| What is an MGS game anyway? | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 7 2014, 03:47 PM (602 Views) | |
| baldgye | Oct 7 2014, 03:47 PM Post #1 |
BANNED
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I’ve spent the last week or so watching videos of reviews, opinions and analyses of the games in the Metal Gear franchise and even as a diehard fanboy it’s made me sit back and really think about what these games are about and what the future of Metal Gear is. I’m going to prefix this with a couple of things though, this is purely my own opinions and I am very possibly totally wrong, I’m also dyslexic and so I process information that is conveyed to me very differently to people who are not as dyslexic as I am or people who aren’t dyslexic. This means that I might very well have simply misunderstood the information that was explained to me or have read too much into something and seen something that wasn’t actually there. I also suck at grammar and spelling. Metal Gear 1 & 2 Ok, so Kojima started out with Metal Gear, this was the game that he wanted to make that was based on the game ‘Hide and Seek’. It’s a simple concept that broke ground for videogames. The game was simple as was the story. Big Boss was the bad guy, not Snakes father. It was a dumb stealth, action game with Kyle Reese from The Terminator on the box and an end boss that was an anime mech. Then in the west came Snakes Revenge, Kojima not wanting people to think that he had a part in it, put out Metal Gear 2 and improved upon the gameplay while keeping the same pretty basic plot. Metal Gear Solid Then we have a generational gap and Kojima moves to 3D thanks to the power of the PlayStation. It’s a huge shift and allows Kojima the freedom to make a deeper better stealth game that he wanted to make, as well as allowing him the chance to finally be able to become the director in his own action movie. Thus we have Metal Gear Solid, a title that supposedly builds on the events of his previous games while at the same time changing the events to help the story and motives for the game. As we all know MGS became one of the best scored, best loved and best-selling games for the system. It was huge and finally gave games the cinematic promise they had dreamed about in the dark CD-I days. But at the same time MGS was a complete story, you didn’t need to play the previous games to understand the story and it didn’t end on a cliff hanger. It had a plot that started and ended within the game as well as a cohesive and simple sub-plot/metaphor. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty After MGS Konami had managed to produce another huge (essentially) new IP and wasn’t simply going to drop it, Kojima knew this but at the same time he wasn’t really interested in making a follow up. Snakes story was over. But the fans were desperate and Konami wanted to make moneys… thus MGS2. For me MGS2 is the biggest example of Kojima fucking with his fans more than anything else and is the biggest most expensive example I know off of people asking for something and your reply being; “yeah you want this, you want this?! Yeah, well fuck you.” We all know the twist that you play as Raiden, yet all the trailers and promo stuff only ever showed you playing as Snake. But on top of that MGS2 is done in a way that you could think that the whole mission was simply a VR exercise and that it never actually happened, along with other ideas and theories. The game is deep with 4th wall breaks, with metaphors and with fucking with the player. It’s Genius, no other game has really come close to this level of “fuck you” than MGS2, and it’s glorious. Kojima intentionally made a game he couldn’t follow up, because you can’t without leaving huge holes in the plot and story. He also stated that he was finished with MGS and didn’t want to make another, it was done. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater It wasn’t done. Kojima has a problem, he loves making games, but making the games he wants is expensive. Konami won’t give Kojima the same budget to do a new IP that they would for him to follow up what is now one of their biggest franchises. So Kojima did the only thing he could do, he made a game that isn’t really a Metal Gear game. MGS3 is set well before any of the other Metal Gear games, and the characters don’t feature in any of the other 3D games (bar Ocelot ofc). He changed the pace and he pretty much made a James Bond game set in a place that can’t possibly exist. Of course he would have to include Metal Gear elements so that it was a Metal Gear game, but the part’s people remember from MGS3 are not the same as MGS and MGS2, for example, everyone remembers REX in MGS and in MGS2 people remember Raiden being a bitch and the story being insane. In MGS3 everyone remembers the stealth and The End, a boss in the middle of the game that was like nothing else. Kojima for the first time made an MGS game that wasn’t really an MGS game, sure it was another stealth game but other than that you could remove the MGS elements and have a totally standalone game and story that worked and that made perfect sense. Again Kojima said that was it and that he was done. Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons of the Patriots He wasn’t done and can never be done. After MGS3 it became clear that Konami would give him an insane budget and the creative freedom to do what he liked without anyone questioning it (the production values of the TV adverts that front load the game are a good example of this) and so he had little choice but to continue to make MGS titles, or go elsewhere with a much smaller budget and a foreign team and start over. MGS2 was Kojima saying “fuck you” to the fans because he wasn’t interested in making the game they wanted and made the game he wanted. MGS4 was the exact opposite. As fans we got everything we could have possibly wanted, including the ability to play the game like a 3rd person shooter and a mech on mech fight that, is both the dumbest and greatest thing in the game. We got bosses that where the improved version of the bosses from MGS3 and we got call backs and even a trip back to Shadow Moses. Because MGS4 was set in the future Kojima had to essentially shit all over the open ended and insane ending of MGS2 and almost ruin that game in the process. As a fan I loved MGS4 but now it kind of makes me sad. MGS4 was Kojima doing everything he could to essentially end it, he killed Snake (essentially), killed Big Boss and gave Raiden the happy ending he gave Snake at the end of MGS. Kojima was done, Snake’s story was over. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker It wasn’t. PW for me is Kojima coming to terms with the fact that he can essentially only make MGS games if he wants to continue to make games with huge budgets. Here is a portable game, originally called MGS5 that totally changed the way you would play the game. This was Kojima trying to take the MGS formula and apply it to other genres. PW had RPG mechanics and base building and it also had turn based strategy. Co-op was now a thing and you could use different wireless networks to find soldiers to recruit. He took the package and the frame-work and applied it to new ideas and concepts and played around with it. PW is a break in gameplay from what MGS has ever been. It’s fun and silly and tone wise has little to do with the other games. Metal Gear Sold: Rising We all know the fucked up history of MGS:R, Kojima desperately trying to get his team to the position to which they can continue to pander to fans while he takes his A-team and makes cool interesting portable games. MGS:R shows that Kojima was desperate to try and get his team to simply not just remake games, he wanted them to make something new and be creative without him. He, and his team failed. I often wonder what MGS5 would be like had his team not fucked up… Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain MGS5 is from what I can tell, Kojima doing two things. Firstly his frustration with his team and the fans has manifested its self in Snake’s new voice, even pre-coma. This has to be the biggest “fuck you” since MGS2. Kojima doesn’t care and he wants you to know it. Secondly I think it signifies that this again isn’t an MGS game and that the game Kojima wants to make is The Phantom Pain and the MGS part is simply to give the game a bigger audience and to allow him to make such an expensive game. Well I had to get that off my chest, but I am curios what everyone else thinks… I love MGS and can’t wait for MGS5, but now I’m less curious about the characters and more about what the game is actually trying to tell me (as well of course as the gameplay). Edited by baldgye, Oct 7 2014, 03:48 PM.
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| RevolverVaro | Jun 8 2015, 02:49 AM Post #2 |
Gene
  ![]](http://z5.ifrm.com/30040/102/0/f5070740/MGSLifeBarPart3.png)
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It's an awesome over the top stealth action series. |
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| No Place For Hayter | Oct 5 2015, 06:10 AM Post #3 |
Chico
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Nice write up, I agree with most of it, I don't think you give MG2 enough credit though, the jump from MG to MG2 is amazing. I find most people tend to believe a MGS game to be a story heavy linear stealth action game, but that's not what MGS is to me. To me MGS is a staple of quality, for a lot of people PW was a bad MGS game because it took what they thought was MGS (a linear stealth action operation) and turned it into something else (A mission based stealth game with a statistical army you manage and build), but I consider PW to be an amazing MGS game because it meets the standards of quality I hold for the game to be a MGS game. Of course MGS games have staple elements that make it what it is (like having a Mech and nukes, and most importantly have the gameplay be stealth driven and primary) without such it would be to vague a concept to be a name for a game franchise. To me MGS4 is a good game but a terrible MGS game, because while it has solid gameplay and a decent story, both are terrible by the standard of quality I deem under the title of MGS, and as such I consider it a terrible MGS game. I hold the same view of TPP, while it has great gameplay and a broken and short story, the story is bad without even being compared to other MGS games but has some great ideas and some great bases to build upon but doesn't, and of course the gameplay is far without its flaws, so while TPP is a great game, it is again a terrible MGS game in my eyes. It is fun and easy to always talk about ones opinions on the games and why we think so, but I find it far more interesting to dive into what we consider a "MGS" game and by which basis we would compare them and judge them according to our filters of what we want or see from the title of "MGS". For me MGS is a staple of quality, a running series of individual games which connect to each other but hold their own stories and own messages, a Hideo Kojima series of the highest quality, a genre of stealth but has many options, and of course robots  and this is the lens in which I scale each MGS game as a MGS title, of course I consider each game outside this scope as well, but as for my final personal opinion on each game and long running feelings always lean towards my thoughts and feelings about it as a "MGS" game as this is what I'm most attached due to how long the series has been around for and how long and how much I have played it and how much time and thought I have invested into it, and this is why I don't consider MGS4 a good game (even though it is) I consider it a terrible game because to me it is a terrible "MGS" game. MGS are the only games on the face of the earth I learn and explore life from.
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| baldgye | Oct 5 2015, 08:35 AM Post #4 |
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Yeah, I replayed MGS2 on Vita 4-5 times after writing that and it totally changed my opinion of it. I played it to death when it came out (getting the dog tags and shit) and totally burned out on it and never played it again. But replaying it brought back all the good memories and made me realise how great it is. Shame I've lost my vita :/ |
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| Hoss | Oct 5 2015, 09:08 AM Post #5 |
One and Only
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Metal Gear Solid (Japanese: メタルギアソリッド Hepburn: Metaru Gia Soriddo?) is an action-adventure stealth video game franchise developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first published by Konami for the PlayStation in 1998. |
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| Metal_Gear_Z | Oct 5 2015, 01:20 PM Post #6 |
Sahelanthropus
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Precisely |
| "This is good, isn't it?" | |
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| No Place For Hayter | Oct 6 2015, 07:25 AM Post #7 |
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Chico
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Very straight up and too the point, I like it  a lot of people tend to get stuck up in more specific details and thus can dislike things like PW for not being MGS enough despite the fact it is very MGS just with more on the game.Though your response is very ummmm, how do I put this..... Not seeing the concept we are talking about, no wait that's wrong, it is more like you are disregarding the concept completely because there is a simply factual definition of what the MGS series is, but in doing so you are missing the point of what we are talking about, we aren't talking about the literal definition of the MGS series and what it is, we are talking about peoples personal ties and expectations of and from MGS in which they see and judge every MGS game from, a vague personal concept, not the literal thing that the MGS series is. But at the same time, you do partake in the discussion by answering with what you consider to be a MGS game, it just isn't very original, creative, or personally insightful  actually it is kind of bland  I'm sure you consider MGS to be more than just that. And also that statement is factual inaccurate, it gives only the details of the first MGS game and yet applies it to the whole series, only the first game was developed by KCE-J I wouldn't worry about your VITA, nobody supports the darn thing anyway, it hurts more to have one than to not have one 
Edited by No Place For Hayter, Oct 6 2015, 07:26 AM.
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| Zuben | Oct 6 2015, 08:01 AM Post #8 |
Virgin
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For me MGS1 defined a very delicate balance of things that imprinted on my head what MGS was. None of the sequels have managed to reach that level, since Kojima always changed the formula with each game, and the recent ones have deviated from the original by quite a margin. But it's not a bad thing. I mean, look at Assassin's Creed. Very little has changed in that franchise, so they all feel like Assassin's Creed, but the repetition of core elements is dulling their impact. We've come to a point where I just can't be excited about a new AssCreed game, since I know it'll be more of the same with some new tricks (AC4 being a delightful exception). So while MGSV doesn't feel what I consider a pure MGS, it mostly benefits from that fact. |
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| Hoss | Oct 6 2015, 11:01 AM Post #9 |
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One and Only
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joke jōk/ noun 1. a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a funny punchline. "she was in a mood to tell jokes" synonyms:funny story, jest, witticism, quip; More verb 1. make jokes; talk humorously or flippantly. "she could laugh and joke with her colleagues" synonyms:tell jokes, crack jokes Dat tellin' me I dun understand the question like I'm new to this series or this place and haven't been involved in this series and these discussions for most of my life. I'm slightly offended at your no-fun-allowed reply. Now I know what rape victims feel like. |
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| Zuben | Oct 6 2015, 12:13 PM Post #10 |
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Virgin
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| WHOOOOOOOOOO | |
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| Hoss | Oct 6 2015, 12:14 PM Post #11 |
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One and Only
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That was my face. |
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| No Place For Hayter | Oct 6 2015, 10:38 PM Post #12 |
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Chico
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Shit, you got me >.< cut me a little slack though, dry humour can be hard to read off of dry text, lol. I didn't say you didn't understand the question, lol, I said it appeared like you disregarded it, lol, but I missed the joke entirely, lol, the jokes on me now, hahaha. Wait, does that make me a fun rapist  now I'm all worried
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