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SPOILER: Metal Gear Solid V Spoiler Thread | Such a lust for conclusion, T-WHHOOOO

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I just want to say. I think Kojima doesn't care for MG games anymore since after MGS3. I really hope he will do something with Sony and they will give him freedom and money for his new project.

Arguably, the last time he gave a damn was Peace Walker.

Conspiracy theory: maybe Kojima ramped up the costs of MGSV to ludicrous amounts (including hiring KS to voice BB/VS) in order to make Konami fire him. He wanted to be fired so that he didn't have to work on MG games any more.
 
I'm going to assume chapter 2 was called race because Huey was also going to be a racist and drop an N bomb before leaving. The cunt.
 
lol at miller giving all the rousing speeches and fake boss just standing there like an idiot

does this guy ever react to anything?

Also, two characters who actually never even met The Boss stood next to her monument, while her most devoted protege is in hiding somewhere and her son is circling Motherbase in a helicopter.

Do the poor story choices never stop?
 
Peeler (MGS Community Manager) on the Nuke-free world cutscene:
BqdgL7D.png

Twitter

Unrelated, but kinda funny:
 
The taboo for me is: When a country occupy another country they force them to use another language and that change the individual behavior similar to Skull Face's story.
Also, Zero's plan to rule the world under one entity the USA before he created the patriots system forced many countries to be Americanized. This is happening in real life now.

Edit: Also when you lose something because of someone, vengeance drives you and nothing else.

I blame the trailers. It made it seem that VS was going to kill kids, rape quiet and destroy his own MB at the end. I, like you, loved the use of language and even though the execution of it wasn't 100% I definitely took it as the taboo thing.
 
Not really though. MGS1,2 & 3 all are very well written and fun action games. MGS2 even, i think it's genious how it questions the player.

LOL

none of the games are well written. If you seriously think about it all of them have a lot of stupid in them.

It is the storytelling and themes you guys have liked. The storytelling here was where kojima really dropped the ball (explaining entire plot threads in cassette tapes) but otherwise it is the same old shit.

Heck some of the themes/ideas are better than ever (language as a means of control, e.t.c)
 
I am watching Schindler's List, I never experienced it, but still can feel it.

You're pre-disposed to empathize with that from a young age. Which you should.

Reacting flippantly to a fellow GAF member talking about how personal the themes are to him, wherever he is in the world and however he grew up, shows you don't really empathize with that identity and culture struggle in any context.
 
You're pre-disposed to empathize with that from a young age. Which you should.

Reacting flippantly to a fellow GAF member talking about how personal the themes are to him, wherever he is in the world and however he grew up, shows you don't really empathize with that identity and culture struggle in any context.

But I am talking about the game, not about his relationship to the themes in MGSV.

Edit: To put it more precisely: Kojima failed to deliver ME all the taboos and themes in the game that he promised (and it looked promising that he would succeed) in the trailers.
 
Some of the Code Talker tapes reminded the stuff my mother experienced growing as a Finnish person in Sweden in the 60's where kids were punished for speaking Finnish between classes.

That was nothing compared to how ingenious indigenous Sami people had it back then. Thank god it's different in Nordic countries these days but the language remains pretty much dead.

There were also forced sterilizations, taking kids away from their parents etc... Pretty fucked up.
 
I blame the trailers. It made it seem that VS was going to kill kids, rape quiet and destroy his own MB at the end. I, like you, loved the use of language and even though the execution of it wasn't 100% I definitely took it as the taboo thing.

I understand that. But in the real world or in the real MGS V: TPP you play as Venom not Big Boss. He didn't kill children or use them in war because when everything is said and done he is the good guy and the real Big Boss is the bad guy. Venom felt guilty when he killed his men during the infection mission in motherbase and he let Huey go after that instead of killing him because he doesn't want more blood on his hands. Also, the nuke disarmament ending explains that he want peace.
 
I understand that. But in the real world or in the real MGS V: TPP you play as Venom not Big Boss. He didn't kill children or use them in war because when everything is said and done he is the good guy and the real Big Boss is the bad guy. Venom felt guilty when he killed his men during the infection mission in motherbase and he let Huey go after that instead of killing him because he doesn't want more blood on his hands. Also, the nuke disarmament ending explains that he want peace.

Yeah, I get you. I'm in the boat that liked the story overall even though there are aspects to it I didn't and the twist doesn't bother me. I'm still playing and enjoying the game.
 
developing four nukes and dismantling them, maybe? *~*

Nah, it clearly lists his Steam friends even, maybe just the ones that have the game, but it has something to do with other people like yourself. I'm banking on there being no-one online with a nuke AKA will never see it naturally.

He even gets heroism for there being no more nukes in the world.

They're CLONES! :O

MGS spinoff confirmed!

Les Enfants Mediocre
 
Some of the Code Talker tapes reminded the stuff my mother experienced growing as a Finnish person in Sweden in the 60's where kids were punished for speaking Finnish between classes.

That was nothing compared to how ingenious indigenous Sami people had it back then. Thank god it's different in Nordic countries these days but the language remains pretty much dead.

There were also forced sterilizations, taking kids away from their parents etc... Pretty fucked up.

Yeah, this is definitely something that hasn't been used in games before.

One of the ways in which invaders have, historically, ensured a level of control over the indigenous populations was to remove their language or, at the very least, make it so their languages were pushed to the fringes so they became less common. The game is right, it's a form of ethnic cleasning, you're removing the tounge that those would use to speak against you.

This is the why there are so many 1984 references in the game. In 1984, the party was working towards a form of language, newspeak, where criticism and self-expression are impossible. A single unified language but one where people said nothing.
 
You don't feel it because you didn't experience it.

Edit: The game also is sending a message that a man can destroy entire nations using tiny things (vocal parasites or biological weapons).

Post-Colonial critical theory is not taboo though, whether or not a person has experienced it. It is studied in parts of academia and is a widely known concept, there is absolutely nothing taboo about it.

It'd be like saying the postmodern philosophy or epistemology discussed in MGS2 is "taboo."

edit: I also liked the stuff about language but at no point in time was I like "omg this is so taboo how can they discuss this?" also the idea of language controlling people isn't new, and is heavily part of the orwell's 1984. where's the taboo?
 
So it's been a week since I finished the game (or at least completed Mission 46) -- and while I was disappointed initially by the story I was actually down on the game as a whole for a few days, kind of writing the whole thing off. Especially considering I played MGS1, 2, 3, and PW for the first time through August (and MGS4 again), it was a bit of a let down. Although I still can't stop playing it, it's too good man, fuck it's just so much fun to play, everything about the game just feels so good.

I'm curious whether anyone in here has been completely soured on the game? I know I'm in the spoiler thread where we're mostly talking about the story, but everything seems super negative, or is it just on the subject of story. I thought the story elements did have peaks though, for sure, off the top of my head: missions 13, great infiltration, first Walker Gear use, Huey and the A.I pods return, Sahelanthropus grand reveal and hide and seek sequence. Mission 20 had the the very creepy infiltration into the makeshift lab/hospital thing with all of the bodies, The Man of Fire boss, the P.T cameo. Missions 30 and 31 had the culmination of the Skull Face confrontation, and that Sahelanthropus boss. 43, just amazing. 45 tough satisfying last fight alongside Quiet, two incredible cut scenes bookending either side of it. The Hamburger tapes were hilarious, and I really enjoyed the Zero tapes at the end -- that last dump of Truth tapes were quite interesting. Hueys trial scene was great, and the accompanying tapes. Fighting Eli, and seeing him and the child soldiers interact at motherbase. Ocelot reciting Bosses advice on the automatic. Overall the clear highlight and peak is mission 43 especially, one of my favorite moments in any Metal Gear game.

I might write up a full LTTP or something soon, summarizing my thoughts on the franchise as a whole, and how it holds up without any real nostalgia towards it, but I do feel MGSV sits worthy alongside the other games in the franchise, the only black sheep is Peace Walker, and even PW is far from terrible.
 
"Taboo" is a bit hyperbolic, but I think MGSV does approach themes that other games don't. I really can't think of any other game that integrates child soldiers into the gameplay as a system you're forced to manage. And outside of the Eli stuff it's handled decently enough. The commentary on the fucked up lives of child soldiers is in there, and truthful.

Similarly for the language concept, which isn't handled in many games, and really very truthful. Suppression of language is 101 of propaganda and dictators/tyrants. The evolution of language, linguistics, and how it influences our psychology in expression and communication is a study. It's warranted and interesting and I like that the game tried to play with these ideas.

But as always with Kojima/MGS in general the execution, the storytelling itself, is where themes tend to be fumbled, underdeveloped, and cringingly executed. Often undercooked, lacking substance, or poorly integrated through exposition dumps from badly written characters.
 
Guys, can someone help me out? There is a lot of crazy fall in here...

I've finished Missions 1-50 - am I able to play a Mission 51 or do I need the CE to do that? Or do I need to keep doing Side Ops to trigger it?

The last thing I've done is Mission 51, but the preview for Chapter 2 has a snippet of Paz which I NEVER saw in my game...WTF am I missing??
 
Guys, can someone help me out? There is a lot of crazy fall in here...

I've finished Missions 1-50 - am I able to play a Mission 51 or do I need the CE to do that? Or do I need to keep doing Side Ops to trigger it?

The last thing I've done is Mission 51, but the preview for Chapter 2 has a snippet of Paz which I NEVER saw in my game...WTF am I missing??

Mission 51 doesn't exist. It's just a video.

Go to the Medical Platform and look for a door with a blue light.
 
Guys, can someone help me out? There is a lot of crazy fall in here...

I've finished Missions 1-50 - am I able to play a Mission 51 or do I need the CE to do that? Or do I need to keep doing Side Ops to trigger it?

The last thing I've done is Mission 51, but the preview for Chapter 2 has a snippet of Paz which I NEVER saw in my game...WTF am I missing??

For Paz, go to the medical bay and she is on the third floor, door that opens - blue light.

For Episode 51, go on youtube.
 
Dont know if this was pointed out but at 5:18 of the truth ending the diamond dogs logo on the door changes to Outer Heaven.

Still think the ending is: Venom made his version of outer heaven and was acting all crazy while BB was making zanzibarland and he eventually decided to send snake in to kill him so he could go underground and do his uprising a few years later. And the whole there can only be one Big Boss. Was probably always planning on getting rid of him.
Could also explain why Gray Fox was there, maybe he sent him first to kill Venom but he failed, and then sent snake to finish the job.
 
Thanks guys.

So WTF then, I actually beat this like 8 hours ago LOL Mission 46....what a ride?

Man, I don't even know what to think. MGS means so much to me, but this game feels like it just wasn't finished...
 
Taboo or not, this is what I was trying to say:

"Taboo" is a bit hyperbolic, but I think MGSV does approach themes that other games don't. I really can't think of any other game that integrates child soldiers into the gameplay as a system you're forced to manage. And outside of the Eli stuff it's handled decently enough. The commentary on the fucked up lives of child soldiers is in there, and truthful.

Similarly for the language concept, which isn't handled in many games, and really very truthful. Suppression of language is 101 of propaganda and dictators/tyrants. The evolution of language, linguistics, and how it influences our psychology in expression and communication is a study. It's warranted and interesting and I like that the game tried to play with these ideas.
 
A lot of it smacks to me of not actually dealing with it meaningfully in either a gameplay (beyond "don't shoot kids" or "you gotta quarantine these dudes") or storytelling (like meme theory is rampant throughout MGS2) capacity and mainly comes off as characters just talking about it in cassette tapes than actually, like, quantifiably demonstrating the effects of child soldiers, or of language imposition.

When it talks about how screwed up these kid soldiers are, it loses something because instead of showing you directly necessarily, it's mostly Miller telling you about it. None of the kids are real characters beyond Eli, and the one who is kinda is defined pretty much by his wooden horse talismen. Even when they are showing them, there's not much to them besides "they're kids and they're soldiers, but they should be kids".

Similarly with language - I'm sympathetic to it, I am. I can't even speak my own mother tongue anymore just by virtue of existing in my society for most of my life. But again, it's mostly just... used as a justification, first by Skullface and then by Code Talker. The Indian reservation stuff is powerful, granted; it reminds me heavily of the Australian Stolen Generation and of the current, depressing state of Indigenous affairs. But how is the idea of English as a lingua franca explored? Does it have any meaningful component in the game beyond that one story event?

Obviously these kinds of things aren't easy to do, but praising it for merely bringing it up seems... well, a bit off, really. It's good that it's brought up. It'd be so much better if it were brought up and meant, well, anything by it.
 
Arguably, the last time he gave a damn was Peace Walker.

Conspiracy theory: maybe Kojima ramped up the costs of MGSV to ludicrous amounts (including hiring KS to voice BB/VS) in order to make Konami fire him. He wanted to be fired so that he didn't have to work on MG games any more.

I'm pretty sure he chose to work on the projects and if he really didn't want to work on them anymore to the point he'd throw his job away he probably would have just quit.
 
What really gets me about this game is that the levels seem so cut and paste, as do the environments.

Each mission isn't lovingly handcrafted or scripted, it's just a matter of cut and paste with shallow and repetitive objectives placed as the goal for each level.

With that in mind, I just don't understand how this game took so long to develop and yet still wasn't completed.

If they released a level editor then I'm pretty sure people could make better missions than some of the ones we got in just a few hours.
 
I think they're talking about parasites...
He was talking about cloning. In some of the tapes Huey directly said that it is about cloning, that's when he dropped "him", Dr. Clark. Yes, in a game about giant robots, nukes and ethnic cleansers, it's the clones that are the ultimate weapon.
 
A lot of it smacks to me of not actually dealing with it meaningfully in either a gameplay (beyond "don't shoot kids" or "you gotta quarantine these dudes") or storytelling (like meme theory is rampant throughout MGS2) capacity and mainly comes off as characters just talking about it in cassette tapes than actually, like, quantifiably demonstrating the effects of child soldiers, or of language imposition.

When it talks about how screwed up these kid soldiers are, it loses something because instead of showing you directly necessarily, it's mostly Miller telling you about it. None of the kids are real characters beyond Eli, and the one who is kinda is defined pretty much by his wooden horse talismen. Even when they are showing them, there's not much to them besides "they're kids and they're soldiers, but they should be kids".

Similarly with language - I'm sympathetic to it, I am. I can't even speak my own mother tongue anymore just by virtue of existing in my society for most of my life. But again, it's mostly just... used as a justification, first by Skullface and then by Code Talker. The Indian reservation stuff is powerful, granted; it reminds me heavily of the Australian Stolen Generation and of the current, depressing state of Indigenous affairs. But how is the idea of English as a lingua franca explored? Does it have any meaningful component in the game beyond that one story event?

Obviously these kinds of things aren't easy to do, but praising it for merely bringing it up seems... well, a bit off, really. It's good that it's brought up. It'd be so much better if it were brought up and meant, well, anything by it.

Well said, m8
 
"Taboo" is a bit hyperbolic, but I think MGSV does approach themes that other games don't. I really can't think of any other game that integrates child soldiers into the gameplay as a system you're forced to manage. And outside of the Eli stuff it's handled decently enough. The commentary on the fucked up lives of child soldiers is in there, and truthful.

Similarly for the language concept, which isn't handled in many games, and really very truthful. Suppression of language is 101 of propaganda and dictators/tyrants. The evolution of language, linguistics, and how it influences our psychology in expression and communication is a study. It's warranted and interesting and I like that the game tried to play with these ideas.

But as always with Kojima/MGS in general the execution, the storytelling itself, is where themes tend to be fumbled, underdeveloped, and cringingly executed. Often undercooked, lacking substance, or poorly integrated through exposition dumps from badly written characters.


Pretty much this.

Every kojima game:

MGS1: Nuclear Deterrence/Gene therapy
MGS2: Social control and monitoring/Memes
MGS3: Nuclear Deterrence/ illusion of legends and heroes
MGS4: War economy/horrors of war
MGSV: Linguistics as a tool of control/horrors of war

Every Kojima game has interesting ideas and themes. Which makes them stand out from other games.

Every game has varying degree of success in storytelling. Its not that the actual story and characters were well written - they are all caricatures. And that is upto ones taste on how much you like the quirkyness of his universe. But that is part of kojima's style. He likes making these bizzare animu weirdos because he got inspired by the individuality of characters he saw in Mad Max movies.
 
Each mission isn't lovingly handcrafted or scripted, it's just a matter of cut and paste with shallow and repetitive objectives placed as the goal for each level.

I don't think that's entirely true. Missions are full of side things going on that a lot of players will only find on subsequent replays.

The problem is that the environments are reused in side ops and open world so you see a lot of them, and those aren't obviously as detailed as the mission sandboxes, which have more authorial intent attached.
 
Holy shit. Does Kojima actually hate me?
Why does this game feel so incomplete now that I've finished it. Why do I feel like this :( :(
 
Holy shit. Does Kojima actually hate me?
Why does this game feel so incomplete now that I've finished it. Why do I feel like this :( :(

Because the game wasn't finished. We know that know.

I mean, it would still be an amazing game wrapped up with Kojimas shitty writing anyway, but it might feel finished.
 
He was talking about cloning. In some of the tapes Huey directly said that it is about cloning, that's when he dropped "him", Dr. Clark. Yes, in a game about giant robots, nukes and ethnic cleansers, it's the clones that are the ultimate weapon.
Which makes it confusing that Ocelot and Kaz kept bringing it up. The tapes about testing Eli's blood tells us they already knew that there were clones of Big Boss running around. Everything Huey said was old news to them.
 
It's fucked because it took me 102 hours to complete but it's not finished. God damnit. It's not like it was cut short. It's like Breaking Bad ending at S4 and there being no S5. Kojima. Why koji
 
A lot of it smacks to me of not actually dealing with it meaningfully in either a gameplay (beyond "don't shoot kids" or "you gotta quarantine these dudes") or storytelling (like meme theory is rampant throughout MGS2) capacity and mainly comes off as characters just talking about it in cassette tapes than actually, like, quantifiably demonstrating the effects of child soldiers, or of language imposition.

When it talks about how screwed up these kid soldiers are, it loses something because instead of showing you directly necessarily, it's mostly Miller telling you about it. None of the kids are real characters beyond Eli, and the one who is kinda is defined pretty much by his wooden horse talismen. Even when they are showing them, there's not much to them besides "they're kids and they're soldiers, but they should be kids".

They show you the effect how they made weapons from forks and what available to them in motherbase. It shows you that children raised on war and violence will develop bad habits and change their behaviors to the worse.
 
I kind of liked the idea of Big Boss having a phantom. It gave me a sort of insight whether the actions of the Big Boss we knew post Ground Zeroes were really his or only by his phantom. This opened up the ending for me.

Then the timeline appeared and ruined everything by answering questions that should have been left in the open for people to fill in.

Still, how the narrative was presented is ridiculous. Chapter 1 is too long with missions not really related or even required to progress the narrative forward.
 
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