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[Death Metalist]

I can understand the feeling of the game being incomplete from the lack of closure on the Eli/Sahelanthropous story just fucking right off, but the rest is pretty solid and well wrapped up when you realize TPP is just a tool to set up the time line as understood in MGS4.

It explains Grey Fox's absence, why he would go to Outter Heaven, and why he would be on Big Boss's side in Zanzibar Land.

It explains why miller would suddenly be present in MG2 instead of being part of Intrude N313, and makes a lot of sense on how Liquid and Ocelot would know about miller and want to kill him for MGS.

It shows how Big Boss descended into madness while also staying the greatest fucking saint in the world. Phantom Big Boss went renegade after that PTSD from the Quarantine chamber, while real Big Boss kept working in the background to oppose Donald Anderson's new Patriots.

Throughout all of this, it managed to do the twist reveal extremely well, the only shitty part was plying through that entire mssion again instead of breezing through or just doing the important bits. The signs were all there if you were looking for them: Ishmael's voice, abilities, and comments, Snake not knowing Russian which he was extremely fluent in (Which Ocelot tries to cover it up with a lie?), Phantom Big Boss had no real reaction to the Boss's voice, while real Big Boss would have had a PTSD attack, Volgin suddenly backs off when getting up close and personal with Phantom Big Boss because he realizes it's not his enemy, the DNA test was a 0% match for someone we knew was obviously Big Boss's clone.

Also, Quiet knew the whole time that she was dealing with Phantom Big Boss. She knew it wasn't Big Boss when she was sent to assassinate the real one, claiming the guy next to the real one saw her face and then proceeded to strangle him face to facel, getting a good look at the fact Phantom Big Boss had a damn horn. Years later, she'd fail to kill him again. He spared her, stopped her from committing suicide, abducted her, and was literally the only person to treat her like a human being on all of Mother Base. You have Lima and Stockholm Syndrome at work here, on top of Phantom Big Boss being a pretty decent guy all around, rich, powerful, charismatic, and supremely confident. They even work together a lot on the field sharing foxholes together so to speak. Hell, with all that I'd want to fuck the man too.

Overall, it's a great story that's true to the MGS themes. It's disjointed in its presentation, and left a little incomplete following the shitstorm at Konami. Just because it was told poorly, which was possibly out of Kojia's hands due to working conditions, doesn't mean you can't step away and appreciate how well constructed it is. TPP sets a rock solid foundation for future events, and had an ending that will stick with most of us forever.

You got it.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

This is always my criticism of MGS2. Sure, the meta-elements outside of the game are incredible. The game makes an amazing study, and has inspired so many interesting discussions.

But the actual in-game narrative? As an action story? It's terrible, and the game needs to be judged on that.

But it's not an action game story really, it's the antithesis of an action game story when you get down to it, and that's a major part of the story, not just the meta aspect of it.

And the script isn't a masterpiece, but I would hardly call it bad. While there is a lot of it, what is there is actually quite good and natural (for the characters that are "human" and not the AI that are told to phone in the VO to be more lifeless).

 

[Kevin Shields]

I cared more about Emma Emmerich in the hour that you get to know her than I ever did about Paz in the whole of Peace Walker, GZ, and TPP.

Are you serious? Did not care about her one bit. And I never want to hear E.E.!! E.E! again. I like MGS2 but some of the critiques of MGSV in this thread are mind far fetched

 

[ZeroMaverick]

Kinda off-topic, but what is so good about TLOU writing ? I think it's really "basic", i've seen way, way better stuff in various movies / tv shows / books.

TLOU borrowed so much from The Road, but no one brings that up because it's a video game.

TLOU was better than a lot of games, but pales to others in terms of narrative and theme.

 

[Sub_Level]

It's not Rose nagging. It's the Patriots fucking with Raidens head.

Naw its really her.

Of course I respect people who have a different interpretation but it seems like she is real until she gets cut off inside Arsenal.

Yes she faked getting with Raiden but she developed feelings for him. She was brought onto manipulate him through her presence, not necessarily through what she was saying. A lot of that was likely just your everyday dysfunctional relationship nagging lmao

I liked Rose...

 

[Guess Who]

Well honestly many people talk about The Last of Us as some kind of narrative masterpiece, when we all know in actuality that it's not. It was also held as feminist which was hilarious because it was as much a male power fantasy as any action-dad media. Not to mention the whole implication of that one guy wanting to rape Ellie... That game is toted as a some kind of return to form for storytelling in games, but it's TOTALLY not. The DLC was pretty well written though.

What TLoU does have that basically no Metal Gear game does is incredibly good dialogue. Characters come off as real, funny, and relatable in a way they rarely ever do in MGS. Even if the core plot of TLoU is pretty generic oh-the-tragedy-of-the-zombie-apocalypse fare, the well-written and well-acted dialogue makes it much more palatable to most people.

 

[ponpo]

Are you serious? Did not care about her one bit. And I never want to hear E.E.!! E.E! again. I like MGS2 but some of the critiques of MGSV in this thread are mind far fetched

Telling you, just wait for the next installment to come out so the MGSV praise can begin.

 

[MMarston]

Life is strange, The Last of us and The Walking Dead all have better written and more believable pieces than MGS2.

In defense of MGS2, all those other ones you cited are pretty "safe" in terms of storytelling, especially with two of them being survival stories hence prepared to draw out any emotional cliche from the genre book.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

TLOU borrowed so much from The Road, but no one brings that up because it's a video game.

TLOU was better than a lot of games, but pales to others in terms of narrative and theme.

Everything borrows from something else. If we want to go down this road it's going to lead to ancient Greece and the creation of the tragedy/comedy.

Naw its really her.

Of course I respect people who have a different interpretation but it seems like she is real until she gets cut off inside Arsenal.

Yes she faked getting with Raiden but she developed feelings for him. She was brought onto manipulate him through her presence, not necessarily through what she was saying. A lot of that was likely just your everyday dysfunctional relationship nagging lmao

I liked Rose...

If it's her how does she talk to an AI that was in part created from "the expectations" of what Camble was?

MGS4 may have all the answers, but I think it's more reasonable to go with the original idea that Raiden is an unreliable narrator and figures out how unreliable he is at the end of the game.

 

[Toa TAK]

Man I was afraid I was going to have to fight the Voluptuous Snipers in Code Talker again on Extreme, but turns out you can run through them. Then when you get Code Talker they're all Parasitic Zombies anyways and you can just run by them. Talk about easy.

I LOVE Metal Gear Solid 2, but dude, let's not pretend that it has good writting outside of certain scenes.

Metal Gear is what it is. We should drop the "I wish the series had better writting".

Thank you.

 

[Ghostmaster]

Kinda off-topic, but what is so good about TLOU writing ? I think it's really "basic", i've seen way, way better stuff in various movies / tv shows / books.

TLOU has that problem of being too similar to many popular books and movies, that outshine it, but in video game format the fact that it keeps itself basic and doesn't go over the top which most games do, it manages to retain a consistent tone and quality of writing throughout, which is not something that most writing in games can achieve.

I find the writing in Bioshock to be amazing up to a point, but then they went for all that Fontaine business, and tried to make more of it than they should.

In defense of MGS2, all those other ones you cited are pretty "safe" in terms of storytelling, especially with two of them being survival stories hence prepared to draw out any emotional cliche from the genre book.

Sure, I never claimed that MGS doesn't have a lot of great ideas, but the writing isn't always up to snuff to support them. Also, let's not kid ourselves, MGS also borrows a hell of a lot of cliches.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Naw its really her.

Of course I respect people who have a different interpretation but it seems like she is real until she gets cut off inside Arsenal.

Yes she faked getting with Raiden but she developed feelings for him. She was brought onto manipulate him through her presence, not necessarily through what she was saying. A lot of that was likely just your everyday dysfunctional relationship nagging lmao

I liked Rose...

One thing that bothers me about Rose is that she says she totally changed her appearance to appeal to Raiden down to the color of her hair, but looks generally the same in MGS4 aside from bigger boobs and a different hairstyle. Did she just keep her Patriots-inspired makeover because she ended up liking it?

 

[Griss]

It's almost as if framing can change the entire perception and understanding of characters and situation.

I absolutely HATE this argument. If something is terrible as you experience it, and then when re-framed by new info it makes more sense, that in no way removes the fact that you had a terrible (dull, boring, confusing, whatever) experience at the time.

Good writing makes the initial run through interesting in its own right, then if something gets reframed it takes on new meanings. But reframing alone does not and can not redeem a cliched, dull, convoluted mess.

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

This is like the weakest defense that every MGS 2 fan pulls. So I guess if at the end of Episode 1 Jar Jar binks turned out to be a faulty droid, than that would excuse all his annoyances throughout the movie/game.

But, here no Rose. Masterpiece of writing.

"Solid Snake: We don't use guns to take people down, and we're not here to help some politician either.
Raiden: What are you and Otacon fighting for?
Solid Snake: A future." (Every Cliche Ever)

"Raiden: People will remember only the good part, the right part about what you did.
Solid Snake: There's nothing right part in murder, not ever." (I'm Batman)

"Solid Snake: Find something to believe in, and find it for yourself. When you do, pass it on to the future.
Raiden: Believe in what?
Solid Snake: That's your problem." (Snake the self help-book guide)

Life is strange, The Last of us and The Walking Dead all have better written and more believable pieces than MGS2.

Parenthesis (THIS LINE IS STUPID YOU GUYS! READ IT IN THE CONTEXT THAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE STUPID).

I expected you to choose "I LIVE ON THROUGH THIS ARM!" or "We managed to avoid drowning."
Snake and Otacon have been fighting for a Metal Gear free future. I guess you wanted them to be more specific?

And Solid Snake has always been self-critical of the nature of his work. The best he can hope to do is make it worthwhile.

The whole point of "That's your problem" is that he doesn't want to influence Raiden. He can't tell Raiden what to believe in. Even GW lampshades this:
Raiden: "I'll decide for myself what to believe in!"
Rose/GW: "Is that even something you thought of yourself? Or something Snake told you?"

 

[ZeroMaverick]

Everything borrows from something else. If we want to go down this road it's going to lead to ancient Greece and the creation of the tragedy/comedy.

Perhaps they should have borrowed more eloquently then

 

[Sub_Level]

In defense of MGS2, all those other ones you cited are pretty "safe" in terms of storytelling, especially with two of them being survival stories hence prepared to draw out any emotional cliche from the genre book.

Yep. MGS2 is more ambitious than all 3 of those combined and came out more than a decade before all of them to boot.

 

[Haunted]

ayy

 

[Messypandas]

Kinda off-topic, but what is so good about TLOU writing ? I think it's really "basic", i've seen way, way better stuff in various movies / tv shows / books.

The DLC is okay tho'.

It wasn't amazing. I think its credited because it was delivered semi-seriously without the banality many contemporary games suffer from. I'm not insulting it, when I say it had the performances of a well written TV movie. But it wasn't crazy deep or anything.

 

[Resilient]

This is like the weakest defense that every MGS 2 fan pulls. So I guess if at the end of Episode 1 Jar Jar binks turned out to be a faulty droid, than that would excuse all his annoyances throughout the movie/game.

But, here no Rose. Masterpiece of writing.

"Solid Snake: We don't use guns to take people down, and we're not here to help some politician either.
Raiden: What are you and Otacon fighting for?
Solid Snake: A future." (Every Cliche Ever)

"Raiden: People will remember only the good part, the right part about what you did.
Solid Snake: There's nothing right part in murder, not ever." (I'm Batman)

"Solid Snake: Find something to believe in, and find it for yourself. When you do, pass it on to the future.
Raiden: Believe in what?
Solid Snake: That's your problem." (Snake the self help-book guide)

Life is strange, The Last of us and The Walking Dead all have better written and more believable pieces than MGS2.

I can cherry pick heaps of lines from those games you've listed (minus Life Is Strange), especially The Last Of Us and particularly TWD (a story driven game of choice, where there is no choice, and characters say stupid shit all the time) but making 1 thing look bad in a moment to make another look good isn't a defense.

The whole of MGS2, while cheesey and camp at times, is IMO gamings greatest achievement in story telling, writing, narrative and direction. Every part of the game is woven to tell a story. It is more than the sum of its parts, what they achieved in MGS2 just hasn't been matched by any other game since. I am totally confident in that. Can you provide a game where the actual game play itself is meta-commentary on information and player control? Where even you, the player, become a tool to the story?

There is a reason why what you call the weakest defense is actually the strongest defense for this game. To discount it and say it was a fluke, that it wasn't written that way is just an injustice to the story the game tries to tell. It's a perfectly convenient crutch for every MGS2 fan to fall back on because it actually is a one size fits all argument. By design it is meant to be a supporting argument for everything poorly written in this game. Why is the dialogue with Raiden almost always off, but other characters isolated from the Raiden manipulation sounds normal (see the examples noted above by other posters)?

Also your Star Wars example is horrible. How on earth would Jar Jar being a faulty droid contribute to the narrative of SW1? Can't believe you made me write that in a sentence..

 

[Sub_Level]

One thing that bothers me about Rose is that she says she totally changed her appearance to appeal to Raiden down to the color of her hair, but looks generally the same in MGS4 aside from bigger boobs and a different hairstyle. Did she just keep her Patriots-inspired makeover because she ended up liking it?

Yes. In the original MGS2 script she is blonde at the end, but Kojima kept her hair color so the player would keep wondering about her and just how real she was. It worked.

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

I absolutely HATE this argument. If something is terrible as you experience it, and then when re-framed by new info it makes more sense, that in no way removes the fact that you had a terrible (dull, boring, confusing, whatever) experience at the time.

Good writing makes the initial run through interesting in its own right, then if something gets reframed it takes on new meanings. But reframing alone does not and can not redeem a cliched, dull, convoluted mess.

Well I'm sorry you hate something that is a normal part of literary analysis, but that's what helps make MGS2 something special. It wasn't just going for the normal bounds of "game writing" in some of its aspects, which is why it's respected. A lot of people didn't like it for what it is, and I can't tell you that you're wrong for not being pleased with the result, but that does not make it bad just because.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

It wasn't amazing. I think its credited because it was delivered semi-seriously without the banality many contemporary games suffer from. I'm not insulting it, when I saw it had the performances of a well written TV movie. But it wasn't crazy deep or anything.

oh cmon, TLoU has the best voice acting/acting in gaming and easily rivals movies when it comes to it.

It wasn't trying to be a complicated story. It was extremely simple, but just because something is simple it doesn't mean it's "bad" or "lacking".

 

[Makoto Yuki]

I can cherry pick heaps of lines from those games you've listed (minus Life Is Strange), especially The Last Of Us and particularly TWD (a story driven game of choice, where there is no choice, and characters say stupid shit all the time) but making 1 thing look bad in a moment to make another look good isn't a defense.

The whole of MGS2, while cheesey and camp at times, is IMO gamings greatest achievement in story telling, writing, narrative and direction. Every part of the game is woven to tell a story. It is more than the sum of its parts, what they achieved in MGS2 just hasn't been matched by any other game since. I am totally confident in that. Can you provide a game where the actual game play itself is meta-commentary on information and player control? Where even you, the player, become a tool to the story?

There is a reason why what you call the weakest defense is actually the strongest defense for this game. To discount it and say it was a fluke, that it wasn't written that way is just an injustice to the story the game tries to tell. It's a perfectly convenient crutch for every MGS2 fan to fall back on because it actually is a one size fits all argument. By design it is meant to be a supporting argument for everything poorly written in this game. Why is the dialogue with Raiden almost always off, but other characters isolated from the Raiden manipulation sounds normal (see the examples noted above by other posters)?

Also your Star Wars example is horrible. How on earth would Jar Jar being a faulty droid contribute to the narrative of SW1? Can't believe you made me write that in a sentence..

Beautiful.

 

[Finalow]

we need model swaps with Code Talker

 

[Sub_Level]

Lets also keep in mind that plot and script are 2 different things.

Yes mgs2 is obviously more robotic and cliche sounding than the nuanced writing in Walking Dead/Last of Us which sound more smooth and natural. MGS2 is also a translated japanese videogame that was written in the late 90s lmao

 

[Gbraga]

Memories broken, the truth goes unspoken

 

[WrenchNinja]

This is like the weakest defense that every MGS 2 fan pulls. So I guess if at the end of Episode 1 Jar Jar binks turned out to be a faulty droid, than that would excuse all his annoyances throughout the movie/game.

But, here no Rose. Masterpiece of writing.

"Solid Snake: We don't use guns to take people down, and we're not here to help some politician either.
Raiden: What are you and Otacon fighting for?
Solid Snake: A future." (Every Cliche Ever)

"Raiden: People will remember only the good part, the right part about what you did.
Solid Snake: There's nothing right part in murder, not ever." (I'm Batman)

"Solid Snake: Find something to believe in, and find it for yourself. When you do, pass it on to the future.
Raiden: Believe in what?
Solid Snake: That's your problem." (Snake the self help-book guide)

Life is strange, The Last of us and The Walking Dead all have better written and more believable pieces than MGS2.

I wouldn't call this a masterpiece but I don't see anything wrong with those lines.

A future is in reference to what Gray Fox told him, to find something to live for. What he found was to live to protect future generations.

There's nothing right in murder is right line with Solid Snake's mentality of him not being a hero. He has morality and knows what's right and wrong. I don't even understand what the Batman quote has to do with anything other than he knows killing is bad?

That's your problem is to show that Snake can still be blunt, to the point, and kind of a dick despite giving life advice after having this own lesson be taught to him by Gray Fox. He's telling Raiden that he needs to find his own answer instead of looking to him for it.

 

[Griss]

Well I'm sorry you hate something that is a normal part of literary analysis, but that's what helps make MGS2 something special. It wasn't just going for the normal bounds of "game writing" in some of its aspects, which is why it's respected. A lot of people didn't like it for what it is, and I can't tell you that you're wrong for not being pleased with the result, but that does not make it bad just because.

I don't hate literary analysis, you've misunderstood my argument. My understanding that literary analysis INCLUDES a reading of the text as it happens rather than just with all of the info (context, framing etc) you have at the end. Both those things matter when discussing a text.

 

[Mass One]

Oh, would've been amazing to have phantoms of the Cobras appear that are just not quite right, because Venom only heard the stories. Players would groan and go: huh, that's not hiw this character was. It's missing this and that detail until the reveal.

I can see people complaining about that. It would be probably been seen as a rip off of MGS2's raiden. The similar but not quite the same aspect of MGS2's mission and characters.

Also.
What if the bigger the horns the more phantoms of dead soldiers Venom would see. That would be like another gameplay system where decoys are for the non-lethal players and life-like phantoms would be for lethal players.

 

[PensOwl]

I thought MGS1 had more natural dialogue than MGS2

But as I understand, this was due to a translator issue

 

[Zomba13]

Watching more of the Super Best Friends MGSV LP and once again Liam is all "the trailers end soon, this is a 60 hour game!". It's going to be so sad when he realises everything was in the trailers.

 

[robotoboy20]

What TLoU does have that basically no Metal Gear game does is incredibly good dialogue. Characters come off as real, funny, and relatable in a way they rarely ever do in MGS. Even if the core plot of TLoU is pretty generic oh-the-tragedy-of-the-zombie-apocalypse fare, the well-written and well-acted dialogue makes it much more palatable to most people.

Yeah, but it was written by westerners for westerners. MGS was written by Japanese for Japanese that like western culture, and then translated far too directly with shit localization, that it sounds like a B-Movie concept right out of the 80's basically every time. They enjoy it though. "Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?" "Kaz, I'm already a demon." We don't really ever talk about how we're demons... we're quite a bit more subtle than that silly shit.

 

[jwhit28]

I don't think MGS2 has good writing in the traditional sense but it is one of the only games to truly take advantage of what's special about videogames as a story telling medium. Referencing your experience with the previous game in the series and other games in general, refusing to give you that feeling of being the baddest guy on the planet and making you vulnerable, betraying the trust you put in story guiding characters like the Colonel, leaving the character and the player wondering what was and wasn't "real" only to impress upon you that it doesn't matter. What matters is the message you took from the experience.

The other games people usually bring up when talking about great videogame stories usually feel like movies molded into videogame form.

 

[Venom Fox]

In defense of MGS2, all those other ones you cited are pretty "safe" in terms of storytelling, especially with two of them being survival stories hence prepared to draw out any emotional cliche from the genre book.

How is LIS "safe" in its storytelling? It's tackling issues like drugging and rape a lot better than MGSV does. LIS is going to go down as a classic, it's a fucking good bit of storytelling.

 

[BotchPoppaPump]

I absolutely HATE this argument. If something is terrible as you experience it, and then when re-framed by new info it makes more sense, that in no way removes the fact that you had a terrible (dull, boring, confusing, whatever) experience at the time.

Good writing makes the initial run through interesting in its own right, then if something gets reframed it takes on new meanings. But reframing alone does not and can not redeem a cliched, dull, convoluted mess.

Its supposed to be a bit dull and confusing. Its a shittier version of MGS1. And you are Raiden. He's a confused guy.

MGS2 is supposed to be challenging in places. And I don't mean like intellectually. Its supposed to be unpleasant as the player to play it. It denies you the usual enjoyment and reward that a game should.

Its like a film that's difficult to watch.

 

[Guess Who]

Yeah, but it was written by westerners for westerners. MGS was written by Japanese for Japanese that like western culture, and then translated far too directly with shit localization, that it sounds like a B-Movie concept right out of the 80's basically every time. They enjoy it though. "Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?" "Kaz, I'm already a demon." We don't really ever talk about how we're demons... we're quite a bit more subtle than that silly shit.

Well, yeah, but none of that context matters to a casual observer.

 

[grimmiq]

Trying to find some of this hidden content doing stupid shit..Did the whole Voices mission slowly with the 204863 tape playing on repeat through my Idroid's speakers..Was hoping to get some sort of Lisa appearance, nope.

 

[Hands of Stone]

~Snip~

What games would you say deserve that stamp of quality? I'm curious.

You got it.

Wait, How does it explain away Gray Fox's absence?

 

[Sub_Level]

Its supposed to be a bit dull and confusing. Its a shittier version of MGS1. And you are Raiden. He's a confused guy.

MGS2 is supposed to be challenging in places. And I don't mean like intellectually. Its supposed to be unpleasant as the player to play it. It denies you the usual enjoyment and reward that a game should.

Its like a film that's difficult to watch.

I respect your interpretation but disagree with it. MGS2 to me is simultaneously thought provoking and entertaining/fun. Unpleasant is a word I would only use for the likes of MGS1 Snake Variety Level 1.

 

[Zabant]

TLoU is not some incredible example in writing, it's an massively cliché survival story involving fucking zombies.

It's the presentation along with and the love and care in portraying that material that puts it head and shoulders above the rest.

Peoples expectations of video game writing is so low that when a 'done-a-million-times-before' story about a man and a young girl who develop a father daughter relationship shows up it's lauded as this fucking breakthrough in video game writing.

And sadly, they're right.

MGS2 tries to do something no other AAA game had done before in terms of it's story. Whether it succeeded in it's goals is up for debate, but to give Koji shit for at least trying is incredibly dismissive of him in a way I find unfair.

At least he's trying.

 

[MMarston]

How is LIS "safe" in its storytelling? It's tackling issues like drugging and rape a lot better than MGSV does. LIS is going to go down as a classic, it's a fucking good bit of storytelling.

Yeah, that's my bad. I immediately regretted including it as a "safe" game because I've enjoyed what I've played so far. Still, I was referring more to how MGS2 really went out there with it's themes than those 3 games in terms of executing a meta commentary.

 

[Toa TAK]

Memories broken, the truth goes unspoken

wtf I'm listening to this song right now.

You have my appreciation, good sir. MGR's soundtrack is awesome.

I can understand the feeling of the game being incomplete from the lack of closure on the Eli/Sahelanthropous story just fucking right off, but the rest is pretty solid and well wrapped up when you realize TPP is just a tool to set up the time line as understood in MGS4.

It explains Grey Fox's absence, why he would go to Outter Heaven, and why he would be on Big Boss's side in Zanzibar Land.

It explains why miller would suddenly be present in MG2 instead of being part of Intrude N313, and makes a lot of sense on how Liquid and Ocelot would know about miller and want to kill him for MGS.

It shows how Big Boss descended into madness while also staying the greatest fucking saint in the world. Phantom Big Boss went renegade after that PTSD from the Quarantine chamber, while real Big Boss kept working in the background to oppose Donald Anderson's new Patriots.

Throughout all of this, it managed to do the twist reveal extremely well, the only shitty part was plying through that entire mssion again instead of breezing through or just doing the important bits. The signs were all there if you were looking for them: Ishmael's voice, abilities, and comments, Snake not knowing Russian which he was extremely fluent in (Which Ocelot tries to cover it up with a lie?), Phantom Big Boss had no real reaction to the Boss's voice, while real Big Boss would have had a PTSD attack, Volgin suddenly backs off when getting up close and personal with Phantom Big Boss because he realizes it's not his enemy, the DNA test was a 0% match for someone we knew was obviously Big Boss's clone.

Also, Quiet knew the whole time that she was dealing with Phantom Big Boss. She knew it wasn't Big Boss when she was sent to assassinate the real one, claiming the guy next to the real one saw her face and then proceeded to strangle him face to facel, getting a good look at the fact Phantom Big Boss had a damn horn. Years later, she'd fail to kill him again. He spared her, stopped her from committing suicide, abducted her, and was literally the only person to treat her like a human being on all of Mother Base. You have Lima and Stockholm Syndrome at work here, on top of Phantom Big Boss being a pretty decent guy all around, rich, powerful, charismatic, and supremely confident. They even work together a lot on the field sharing foxholes together so to speak. Hell, with all that I'd want to fuck the man too.

Overall, it's a great story that's true to the MGS themes. It's disjointed in its presentation, and left a little incomplete following the shitstorm at Konami. Just because it was told poorly, which was possibly out of Kojia's hands due to working conditions, doesn't mean you can't step away and appreciate how well constructed it is. TPP sets a rock solid foundation for future events, and had an ending that will stick with most of us forever.

Yes, yes and yes. I really loved the bit myself when Volgin stopped once he realized that it wasn't really Snake. That was another incredibly huge hint towards the twist.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

Script wise? Nah, but the meta commentary and overall narrative structure is a fucking masterpiece when looked as a whole in the marketing campaign.

Game is a stroke of genius when looking at it beyond the game itself, and even in the game the plot works and really makes sense in context of it's goal.

This

 

[Love Deterrence]

The Phantom Pain under-delivered in every aspect which Peace Walker over-delivered.

1. Story
Peace Walker told a relatively concise story - a noble tale of Big Boss falling from grace - that fit into the overarching plot. MGSV was about bugs.

2. Characters
Peace Walker:
- Chico, a child soldier, who becomes a man

Spoiler

and then a woman

.
- Amanda, Chico's strong (and strong-willed) sister who helps Big Boss in his fight for peace.
- Paz (my favorite MGS character), who fills the void of Eva and Ocelot, playing you for a fool right up until the very end.
- Strangelove - an Olga clone who does a complete 180, opposing Snake's take on what The Boss had envisioned by means of torture, to joining forces with the Legendary Mercenary.
- Kazuhira Miller, A McDonald's Fan robbed of his Dollar Menu.
(And many, many more -- notice I didn't even get around to mentioning the villains.)

The Phantom Pain:
- Chico: Killed off-camera.
- Amanda: Who cares tbh
- Paz: VAGINA BOMB REDUX!
- Strangelove: Sorry I can't hear you over the sound of all these off-screen deaths.
- Skull Face: Such a lust for a stronger lead villain...

3. Scale and Importance of Key Moments
I could list dozens of key moments that Peace Walker nails, but I'll just point out one of the more significant.

- PEACE WALKER BATTLE 2
The world is on the brink of World War III. Peace Walker is about to unleash a nuke. Snake, you have to stop Peace Walker from launching that nuke!!!!

- Metal Gear Sehelanthropus
1-v-1 me camping pussy

- Despite being on a handheld, Peace Walker made things of this nature feel so much bigger and more important than The Phantom Pain did. Tank battles, helicopter battles, they all felt like more of an urgent matter to me in the PSP title.

4. Theme
- Peace Walker tells a story of Peace, and sticks to its theme of deterrence from start to finish.

- The Phantom Pain covers Revenge, sure. But Race? There was more discussion about race in Chapter One -- even just in that single road trip than there was in Chapter Two. So, yeah, I'm guessing Konami was infected by the Kanye West Parasite and said "I'mma let you finish but Pachinko Machines provide the greatest money-making opportunity of all time. OF ALL TIME!"

The Twist
I'm actually a fan of the twist. I love how it was presented, as well. Yeah, I saw it coming, but honestly, it gives me a better appreciation for Liquid and Solidus Snake and how they felt as inferior and carbon copies of Boss (respectively). Even puts you in the shoes of Skull Face, being your name and face are taken away from you, along with everything else. The only thing I don't really like is that the game ends there. But, with all of that said, it gives me hope that people are finding new cutscenes (the monologue, which has been confirmed as content not cut) and the like. I don't expect to wake up on Christmas morning to "CHAPTER 3: PEACE" under the tree, but maybe there is more hidden away (with that scene out, I feel hopeful). If not, then here's hoping they at least make it DLC (no matter how scummy that may be).

---

Rich storytelling
Dramatic cutscenes
Lively characters
Exchanges between characters ranging from comical to serious in tone
Memorable settings
Kojima's juvenile humor
Callbacks to Kojima's various works

These are just several examples of what make Metal Gear, well, Metal Gear. People hate it, and before TPP, many felt Metal Gear was too exclusive. I liked it that way. I loved it the way it was. It didn't need an overhaul, it had been around for 28 years - clearly it was doing something right. I don't care if it's overly dramatic, I don't care if the females are butt ass naked, I don't care if Kojima rubs people the wrong way with how he handles certain subjects - I love all of it. It's what makes Metal Gear and Hideo Kojima games so special! It's always been one of the few things I can appreciate for what it is. But knowing that there could be more to this game is what hurts so bad.

All in all, despite how incomplete it feels at times, the game is amazing - just on gameplay alone - the gameplay, the graphics, music, atmosphere, small details such as day/night cycle and weather playing a part in the cinematics, Mother Base/FOB, and so on. Though I criticize the game heavily, I compare it here to Peace Walker, which is my all-time favorite game (behind MGS2), so yeah, there's still plenty to love and I still hold it in high regard. Yet at the same time, I can't help but long for more.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thought it would be a good idea to leave Solid Snake out of the final Metal Gear title?

 

[J-Skee]

I HATE ALL OF YOU.

 

[Sub_Level]

I thought MGS1 had more natural dialogue than MGS2

But as I understand, this was due to a translator issue

Correct. There is a noticeable amount of suave and off-the-cuff smoothness in MGS1 Solid Snake that is absent from every other protagonist. "You've got a great butt." shows a bluntness meant to appeal to English speakers, for example. Its not a dull direct translation.

Incidentally, Venom Snake's lines are also pretty natural and smooth. All 15 of them.

 

[Ghostmaster]

I can cherry pick heaps of lines from those games you've listed (minus Life Is Strange), especially The Last Of Us and particularly TWD (a story driven game of choice, where there is no choice, and characters say stupid shit all the time) but making 1 thing look bad in a moment to make another look good isn't a defense.

The whole of MGS2, while cheesey and camp at times, is IMO gamings greatest achievement in story telling, writing, narrative and direction. Every part of the game is woven to tell a story. It is more than the sum of its parts, what they achieved in MGS2 just hasn't been matched by any other game since. I am totally confident in that.

.

The fact that every part of the game is woven to tell a story, doesn't excuse some of its bad writing.
There was no need for Rose to have such bad dialog. You can do stilted without going into full on, the fuck is this mode. You can't just wave away everthing with AI.
Glados was an AI, an AI that was also bad at communicating with humans, Glados is a great character; Rose is not a great character, and the fact that its all part of the metanarrative doesn't somehow make it all amazing.

Can you provide a game where the actual game play itself is meta-commentary on information and player control? Where even you, the player, become a tool to the story?

Yes, The Stanley Parable, and it did those thing better than MGS 2, albeit in a less grandiose way.

To be frank I do admire MGS 2's overall narrative for what it tried to do, but the writing just wasn't always there to see it through to the end. Even that exposition dump at the end could have been trimmed for more effect.

 

[Venom Fox]

TLoU is not some incredible example in writing, it's an massively cliché survival story involving fucking zombies.

It's the presentation along with and the love and care in portraying that material that puts it head and shoulders above the rest.

Peoples expectations of video game writing is so low that when a 'done-a-million-times- before' story about a man and a young girl who develop a father daughter relationship shows up it's lauded as this fucking breakthrough in video game writing.

And sadly, they're right.

MGS2 tries to do something no other AAA game had done before in terms of it's story. Whether it succeeded in it's goals is up for debate, but to give Koji shit for at least trying is incredibly dismissive of him in a way I find unfair.

At least he's trying.

With games you have a "disconnect" with emotional scenes as you're constantly aware and reminded that you have the control pad in your hands.

The thing is with TLOU is it made you feel for the characters, made you involved in their lives, made you feel like an emotional wreck within 10 minutes of starting the game. It took away the constant awareness of having the pad in your hands and truly brought you in to the world.

That to me is good writing, if a game can make millions of people feel an emotion within 10 minutes of starting the game, you know you've done it right.


What part of MGS2 tried ANYTHING new? Tell me, I'm genuinely interested to know.

Was it the bit about the patriots? (Rip off of the illuminati)
S3 program? (Rip off of CIA mind control program)

Don't get me wrong but it's story wasn't anything new, it's one of my favourite games but don't try and say it didn't have cliché's.

 

[Zabant]

You know thinking about it.. the core of the other game people hold up as 'perfect game writing' which is The Walking Dead is primarily about a man and a young girl who develop a father daughter relationship during a zombie apocalypse.

I guess if any game devs are reading this thread, you now know how to get those end of year awards in 'best story'.

 

[Smooth Operator]

You know thinking about it.. the core of the other game people hold up as 'perfect game writing' which is The Walking Dead is primarily about a man and a young girl who develop a father daughter relationship.

I guess if any game devs are reading this thread, you now know how to get those end of year awards in 'best story'.

Metal Gear Solid : Frank Jaeger & Naomi Spin-Off confirmed.