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

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D

Dot50Cal

Banned
So, I just got the PS3 year-end famitsu with the bluray..and it has a FUCKING EPIC mgs4 trailer on it. 8 minutes long, I never saw it, and it pretty much spoils everything and basically beats it into your head that EVERYONE IS DYING OMGGG.

Anyway: Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-tjo7uHOu4

If someone can tell me how to make the video I uploaded STAY in HD, or whatever, I can do a 720P one there.
 
B

Blablurn

Member
Thank you for posting the video, Dot50Cal!

Btw, listening to the first Integral Podcast with Ryan Payton makes me sad. He was a great addition to the MGS team.
 
W

wind_steaker

Member
When they said RAY was Anti-REX..... you sure they didnt just mean it was superior (I dont see Ray swimming around) or was capable of shooting down the nukes from its rail gun? I'd like to assume these robots weren't ACTUALLY 'designed' to be slapping each other in the face and what not.


My only problems witht he game were the load screens during more intense moments and the slight lack of humour / interesting ways to finnish boss battles (the one example being how Vamp is ... attacked in Chapter 4.
 
B

badcrumble

Member
Hmm, wonder what's happening on January 8th. Perhaps the game will be patched such that when we first meet her Meryl will now tell us that it is being released on the xbox 360????????????????????????????????????????

Seriously though, glad to hear that there will as likely as not be an update to the single-player game. It doesn't need it, but neither did Burnout: Paradise. Basically, more support is good.
 
B

Bit-Bit

Member
Dot50Cal said:
So, I just got the PS3 year-end famitsu with the bluray..and it has a FUCKING EPIC mgs4 trailer on it. 8 minutes long, I never saw it, and it pretty much spoils everything and basically beats it into your head that EVERYONE IS DYING OMGGG.

Anyway: Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-tjo7uHOu4

If someone can tell me how to make the video I uploaded STAY in HD, or whatever, I can do a 720P one there.
Click to expand...

Holy crap! Can you provide a link to download it in 720p? Pretty please?
 
D

DeZimatoR

Banned
Dot50Cal said:
So, I just got the PS3 year-end famitsu with the bluray..and it has a FUCKING EPIC mgs4 trailer on it. 8 minutes long, I never saw it, and it pretty much spoils everything and basically beats it into your head that EVERYONE IS DYING OMGGG.

Anyway: Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-tjo7uHOu4

If someone can tell me how to make the video I uploaded STAY in HD, or whatever, I can do a 720P one there.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure thats the 'Summer Story' trailer which is on the US PS Store.

Its freaking awesome! :D
 
K

kuYuri

Member
Dot50Cal said:
So, I just got the PS3 year-end famitsu with the bluray..and it has a FUCKING EPIC mgs4 trailer on it. 8 minutes long, I never saw it, and it pretty much spoils everything and basically beats it into your head that EVERYONE IS DYING OMGGG.

Anyway: Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-tjo7uHOu4

If someone can tell me how to make the video I uploaded STAY in HD, or whatever, I can do a 720P one there.
Click to expand...

Not to rain on your parade, but this trailer is on the UK PS Store. :p
 
M

Monroeski

Unconfirmed Member
SMZC said:
You mentioned the microwave cut-scene too. While I love the direction of that cut-scene, that moment just doesn't mean anything to me after knowing that no one dies there. What's the point of showing Meryl and Johnny get shot countless times if after everything is over they are perfectly fine? Knowing that Snake will be fine after all that trouble when Ocelot gives him a couple of injections also ruins that cut-scene to me. Kojima really went out of his way to make the microwave corridor seem like certain death to anyone who walked in, but then Snake can recover from it due to a couple of injections? Seriously? :(

This is a huge problem that I have with the game, MGS4 never seems to take seriously any of the cut-scenes that are supposed to be its most epic moments. One way or another, by the end of the game most (if not all) of them are cheapened. This had never happened before in any game of the series.
Click to expand...
If I had to boil down my experience with MGS4 into a single thought, it would be that
Snake should have fucking died. Maybe not in the microwave corridor specifically, but when you have a game that has been beating you over the head with him being old and dying since THE FIRST FUCKING CUTSCENE, and he keeps getting worse and worse, and keeps pushing himself and pushing himself doing things that mean certain death (like the microwave corridor), he should have died. I thought it was great when they had the wedding and Snake wasn't present; the thought that he was finally gone after all he's done was very bittersweet, but a great end to his story.

THEN HE SHOWS UP ALIVE AT THE CEMETERY. GOD DAMMIT. Oh, wait, he's about to kill himself. Not as good as I thought at the wedding, but it's sti WTF WHY THE HELL IS BIG BOSS HERE!? Now even Big Boss is going to die while Snake walks off into the sunset to start a NEW life? Piece of shit.

The whole point of the god damn game was that he was racing against the clock to save the world. Then he basically melts himself, takes a few shots and is well enough to have a final climactic melee battle with a guy half his age and totally unharmed, and ultimately ends up quitting smoking and starting a new life. Him living at the end cheapened the entire game. Made the whole damn thing meaningless imo.
 
D

Dyno

Member
Monroeski said:
The whole point of the god damn game was that he was racing against the clock to save the world. Then he basically melts himself, takes a few shots and is well enough to have a final climactic melee battle with a guy half his age and totally unharmed, and ultimately ends up quitting smoking and starting a new life. Him living at the end cheapened the entire game. Made the whole damn thing meaningless imo.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. It was very disingenuous on Kojima's part.

He gets to make use of all the 'I'm dying' cliches and conventions, which take up about 50% of the game's cutscenes and then once they become inconvenient - POOF - it all gets wished away. Snake is fine, the Foxdie was a lie, everything you've listened to is bullshit.

It's not just that Snake got a cheap way out, but that was crutch for so many of the characters in the game. Raiden maims himself and is at death's door, then - POOF - he's a regular guy again. Naomi commits suicide as soon as she becomes convenient. Big Boss makes a bullshit fanservice reappearance only to deliver a bullshit monologue and then - POOF - he's dead to.

The killing of Zero, a completely harmless old man who no longer has anything power left to do anything, being killed through lack of oxygen, was actually kind of disgusting. He was such a cheap scapegoat and I can't believe that Snake would just watch that murder.

I can't decide if Kojima has no artistic scrupples, or no balls, or is just a massive hack when it comes to storytelling.

MSG4 is a game with awesome gameplay but it is not only one of the worst stories ever written, but it also takes hours of your time to tell it.
 
C

Cerberus

Member
BeeDog said:
Hey, MGS fans that also happen to like LBP, check here:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=338867&page=227

:D
Click to expand...

I wonder if Kojima himself made those LBP levels for trophies. There's this too. :D


xbmqs7.jpg
 
L

Liabe Brave

Member
Dyno said:
I couldn't agree more. It was very disingenuous on Kojima's part.

He gets to make use of all the 'I'm dying' cliches and conventions, which take up about 50% of the game's cutscenes and then once they become inconvenient - POOF - it all gets wished away. Snake is fine, the Foxdie was a lie, everything you've listened to is bullshit.

It's not just that Snake got a cheap way out, but that was crutch for so many of the characters in the game. Raiden maims himself and is at death's door, then - POOF - he's a regular guy again. Naomi commits suicide as soon as she becomes convenient. Big Boss makes a bullshit fanservice reappearance only to deliver a bullshit monologue and then - POOF - he's dead to.

The killing of Zero, a completely harmless old man who no longer has anything power left to do anything, being killed through lack of oxygen, was actually kind of disgusting. He was such a cheap scapegoat and I can't believe that Snake would just watch that murder.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree. First, on a matter of fact:
The FoxDIE was not a lie, just the "Solid will turn into a human WMD" is negated; the accelerated decrepitude isn't, and he still has only a few months to live at most.

Now, for interpretation:
Though Solid is noble in the face of inevitable death, that's not what the game is about. "Inevitable death" is a tautology, for we're all under that sentence; the game is about embracing life despite this. Solid is given many counterexamples: Naomi commits suicide rather than live with cancer; Vamp is desperately trying to die; Raiden has a deathwish just as strong; EVA regrets her mistakes unto death; and so on. Given these examples, Solid is about to commit suicide at the end.

This type of traumatic "hard-nosed" ending ("Because that happens. People die.") has capped many a melodramatic pulp narrative, to the point where it seems "natural" or even "necessary" to you. But the game rejects it outright, and not as some sort of eleventh-hour cowardice or thematic confusion, but as the entire damn point. Meryl and Johnny survive to get married; Drebin survives to get drunk; Jack finds peace and union; and finally, Solid, even though he's going to die soon anyway, chooses not to end it sooner. I think we're meant to see that this is a reaction to his meeting with his (bio)dad: a broken idealist who's tried multiple times to establish "survival of the fittest" as a moral code, and who does indeed murder an old man just for some sort of abstract "closure". All Big Boss' "tough-minded" coldness has done is destroy things around him.

In the end, Solid rejects all the suffering and idiocy the ideals of the Philosophers, Patriots, and Bosses created (no matter how well-intentioned). They all had believed in ultimate control--of money, country, and military, of the human will, and yes, even control over when you die. Solid chooses chance and the unknown instead, relinquishing control. I believe the game is arguing that this is true freedom, not the "freedom" of power all the antagonists pursue.

Kojima is a sloppy writer at times, and his goal to tie off absolutely everything in this one game resulted in some real dicontinuities and problems with the narrative. (For example,
Raiden's recovery, while well-tied to the game's theme, just doesn't seem physically possible.
) But the ultimate outcome isn't a mistake or a problem. I think it's one of the greatest strengths of the story.
 
S

S1lentTwo

Banned
Though I disagree with SMZC about the value of MGS4's narrative, I don't think he's gotten any of the fundamental facts of the plot wrong. Saying so without actually giving examples is a pretty chickenshit way to try and debate someone.


Liabe Brave said:
I have to disagree. First, on a matter of fact:
The FoxDIE was not a lie, just the "Solid will turn into a human WMD" is negated; the accelerated decrepitude isn't, and he still has only a few months to live at most.

Now, for interpretation:
Though Solid is noble in the face of inevitable death, that's not what the game is about. "Inevitable death" is a tautology, for we're all under that sentence; the game is about embracing life despite this. Solid is given many counterexamples: Naomi commits suicide rather than live with cancer; Vamp is desperately trying to die; Raiden has a deathwish just as strong; EVA regrets her mistakes unto death; and so on. Given these examples, Solid is about to commit suicide at the end.

This type of traumatic "hard-nosed" ending ("Because that happens. People die.") has capped many a melodramatic pulp narrative, to the point where it seems "natural" or even "necessary" to you. But the game rejects it outright, and not as some sort of eleventh-hour cowardice or thematic confusion, but as the entire damn point. Meryl and Johnny survive to get married; Drebin survives to get drunk; Jack finds peace and union; and finally, Solid, even though he's going to die soon anyway, chooses not to end it sooner. I think we're meant to see that this is a reaction to his meeting with his (bio)dad: a broken idealist who's tried multiple times to establish "survival of the fittest" as a moral code, and who does indeed murder an old man just for some sort of abstract "closure". All Big Boss' "tough-minded" coldness has done is destroy things around him.

In the end, Solid rejects all the suffering and idiocy the ideals of the Philosophers, Patriots, and Bosses created (no matter how well-intentioned). They all had believed in ultimate control--of money, country, and military, of the human will, and yes, even control over when you die. Solid chooses chance and the unknown instead, relinquishing control. I believe the game is arguing that this is true freedom, not the "freedom" of power all the antagonists pursue.

Kojima is a sloppy writer at times, and his goal to tie off absolutely everything in this one game resulted in some real dicontinuities and problems with the narrative. (For example,
Raiden's recovery, while well-tied to the game's theme, just doesn't seem physically possible.
) But the ultimate outcome isn't a mistake or a problem. I think it's one of the greatest strengths of the story.
Click to expand...

Bravo, sir. That might be the best interpretation of the ending that I've read thus far.

EDIT: Oh, and I can't wait for those Metal Gear Solid LBP levels...:D
 
N

NinjaCodah

Member
Liabe Brave said:
I have to disagree. First, on a matter of fact:
The FoxDIE was not a lie, just the "Solid will turn into a human WMD" is negated; the accelerated decrepitude isn't, and he still has only a few months to live at most.

Now, for interpretation:
Though Solid is noble in the face of inevitable death, that's not what the game is about. "Inevitable death" is a tautology, for we're all under that sentence; the game is about embracing life despite this. Solid is given many counterexamples: Naomi commits suicide rather than live with cancer; Vamp is desperately trying to die; Raiden has a deathwish just as strong; EVA regrets her mistakes unto death; and so on. Given these examples, Solid is about to commit suicide at the end.

This type of traumatic "hard-nosed" ending ("Because that happens. People die.") has capped many a melodramatic pulp narrative, to the point where it seems "natural" or even "necessary" to you. But the game rejects it outright, and not as some sort of eleventh-hour cowardice or thematic confusion, but as the entire damn point. Meryl and Johnny survive to get married; Drebin survives to get drunk; Jack finds peace and union; and finally, Solid, even though he's going to die soon anyway, chooses not to end it sooner. I think we're meant to see that this is a reaction to his meeting with his (bio)dad: a broken idealist who's tried multiple times to establish "survival of the fittest" as a moral code, and who does indeed murder an old man just for some sort of abstract "closure". All Big Boss' "tough-minded" coldness has done is destroy things around him.

In the end, Solid rejects all the suffering and idiocy the ideals of the Philosophers, Patriots, and Bosses created (no matter how well-intentioned). They all had believed in ultimate control--of money, country, and military, of the human will, and yes, even control over when you die. Solid chooses chance and the unknown instead, relinquishing control. I believe the game is arguing that this is true freedom, not the "freedom" of power all the antagonists pursue.

Kojima is a sloppy writer at times, and his goal to tie off absolutely everything in this one game resulted in some real dicontinuities and problems with the narrative. (For example,
Raiden's recovery, while well-tied to the game's theme, just doesn't seem physically possible.
) But the ultimate outcome isn't a mistake or a problem. I think it's one of the greatest strengths of the story.
Click to expand...

Great interpretation. I agree with everything you said, however I don't believe that Solid chooses life as a reaction to meeting Big Boss. Snake has always been about living. At the end of MGS1, Solid is told to embrace life and that he has to live. That's what he does in MGS2; he lives it to fullest in order to do good. He could have let go and died a million times in mgs4, but no, whenever he could he always kept on fighting. Snake never chose death, it only became an option because it became the mission itself. Solid Snake is very much like The Boss, except that he doesn't know it.

Most of the characters in MGS try to see their mission to the very end, even if that ultimately means dying afterward, just like The Boss did. Naomi could only put an end to her extended life once her virus was ready. I think that Ocelot knew that he would die after his mission would be over, and wished to live one last fight with Solid Snake (as Big Boss) before he could go. Others come very close to death as well. But in the end, after a new dawn, they are given a chance to embrace life in new ways and they all do.


Oh and btw, Ocelot was always Ocelot. There never was any Liquid, it was all an act by Ocelot himself and it makes sense. If Ocelot was good at something, it was certainly at fooling people and playing an act on all sides. MGS1 showed it, MGS2 showed it even more, MGS3 clearly proved it. Even Big Boss mentions it at the end of MGS4 when he says that "cats do love to play as snakes". He's probably the first person person who truly understood what The Boss really wanted and he did whatever was necessary to see his mission to the end. When you think about it, at the end of act 3 he put an end to all the conflicts around the world, only to immediately start killing a whole bunch of unarmed soldiers. He alone had the balls to do that and make his act believable. He really is the ultimate. I think the only problem with Ocelot was when they used the voice of Liquid in MGS2.
 
J

jakncoke

Banned
Got to Act 5 2 wks after launch, got owned put it down till several days ago, played 1 or so hours a day trying to get past the first part, finally figured a good scheme out...beat it today...what a long and satisfying ending
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
NinjaCodah said:
I think the only problem with Ocelot was when they used the voice of Liquid in MGS2.
Click to expand...

It was a device used by Kojima to get across the message that Liquid had taken control of Ocelot. Just like how in The Hunt For Red October all the sailors appear to be speaking in English and in MGS3 all the Russian characters speak English (Sokolov comments in English that Naked Snake's Russian is good.)
 
J

jett

D-Member
industrian said:
It was a device used by Kojima to get across the message that Liquid had taken control of Ocelot. Just like how in The Hunt For Red October all the sailors appear to be speaking in English and in MGS3 all the Russian characters speak English (Sokolov comments in English that Naked Snake's Russian is good.)
Click to expand...

Nah, it's pretty clear to me that in MGS2 Liquid actually did possess Ocelot. Kojima simply retconned that shit.
 
D

Dyno

Member
Liabe Brave said:
I have to disagree. First, on a matter of fact:
The FoxDIE was not a lie, just the "Solid will turn into a human WMD" is negated; the accelerated decrepitude isn't, and he still has only a few months to live at most.
Click to expand...

I don't think any of your 'interperetations' excuses how many red herrings we the player are fed and how many false truths we're told throughout the chapters in order to justify the story. I think the answer is far more simple than your take: a litany of horrible dooms is piled on our hero in order to ratchet up the tension and melodrama as much as possible. As soon as those plot devices become inconvenient they melt away without reasonble explanation. It is the most clumsy of literary tricks and they abound throughout the game.

With Kojima what was obvious was that he was primarily concerned with 'the scene' and how the story got the characters to that scene was of no real importance. So long as the scene was made any lies and bullshit would suffice to set it up.

Just a few examples:

The corpse of The Boss in Act 3 that really isn't, his appearance at the end invalidates the entire act. The one-way microwave room that really isn't and even better, how just after that Snake is brought from the deck of Outer Haven, surrounded by allies, and then magically whisked up to the very heights of the ship so he and his 'brother' can have their final drug orgy/fist fight.

And then of course there is the FOXDIE as an inexplicable W.M.D. that really isn't. Snake is killing himself in order to prevent the FOXDIE from killing humanity or whatever. It's not a choice he makes because what else would a hero do in that situation? Now think about the logistics of Snake's attempted suicide itself. We see the gun go into his mouth and then the screen goes black as we hear the shot. Think about what happened next. Snake, we assume, sees The Boss, obviously pulls the gun out of his mouth, and then what? The gun fires off anyway? It's scene over logical sense in the worst possible way but that doesn't matter so long as Kojima gets another shot to pull at our heart strings. How can The Boss come back to life only to deliver a monologue and have it perfectly timed to die again once he's done make any sense other than providing the almight scene?

Kojima shamelessly piled on the cliches in order to set up the scenes that he hoped would trigger an emotional response but he dare not stand behind his convictions and actually DO anything real, anything permanent. It's beyond bad writing giving the length of time he takes to tell this story, it's grossly self indulgent.

I'll say again I love the game for the tight play but MSG4 is the Ishtar of video games.
 
F

freethought

Member
jett said:
Nah, it's pretty clear to me that in MGS2 Liquid actually did possess Ocelot. Kojima simply retconned that shit.
Click to expand...

I just don't believe that. I would agree that Kojima didn't really have a concrete explanation but I've always thought that the whole question of who Ocelot really is was the big cliffhanger of MGS2. The identity of the Patriots was a purely historical question by the end of the game but Ocelot was the big mystery that was left hanging for 7 years.
 
C

Callibretto

Member
freethought said:
I just don't believe that. I would agree that Kojima didn't really have a concrete explanation but I've always thought that the whole question of who Ocelot really is was the big cliffhanger of MGS2. The identity of the Patriots was a purely historical question by the end of the game but Ocelot was the big mystery that was left hanging for 7 years.
Click to expand...

yeah, and Kojima is cunning enough that even if he did retconned it, he left it vague enough with plausible explanation with Ocelot cyberetic arm in mgs 4. now people can just argue that Ocelot change the arm with cybernetic after he realize Liquid is messing around in mgs 2.
 
R

RadioHeadAche

Member
There's a special song you can download for Christmas by Kojima Productions. Go to extras and then log into the network. Go to music and scroll all the way down and you should find the song. It's a very nice one.
 
R

RadioHeadAche

Member
Is there a catch to buying air rounds for the shotgun? Every time I try to increase the quantity, it won't let me. I have over 200,000 DP and all the required weapons. By the way, I am using a sd tv, so maybe I'm missing something?
 
D

DuckRacer

Member
^^^ You've probably maxed out your air round capacity. When you press R2 to select your shotgun, you should be able to hit triangle or whatever to choose from slug rounds or spread rounds or air rounds. (it should explain it on the screen)
Dyno said:
Now think about the logistics of Snake's attempted suicide itself. We see the gun go into his mouth and then the screen goes black as we hear the shot. Think about what happened next. Snake, we assume, sees The Boss, obviously pulls the gun out of his mouth, and then what? The gun fires off anyway?
Click to expand...
Big Boss had a gun in his hands (the "Patriot"/sawed off M16); he likely saw Snake putting the gun in his mouth and commit suicide, and he fired his own gun to surprise and stop him.
 
Ploid 3.0

Ploid 3.0

Member
RadioHeadAche said:
Is there a catch to buying air rounds for the shotgun? Every time I try to increase the quantity, it won't let me. I have over 200,000 DP and all the required weapons. By the way, I am using a sd tv, so maybe I'm missing something?
Click to expand...

They are none lethal so you use it if you want to stun enemies for a no kill run. You have to change the bullet type when you have the shotgun equipted. All none lethal ammo are blue, well some are yellow, and green too.
 
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