Unless I'm mistaken, you can hear most of "V Has Come To" theme in the M43 scene where he says he won't scatter their ashes to the sea.
SPOILER: Metal Gear Solid V Spoiler Thread | Such a lust for conclusion, T-WHHOOOO
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I came into that conversation when someone else brought it up. I wasn't endorsing the viewpoint, I was explaining the analogy. I said that my own take is I don't know what will happen. And the use of "fanboys" wasn't meant to carry a connotation other than "the most critical."
*in head transplant doctor voice* "Please, do try to relax"
funkystudent
Member
The Big Boss games are like if you only saw the Star Wars prequels though stuff like those clone wars cartoons.
Everything important happens in between the games off camera and the games themselves are just random side stories where nothing of consequence happens.
Everything important happens in between the games off camera and the games themselves are just random side stories where nothing of consequence happens.
I already considered that perspective myself and I fully understand it. However, it doesn't detract from Hal or EE's development to me because, ultimately, neither or them seemed to have known what kind of person Huey really was (and even if they did know "oh, he used to be a prick back then", would that change much if they had an ok relationship nevertheless? Unless Hal found out about his mother) . Just because his father was an asshole it doesn't invalidate or trivialize what Otacon went through or makes him feel any less guilt about what he has done. He still did what he did, which was something very questionable, so that grey area to his character is still there, regardless of what you may think about Huey.
The thing it did to me was make Huey entirely his own character and not just "it's Otacon-lite... but not really friends with the protagonist!". That wouldn't make him as memorable by himself or make his character significantly different in any way outside his dynamic with Snake.
But I see why a lot of people wouldn't be happy about what they did to Huey in general. From the audience's perspective, it does change how you perceive certain (future) events.
Sebastiano
Member
I just rewatched the scene and no, the music isn't as long (and beautiful) as in the OST, it lacks the "epic part" of the end.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
actually the more time passes and I just free roam a few hours every night, the more I am sort of beginning to appreciate Skull Face and Venom
it's ironic, but it's almost a sort of vengeful Miller retribution: Big Boss and Kojima and their phantom pain can go to hell, I'll make Venom stronger to send him there.
at this point i'd be good with a Metal Gear Venom II without Kojima ... is that zhang tian level design guy (and the only other dev featured as a Diamond Dog I think?) have any rank at Konami, because I'd like to see whoever designed Mother Base and the layout of much of the Afghanistan outposts and missions (and general sort of visual 'base design' and the general theme of Mother Base) have more creative control... sort of MGS Venom II, free roam gameplay where you build Diamond Dogs up to a point where it's ready to support and transition its general troops, resources, infrastructure into Outer Heaven
But we knew well before PW came out that BB had misunderstood her. MGS4 makes this especially clear, but even before that you have the contrast between BB's Outer Heaven philosophy -- something we see as early as MG1 -- and the Boss' general lamentation over how soldiers are used and disposed of in fickle conflicts, which aren't the same thing.
The point of MGS3's ending isn't that BB will carry on her will -- something we know that, from all previous games, he ends up twisting into his endless war vision -- but that the Boss' sacrifice is what turns him from loyal soldier to anarchist revolutionary in the first place.
It's not just Big Boss though. Kojima's shtick in general is to reveal that his villains are misguided anti-heroes and his actual heroes are hapless dupes being controlled by someone else.
When we compare MGS V and Moby Dick we assign the former such undue importance and significance as to make the conversation a farce. So ludicrous it deserves quickly cutting off at the knees.
akidnamededdy
Banned
What about Citizen Kane, then?
OK, cool. That's how you feel. Great. But I wasn't comparing them. I was explaining someone else's analogy for how history may or may not be kind to a piece of work. And then concluding that I, myself, don't know what will happen with this game, or with any work of art made in my time.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Well played.
WrenchNinja
Member
Most of those Citizen Kane comparisons are jokes though.
Except for IGN, IGN unironically compared Metroid Prime to Citizen Kane
MGS V is the Battleship Potemkin of Citizen Kane analogies.
Wait, maybe its the Tale of Genji of Moby Dick comparisons.
Nah its the Lawrence of Arabia of video games.
akidnamededdy
Banned
This post is the Cadillac of automobiles.
Inferno313
Banned
So The Big Boss games are like the only decent part of the Star Wars prequels?
"I'm not comparing the two, I'm just suggesting the two might be of comparable importance."
Look, although I appreciate your philosophical approach to future knowledge, we can make some basic assertions. And we know MGS V will not have anything close to the significance of Moby Dick.
I'm not going to read through that article right now, so I'll just ask: Were they praising Metroid Prime that way from a craftsmanship perspective? Because MP does have a super-tight design. The clockwork 2D-to-3D level design comes to mind.
At any rate, such comparisons will always come loaded with baggage, so they're best avoided altogether.
There should be some sort of license for comparing art. You have to pass a basic competency test to prevent this sort of thing from publication.
I've already explained myself like three times and how that's not what I was doing or saying.
Honestly, I doubt any videogame narrative made to this point will go down in history as being truly notable.
KOMANI
KOMANI
Except the Last of Us
Broken Joystick
At least you can talk. Who are you?
I've been listening to the OST and this track especially all week. It's really great, but, to me, it never feels like the music hits the climax and extravaganza that a MGS OST should. I was waiting for that piece of music to get me going, to remind me this is a MGS game, but apart from a minute or so in "V Has Come To", "Return" and maybe "The Phantom Pain", I just doesn't feel like they ever reach their potential.
I've beat TLoU four times -- twice on PS3, and twice on PS4 -- and I like it a lot, but if you read books, it's nothing new or special. It doesn't gel entirely well with its gameplay, either. My friend, who doesn't play games but watched my fourth playthrough, was able to spot the demarcation pretty clearly: "Oh, now we're in a character development scene," and, "Oh, now we're in a combat scene." And that's before an enemy would even appear.
KOMANI
KOMANI
That's probably because there's no Harry Gregson Williams. The soundtrack is good and quite intimate, but not epic.
Yeah, its easy to lose perspective. The Last of Us is great, but doesn't reach nearly the same heights outside the medium.
KOMANI
KOMANI
Neito, I'm just being facitious. I've beaten the game 13 times, and I yet to believe video games can reach the sophistication of top notch literature. But with each decade it approaches closer.
Agreed.
Now I do think that the experience for the individual can be more profound. Games work on multiple levels, the narrative just being one of them, the interactivity and design being another.
But yeah, if looked at purely in terms of story, most games are a patchwork, including every single MGS title made to date.
I actually dunno about that. Huge tangent from MGS V spoilers incoming but I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.
Interacting with video games requires a very strange mental division that isn't seen really anywhere else. Each game balances being a toy and a story and the two always sharply contrast. Oil and water continually meet for hours. I'm not sure this is a solvable problem, and I think accepting this weird divide might just be part of video game consumption - which, in turn, will forever plague the medium.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Now you're going after Joel and Sara??!!
You're no daisy at all!!!
j/k i <3 you
BB is like Hemingway and VS is like Martin Sheen. There. Done.
edit: As an aside - There are only a few books/characters/stories that have managed to engross me in the same fashion as some of my favorite games. There is a combination of personal investment and skill development that is entirely unique to the medium. There is an ability to put the player in a decision making role with characters you feel passionately for that is pretty much the sole purview of video games.
Of course - many people look at them as JUST toys and will never relate to them in the same way. But things change.
Anyways this thread tangent has now made me want to go read Vurt again. brb
I've thought about this before. You touch on a very good topic.
I think the line can be blurred but at the risk of making both sides weaker, i.e. "walking simulators" where the interactivity is borderline nonexistent. The alternative is TLoU's compartmentalized approach, which is split into three forms: combat scenes (practically devoid of story), cutscenes (pure story, no interaction), and walking simulator (the loop of ladders, pallets and loot where characters can talk because you're barely doing anything). The risk with that approach is it feels too piecemeal, too fragmented -- a constant shift of mental states: "Now I'm in this mode," "Now I'm in another mode."
It's not continuous, like you say. And like you, I'm not sure what the right balance is, if there even is such a thing.
Broken Joystick
At least you can talk. Who are you?
KOMANI
KOMANI
understood, but as cpu and graphics evolve, become larger, we'll start to hit areas where both hemispheres of the brain are stimulated... The constant reward of problem solving and the visual story telling that will equal movies will hit every mark than no other medium can. Video games will never be books because books have one thing than nothing else has... The use of constant imagination. But video games can please us in ways books and film cannot though.
akidnamededdy
Banned
I will always hold up Silent Hill 2 as a shining example of blending gameplay and story, for several long reasons I won't bother to type out here as this is a Metal Gear thread, but I really do think SH2 has yet to be topped in this regard.
Too bad Silent Hill is in the same shallow grave as Metal Gear now.
What you point out about walking simulators - "borderline nonexistent" interactivity - I think actually shows a near total elimination of the "toy" aspect. To put it another way, they almost leave "video games" entirely, and functionally become short films in which the "player" gets to frame and limitedly direct the production. So basically I agree that it makes a side weaker, but I'd go even farther; they're dodging the conflict by refusing to engage with the constraints.
And you're right to highlight TLoU as a poster child for this problem. Its so clearly delineated within the structure of the experience along exactly the lines you pointed out. To go a step further with your point, the problem is now that we essentially have three different experiences with little to no overlap. You could - and people do - largely edit out the combat scenes are present it as a movie. Conversely, you could only have combat scenes and present it purely as a toy.
As is, the game asks you not to bridge the two but rather to pretend that its all a cohesive whole. Ultimately we know otherwise, but we're still willing to go along.
Roni
Member
Your presumption in this question bothers me.
Some of the best moments in game narrative are when they blur the lines between narrative and gameplay.
The MGS series in particular is bad about this, with lengthy codecs and cutscenes, but at some points, it is also really great.
Like, in MGS1, not being able to shoot at Gray Fox with the missile, or in MGS3, the dual of the scene, having to shoot the boss after realizing you've waited too long for a cutscene.
That's exactly what I mean. Because PW had muddied things by introducing stupid and unnecessary plot points, you have to go back and make that scene weaker by saying "maybe he was just confused". MGS3 itself implied no such thing, it was only after PW decided to overcomplicate it that you have to make up reasonings to fill the holes. Don't you see how it cheapens it?
Right. I agree.
To bring this all back to where we started:
1) I don't think TPP or any game to date will go down in history as a truly notable narrative compared to what's already been done in books and to a lesser degree television and film.
2) At the same time, I admit I don't know what will happen.
In terms of how we consume this stuff, I do think an individual's experience with a game, or moments within a game, can be more profound for them than their experience would be with a book or film. Just like how much of a book's power derives from imagination and interpretation, much of a game's power derives from a connection you form with the character and worlds through the interactivity, and how that leaves parts of the story undefined. In this way, certain elements in TPP feel profound for me when for others they may not, and vice-versa.
Also, I think it's worth noting the impracticality of classics as comparisons, anyways. A lot of the classics are now notable relative to their time -- how they broke new ground or mastered a hitherto unseen level of complexity. When consumed in the current day, they might not have the same punch because so many other works have aped them or iterated upon what made them special, perhaps executing them better or speaking more to the times.
So yeah, that's my take.
Let's talk about shaved monkeys in diapers now.
Roni
Member
Complicates it, yea. Cheapens it? No. Nothing wrong with Big Boss having a change of heart.
Though I suspect the scene in MGS3 still holds true. Big Boss deliberately starts hating the Boss in Peace Walker and fooling himself about she turning her back on him in order to justify the acting of killing her in his mind.
It's the moment he stops suffering for what he did.
I see your point now. And it's a good point. I just think both takes on the idea work well in their own ways. Comes down to preference after that.
Vampirolol
Member
Every man is free to compare any work of art ever made with anything. Treating art like something only an elite can understand is one of the worst things you could do to art itself.
That's what I was getting at by being so vehemently against Moby Dick comparisons. I genuinely believe we cheapen the conversation if we allow that kind of implied comparability.
The Casablanca of video games.
Even the whole "misinterpreting the boss's will" idea (that I think was introduced to the story after MGS3, right?) implies that what he did was for her (or at least because of her). Even if it was a misunderstanding, what drove him (no matter how warped his ideology became towards the end) was The Boss. The epilogue of MGS4 heavily suggests this as well, but then PW comes along and introduces the idea that he actually rejected her pretty early on. No matter how I see it, it just lessens the impact of MGS3.
I think videogames have the upper hand as far as world building goes. You can have the visual flair of a movie while still having the interesting background details/lore that a book would have. On top of that, you can directly interact with that world.
As far as storytelling goes, I don't believe there is one correct answer. Even now we have a lot of different approaches. Even if videogames never quite reach the conventional storytelling highs of other medium, they still have many other ways of engaging a person that differentiates them from everything else and offers its own unique experiences that can't be replicated anywhere else. I think it's more important that games take advantage of their medium's strenghts instead of trying to be like movies.
If you wait too long, Snake actually shoots The Boss by himself. That's what happened to me.
As far as storytelling goes, I don't believe there is one correct answer. Even now we have a lot of different approaches. Even if videogames never quite reach the conventional storytelling highs of other medium, they still have many other ways of engaging a person that differentiates them from everything else and offers its own unique experiences that can't be replicated anywhere else. I think it's more important that games take advantage of their medium's strenghts instead of trying to be like movies.
If you wait too long, Snake actually shoots The Boss by himself. That's what happened to me.
Though now I'm second guessing wheter I may have nudged the button a little bit or not, but I'm fairly sure I didn't
Agreed. They're apples and oranges. No matter how good or bad either is within their respective medium, there's no point in comparing them. It's not about quality or lack thereof, it's the fact they're completely different mediums attempting completely different things relative to the different standards of different times.
The only phenomenon I was acknowledging is that any work can diminish over time or improve over time in the eyes of society. We can make well-reasoned bets that something will or won't be notable in the future, relative to one standard or another, but we never really know.
So please believe me that while I like MGSV's story, I'm not saying it will end up one way or another in terms of critical reception in the future. And I apologize if I came off the wrong way. I enjoyed our conversation.
afternoon delight
Member
Monet's good but it sure isn't the Velvet Underground.
Gone With the Wind ain't nothing next to The Hottie and the Nottie.
Sure. Anyone is free to like anything any way they want. But we were talking more about how society as a whole may or may not come to view things, which involves looking at certain things people generally look for in different works. That allows for at least a little bit of structure in discussing things that are inherently experiential and subjective. But yeah, ultimately, I agree: No right or wrong.
akidnamededdy
Banned
This post is the Argentina of grapefruits.
OK, this is starting to make my head hurt, lol.
That'd be a great title for the next spoiler thread, though. "The Argentina of Grapefruits."
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