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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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| Grant Dempsey wrote: |
it's no good!
i can't do it!!! |
COLONEL GOOD NEWS
WE MANAGED TO AVOID POSTING
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:31 am |
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adi's heading in a direction kinda-sorta-but-maybe-not-quite like the direction i want to go, and i'm not sure whether this should motivate me to post or to feel like i don't quite have to
in other words: could you be the one to finally finish me
i don't even know who you is anymore |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:35 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| 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. |
i don't think idle novelty supercedes action-vs-consequence, especially in a game using stealth as its premise both thematically and mechanically. i mostly just want the games to be doing both at the same time as much as possible.
also yeah snake eater sucks
| Quote: |
| the game doesn't give a damn |
yeah
please forgive badpost for the time being please help
Last edited by analogos on Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:07 am; edited 2 times in total |
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klj5j6li
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:39 am |
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| 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. |
But why would you want that... |
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Dark Age Iron Savior
king of finders
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: Spacecraft, Juanelia Country
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:39 am |
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| boktai |
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:50 am |
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Basically, I think MGS4 (which I say rather than "MGS" because I think it is especially the case in MGS4, even though I am also inclined to think it's the case in general) purposely constructs an experience of "consequences for Snake's getting seen" that aren't exactly based in a pushing-through-resistance model of gameplay, and to assess that experience according to that model, then, is just to orient oneself insistently towards the game as though it were something it isn't (even trying to be).
Not that pushing-through-resistance isn't part of what it tries to offer as an experiential possibility. But pushing-through-resistance isn't The Experience it tries to offer; it's only part of that. And it is highlighted in particular moments, as moments (like the Act 5 opening). But it is an experience maybe directly opposed to other experiences the game tries to offer (like in Act 2), and the game needs some relative freedom from that model in order to offer those other experiences.
The game shifts emphasis from itself, as offering resistance to player progress, onto the agency of the player, becoming a space in which that can play itself out. The player's navigation, even negotiation, of options in the mechanics and certain psychological pressures inherited into the gameplay through the gameplay's contamination by the terms of the narrative, is in the spotlight, rather than the player's cunning problem-solving (and/or risk-taking) with respect to sentries who need to/should be avoided if success is to be achieved. So you get a stealth playground, and it's a stealth playground for a reason, not a stealth game, if that means something only ever to be assessed primarily in terms of Snake vs. sentries, as opposed to Snake vs. Snake. What Adi's saying about something that very much opens itself up to "What if...?" exploration is part of this.
What an awful post. That's all I'm doing right now. |
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:55 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| i don't think idle novelty supercedes action-vs-consequence, especially in a game using stealth as its premise both thematically and mechanically. i mostly just want the games to be doing both at the same time as much as possible. |
But what if sort of divorcing action and consequence, and opening up action as something to explore in itself (more meaningfully than the phrase "idle novelty" allows), is actually the point itself, thematically and mechanically both, not just a big ol' oops in both fields |
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Rud31
forum ruler of Iraq
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: SanAnTex
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special blend
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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Toptube
Anti-cabbage Party Candidate
Joined: 23 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 6:53 am |
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Gameplay-wise, I think the first portion of MGS4 is the best part of the whole game. It really stresses aspects of terrain and cover, that no other part of the game does. Its the kind of stuff i was hoping for, after Snake Eater. and the kind of stuff that I've only seen in a couple of other games, such as the original Ghost Recon, and Battlefield 2.
It also drives home some immersion by having stuff happen around you, as you move through the area. The bad guys' goals have grown to the point at which they can't hide from everyone but you, anymore. Its the kind of stuff that was talked about a lot in PR. But its only a sliver of the whole game.
| thestage wrote: |
| 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 |
Its a lot better than run back through every place you've been so far, except for that one door, to get that one thing, that you need right here.
or suddenly there are a bunch of things to go get/take care of in areas you've already been. and is otherwise inconsequential.
I prefer Snake Eater's method of nearly constantly feeding me new playgrounds and new things to do, while slowly moving towards the enemy stronghold. There are a couple of small moments with backtracking, but its not nearly as much recovered ground and the reasoning/payoff within the story makes it nearly painless.
Last edited by Toptube on Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:37 am; edited 1 time in total |
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special blend
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:09 am |
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i was so disappointed that they didn't design those upper parts of the big shell to explore and had you running around freezing bombs instead
i was so let down
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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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 11:27 am |
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| Interstellar Dinghy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| 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. |
But why would you want that... |
Fun + the pleasure of variable problem solving by the simultaneous presence of various, and variable, problems.
The tension of action-consequence is interesting, but I don't think that it's as supremely valuable as you and analogos are pushing. I actually think that Snake Eater is a better game for allowing that, mainly because it's what interests me more. It's a worse game as far as action-consequence goes, but I don't think that it's trying to be about action-consequence except for what's needed to make it a game and to make those various elements interact with each other.
This changes on European Extreme, however.
In my head, the ire directed toward Snake Eater/Act II on those grounds manifests in my head as Armstrong scowling "fuck this Montessori school bullshit," which I don't know if it's what y'all mean but it's a pleasant image and therefore.
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:48 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| you and analogos |
d-don't compare me to that chump. |
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:52 am |
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| analogos = dinghy alt account confirmed |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:51 pm |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| I actually think that Snake Eater is a better game for allowing that, mainly because it's what interests me more. It's a worse game as far as action-consequence goes, but I don't think that it's trying to be about action-consequence except for what's needed to make it a game and to make those various elements interact with each other. |
the mgs3 comment was [mostly] a joke.
i think any claims about what mgs3 is "trying to be" mechanically are both sort of too convenient and also probably beside the point. i have a hard time with the idea that any of these games have quite that coherent a relationship between what they wish they were and what they ultimately have to be given the circumstances either way.
i think i value what you value in mgs3/mgs4's act 2 but am not satisfied with just leaving it alone as such. my issue isn't with what mgs3 "allows", it's with what it doesn't even consider. i don't want to stifle intuitive mechanical exploration; i want to introduce more elements that strengthen the context for its use.
mgs acts as an opportunity to solve a bunch of problems you don't even have. i want the games to more consistently explore those problems without necessarily taking away the solutions. |
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Felix
unofficial repository
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: vancouver
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:28 pm |
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this is actually a pretty good thread
I mostly agree with the discussion here about MGS3's wonderful setpiece progression, MGS2's better sneaking, MGS4's few redeeming elements, etc.
Snake Eater is actually the greatest thing ever though
and everything else is pretty subpar
so why am I excited about this game |
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:09 pm |
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| analogos wrote: |
| i think i value what you value in mgs3/mgs4's act 2 but am not satisfied with just leaving it alone as such. my issue isn't with what mgs3 "allows", it's with what it doesn't even consider. i don't want to stifle intuitive mechanical exploration; i want to introduce more elements that strengthen the context for its use. |
But I think what Adi and I are trying to say is that what we value in MGS3/Act 2 is possible largely because mechanical exploration isn't pinned down by contextual necessity (or, if we don't want to put it so strongly as "necessity," contextual demand). The experiences just aren't two that you can have at the same time: oooh what does this button/tool do vs. damn which buttons/tools are best for this pressing circumstance. To imply that you can is more or less to give us all an out that lets us linger in the phase of discussion most of us have been content not to move forward from for years now: "MGS isn't the latter, and isn't that just too bad for it." We do have to kind of push, I think, just to get the discussion forward through that phase towards absorption of the perspective that embraces the former of those two experiences as legitimate in itself.
I agree with you that it's probably "too convenient" to talk about what the games are "trying to do" and not. I think it's a problem of the critical vocabulary, whether because great tools just haven't become available to us quite yet or because they don't come naturally to us yet. I think MGS is unique for the ways in which it "expects," rather than demands, things of the player and often lets the player loose into that realm of expectation such that in the end it offers a totally legitimate (fun and meaningful) gaming experience which nonetheless doesn't look like some concepts of what a game should be. I can make the argument that "trying to do" is appropriate to say, especially because I'd want to make clear that I understand this way of thinking about and playing the games as more like "being in tune with them" (being aware of and then acted on by the games' "expectations") than hijacking them for my own experiential goals. But also, yeah, intentionality is just a convenient, quick-to-mind model for articulating that difference between something-like-expectation and something-like-demand in the works' operations. We can argue about the appropriateness or effectiveness of that model, but I also think we'll probably end up spinning our wheels for a while, if the force of the conversation is just judgmentally towards assessing the model so as to say "eh, okay, fine" or "nah," and not productively towards developing (a better) one to improve articulations of the kind of perspective Adi and I are trying to have included and recognized in discussion.
But there's plenty on the other side that I find "too convenient" too. It's one thing, for example, to say flatly that the oooh what does this button do and damn which button is best for this circumstance experiences are two that the games could/should offer simultaneously; it's another thing to start digging into that assertion and figure out the extents to which that's really been possible, if we do so with an awareness of the technological and conceptual limitations grounded in consideration of the possibility that MGS is already legitimate as/for what it is. So, maybe MGSV will finally achieve such a Stealth Playground that those two experiences are made one. But we should probably orient ourselves towards that as an achievement, right? Not just as the rectification of a mistake, since that necessitates a particular, restrictive orientation towards the rest of the series in the meantime. As Adi and I are saying, oooh what does this button do is a legitimate experience in itself, which can be mechanically expressed and thematically encoded in an interactive work in all sorts of ways, and not just an inferior one. And so MGS isn't bad for having been about that for long stretches of its run, even if it does mean there's been a gap between the MGS that is and the MGS some of us would prefer per our own creative/fun-seeking inclinations, through those stretches.
I mean, I fully appreciate the "I want" in this situation. And I appreciate your indeed putting it in those terms, if only so that I could have the opportunity to say that's not what I mean to trample on. I think it's difficult much of the time to prevent the cross-contamination of "I really want an MGS that..."s and "I blame MGS for not..."s. One doesn't actually require the other. But the former is well worth talking about. I know people here don't know much about me yet, but, I do tend to push the "I want an MGS that..."s a lot too. So I hope my position isn't taken as "shut up, eat what's on your plate, and love it just as much even if it were all you could ever have for the rest of your life."
Anyway, analogos, much of this, we already talked about last night, but... for the thread's sake (or something)!
Last edited by Grant Dempsey on Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Toups
tyranically banal
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Location: Ebon Keep
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 7:39 pm |
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why does no one ever talk about how great the original MGS is, huh? that there is a solid game
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Grant Dempsey
zangrantsu
Joined: 04 May 2009
Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 7:52 pm |
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"As an old game designer, I'm looking at my creations and wondering, 'Hey, are you dead?' But, I'm still there."
"'Hey, are you dead?' But, I'm still there."
"'Hey, are you dead?'" |
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elvis.shrugged
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 7:57 pm |
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| Toups wrote: |
| why does no one ever talk about how great the original MGS is, huh? that there is a solid game |
I was just about to ask the same thing. I know that internsius is a big fan, for much the same reason I am: its educational parts, tone, style, music, etc. I still find it very fun, as well!
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The Troops
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Location: Providence
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:25 pm |
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i think MGS1 is the most aesthetically complete videogame ever made
and that twin snakes is the greatest crime ever committed on an optical disc |
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The Troops
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Location: Providence
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:28 pm |
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and it was a two-disc game
fucking double jeopardy |
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The Troops
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Location: Providence
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:55 pm |
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all the synths sound cold
there's a lot passive bgms with low-hums and static and crackles that the imagination absorbs as diegesis |
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The Troops
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Location: Providence
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:59 pm |
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the character models exist in a netherworld between tangible and pure silhouette
the 2x8 portions of pixels that make up eyes that one can identify as weary, but never read |
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The Troops
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
Location: Providence
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:41 pm |
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the helipad is held in my mind as a pillar of level design, and i often look to it for inspiration
it has an ellipticity the brain intuits as a playspace, such as a roller rink, skate park, football field
most of the mechanics are there to be discovered and experimented with: footprints, cameras, chaff nades, spotlights, guard patrols
there is a concentricity to it that makes it feel open, but directs flow into its many sides and ends and crannies and balconies and multiple exits
it has its own real-world purpose, and in a cutscene, you see that purpose utilized, and then for you in the game it has a purpose different from its intended one
that was the one level on the MGS demo disc that came with my playstation, and i played it for hours
every single area in MGS is like this little top-down diorama that you could live in
the bathrooms, emmerich's (konami's) office, the gilded room where you fight mantis, the tank hangar, the prison cells, the torture room, the top of the radio tower
so much hangoutitude, it almost hurts |
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Vikram Ray
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:49 pm |
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The Ravens say you are a true warrior...
Am I hallucinating? I... I can't move.
The Raven has put the mark of death upon you. Blood from the East flows within your veins. Ah... your ancestors too were raised on the barren plains of Mongolia... |
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Focus
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 10:02 pm |
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i loved the first MGS demo so much.
you could use a gameshark to get the bandana + the other weapons, i believe.
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Felix
unofficial repository
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: vancouver
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 10:12 pm |
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| The Troops wrote: |
i think MGS1 is the most aesthetically complete videogame ever made
and that twin snakes is the greatest crime ever committed on an optical disc |
twin snakes really is an aesthetic nightmare compared to the original. I remember recoiling in horror after trying ninety minutes of it when it was first released, and I finally went through it for the first time recently before playing 2 and 3 in HD (with my wife, who now, to her dismay, laughs at jokes like "you are above even the pope. I grant you the title of big pope."). it grows on you, but it's really, really inelegant compared to the original (and has none of the technological marvel that came with first playing it on a playstation). |
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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 10:36 pm |
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| analogos wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| you and analogos |
d-don't compare me to that chump. |
I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to put you and yourself in the same category.
When will I let you out... of your cardboard box....
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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 10:39 pm |
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| Focus wrote: |
i loved the first MGS demo so much.
you could use a gameshark to get the bandana + the other weapons, i believe. |
I only got to MGS about a year and a half after its release when my little brother showed it to me. I guess hangoutitude introduced me to it, so thanks little bro.
Which territories did the demo include?
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thestage
banned
Joined: 27 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:30 pm |
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the demo was the beginning of the game through the helipad, if I recall. Japanese VA only, and the credits sequence may have been a little different. I don't remember if the layout was at all different, or if maybe they gave you items that were not available at that point in the real game, but I don't think they did. I played it about a hundred million times.
Remember the MGS2 demo? How it gave you like a code after you beat it that you could enter into some website for a score competition? And the top 100 or so people got their names on the dog tags in the game? That was cool. I almost made the cut ;_; |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:03 am |
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| thestage wrote: |
| Remember the MGS2 demo? How it gave you like a code after you beat it that you could enter into some website for a score competition? And the top 100 or so people got their names on the dog tags in the game? That was cool. I almost made the cut ;_; |
I really liked that they'd included that feature in the VR Missions when they released Substance. Unfortunately, I got to Substance on a used Blockbuster copy (yep back then) after the high scores had been well occupied. I could never knock anyone out of those brackets. I remember also being agog when the same scores for Twin Snakes were immediately blasted with times that I, at the time, was pretty sure was impossible without external hacks (something like ~30 min).
Kind of weird now that YouTube in some ways circumvents that need in a game. Cool that they included it at the time though. I noticed that they removed or suppressed that code from the HD Collection versions.
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Toptube
Anti-cabbage Party Candidate
Joined: 23 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:19 am |
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| analogos wrote: |
| Adilegian wrote: |
| I actually think that Snake Eater is a better game for allowing that, mainly because it's what interests me more. It's a worse game as far as action-consequence goes, but I don't think that it's trying to be about action-consequence except for what's needed to make it a game and to make those various elements interact with each other. |
the mgs3 comment was [mostly] a joke.
i think any claims about what mgs3 is "trying to be" mechanically are both sort of too convenient and also probably beside the point. i have a hard time with the idea that any of these games have quite that coherent a relationship between what they wish they were and what they ultimately have to be given the circumstances either way.
i think i value what you value in mgs3/mgs4's act 2 but am not satisfied with just leaving it alone as such. my issue isn't with what mgs3 "allows", it's with what it doesn't even consider. i don't want to stifle intuitive mechanical exploration; i want to introduce more elements that strengthen the context for its use.
mgs acts as an opportunity to solve a bunch of problems you don't even have. i want the games to more consistently explore those problems without necessarily taking away the solutions. |
Did you play original MGS3, before the "modern" camera was added? I feel like the constrained view of the original camera at least artificially manifests some of those problems that you say aren't there.
I mean, it's still certainly possible to run and gun, but its a lot more difficult. Especially in areas where the camera doesn't let you see faar ahead.
and the game does feature a lot of extra stuff that you don't have to use. But its screaming for you to try stuff. To play. You are often rewarded by finding more elegant ways to deal with problems. |
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analogos
bravely default crying fairy
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:26 am |
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| i prefer Snake Eater to Subsistence [within the scope of a certain ideal], yeah. i've posted about it before and i talk about it a bit on the mgs podcast if you want to hear the argument (but no don't listen to it don't). |
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Ronk
saucy Scott Pilgrim fanfic
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 8:35 am |
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| elvis.shrugged wrote: |
| Toups wrote: |
| why does no one ever talk about how great the original MGS is, huh? that there is a solid game |
I was just about to ask the same thing. I know that internsius is a big fan, for much the same reason I am: its educational parts, tone, style, music, etc. I still find it very fun, as well! |
i am a huge fan of all of these things. it's like the big melodramatic anime action movie that it tries to makes fun of throughout the whole game, while at the same time having excellent controls and top notch sound design. it's still got some of the most charming ps1 graphics and i tend to try to play it once every year. i think 2 is honestly still my favorite game in the series (3 is great but i've played that one the least). gonna try to play through all the "canon" games again now that i'm pretty pumped for phantom pain. this might be the first big budget video game i've been excited about since...well MGS4, i guess. i'd be more than willing to talk about the gigantic, stupid canon story for fun.
| The Troops wrote: |
the character models exist in a netherworld between tangible and pure silhouette
the 2x8 portions of pixels that make up eyes that one can identify as weary, but never read |
i love this. never got in the way of me getting into the cutscenes. like someone bobbing the heads of action figures up and down.
i wish they had VR missions on the PSN, i'd buy that in a heartbeat.
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tacotaskforce
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Logical, Practical
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| Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 11:14 pm |
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I dislike MGS1 so much that I will never play the game again to articulate why.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| thestage wrote: |
| Remember the MGS2 demo? How it gave you like a code after you beat it that you could enter into some website for a score competition? And the top 100 or so people got their names on the dog tags in the game? That was cool. I almost made the cut ;_; |
I really liked that they'd included that feature in the VR Missions when they released Substance. Unfortunately, I got to Substance on a used Blockbuster copy (yep back then) after the high scores had been well occupied. I could never knock anyone out of those brackets. |
But...
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2013 1:47 am |
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| elvis.shrugged wrote: |
| Toups wrote: |
| why does no one ever talk about how great the original MGS is, huh? that there is a solid game |
I was just about to ask the same thing. I know that internsius is a big fan, for much the same reason I am: its educational parts, tone, style, music, etc. I still find it very fun, as well! |
Yes, indeed, I have a great deal of love for Metal Gear Solid. (Thank you for saying something for me in my absence.)
The cold blue-green tone of the visuals with that beautiful polygonal style that implemented Shinkawa's character designs far better than the game's technologically superior successors ever would or will and the electric steel soundtrack combine to create a very specific tone for which I just feel so much affection. It's an overall aesthetic that feels familiar and comfortable to me, but I also objectively think it's terrific, of course. It suits the theme and story perfectly in such rare fashion.
A nuclear waste disposal facility for the backdrop of a story that has the fear of the Cold War in its blood. So many cutscenes and codec conversations took time-outs to spend long minutes lamenting the history of nuclear weapons. I must have been 15 or nearly 16 when I played MGS, and, let me tell you, I was riveted by this material. I can trace even today the way in which I respond to things back to that—for example, how I felt when North Korea began making its recent threats is in no small part a product of Metal Gear Solid. I am absolutely aware of that. Other kinds of disasters and threats don't have the same kind of power over me.
And I love how earnest it is. I really felt that the person who made this game carries a deep sadness and fear about nuclear weapons. That earnestness comes into the characters as well, and MGS takes the time to tell you the stories of its villains (I was very disappointed when MGS3 did not). Everyone in this game is a tragic product of war, and I think here that the camp which many people read into MGS isn't really there. I mean, stuff like "Can love bloom on a battlefield" becomes a joke when people talk about it later, but in the context of the game I think it works and feels sincere.
I think everything in the game is sincere, which is a big part of why I like it; I've never had the best relationship with Kojima's humor. Although I do enjoy his playfulness with the technology that was available to him with Psycho Mantis's memory card reading and controller port immunity, that fourth-wall breaking business makes sense as a part of Mantis's abilities. Later games' silliness doesn't bother to concern itself with context, and there's a lot that I dislike. I guess I don't really get Kojima or whatever.
Every major Metal Gear game since MGS has felt the need to address or integrate or subvert its narrative structure, and I don't believe this is merely because it's what came before. Rather, I think it's classic; it has all the pieces in all the right places, and yet it is still somehow rarely predictable. That Snake was tricked into doing the villains' work for them with the keycard is the only thing that I think the average player would really see coming. It's just a very satisfying, archetypal script, you know? Sometimes you get tired of all the postmodern crap and long for such a strong direct story again.
Decoy Octopus, Miller's identity, Naomi's betrayal—at least for me these were great surprises. Maybe that's partly because in 1998 we didn't really think games would have the capability or the ambition to step outside their given parameters. When Jim Houseman shows up in my codec extremely late in the game, my reaction is "WTF! How can there possibly be a new character at this point?!" because, at the time, game plots seemed I think to work just like gameplay mechanics in that a system of limited possibilities with clearly delineated boundaries would be established early on (in MGS's story this very fittingly happens right after the elevator and late title card when Snake is introduced to Mei Ling and Campbell talks him through his approach to the facility across the helipad) and the kind of big changes we see in mechanics today for special one-off set pieces or segments in which we play as a different character just didn't happen.
If the epilogue section of Metroid Zero Mission had happened in 1998, my head would have exploded. Yoshi's Island's final boss existing in the backdrop was about my limit. Hell, I'm still talking today about what Super Metroid accomplished, so you know that kind of ambition was nearly unthinkable at the time. Games were what they said they were, and the same went for the story. I don't know how much sense I'm making, but that's kind of how I see it because I remember experiencing that change in perspective over the years. Metal Gear Solid was pretty bold at a pretty early time for it. It's easy to take a different attitude today now that we're inundated with overly cinematic games, but back then my thinking about what a game was capable of was seriously altered by MGS.
But that's not why I love it. I don't even love it because its story is so satisfying. It's just got a soul that I don't think you find in any later Metal Gear game. It doesn't draw me out of its own experience with elaborate pranks pulled on fans or coke-swilling weapons-dealing monkeys or diarrhea gags, and it isn't an experimental postmodern indictment of video games. What it is instead, because it lacks all of that stuff, is all of a piece, and that piece is earnest; it deserves to be loved. And that's in addition to being a cracking good game. |
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Glam Grimfire
Joined: 16 Dec 2011
Location: the funky western civilization
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| Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2013 7:18 am |
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| The Troops wrote: |
and it was a two-disc game
fucking double jeopardy |
is this your confirmation that you have vivid nightmares about solid-snake backflip-kciking a cruise missile launched by a HIN-D
this is besides the point, really, i was most disappointing when twin-snakes got rid of the goofy ass kamen-rider body armor snake seemed to wear in his original outfit
also i think the "reason" i am excited for MGSV being The Big Metal Gear Fan that i am, is because for all parts of 2, and 4 (not 3, though) and to a lesser extent peace walker which is an interesting thing to say the least, kojima was more concerned with staying ontop of development trends at the time and experimenting with new hardware, and more importantly giving "The Fans" (the terrible people that they are, that includes me) the story they had been clamoring for.
MGSV presents, in a way, a New metal gear even though it still retains the title of Solid. this goes further than Big Boss having a new voice actor, MGSV presents a new scope that was briefly toyed with in MGS4, and it also is finally ramping up to "The Beginning" of the metal gear saga, which means kojima arguably has enough room to finally make whatever he wants
i hope that made sense!
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim |
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 3:17 am |
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| thestage wrote: |
| 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. |
This is basically MGS3. The irony, Jack.
I've debated on whether or not to respond to this, and I decided that it's worth doing so however loosely if only because this happens in a public space and I think that it's worth responding from what you've written to the community. This will probably work as a catch-all response to posts of this stripe, actually.
These ideas are OK, but you're not doing enough with them. You turn your focus too often toward the people you're responding to than to the ideas themselves, and you identify the people you're responding to with the ideas. It comes off as bullying, which I don't know if that's what you mean but that's the result.
Since no foundation for this worldview is given, it requires none to dismiss. This creates an alternate reality thread wherein the topic of discussion is this worldview. This is what I'm not interested in discussing, especially as far as its restrictions chew up my character and spit out an arbitrary nature to my attachment to the series, underscoring a lack of volition and choice, "the times, jack," etcetera. Your data's insufficient for that conclusion, and it always will be.
If you want to talk about the analysis, then that is, of course, on the table. If you want to talk about me, you're on your own.
Them's the rules.
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parker
a wolf adventuring
Joined: 31 May 2007
Location: suplex city
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| Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:32 am |
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David Hayter wrote his sucide note on twitter today saying he wanted to assure fans that he didn't abandon them, this was all Kojima's doing, time to end the meme etc.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rjhhf9
It's weird not even the voice actor distinguishes Big Boss from Solid Snake, everyone always just says "Snake." If all I knew about the series was from kotaku articles or something I wouldn't even know they were two different guys.
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