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[The Silver]

MGS4 is the antithesis of MGS2

 

[BocoDragon]

MGS4 is the antithesis of MGS2

I'd call MGS4 the antithesis to MGS3.

MGS3 was a more down to earth spy-soldier drama. The story was straightforward and satisfying in a traditional way.

MGS2 and 4 were both navel-gazing, pseudo-philosophical clusterfucks. It's just that the former was more successful in that regard, while MGS4 felt forced and uncomfortable.

 

[-Deimos]

I agree about the Eva part... but even weak theories like "She's just trying to complete her role, convincing Liquid Ocelot/Patriots/Old Snake that the corpse was 100% Big Boss'" aren't as wacky as some of the stuff in the series. Meh... never bugged me that much. Maybe the chick was flat out delirious from the wreck, impaling, and FoxDie? Forgot it wasn't Big Boss for a minute, haha.

Everything else you mentioned seems like a positive. I guess that's the issue with MGS4's story: You either wanted more logical explanations for the odd stuff in the series (especially MGS2), or you wanted Kojima to continue on his abstract/meta path from 2.

Frankly, I found 2 to be BY FAR the weakest of the number entries in the series, so I guess I fall on the side of pro nano-machines.

At least you FINALLY helped me understand why some people hate it so much.

I friggin' loved it.

I loved it as well. It's the weakest in the series with MGS2 only beating it by a small margin but it was still great and the story isn't as convoluted as people make it out to be. I started the series with 2, never played 1 and still understood what was happening most of the time.

 

[The Silver]

I'd call MGS4 the antithesis to MGS3.

MGS3 was a more down to earth spy-soldier drama. The story was straightforward and satisfying in a traditional way.

MGS2 and 4 were both navel-gazing, pseudo-philosophical clusterfucks. It's just that the former was more successful in that regard, while MGS4 felt forced and uncomfortable.

MGS3 and 4 are just plain old different.

MGS4 goes out of its way to contextualize and explain everything MGS2 brought up in the opposite direction of what MGS2 was going for.

 

[Romars202129]

MGS3 and 4 are just plain old different.

MGS4 goes out of its way to contextualize and explain everything MGS2 brought up in the opposite direction of what MGS2 was going for.

Nah, their more similar than you'd like to admit.
For instance, they are both metal gear games that tried to 'end' metal gear. 1 and 3 were just stories in the mg universe, whereas 2 and 4 tried to put the plot to bed.

2 tried to do it with a giant clusterfuck of mindfuckery, while 4 tried to tie all the bits and pieces and plot threads all together in a neat bow, and tripped all over itself.

 

[The Silver]

Nah, their more similar than you'd like to admit.
For instance, they are both metal gear games that tried to 'end' metal gear. 1 and 3 were just stories in the mg universe, whereas 2 and 4 tried to put the plot to bed.

2 tried to do it with a giant clusterfuck of mindfuckery, while 4 tried to tie all the bits and pieces and plot threads all together in a neat bow, and tripped all over itself.

I know they're similar, that's the point, MGS4 is the thematic opposite of MGS2

 

[Musolf815]

this is my most anticipated moment in Ground Zeroes! Can't wait to see it. I wonder what happens?

Same. Kojima's been hyping up this dark stuff for a while now, I'm really curious to see what it ends up being.

 

[bernardobri]

Question about a potential yet relevant plot point for GZ. I haven't read any confirmations on this, so while I'd say it's speculation, I will spoiler tag it anyway.

Spoiler

Has anyone confirmed whenever Metal Gear Zeke (the one you built in Peace Walker) will make or not an apperance in the game?

 

[UrbanDandy]

In terms that

Spoiler

race being an issue (the African child soldiers in TPP trailer), I wonder how it will affect Signt?

 

[Batzi]

Question about a potential yet relevant plot point for GZ. I haven't read any confirmations on this, so while I'd say it's speculation, I will spoiler tag it anyway.

Spoiler

Has anyone confirmed whenever Metal Gear Zeke (the one you built in Peace Walker) will make or not an apperance in the game?

Zeke was heavily damaged by Big Boss. It could be repaired but I doubt we will see it again.

 

[matrix-cat]

Spoiler

Has anyone confirmed whenever Metal Gear Zeke (the one you built in Peace Walker) will make or not an apperance in the game?

It hasn't been mentioned in any of the previews, as far as I know.

Spoiler

I would guess the canonical story is that it's destroyed when Paz fights Big Boss in it. Ground Zeroes is supposed to take place only a couple of weeks after that fight.

 

[BocoDragon]

Nah, their more similar than you'd like to admit.
For instance, they are both metal gear games that tried to 'end' metal gear. 1 and 3 were just stories in the mg universe, whereas 2 and 4 tried to put the plot to bed.

2 tried to do it with a giant clusterfuck of mindfuckery, while 4 tried to tie all the bits and pieces and plot threads all together in a neat bow, and tripped all over itself.

It is funny how MGS2 was stated to be the last in the series when it came out. Yet here we are 13 years later...

 

[The Silver]

I don't think Kojima ever said that MGS2 was to be the last in the franchise, just that it would be the last one he would direct.(someone correct me if im wrong)

 

[Romars202129]

I don't think Kojima ever said that MGS2 was to be the last in the franchise, just that it would be the last one he would direct.(someone correct me if im wrong)

To my knowledge, said it would be the last. Also said that about 3, and 4...
I believe it's only recently he realized the series would never die, and he'd have to hand it off to get out from under it.
My impression of Kojima is he wants to make unrelated new IP constantly, do his work more like a hollywood directer than a video game director with the endless sequels.

 

[Nightengale]

MGS games will not stop getting made even if he lets it go, and he's too attached to the franchise. Ultimately, he has no successor which he can put the trust to carry the franchise.

And frankly it kinda shows. The difference between Portable Ops and Peace Walker was staggering.

 

[The Silver]

MGS games will not stop getting made even if he lets it go, and he's too attached to the franchise. Ultimately, he has no successor which he can put the trust to carry the franchise.

And frankly it kinda shows. The difference between Portable Ops and Peace Walker was staggering.

and the fact his team completely botched Rising and Kojima had to run to Platinum to get it done

 

[Jack cw]

and the fact his team completely botched Rising and Kojima had to run to Platinum to get it done

So this is basically a one man show? Its not really good to rely everything on one person with so many games and divisions. If he cant get the talent to make one of it its successor, then the MGS series is going to suffer the same fate as SH, RE or DMC once Kojima is gone.

 

[Romars202129]

MGS games will not stop getting made even if he lets it go, and he's too attached to the franchise. Ultimately, he has no successor which he can put the trust to carry the franchise.

And frankly it kinda shows. The difference between Portable Ops and Peace Walker was staggering.

Don't forget that [i believe] all the chapters of mgs4 were handed off to different team members to direct.

 

[Dysun]

Perfect Soldier Null retcon incoming? I'd be fine with that

 

[BocoDragon]

I don't think Kojima ever said that MGS2 was to be the last in the franchise, just that it would be the last one he would direct.(someone correct me if im wrong)

MGS2 was stated in no uncertain terms to be the last. The conclusion to the series.

I mean, there was always the possibility that Konami would do another one anyway (a la Halo 4). But Kojima wasn't indicating that in interviews at the time.

After MGS3 he said things like "this is the last one I will direct" more along the lines of what you are saying.

 

[sasakiclan]

It is funny how MGS2 was stated to be the last in the series when it came out. Yet here we are 13 years later...

MGS4, to me, felt like a clip show, I didn't hate it but it really didn't a whole lot of new to the canon of the overall story, which was disappointing after a decade layoff for Ole Solid Snake as the main character. I think MGS2 was far more pushy on the ideology and philosophical stuff, which I've come to appreciate more the older I've gotten In fact, it's probably the only thing I really enjoy about the title nowadays (not also including the best MGS soundtrack to date).

 

[Shadow2222]

I will still never understand how MGS2 was supposed to be the last. I can actually buy everything up until the credits as a "leave you hanging, but you understand where the characters will go from here" type of ending, but the after credits dialogue between Snake and Otacon is completely out of place if that was meant to truly be the last. Why tease the player like that?

 

[rvy]

I will still never understand how MGS2 was supposed to be the last. I can actually buy everything up until the credits as a "leave you hanging, but you understand where the characters will go from here" type of ending, but the after credits dialogue between Snake and Otacon is completely out of place if that was meant to truly be the last. Why tease the player like that?

What? No. It just outright tells you that you should not care about who the Patriots are and there's no point in searching because they've been dead for years.
The game tells you that The Patriots are simply AI.

 

[Ballistics]

What? No. It just outright tells you that you should not care about who the Patriots are and there's no point in searching because they've been dead for years.
The game tells you that The Patriots are simply AI.

Apart from the stuff I learnt about the music of Metal Gear, this is truest ting that's been said in this thread and the podcast.

 

[bernardobri]

In terms that

Spoiler

race being an issue (the African child soldiers in TPP trailer), I wonder how it will affect Signt?

Spoiler

Sigint is in a power trip along with Paramedic and Zero, so chances are that he doesn't give a shit.

Zeke was heavily damaged by Big Boss. It could be repaired but I doubt we will see it again.

It hasn't been mentioned in any of the previews, as far as I know.

Spoiler

I would guess the canonical story is that it's destroyed when Paz fights Big Boss in it. Ground Zeroes is supposed to take place only a couple of weeks after that fight.

Spoiler

Yeah, it's fair to assume is at least functional, but the fact that hasn't been brought up during the fall of the Mother Base is rather... Interesting. Maybe Skullface will hijack it or something during the raid, like Ocelot did with Ray

 

[Ballistics]

There's a cutscene between Strangelove and Huey, explaining how it will be fixed.

 

[Blader]

What? No. It just outright tells you that you should not care about who the Patriots are and there's no point in searching because they've been dead for years.
The game tells you that The Patriots are simply AI.

MGS2 doesn't say the Patriots aren't AI, it goes for the abstract "We're formless ideas that have always been there" meme explanation. They weren't actually described as AIs until MGS4.

 

[jett]

MGS2 doesn't say the Patriots aren't AI, it goes for the abstract "We're formless ideas that have always been there" meme explanation. They weren't actually described as AIs until MGS4.

They overtly call themselves AI in MGS2, I thought.

 

[Betty]

They overtly call themselves AI in MGS2, I thought.

Not quite, Campbell reveals he's part on an AI towards the end, but we don't find out that the AI's are the patriots until 4. At the end of 2 all we know is that the original members died about a hundred years ago.

 

[SJRB]

They overtly call themselves AI in MGS2, I thought.

GW is outed as an AI, but I don't think a direct link is made to the Patriots, or to the Patriots being AI's. MGS4 reveals the neural network stuff with JD controlling the sub-AI's.

MGS2 ending is Otacon telling Snake he decoded the Patriot names from GW but they've all been dead for a long time and Snake going "what the hell". MGS2 is still going with the "Patriots are a group of people", which was completely overruled in MGS4. The thought was that GW was simply a system used by the Patriots to filter out their names and manipulate media and the stream of information on a global scale. There is no indication that GW actually was a Patriot.

turned into this:

 

[KojiKnight]

I bet David Hayter is in MGSV, but as SOLID Snake. It explains why he's not voicing Boss right now.

I want to believe this... so I will. Hayter in TPP hooray!

 

[Ballistics]

The Patriots were always AIs in MGS2, the script outright says it.

Yes, MGS2 says they were people...people who died about 100 years ago. They are explained to be the Philosophers in MGS3.

 

[Betty]

The Patriots were always AIs in MGS2, the script outright says it.

Sure, we know that now, and maybe it was in the original japanese script for the game idk, but it wasn't confirmed until MGS4, in MGS2 all we know is that AI is important to the patriots, not that they are in fact AI themselves.

 

[Ballistics]

Why didn't you highlight the "script" part? Because that's most important part about the post. The script for MGS2 says they were AIs (and I do mean the English version). Why do you think they were still glitching out after GW went offline?

 

[rvy]

What are the Patriots?

In the essay I only analyzed what the Colonel and Rose are during the final conversation. Although there are other explanations, let me make my point. I think that the S3 is a system designed to be used by the Patriots to control Cultural Selection. The Colonel is the face of this system all game long. Rose, meanwhile is gathering data up to the last sentence of the conversation before meeting Snake inside Arsenal.

At the end, the virus (worm) affects GW, destroying the parts that the Patriots wanted destroyed (or causing an "apparent malfunction"?). At the point the Colonel contacts Raiden again, it is no longer "just" the S3... it is indeed the Patriots themselves (an individual? the whole consciousness?)(Note: In the Document of MGS2 Script, there is a note saying that JFK is the computer actually talking to Raiden in this section, since GW was damaged, implying that this consciousness resides in several machines named after presidents of the USA). Since Raiden will be disregarded as just a pawn, and neither Snake, Otacon or Ocelot would know the truth, he is told what they really are. This is like telling Liquid he was the weakest, although he wasn't. An experiment to find out how the facts affect the actions of the individuals. In Liquid's case, it was to test if the information provided to the individual affected his genetic capabilities. Now, it is to find out if the individual, knowing he is being controlled, can still continue being controlled by some other means calculated and triggered by S3.

Thus, the patriots are the new consciousness born from human culture, dominating it in a way that cannot be destroyed by usual means, but by changing the global ideology and that of individuals.. by changing culture itself.

http://junkerhq.net/MGS2/index.html

 

[legacyzero]

I want to believe this... so I will. Hayter in TPP hooray!

It's the only logical thing. You can't have Hayter voice both snakes at the same time, just like SPOILER:

Spoiler

The ending of MGS4 at the graveyard

 

[Blader]

Why didn't you highlight the "script" part? Because that's most important part about the post. The script for MGS2 says they were AIs (and I do mean the English version). Why do you think they were still glitching out after GW went offline?

They weren't? The other AI (which is described in the script as JFK, iirc, but is actually JD) speaks perfectly fine.

Even if the script outright says they're AIs, the game itself doesn't.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

It's the only logical thing. You can't have Hayter voice both snakes at the same time, just like SPOILER:

Spoiler

The ending of MGS4 at the graveyard

But what about the Japanese VA?

Does his BigBoss sound any different from his SolidSnake?

 

[Ballistics]

They weren't? The other AI (which is described in the script as JFK, iirc, but is actually JD) speaks perfectly fine.

Even if the script outright says they're AIs, the game itself doesn't.

Their speech is CLEARLY distorted. There's no other way of saying it.

And what does it matter if the game doesn't outright tell you? That's not the point here, it's people saying it was invented afterwards that's the problem.

The same with saying he made Snake old just for MGS4, when his aging was talked about in MGS and MGS2.

 

[Rogue Agent]

It hasn't been mentioned in any of the previews, as far as I know.

Spoiler

I would guess the canonical story is that it's destroyed when Paz fights Big Boss in it. Ground Zeroes is supposed to take place only a couple of weeks after that fight.

I believe GZ takes place 1 year after PW.

 

[Graphics Horse]

I believe GZ takes place 1 year after PW.

No it's the following calendar year but PW goes into December 1974 iirc. And presumably the 5th chapter is meant to cover a week or two. But how they built the whole giant base and their own Metal Gear in a couple of months shall remain a mystery.

 

[Ballistics]

That and Paz was picked up 10 days before...so she can't have been swimming around for months

 

[Rogue Agent]

No it's the following calendar year but PW goes into December 1974 iirc. And presumably the 5th chapter is meant to cover a week or two. But how they built the whole giant base and their own Metal Gear in a couple of months shall remain a mystery.

Oh I see. Thanks for the correction.

They must have some pretty kick ass engineers and construction workers in MSF

 

[Jac_Solar]

What's with the Japanese and the word "Jaeger"? It seems to pop up in tons of Japanese movies, shows, games, etc. Other German words also pop up from time to time in Japanese media, but Jaeger in particular seems to be extremely popular.

 

[Nightengale]

What's with the Japanese and the word "Jaeger"? It seems to pop up in tons of Japanese movies, shows, games, etc. Other German words also pop up from time to time in Japanese media, but Jaeger in particular seems to be extremely popular.

Jaeger means hunter.
Jaeger is not an uncommon German surname.
Jaeger has been used historically as military unit names. Jaeger force, etc.
It sounds 'cool.'

Mainly the 4th reason.

 

[matrix-cat]

That and Paz was picked up 10 days before...so she can't have been swimming around for months

Yeah, Ground Zeroes takes place 10 days, plus whatever period a skinny young girl could realistically survive floating in the ocean, after the true ending of Peace Walker. PW was set in November 1974, but I think the true ending might be a few weeks after the main events, which puts Ground Zeroes in early '75.

 

[RedSwirl]

So this is basically a one man show? Its not really good to rely everything on one person with so many games and divisions. If he cant get the talent to make one of it its successor, then the MGS series is going to suffer the same fate as SH, RE or DMC once Kojima is gone.

Actually, has any prominent Japanese game designer really had a successor? Can you even say there IS a "second generation" of major Japanese game designers?

 

[RedSwirl]

It's kinda odd that Kojima has now focused possibly more on the Big Boss saga than the Solid Snake saga. Big Boss has already starred in more games if I'm not mistaken. I think the reason for this is because Big Boss's story is a little bit more of a clean slate. Kojima doesn't have to deal with the crazy shit he did in MGS2 and the fan response to that crazy shit. MGS3 and Peace Walker got the chance to be a little bit more down-to-earth or at least simpler -- similar to MGS1, and Kojima get's to keep doing this with MGSV. But the Solid Snake saga is pretty much forever fucked up because fans and Konami pretty much forced Kojima to continue on after what he did to MGS2.

 

[JayEH]

Looks like Kojima wasn't kidding when he said the game would have some really serious subject matters in Ground Zeroes and TPP. Really interested to see how dark the story goes here.