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Metal Gear Solid 4 |OT| No Place to Hide, No Time for a Legend to FoxDie

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tha_con said:
PREVIEW4.jpg



Soon GAF...soon. Only a few more icons left, and I'm DESPERATELY trying to find out how to put sounds in this damn thing.

That's excellent work so far, if you can even get the matching fonts that would be amazing.
 

tha_con

Banned
traveler said:
Wow, that is a great looking theme you got there! Nice work, tha_con.

It feels like it's taking FOREVER, lol. If there's one thing I absolutely envy mOdus for, it's his absolute insane ability to generate Themes in what seems like a few hours. It's taking me forever to come up with decent ideas for different icons. Hell, the god damned MK II mock up overlay took me like 30 minutes by itself! lol.

Thanks man :) Hopefully GAF won't hang me if I don't include sounds :lol
 

tha_con

Banned
Zedsdeadbaby said:
That's excellent work so far, if you can even get the matching fonts that would be amazing.

Well, that's just the 'test drive' font. I didn't really match the font TOO well, but it's decent at least. I'll see what I can do though.
 
Doc Evils said:
For those wondering about the graveyard scene:


The graves snakes visits is The Boss 192x - 1964 and Big Boss 193x to 1999
The latter is, exclusively, most likely. If you include the former, then you have to question why he even visits that grave in the first place.
 

Formless

Member
I actually don't like Here's to You at all. I also don't like that Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday is nowhere there , I liked the jazzy music of MGS2.

=\
 

longdi

Banned
jett said:
Hopefully Kojima truly leaves the next metal gear game to someone else. Dude went insane with this one.

I was talking about mgs2 fyi. mgs4 was as good as it can get with the necessity to complete mgs2 plot. though mgs4 too much fanservice bothers me even as a mgs fan, and
reviving characters and happy endings

interestingly, i just watched mgs4 se bluray and it mentioned kojima acknowledged mgs2 had too much story bloat and he went for a simpler narrative for mgs3. the fans reacted better and he is happy with it.

he also mentioned mgs3 development was in trouble before he stepped in. i wonder when did he step in. was it before the awaresomeness or after. :p
 

dralla

Member
U K Narayan said:
The latter is, exclusively, most likely. If you include the former, then you have to question why he even visits that grave in the first place.

He's at BB's grave, he doesn't know The Boss.
 

ianp622

Member
Formless said:
I actually don't like Here's to You at all. I also don't like that Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday is nowhere there , I liked the jazzy music of MGS2.

=\

Yeah, I don't understand why the music from MGS2 isn't on the iPod. I'd love to be able to play that jazzy boss battle music during some of the bosses in MGS4.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
tha_con said:
PREVIEW4.jpg



Soon GAF...soon. Only a few more icons left, and I'm DESPERATELY trying to find out how to put sounds in this damn thing.
WOW, you da man!
 
longdi said:
why does ocelot who is outside patriot ai detection, controlled all the world's weapons and one part of patriot ai, had naomi making foxalive, went through the trouble in mgs4. when he can silently upload the virus in gw?
We have answered this a million times by now.
Because he didn't have the virus, Sunny did. For more details, just replay the game and pay more attention.
 

Juice

Member
ACK. Just after beating
Crying wolf, headed down beneath the furnace
, the game freaking froze. Music still going but nothing else. Can't access system menu either. :(

Wish I'd saved in the last hour or two.
 

Zophar

Member
Juice said:
ACK. Just after beating
Crying wolf, headed down beneath the furnace
, the game freaking froze. Music still going but nothing else. Can't access system menu either. :(

Wish I'd saved in the last hour or two.
You have to put in disc two.
 

tha_con

Banned
Juice said:
ACK. Just after beating
Crying wolf, headed down beneath the furnace
, the game freaking froze. Music still going but nothing else. Can't access system menu either. :(

Wish I'd saved in the last hour or two.

Ouch...that sucks man...at least you'll get some more practice for your BB run?
 

tha_con

Banned
Players like Shawn Elliott, the senior executive editor of the gaming Web site 1up.com, have criticized the game for its preachiness, and for its reliance on lengthy cinematic interludes that can run 30 minutes or longer.

“It can basically become a movie for long stretches,” Mr. Elliott said. “It’s not necessarily a game catching up with movies, but a game kind of cheating and using a language that isn’t native to its own medium.”


Ugh...this is dumb.

Edit: The one time someone in "Video Game Journalism" get's to hit mainstream media with some comments, he says something like this.

A language that isn't native to its own medium? Retarded. Mr. Interactivity needs to give it a rest.
 

Malfunky

Member
tha_con said:
Ugh...this is dumb.

Shawn Elliot has been criticizing games like this for a while, and seems to pick on Metal Gear specifically. For more reasons than one, but we don't need to get in to that.

I'd say the language does fit the medium insofar that it provides an interactive storybook experience that you can't find in the medium it's "cheating" off of. It's based off of Kojima's older games, which were basically the same thing- interactive stories. You control the characters' journey while being treated with long breaks of character and plot development. What is wrong with that? People love it. I love it. It works fine. If every game was presented like Half-Life, for example, Half-Life wouldn't be so special. We can have games that borrow from film. Not every game has to be specifically adapted to push a unique "gaming" narrative, especially not Metal Gear. Not at this point. Was he expecting KojiPro to just ignore the series entire legacy and create something completely different? This series had to be wrapped up in a fashion familiar to fans, and hell, I'd say it was even toned down this time. I'm a fan of Shawn, but to be honest, when he talks about this kind of thing, all I hear is, "People shouldn't like this as much as they do because I have a better perspective." or something.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
tha_con said:
Ugh...this is dumb.

I don't get why so many elite people are so against videogames using cutscenes that aren't controllable and rather is directed in the style of a movie. They aren't like Books to Movie. They both share the same display, a fixed 2d screen. You can play games on a Imax screen, and you can play movies on a console's hdtv. If it works for movies why won't it work for games (with good stories to tell, not marines babbling about soaps, and tango).

Anyway FPS games want you to be the character. In MGS you aren't meant to be snake, but rather seeing the story of snake. So these cutscenes work. Even in the mission briefing, you are looking through the camera of MKII when you move about the nomad. Everyone is playing their part even if they aren't in the fixed directed cutscene camera. You can't make them stop talking by bumping into them just like you can't make Alex hurry up and open the door in HL2. It's not much different from a scripted cutscene that you cant change angles on?
 

tha_con

Banned
Malfunky said:
Shawn Elliot has been criticizing games like this for a while, and seems to pick on Metal Gear specifically. For more reasons than one, but we don't need to get in to that.

I'd say the language does fit the medium insofar that it provides an interactive storybook experience that you can't find in the medium it's "cheating" off of. It's based off of Kojima's older games, which were basically the same thing- interactive stories. You control the characters' journey while being treated with long breaks of character and plot development. What is wrong with that? People love it. I love it. It works fine. If every game was presented like Half-Life, for example, Half-Life wouldn't be so special. We can have games that borrow from film. Not every game has to be specifically adapted to push a unique "gaming" narrative, especially not Metal Gear. Not at this point. Was he expecting KojiPro to just ignore the series entire legacy and create something completely different? This series had to be wrapped up in a fashion familiar to fans, and hell, I'd say it was even toned down this time. I'm a fan of Shawn, but to be honest, when he talks about this kind of thing, all I hear is, "People shouldn't like this as much as they do because I have a better perspective." or something.

Shawn's problem is he wants every game to be this high art bullshit, *and* he wants you to be able to move around while NPC's talk to you. He should keep his nose in the HL2 world, and stop preaching about Metal Gear, when he apparently wants nothing more than dozens of pages to read, audio tapes to listen to, and 'free roaming cutscenes' where NPC's babble at you while you dick around in a confined room waiting to advance to the next area'.

I really really hate his opinions. Not him as a person, just his views on gaming. He comes off entirely too "Roger Ebert" for me.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
All right...having issues here. I'm trying to get the Frog and Scarab emblems. However, for some reason I can't do any sideways rolls. I somehow amassed 475 forward rolls, but I can't get any sideways ones. I've done both methods that people think of as a "sideways roll" - L1 + X + left/right, and then rolling around on the ground.

Has anyone got these emblems and knows what the hell to do?
 
tha_con said:
Ugh...this is dumb.

Edit: The one time someone in "Video Game Journalism" get's to hit mainstream media with some comments, he says something like this.

A language that isn't native to its own medium? Retarded. Mr. Interactivity needs to give it a rest.

Well its one persons opinion on what games should be. Yahtzee seems to have a somewhat similar opinion.
tha_con said:
Shawn's problem is he wants every game to be this high art bullshit, *and* he wants you to be able to move around while NPC's talk to you. He should keep his nose in the HL2 world, and stop preaching about Metal Gear, when he apparently wants nothing more than dozens of pages to read, audio tapes to listen to, and 'free roaming cutscenes' where NPC's babble at you while you dick around in a confined room waiting to advance to the next area'.

I really really hate his opinions. Not him as a person, just his views on gaming. He comes off entirely too "Roger Ebert" for me.
Really this will never work simply because games let you act like a psychopath and a loon without consequence.
 

Daante

Member
Maverick said:
Just beat the game. Here's some thoughts for the early-to-mid-twenties crowd:

I didn't cry at the ending. I'm not even sure I fully understand the story. But one thing is for certain: MGS4 made a bigger emotional impact on me than most books, movies and television shows I have consumed. And it really has nothing to do with Solid Snake, or Otacon or any of the narrative.

I was 12-years-old when Metal Gear Solid came out. I vividly remember when the MGS demo came out in the Official Playstation Magazine - running around from bookstore to bookstore that night with my father in his pickup truck. My father didn't give a shit about videogames. He thought I was insane. It was right at the tail end of adolescence, and I was getting a bit too old to care so much about videogames.

I wasn't even a big gamer - mostly played sports games, but for some reason the premise of MGS sounded really bad ass. I probably played through the demo level 20 times before the game finally came out.

$50 was a big deal to a seventh-grade kid, so I raked leaves with my friends every day after school that October to save up my money. Counted out the last five dollars in quarters at the EB.

If you're in your early-twenties now, I'm sure you know the story: Calling up friends to brag that you made it to disk 2...Shutting yourself in your room/basement with a case of Mountain Dew...Laughing at all the semi-juvenile Kojima jokes....Damn near being in tears when the credits rolled and the music played.

Now it's 10 years later, and I'm out in the real world and living on the other side of the world. I rarely have the motivation to play games anymore after coming home from work, and they never get in the way of the pubs on the weekend. I bought the game without watching any of the trailers.

Through the first 3 Acts, I was pretty entertained. But when Act 4 hit, and Otacon said, "Snake, we're going back to Shadow Moses," and then you're greeted with the MGS1 flashback, followed by that music kicking and all the resulting audio flashbacks....Well, my life essentially flashed before my eyes.

MGS4 is the greatest single videogame experience I've ever had for that reason alone. It transcends the game itself and all its parts. It evoked childhood memories not just of playing videogames, but of my father, my friends, autumn, my old basement hangout, and many other things that mean nothing to you. But those of you of the "Net-generation" who grew up on Metal Gear, you probably had your own personal memories come flooding back.

So MGS4 might not be the GAF game of the year, or "art," or even the best Metal Gear Solid game, but I sincerely appreciate what Kojima has created. The best movies I've ever seen - I couldn't tell you what was going on in my life when I saw them. But the best videogames I've ever played are time-pieces that carry with them a lot of emotional weight.

It'll be interesting to see if others felt the same way....

Beat the game on normal 2-3hrs ago and i totally feel you with your post, great summary/writing! :)

Im probably gonna try start on big boss extreme since i many many years ago actually succeded with finishing MGS1 on extreme * feeling proud* .
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
tha_con said:
Ugh...this is dumb.

Edit: The one time someone in "Video Game Journalism" get's to hit mainstream media with some comments, he says something like this.

A language that isn't native to its own medium? Retarded. Mr. Interactivity needs to give it a rest.

I'm not going to say it's dumb, I'm just going to say that I disagree. Games have the unique luxury in that cutscenes of both types (MGS style and HL style that Shawn seems to love so much) fit quite snugly with it's medium. The medium is very multilingual, I guess you can say, in that many different types of storytelling work well for the type of game you're attempting.

I very much disagree on his general opinion on narrative and storytelling in games as I believe it's limiting to the freedom the medium offers. The Portal way works, the Bioshock way works, the MGS way works (and has for 20 years btw), the HL way works and whatever else in between.
 

A Human Becoming

More than a Member
I love Metal Gear games, but can anyone argue that the game are not preachy? If anyone has a problem with it, I can completely understand. There are a few sequences in the game that drag on with characters saying the same thing in different ways, making it come off preachy. I remember at the beginning of the game with Meryl describing the current state of the world. While it did help give more background to the settings, the length seemed unnecessary as many things she spoke about were brought up before and later.

You shouldn't scoff at someone who doesn't enjoy the long cutscenes, especially since some drag on that leave you wondering what the significance of it was. A good example is the first time you meet Drebin. Late one you find out one thing in that scene was significance. The rest, not so much.
 
ICallItFutile said:
I love Metal Gear games, but can anyone argue that the game are not preachy? If anyone has a problem with it, I can completely understand. There are a few sequences in the game that drag on with characters saying the same thing in different, making it come off preachy.

You should scoff at someone who doesn't enjoy the long cutscenes, especially since some drag on that leave you wondering what the significance of it was. A good example is the first time you meet Drebin. Late one you find out one thing in that scene was significance. The rest, not so much.
Well thats not the fault of the game, just its creator. Anime can also get very preachy. I of course could be wrong and am just making up BS about the entertainment produced in japan.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
ICallItFutile said:
I love Metal Gear games, but can anyone argue that the game are not preachy? If anyone has a problem with it, I can completely understand. There are a few sequences in the game that drag on with characters saying the same thing in different, making it come off preachy.

You should scoff at someone who doesn't enjoy the long cutscenes, especially since some drag on that leave you wondering what the significance of it was. A good example is the first time you meet Drebin. Late one you find out one thing in that scene was significance. The rest, not so much.

I guess it depends. I don't find it any more preachy than it ever was 20 years ago to be honest. I guess I just take the series at face value. It's a fantasy military story within it's own universe with it's own problems and issues. I honestly don't take anything the characters talk about as Kojima forcing his ideas down my throat. Just me I suppose. People take from it different things.
 

tha_con

Banned
ICallItFutile said:
I love Metal Gear games, but can anyone argue that the game are not preachy? If anyone has a problem with it, I can completely understand. There are a few sequences in the game that drag on with characters saying the same thing in different, making it come off preachy.

You should scoff at someone who doesn't enjoy the long cutscenes, especially since some drag on that leave you wondering what the significance of it was. A good example is the first time you meet Drebin. Late one you find out one thing in that scene was significance. The rest, not so much.

What games aren't preachy, telling stories of horrors that mirror reality? It's something that tons and tons of games suffer from, from Bioshock to Final Fantasy VII.

As for cutscenes, it would be the opposite if Drebin popped up and said "Sup yo, I got some guns holla, buy what you need" and that was it, offering no character development.

Again, the scenes are skippable. Shawn, again, is just trying to force his HL2 views as 'the way the medium should go' into the publics eye, and it's fucking retarded.

Videogames are a medium like no other because you can do them ALL, he seems to think we have to limit the medium to what the fuck HE likes.


Ugh.
 
tha_con said:
What games aren't preachy, telling stories of horrors that mirror reality? It's something that tons and tons of games suffer from, from Bioshock to Final Fantasy VII.

As for cutscenes, it would be the opposite if Drebin popped up and said "Sup yo, I got some guns holla, buy what you need" and that was it, offering no character development.

Again, the scenes are skippable. Shawn, again, is just trying to force his HL2 views as 'the way the medium should go' into the publics eye, and it's fucking retarded.

Videogames are a medium like no other because you can do them ALL, he seems to think we have to limit the medium to what the fuck HE likes.


Ugh.

I agree with you, I enjoy gameplay as much as anyone else. But there's room in gaming for cutscenes and narrative. You can say the cutscenes and narrative in MGS4 is a joke but that is subjective.
 

rcua1884

Member
Ourobolus said:
All right...having issues here. I'm trying to get the Frog and Scarab emblems. However, for some reason I can't do any sideways rolls. I somehow amassed 475 forward rolls, but I can't get any sideways ones. I've done both methods that people think of as a "sideways roll" - L1 + X + left/right, and then rolling around on the ground.

Has anyone got these emblems and knows what the hell to do?

Have you tried just pressing X+left/right while standing up? Snake does a jump/roll to the side and I think that's what registers as a "sideways roll."

EDIT: Never mind, that's the L1 + X + left/right you were referring to. Actually, I have no idea why neither of those are registering for you.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
rcua1884 said:
Have you tried just pressing X+left/right while standing up? Snake does a jump/roll to the side and I think that's what registers as a "sideways roll."

EDIT: Never mind, that's the L1 + X + left/right you were referring to. Actually, I have no idea why neither of those are registering for you.

Actually, I just figured it out. You have to do the L1 + X + left/right while lying down. Doing the dive roll while standing, to the side, basically registers it as a forward dive roll.
 
Question:

If, as far as the Patriots knew, GW was destroyed during the events of MGS2, then why does it exhibit some control over the SOP system, namely, small arms? The SOP system wasn't created until after GW was fragmented, so why give GW any power at all?

I probably missed the reasoning behind this, but the thought just popped into my head last night.
 

Brobzoid

how do I slip unnoticed out of a gloryhole booth?
I've always agreed with Shawn's opinion on interactivity in general. But even the way HL2 does it, is just a cut-scene without a new camera angle and some useless interactivity. Of course there is very little of interest to do while some schmo is talking up a storm, so it's basically the same, only you can't skip HL2's "cut-scenes".

I think games should strive for more a more subtle approach, since most games these days have horribly overacted voices, exaggerated movements (for cut-scenes, I understand some games use exaggerated movements to alert the player of incoming attacks and such...) and they hammer plot-points all up in my face. MGS4 is could definitely use some understatements.

A game like Killer7, which admittedly is pretty fucking convoluted story-wise, had very much subtle stuff in it. For instance when your operator would call you to inform you that you had a new mission, he pretended to be a rep. for a political party asking for your vote, but through his voice you could hear that he had said that shit tons of times before and it didn't need any explanation outside the of that, and the fact that it was repeated before each mission. I'm not saying more games should be as fucked up as Killer7 was, but they could do well to learn from some of the aspect of it. Shadow of the Colossus also had a superb foreshadowing going on.

One shouldn't expect everyone to be progressive at once, but I do hope soon more games will take a cue. Especially given the acclaim SotC got, and hopefully team ICO's new game will get.
 
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