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Metal Gear GAF: The Community Thread

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Welcome to the new community thread for all things Metal Gear (Other Kojima stuff is allowed too)

Anybody who is a fan of the series/Kojima, this is the place to be!
Share your thoughts, post videos/music, memes, etc.
With the 5th anniversary of The Phantom Pain fast approaching, it's time to let the legend come back to life.
 
outer haeven thread

always loved the series, two is legendary for obvious reasons, favorite was subsistence and its fantastic online mode


I really wish I could have experienced the first two iterations of MGO. I didn't really have internet when MGO1 was active, and I was pretty late to the PS3, being a 360 owner for most of that gen. I didn't get a PS3 until the end of 2012, right when the MGO2 servers went down.

My first MGO experience was 3, which dried up on PC very quickly. I've heard on PS4 there's still a sizable community, so I'll have to give it a look since I recently double dipped and plan on going through it again.

Hopefully Konami are working on a new MGO, whether it be as the multiplayer component to a new MGS, or it's own standalone thing.
 
I watched this interesting analysis video of MGSV yesterday


This is a very well put together video, with coherent, persuasive points. In fact I'm watching it for the second time. But the 2013 trailer showed scenes that were cut from the game, which could mean Kojima couldn't make the full original story into the game for budget reasons and went instead for the message explained in the video along with the shocking Venom twist as a final goodbye to the players.

Assuming what the video says is indeed what Kojima intended for the game, I wonder at which point does telling a message at the expense of conventional storytelling become a mistake?
 

Shantae

Banned
For almost 2 decades, I didn't question my fandom of Metal Gear at all. Every game that came out from the MGS1, to MGS Peace Walker, I considered myself a fan of. Even Ground Zeroes...while a bit darker in tone than the previous games (specifically the implied forced rape by Chico and torture of Paz), I still loved the series. The Phanton Pain was the game that finally made me kinda regret getting this tattoo though.

2jmnGcT.jpg


I don't know if Kojima got to finish the game if I would have liked it better, because the underlying foundation of the whole thing seemed flawed to me. Open world does not suit the narrative structure that I liked about MGS so much. Every narrative part was just so damn spread out, and the world itself is so damn empty that the open world aspect to it didn't add more fun, it just made more boredom. Also fuck regenerating health...that shit made all the boss battles TERRIBLE, which is so sad because that's something that has typically been great about MG games.

Peace Walker had a lot of the grinding aspect that carried over to TPP, but that game still managed to have a coherent and enjoyable plot. The plot of TPP was just bad, I hated the whole vocal parasite plot...and I'm still so pissed what the did to some characters like Dr. Strangelove.
 
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For almost 2 decades, I didn't question my fandom of Metal Gear at all. Every game that came out from the MGS1, to MGS Peace Walker, I considered myself a fan of. Even Ground Zeroes...while a bit darker in tone than the previous games (specifically the implied forced rape by Chico and torture of Paz), I still loved the series. The Phanton Pain was the game that finally made me kinda regret getting this tattoo though.

2jmnGcT.jpg


I don't know if Kojima got to finish the game if I would have liked it better, because the underlying foundation of the whole thing seemed flawed to me. Open world does suit the narrative structure that I liked about MGS so much. Every narrative part was just so damn spread out, and the world itself is so damn empty that the open world aspect to it didn't add more fun, it just made more boredom. Also fuck regenerating health...that shit made all the boss battles TERRIBLE, which is so sad because that's something that has typically been great about MG games.

Peace Walker had a lot of the grinding aspect that carried over to TPP, but that game still managed to have a coherent and enjoyable plot. The plot of TPP was just bad, I hated the whole vocal parasite plot...and I'm still so pissed what the did to some characters like Dr. Strangelove.
Heh, that's why I'm not into tattoos, I might just get bored/regretful over time.

But have you watched the video above? It might change your perspective on V.

I don't even know what happened to Strangelove. Maybe it's told in a cassette recording?

And Peace Walker is freaking amazing. The small mission structure allowed for a large diversity of areas and didn't overstay its welcome. And the comic art style used for cutscenes was a smart way to tell the story without going over-budget and deserves to be used in more games. Really, that was a fantastic MGS.
 

Shantae

Banned
Heh, that's why I'm not into tattoos, I might just get bored/regretful over time.

But have you watched the video above? It might change your perspective on V.

I don't even know what happened to Strangelove. Maybe it's told in a cassette recording?

And Peace Walker is freaking amazing. The small mission structure allowed for a large diversity of areas and didn't overstay its welcome. And the comic art style used for cutscenes was a smart way to tell the story without going over-budget and deserves to be used in more games. Really, that was a fantastic MGS.
I guess I should clarify, I don't regret the tattoo completely. I feel regardless of if the series went downhill, Metal Gear has been a huge part of my life, and a bad entry doesn't take that away.

I haven't watched the video yet, I'll check it out later.

Strangelove just seems like she was done so dirty, because she was such an interesting character in Peace Walker. Yeah, her fate is pretty much told through cassette tapes, like all interesting plot points in that game -_-

I figure spoilers are fair game in this thread, but if not, I'll put tags on it. Strangelove is revealed to be Otacon's mother, and that her and Huey do eventually hook up together. However, Huey is a piece of shit. Huey wanted to use Otacon while he was still an infant as a test subject, and to protect him, Strangelove sends him away. To get back at Strangelove, Huey traps her inside the Mammal Pod of Sahelanthropus, and slowly suffocated her to death.
 
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This is a very well put together video, with coherent, persuasive points. In fact I'm watching it for the second time. But the 2013 trailer showed scenes that were cut from the game, which could mean Kojima couldn't make the full original story into the game for budget reasons and went instead for the message explained in the video along with the shocking Venom twist as a final goodbye to the players.

Assuming what the video says is indeed what Kojima intended for the game, I wonder at which point does telling a message at the expense of conventional storytelling become a mistake?
I'm sure it's likely some things were cut for budget reasons or time. Also possible some things were done just for the sake of the trailer, which Kojima's no stranger to. I think in the case of certain scenes like the child soldiers being trained with weapons, Kojima may have decided to instead make it gameplay instead of a cutscene, it fits with the missions having many missable story details the player can find by themselves.

That's a good question at the end there. I think the game was very effective at giving people a sense of a phantom pain. That being said, while I admire the effort, if I could trade that for a more "complete" experience, I think it's easy to say I'd go for the latter.
 
One thing about Peace Walker that I missed in V was the side ops. It felt like there was more variety in PW with some of those novelty missions where you'd photograph ghosts and stuff.
 
One thing about Peace Walker that I missed in V was the side ops. It felt like there was more variety in PW with some of those novelty missions where you'd photograph ghosts and stuff.
I loved the side ops, did them all, there are few games where I bothered doing all the side content and Peace Walker was one of them. I upgraded and acquired weapons to the point I was able to slaughter all the soldiers in an area until it all goes quiet. At which point I realized there was nothing else to do in the game.

Speaking of slaughter, I loved the mission where you have to take down all enemies instead of sneaking like usual, the song that plays made it the high point of the game along with the second Peace Walker fight.
 

Shantae

Banned
ValiantTraveler ValiantTraveler I ended up watching the video above about The Phantom Pain. I understand what the video is saying, but he's not really saying anything that I mostly did not recognize already about the game. While I agree that the themes he's speaking of are present, and are still very Kojima like, it's the way in which is told and presented that I still don't like. It's still a very bad playing game, regardless if people say it's the most "playable". It was not fun to play, I don't know how else to put it.

Previous MG games were able to carry these heavy themes, but still wrap them up in a blockbuster action movie sorta way. I missed that about TPP, because rather than feeling like a blockbuster action flick, it started to feel like a pretentious war drama. Kojima was able to subvert your expectations by carrying these messages that still packed a punch, but still gave you a fun and engaging game around it. TPP left me feeling like shit, always taking itself so seriously that you could never think that the game was about anything else but the themes or message, and it had very little of that levity that was also a staple of the series.

I actually think it takes more intelligence to create a crowd pleasing piece of media, but still carry thought provoking and heavy themes in them the way previous MGS games did. MGS 1, 2, 3, and 4 all were fun romps that could still be enjoyed as a pure gaming experience, but those who were able to look past the surface level stuff were able to see something more, and it was enriched by that. You can not only reach a wider audience, but you can potentially tap into something in people that they may have not realized they had within them. When a game like TPP comes along and strips away all the crowd pleasing aspects, and is all about the themes and dark subject matter, then you a being too on the nose with your messaging.

Even though I liked Peace Walker, I think I would have been happier if this is how MGS ended:

3CAEC4F3BADA8FD07684DF5C7974B9ECFE4E2AD5

As much as I don't like the game itself though, it had some fantastic trailers. Again, part of it is pacing, and the pacing of the actual game is terrible I think.

 
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Shantae Shantae I see where you're coming from. While that video made appreciate The Phantom Pain more, I'm still not convinced it's a masterpiece. Like you said, TPP sacrifices the story to get its themes across whereas previous MGS games never had to compromise and succeeded at providing exciting stories. Even if some aspects were poorly handled, like MGS4's long winded dialogue cutscenes and backstories for The Beauty & The Beast unit, we still have solid set pieces that make this game worth the player's money and time. Heck, even Portable Ops has good scenes.

I think entertainment for its own sake is important and should never be sacrificed in favor of the more serious stuff. A storyteller must deliver both aspects to the best of his ability. Of course, that's easier said than done--I've been there. And I know there are budget limitations when it comes to making a AAA game. But if I'm going to play a 46-hour game (according to the site How Long To Beat), it should reward my time investment with an entertaining story. What's more, the trailers for TPP give you the promise of a spectacular, well-delivered story only to betray that expectation. I'm sure there could have been a way to deliver an engaging story while still preserving the core themes.

It may have required a larger budget, but then again the game designer should design the story around the budget limitations. This is common in AAA games, where developers end up having to cut content to finish the game, with the most blatant example being FFXV. On the other hand, while some of the content in MGS2 was removed or abandoned, it still delivered a satisfying story that felt complete and had proper dramatic escalation.

This is annoying for me because I want to buy TPP, the gameplay looks really enjoyable, but I'm hesitant because of the lackluster story. Plus I'd feel embarrassed if my brother was excited to play it only to discover later that the story is a downer.
 
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Bolivar687

Banned
The storytelling of MGSV was a very bold and courageous undertaking by Kojima to shake-up the narration in MGS and video games at large, the iteration of an experiment that began in many respects with MGS4.

Although MGS1-3 are all beloved classics, they were a very rigid repetition of a formalized structure - a single solo infiltration mission to destroy a nuclear-equipped tank, to take down a legendary soldier with an elite squad of specialists, and a conspiracy revealed at the end. This becomes even more derivative when you realize that MGS1 was already a very faithful recitation of MG1 and 2, with its own scene-for-scene callbacks that MGS2 and 3 later made. It was becoming way too derivative - you can't keep making the exact same game over and over again just with different faces. Beginning with MGS4, the games now spread out over several missions and locations to tell unique, less constrained stories that tied together the series in different ways than nostalgic references alone.

The narratives were also heavily explanatory and did not fully exploit the storytelling advantages of an interactive medium. There was an interview with the author of the MGSV novelization where they acknowledged that Kojima intentionally tried to get away from the passive storytelling of the series. At the end of each MGS, Snake makes a monologue where he dictates to the player the conclusions you're supposed to draw from the story, while the player mindless nods their head in accord from the other side of the controller. Beginning with MGS4, Kojima wanted the player to personally experience the emotions you would feel inside of the game's story. This began small with Old Snake's back problems and combat stress with the Psyche meter. In MGSV, your actions as the principal of a PMC are tracked by your Hero score and hidden Demon score, visualized in the length of Venom's horn. It ranges from whether you kill or capture enemies within the mission and all the way up to whether you develop or dismantle nuclear weapons. Venom's silence in cutscenes allows the player to decide whether Diamond Dogs' actions are justified or not and what conclusions you can draw from what the staff members tell you about the global distribution of power and the way the immune system's exposure to parasites can tell us about the health of a society.

I have every confidence that MGS4 and V would have been all-time classics if they adhered to the MGS1-3 formula. But I also whole-heartedly applaud Kojima taking risks that most developers in his position would never dare - to throw all of that out and instead push the limits of what a game's interactivity can impart on the player, rather than exposition. Films and novels can do wonders to engage their audience with exposition, but only gaming can leverage interactivity to do things other mediums cannot.
 

I read about the reason for this years ago somewhere. I can’t say if Japanese people talk like this in real life or if it’s a quirk of Japanese fiction writing, but repeating what a person said as a question shows that you are paying attention to them and are asking for a clarification. So they’re not unnecessary.
 

Guilty_AI

Gold Member
I read about the reason for this years ago somewhere. I can’t say if Japanese people talk like this in real life or if it’s a quirk of Japanese fiction writing, but repeating what a person said as a question shows that you are paying attention to them and are asking for a clarification. So they’re not unnecessary.
They're funny in english though
 

KOMANI

KOMANI
We got another Metal Gear speedrun for SGDQ in less than an hour. This time, it’s Metal Gear Solid (Ghost Babel in Japan) for the gameboy color
 

DogofWar

Member
The gameplay in all MGS games are beyond amazing as the fans know, this guy really took MGS3 to a level thought unreachable even by Hidea Kojima:



Simply hilarious

We also have Solid Perry who makes hilarious MGS5 videos:

 
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KOMANI

KOMANI
For those interested, top video from the post above is from legendary MGS3 player, Big Saru. This is his yt account https://www.youtube.com/c/BIGSARU

and I dont know about Solid Perry making “hilarious” mg content. Perry is known for his gimmick videos (no traces, ghost, stealth runs).

Lakitouille is the one known for his comedic metal gear videos
 

DogofWar

Member
For those interested, top video from the post above is from legendary MGS3 player, Big Saru. This is his yt account https://www.youtube.com/c/BIGSARU

and I dont know about Solid Perry making “hilarious” mg content. Perry is known for his gimmick videos (no traces, ghost, stealth runs).

Lakitouille is the one known for his comedic metal gear videos


Well those creative stealth kills are hilarious. He does indeed have very impressive videos showcasing his skills as well of course, they are also highly recommended.

The things you can do in MGS games...

I am still sad the zoo platform was so underdeveloped though.
 

KOMANI

KOMANI
"The most important thing was the power of the image. All of our CG technology, sound technology, housing design technology, and main board control technology. The biggest feature is that it realizes dramatic production in a realistic feeling as if you were watching a movie, and it is a selling point. "
Quote from KPE Executive Officer, (General Manager of Production Headquarters) Kazuhiro Kusuda on the Snake Eater Pachislot source

the pachislot never has and has no reason to use the Fox Engine since that department doesn't make video games.

more here http://www.funtv-japan.com/uncategorized/award2016-funtv-mip-slot/
 
That's cool, though I don't think I'll get them if they come out, MGS games are TOO fresh in my mind due to watching so many analysis videos.
 

Roufianos

Member
Crazy that they weren't already on Steam.

I needed a new laptop and actually ended up paying £100 extra for a gaming one, mainly so I could play MGS1.

Played a version I found on Reddit with some touched up visuals. TTS in HD via a Dolphin texture patch is also a beauty.
 
Turned on my PS4 and noticed new updates for MGSV (and Survive) started downloading. Turned out to just be stability improvements. Still odd that they got updates, it's been a while since the last ones iirc?
 
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