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:10 am |
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| Interstellar Dinghy wrote: |
for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2
d-does monster birds talk about that... |
but that area was fucking infuriating because when you got to the end you had to sit there and turn a god damn wheel for like ten minutes and you couldn't do that without getting caught unless you killed everyone first
MGS3's environment represented an advance, even if it led to really terrible overarching level design |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:32 am |
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| Interstellar Dinghy wrote: |
for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2
d-does monster birds talk about that... |
Nope, though I think that that could be a complementary coda. Assessing that aspect would bring the discussion more into the realm of a review, which isn't what I think either of us were going for.
I think that MGS4 is an ambitious creative failure. MB is an appreciation of what we think it's trying to achieve and, in many ways, not achieving well enough.
MGS2 was a creative success because it enticed rather than exhausted its audience. It hit this weird parabola of player emotion where the bewilderment and overload gets directed back into a reinvestment in the chaos. MGS4 doesn't achieve that. It takes the experience of overload that MGS2 condensed into a few climactic sequences and iterates that experience too often for its own good.
MGS2's climax involved a reveal that essentially re-wrote the entire preceding experience, and then there was a second reveal that rewrote even that. That those two revelations happen so close together made MGS2 very different from MGS1, which paced them out better. This is a weakness in MGS2's storytelling, I think, but it's one that for a lot of people turned out to be forgiveable. It's a problem of pacing that its defenders and detractors alike often acknowledged.
Unfortunately, MGS4 takes that storytelling and tumbles those revelations over and over again in a way that is not fun or interesting enough to direct that momentum back into thinking about the game. I've got this ability to endure things that I don't immediately enjoy for the benefit of future payoff (got me through grad school!), but that's not something I expect other people to try to cultivate.
I don't agree that the leadup to Outer Haven was the only good part though. The progression from the start of Act II up to finding Naomi was responsive to enough variety of playstyle to make it much more MGS-like than most of the rest of the game wound up being.
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:32 am |
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| thestage wrote: |
| but that area was fucking infuriating because when you got to the end you had to sit there and turn a god damn wheel for like ten minutes and you couldn't do that without getting caught unless you killed everyone first |
deleted a post because some major setpieces in previous games completely escaped my mind at the time, but in any case it's not at all true that you have to engage the enemies here. that the door is so intense despite this being true is a lot of why that room works.
| Interstellar Dinghy wrote: |
| for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2 |
it's been a while but i might actually argue that the act 1 section after the gekko opening sequence and before otacon gives you the NVGs and tranqs was almost as good. it's a testament to that act 5 section that you have the NVGs and tranqs and it still manages to be legit anyway. |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:39 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| variety of playstyle |
i.e. do whatever you want forever with no consequences. which is, yeah, pretty MGS in its own way, but strongly favors only the latter of the two major design goals of 1.) Be a Stealth Game 2.) Be a Playground |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:56 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| variety of playstyle |
i.e. do whatever you want forever with no consequences. which is, yeah, pretty MGS in its own way, but strongly favors only the latter of the two major design goals of 1.) Be a Stealth Game 2.) Be a Playground |
Yeah, the latter is more of what I was getting at here. The playground part is also cut short the further along you go, but I'm thinking mostly of two different ways of approaching the Naomi house that have POWs in them.
You've got that second large building after the power building, which itself reinforces the "help the underdogs to no serious victory" aspect of MGS4. You can blow up the power building to shimmy across a formerly live wire to get some extra supplies before running into Drebin, and you get the satisfaction of WE DID IT which makes some of the later paths easier to traverse, but that's about it.
There's a whole extra path through there that it took me until my third time through to find, where you get the VSS silenced auto sniper rifle under the floor. There are a couple of soldiers to let loose there, as there were in the larger facility, and you can challenge yourself to release the dudes under various conditions... no kills, no finds, etc.
That the game puts them there and doesn't at all acknowledge whether or not what you've done is commendable is interesting to me. I actually spent more time finding different ways of rescuing those dudes in order to see if there were some condition by which the game would tip its hat and say, "Good job! You saved a dudes!"
There's also enough to observe there that made me think of MGS3 in positive ways. If you take out their immediate guards, they'll bolt, sometimes grabbing a weapon and sometimes not. If you sneak in and surprise them without taking out or alerting the guards, they'll think, "Rescue yeah!" and head out to get murdered. In either case, if you haven't cleared the path for them to escape to the next load area, they'll usually get picked off.
And when you get to the next load area, you find that you've only contributed to yet more of the anonymous grunts whose battle you're exploiting for the sake of progression.
So I think there's a lot of very good stuff happening in that sequence that doesn't happen in many other palces in the game. Or, rather, I should say that "a lot of very good stuff can happen" there since this experience depends upon a certain kind of investment and experimentation. What makes it characteristic of MGS style is that, even if the game doesn't reward you or even acknowledge that you've substantially accomplished a praiseworthy goal, those things are still there to discover.
Be a Stealth Game requires a lot more identification with and participation within the underdog group than the game encourages. As a matter of fact, remaining inconspicuous within the crowd even with the team colors (Act II Pliskin-style fatigues and balaclava) is for some reason harder than it should since enemies light up more in response to Snake in disguise than they do to regular grunts. If that responsiveness to Snake's presence had been lessened under those circumstances, I think it would have been a stronger sequence that allows for Be a Stealth Game as a more feasible playground option.
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:57 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| variety of playstyle |
i.e. do whatever you want forever with no consequences. which is, yeah, pretty MGS in its own way, but strongly favors only the latter of the two major design goals of 1.) Be a Stealth Game 2.) Be a Playground |
How 'bout "Be a Stealth Playground"?
Do we need to make a strong distinction of design goals like that? We've already talked about this, you and me, and we'll probably talk about this again numerous times, which is good, because I'm pretty low on energy at the moment, but: positing that 1 and that 2 so as to say that aspects of the game favor one against the other, and then stopping at that statement, doesn't seem to me to be in keeping with the spirit of the series' design. I mean, there's a tension between that 1 and that 2, just insofar as they're fuzzy subspirits (or whatever) of the design, of course, but I feel like that tension tends to be what MGS tries to cultivate, not what it fucks up by allowing. |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:24 am |
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Unfortunately none of the games have had anything with the ability for something to fuck around as deliciously as this
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Toptube
Anti-cabbage Party Candidate
Joined: 23 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:35 am |
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| Interstellar Dinghy wrote: |
| for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2. |
Uh Snake Eater is pretty much gaming on another level. Its more of a "sandbox" experience than GTAIV is and it does mostly everything right. And not just in the realm of MGS. Snake Eater is a game of games. Games have only gotten predictably prettier and more streamlined since Snake Eater.
Also, you may have forgotten, but after the initial sneaking mission, Snake Eater pretty much settles into a golden pace of set-piece after set-piece that alone, trumps the length of both the previous games. and you still have the climax segments to look forward to, after the game does take a comedic break.
| internisus wrote: |
| thestage wrote: |
of course, if most of the people here ran into people doing this about Final Fantasy, they would chortle, call them all nerd idiots, and then go back to, I dunno, listening to they might be giants
criticism is a valid mode of thought, if I think the overt and inbred canonization of metal gear is dumb beyond reproach, then I am pretty entitled to demonstrate how it makes these things ridiculous. that metal gear solid 4 happens to exist is pretty powerful evidence that I'm, you know, right. saying everything is valid and lets all bake cakes and roll around in flower beds is a good way to get dumb and stay there. |
MGS4 is crappy not because of its relationship with prior canon but because it is very poorly written and full of stilted, weirdly paced melodrama.
And Final Fantasy games aren't all connected, asshole. But seriously I'm sure in your weird hypothetical situation our Metal Gear nerds would try to point out why Final Fantasy is less rewarding to nerd about. Which is perfectly legitimate.
If either you or Rudie had actually said anything that stood as criticism of the canonization of Metal Gear (or anything specific about how exactly this one thing is the root of MGS4's problems), then this would be a conversation, but you both seem to be more interested in lazy condescension. |
| thestage wrote: |
| internisus wrote: |
| MGS4 is crappy not because of its relationship with prior canon but because it is very poorly written and full of stilted, weirdly paced melodrama. |
unlike the other metal gear games, amirite.
MGS4 is a disaster piece because it felt the need to legitimize MGS2 to fans by reconciling every second of it with a Bigger Picture that happens to include, at length, All Their Favorite Things. this happens to every nerd property once 1) it makes enough money, and 2) its fanbase becomes old enough to be broken. it's a hundred million dollar piece of fan fiction cybernetically engineered to make the people who were going to love it love it even more |
I think MGS4's 2 problems are that it polarizingly recontextualizes and force fits into place, just about everything cool about the previous two games before it (I personally felt like it did a particularly bad number on MGS3, but that may just be because I love that game more than most games and so I made more connections with it. Even though I do love MGS2).
The post credits scene also alienates some earlier scenes in MGS4 that were otherwise some of most desperate, affecting, best scenes in the game. partially because they were some of the few moments where the game is not trying desperately to recall and reform previous events and partially because what seemed to actually be happening was just downright tense!
and then after it shocks the shit out of you, it further rubs it in that its changing everything you thought you liked about the series, by over explaining every last thing, right to the goddamn last second. |
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klj5j6li
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:45 am |
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| Quote: |
Uh Snake Eater is pretty much gaming on another level. Its more of a "sandbox" experience than GTAIV is and it does mostly everything right. And not just in the realm of MGS. Snake Eater is a game of games. Games have only gotten predictably prettier and more streamlined since Snake Eater.
Also, you may have forgotten, but after the initial sneaking mission, Snake Eater pretty much settles into a golden pace of set-piece after set-piece that alone, trumps the length of both the previous games. and you still have the climax segments to look forward to, after the game does take a comedic break. |
Right but it's also infinte-range magneto CQC grab super dumb guards hold-ups last forever.
Meanwhile MGS2 introduced a bunch of new elements that actually changed how you moved through levels kind of, and then the series just kind of forgot about all of them.
MGS3 offers you a lot of things you can do, versus things you actually need to do and I dunno I think that's kind of boring. It's an all right game, but I think MGS2 is a better stealth game. |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:49 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| Be a Stealth Game requires a lot more identification with and participation within the underdog group than the game encourages. As a matter of fact, remaining inconspicuous within the crowd even with the team colors (Act II Pliskin-style fatigues and balaclava) is for some reason harder than it should since enemies light up more in response to Snake in disguise than they do to regular grunts. If that responsiveness to Snake's presence had been lessened under those circumstances, I think it would have been a stronger sequence that allows for Be a Stealth Game as a more feasible playground option. |
I think you took away almost the exact opposite intent from my admittedly shitty post. What you're describing might be true under the circumstances of playing a completely pacifist run (even then, not sure I agree), but the extent to which the game—and especially that Act—caters toward Giant Map Gadget City Free For All where all the scales are tipped in your favor significantly weakens any of the game's attempts at pretending Snake ever has to really worry about getting seen. Which is just to say that the Outer Haven room is compelling because it manages to feel like it's accomplished in terms of tightness of level design without having to actually to restrict your toolset and resultant ability to play creatively in its doing so.
Still remains to be seen whether or not MGS5 being "open world" will make Act 2's problem even worse than it already is or if being held accountable for your mistakes in a more long-term sense will make things more interesting again. |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:12 am |
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| Toptube wrote: |
| Snake Eater pretty much settles into a golden pace of set-piece after set-piece that alone, trumps the length of both the previous games. |
this is the worst part about the game
unless the always-hold-up-on-your-controller-to-advance level design is |
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:13 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| the game's attempts at pretending Snake ever has to really worry about getting seen |
do i really have to post much tonight, dammit |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:16 am |
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| don't do it |
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:22 am |
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it's no good!
i can't do it!!! |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:25 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Be a Stealth Game requires a lot more identification with and participation within the underdog group than the game encourages. As a matter of fact, remaining inconspicuous within the crowd even with the team colors (Act II Pliskin-style fatigues and balaclava) is for some reason harder than it should since enemies light up more in response to Snake in disguise than they do to regular grunts. If that responsiveness to Snake's presence had been lessened under those circumstances, I think it would have been a stronger sequence that allows for Be a Stealth Game as a more feasible playground option. |
I think you took away almost the exact opposite intent from my admittedly shitty post. What you're describing might be true under the circumstances of playing a completely pacifist run (even then, not sure I agree), but the extent to which the game—and especially that Act—caters toward Giant Map Gadget City Free For All where all the scales are tipped in your favor significantly weakens any of the game's attempts at pretending Snake ever has to really worry about getting seen. Which is just to say that the Outer Haven room is compelling because it manages to feel like it's accomplished in terms of tightness of level design without having to actually to restrict your toolset and resultant ability to play creatively in its doing so. |
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Would this not also be a problem with Snake Eater since it enables you to murder your way through with little problem?
I think that Act II and Outer Haven accomplish two different things, one more interesting to me than the other because it responds better to screwing around in the midst of a point-a-to-point-b progression rather than tensely planning/adjusting your way from point-a-to-point-b.
Outer Haven is fun, but it responds less to my attempts to revisit than has Act II. I've been able to get out of Act II the kind of "what if I screw around with this?" attitude that I've taken for putting together the FH Rank vid walkthrough. It's an aspect of Snake Eater that's minimally replicated, but what's there seems thought out well enough to merit playing with. The looseness compared with the Outer Haven approach allows this possibility.
That the game doesn't give a damn whether you free the underdogs is still something that I think doesn't get enough attention. I mean jesus, your support team yells at you in MGS2 and I think even MGS1 if you idly kill a bunch of environmental birds, and MGS4 doesn't give a damn that you rescued POWs. In a series that's generally very responsive to player activity, at least in terms of passively acknowledging that you did something, that's significant.
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Last edited by Adilegian on Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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