Is that what he was doing? I had no idea what that was supposed to be.BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
Dalisclock completes the Metal Gear Series with some of his sanity intact
- Thread starter Dalisclock
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I've read that and heard some of the tapes but damn it seems like a lot of handwaving to justify using child mantis as a plot device to make a lot of the weird shit "Work", which is rather jarring considering he was an actual character in MGS but here he's basically a slave to whoever has the most hate at any given time.BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
It felt a lot like fan service to have him show up as a kid here and be the catalyst of so many events. Much like in MGS4, the game is screaming REMEMBER HOW COOL MANTIS WAS WELL HERE HE IS AGAIN. At least 4 played it for laughs. And my god he seems so much more powerful as a kid than an adult. The shit he pulls is ridiculous compared to the first game, where he was just a psychic weirdo in a gas mask. Both he and Volgin seem that they would have been better served as new characters with similar abilities rather than dragging in past ones for no real reasonDalisclock said:
If I didn't already mention it above, it pretty much feels like with MGSV, Kojima decided he was gonna do a big budget remake of Peace Walker, but then went back to MGS4 and somehow took away all the wrong lessons to apply to V. Gratuitous fanservice? Check. Bizarre fetish characters? Check. Hammy main villain? Check(though it was more fun when Ocelot did it). Lot of talking without saying much? Check. Magical nanomachines/parasites/nanoparasites? Check.Comic Sans said:
So I finally finished Chapter 2(or The Man who Sold the World/Truth). For a chapter that doesn't have much in the way of actual plot missions, it feels like it drags a lot. The fact that regaining all of the child soldiers requires a bunch of side ops all over both maps(and how the hell did some of those kids end up in Afghanistan?) and unlocking some of the final missions requires grinding side ops if you don't want to replay the main ops(or doing the harder versions in chapter 2).
Anyway, I'm gonna just add a few more thoughts to my write up.
-I can see some of the good in the story, or what was the original plan anyway. Taking out Skull Face ends up solving nothing and leaving no one feeling satisfied, driving Miller to be even Paranoid. At least he eventually realizes how bad he's gotten at one point, though it's clear at the end he's still bitter.
OTOH, there's the problem of Eli and the Child Soldier story line which, as it stands, pretty much just ends with Eli and the kids running off with a helicopter and Metal Gear. Without ep 51, the arc(which almost is the closet thing to an actual arc this chapter has) feels anti-climatic and pointless. The fact the ending timeline references the Kingdom of the Flies feels like adding insult to injury.
-Even without EP 51, it still feels like the game has LOTR syndrome, as in Multiple endings that come one after each other. First the Fall of Skull Face, then A quiet Exit and after that The man who sold the world. And honestly, it feels like A quiet Exit is a better finale then "The Man Who Sold the World". A large epic fight with a bit of sadness at the end, as opposed to Replaying the prologue.
-Speaking of "The man who sold the world" honestly, I'm not sure why replaying the entire hospital chapter was necessary because the only parts that seem to be different are the beginning and the end of the mission. Or at least cut out some of the slower parts of the mission? Comparative flashbacks?
-Quiet speaks Navajo? That's an interesting second language for someone who otherwise only speaks English. And the idea of using Code Talker as a Translator never gets brought up because......reasons?
-Quiet does realize they can cure the vocal cord parasites right? Because I swear that was a big plot point in chapter 1. And with that, it's all but said she goes away at the end to die because she was forced to speak English.....right next to Big Boss. So....is he infected with the English Parasite now too? I'm gonna admit I kinda stopped listening to Code Talker prattle on and on about the fucking parasites after a while because I just don't care anymore(and all I hear is "Technobabble Magical Parasite Bullshit").
Is it even worth trying to understand why any of this makes sense?
-I'll admit there is some good stuff in the Truth Tapes. It's just a real shame that it's not integrated into the game itself and is just kind of a bonus feature slapped on at the end for completing Ep 46. For a game that's supposed to connect the Big Boss games to the Solid Snake games it feels like most of the connective tissue is pretty much right there at the end instead of permeating the entire game(which felt it was in dire need of more real content instead of "Go rescue guy" mission).
-Along with that, Skull face does have an interesting Arc. Sadly, it only really shows up in the tapes, with his game play presence pretty much being "Ha ha Big Boss. I am Bad Guy. Now I'm gonna be a GIANT HAM while leaving my minions to kill you instead of just putting a bullet in your skull".
Anyway, I'll have my retrospective/ranking write up done soon.
Anyway, I'm gonna just add a few more thoughts to my write up.
-I can see some of the good in the story, or what was the original plan anyway. Taking out Skull Face ends up solving nothing and leaving no one feeling satisfied, driving Miller to be even Paranoid. At least he eventually realizes how bad he's gotten at one point, though it's clear at the end he's still bitter.
OTOH, there's the problem of Eli and the Child Soldier story line which, as it stands, pretty much just ends with Eli and the kids running off with a helicopter and Metal Gear. Without ep 51, the arc(which almost is the closet thing to an actual arc this chapter has) feels anti-climatic and pointless. The fact the ending timeline references the Kingdom of the Flies feels like adding insult to injury.
-Even without EP 51, it still feels like the game has LOTR syndrome, as in Multiple endings that come one after each other. First the Fall of Skull Face, then A quiet Exit and after that The man who sold the world. And honestly, it feels like A quiet Exit is a better finale then "The Man Who Sold the World". A large epic fight with a bit of sadness at the end, as opposed to Replaying the prologue.
-Speaking of "The man who sold the world" honestly, I'm not sure why replaying the entire hospital chapter was necessary because the only parts that seem to be different are the beginning and the end of the mission. Or at least cut out some of the slower parts of the mission? Comparative flashbacks?
-Quiet speaks Navajo? That's an interesting second language for someone who otherwise only speaks English. And the idea of using Code Talker as a Translator never gets brought up because......reasons?
-Quiet does realize they can cure the vocal cord parasites right? Because I swear that was a big plot point in chapter 1. And with that, it's all but said she goes away at the end to die because she was forced to speak English.....right next to Big Boss. So....is he infected with the English Parasite now too? I'm gonna admit I kinda stopped listening to Code Talker prattle on and on about the fucking parasites after a while because I just don't care anymore(and all I hear is "Technobabble Magical Parasite Bullshit").
Is it even worth trying to understand why any of this makes sense?
-I'll admit there is some good stuff in the Truth Tapes. It's just a real shame that it's not integrated into the game itself and is just kind of a bonus feature slapped on at the end for completing Ep 46. For a game that's supposed to connect the Big Boss games to the Solid Snake games it feels like most of the connective tissue is pretty much right there at the end instead of permeating the entire game(which felt it was in dire need of more real content instead of "Go rescue guy" mission).
-Along with that, Skull face does have an interesting Arc. Sadly, it only really shows up in the tapes, with his game play presence pretty much being "Ha ha Big Boss. I am Bad Guy. Now I'm gonna be a GIANT HAM while leaving my minions to kill you instead of just putting a bullet in your skull".
Anyway, I'll have my retrospective/ranking write up done soon.
I was incredibly disappointed that the tape of Zero talking to Big Boss in the hospital was just that, a tape. There was some really good stuff in there. Actually seeing it would have given it SO MUCH IMPACT. The whole series is based on The Boss and these two men who saw her will differently. Them having this moment, even if Boss is unconscious, would have been so great, and given both context and symmetry with the death of Zero on MGS4. I was okay with most of the tapes being a replacement for the CODEC, but not this one and some others as replacements for cutscenes.
I feel like I've been awfully negative towards the game in this topic, and feel I should point out that for the majority of my playthrough I was having a blast. It's just that by the end it clearly didn't come together and felt hollow, leaving me with negative feelings when all was said and done. Kind of like what Mass Effect 3 did, the majority was good but negatives at the end overshadowed the rest. If the game had been less repetitive and had nailed the story better it would likely have been one of my favorite games.
I feel like I've been awfully negative towards the game in this topic, and feel I should point out that for the majority of my playthrough I was having a blast. It's just that by the end it clearly didn't come together and felt hollow, leaving me with negative feelings when all was said and done. Kind of like what Mass Effect 3 did, the majority was good but negatives at the end overshadowed the rest. If the game had been less repetitive and had nailed the story better it would likely have been one of my favorite games.
Don't feel bad. I feel much the same way. I keep thinking I should really like MGSV a lot more then I actually do and there are some great things about it, but they're overshadowed by how much of a fucking mess it is at times. Peace Walker ends with name dropping CIPHER for the first time and promising there will be more to come. Ground Zeros follows with Skull Face nearly killing Big Boss and Miller and taking down MSF. Phantom Pain really had a great oppurtunity to show Zero's sunset and thus the Patriots taking over along with learning more about CIPHER and XOF and instead it's mostly done offscreen in tapes.Comic Sans said:
I mean, hell, Skull Face almost fucked the world singlehandly by incaptaciating Zero and setting the stage for the Patriots to run things in his abscence......and pretty much all of this is done in audiotapes detached from the main game.
Metal Gear Solid Retrospective: There and Back Again
This 6 month journey through the Metal Gear saga has been fairly surreal. When I started this journey, it was because my interest was peaked by the trailers and hype for MGSV. However, the fact that Ground Zeros starts off with Big Boss raiding a POW camp(Not Guantanamo) in Cuba to rescue two people I'd never heard of that I realized I was gonna need to dig deep into the background and in this case, that meant play every game in the series that matters.
What started as a historic, though fairly video gamey exercise in finding keycards and recusing random hostages(punctuated by a twist where your boss was the bad guy) became a story about mistreatment of soldiers and distrust of the powers that be. Cut scenes took over the games at times and the serious discussions would occasionally be followed up by a Russian Cowboy being possessed by a clone arm or a bisexual electric man controlling a nuclear rocket tank by holding the wires.
Solid Snake's story eventually gave way to the Story of Big Boss, in a rather fascinating move to show the rise of the Villain and how he may not have been as bad as previously imagined(especially in a universe full of shades of grey), slingshotting the series back and forth on the timeline(MGS3 is 50 years before MGS4 and the final game immediately precedes the very first game).
As such both the story and mechanics have gotten increasingly complex and watching it evolve(and seeing where Kojima retconned) has been fascinating. Despite my griping, it really has been a fun ride, though an exhausting one. The Phantom Pain being open world and much longer then the others(Making it feel bloated) makes me happy to be done with it so I can move on to something else. I'm sure I'll revisit the series someday, though not all at once and some of them I'm good with playing them once(Sorry Metal Gear 1).
Ranking this series has been a challenge of itself. I pretty much had to go how I felt about each game as a package, how well the story and gameplay worked and even then, a couple of the games were difficult to decide where to rank them. MGS2, MGSV: TPP and MGS4 felt mixed enough that they might as well be tied for the same place. Along the same lines, MGS and MG2 would be fairly close competitors for the same spot.
So, from Best to Worst, here's my take on the series:
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
After 4 games following the life and times of Solid Snake and throwing a massive curveball at both the fans and the storyline, Snake Eater took an interesting step back. 45 years before MGS2, MGS3 dives into the Cold War era and follows a young Soldier known as Naked Snake, agent for the newly formed FOX unit who would later become the Villian Big Boss.
A routine mission into the soviet union goes horribly wrong and leaves Snake with two options. Find and kill his Mentor/Mother figure known as The Boss or risk almost certain nuclear war. MGS3 is a loving homage to James Bond and Dr. Strangelove that somehow manages to mix Comedy and Tragedy and make both of them work. The game introduces a default over the shoulder type camera system which gives a better viewpoint as well changing up the formula with camouflage and survival mechanics. While most of the bosses have less background, the boss fights are better balanced then most in the series up till this point.
While very little in the game is new, overall the whole thing feels much better executed then any other game in the series before or since. It also has the nice little bonus of having perhaps one of the best theme songs in a video game ever(and possibly the best Bond theme music as well).
"I'm still in a dream, Snake Eater...."
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
The 2nd game in the Big Boss saga(Sorry, Portable Ops Fans), Peace Walker is a direct continuation from the end of Snake Eater, because Kojima pretty much decided that Portable Ops more or less doesn't count(and makes that clear by barely acknowledging it's existence). Snake, rejecting the title of Big Boss, has teamed up with Kaz Miller and in 1974, has founded Militaires Sans Frontiers(MSF), "A new type of business" AKA a Private Military Company. Intrigued by a job offer in nearby Costa Rica, Snake and MSF soon discover the development of Fail Deadly Nuclear Weapons System called Peace Walker, which also happens to be the World's first Metal Gear.
Peace Walker tells a tight story about Nuclear deterrence, the development of the Metal Gear and the beginnings of the AI system which would later become the Patriots, and the rise of Snake's Private Army to a Nuclear Powered Rogue state(AKA Outer Heaven). However, most importantly, it deals with the fact that Snake still hasn't been able to come to terms with having to kill The Boss and his attempts to deal with this slowly start pushing him towards the Villain from the original Metal Gear games. It's all very well executed, though the final chapter is essentially grinding in order to unlock the final Boss battle and the True Ending, where CIPHER is revealed by a Latina Tara Strong in a swim suit piloting the Metal Gear you spent half the game building.
The new audio tape database which provides background info without slowing down the narrative and provides some incredibly amusing moments such as the revelation that Big Boss still believes in Santa Claus.
Along with the normal covert ops gameplay comes the Base Building mode, where Snake develops his offshore fortress "Mother Base" between missions and staffs it with soldiers he kidnap...er, recruits from the battlefield, which will later be reused in MGSV: The Phantom Pain. There's also an interesting mechanic, exclusive to this game, where fighting and defeating bosses can yield pieces to build a Metal Gear of your own, which eventually becomes a final boss battle once certain conditions are met.
While not perfect in any respect, it feels like a very balanced and compelling game in the series, which The Phantom Pain would later build off of.
"And yes, we may all be headed straight to hell. But what better place for us than this? It's our only home. Our heaven and our hell. This is Outer Heaven"
Metal Gear Solid
After two successful games on the relativity limited released MSX console/gaming computer, Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation was the entry that put the series on the map for much of the gaming public. Essentially another remake of the games before it(borrowing liberally from both Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2), this first 3D iteration of the series refined the series elements, more or less removing the keycard hunting from previous entries. Unfortunately, the overhead view from previous games has now been zoomed in and makes it more difficult to see enemies coming, and this is a bit of a problem considering the first person viewpoint is only useful with binoculars and not for actual aiming.
It also started the trend of giving the quirky mini-boss squad more personality, this time in the form of FOXHOUND, Snake's unit which had gone rogue after Snake quit the unit. Snake himself, cynical in Metal Gear 2, more or less had to be forcibly grabbed by the US government and sent back into action due to his attempts to retire from a life of combat, and finds some sympathy with the group, despite their act of domestic terrorism.
The boss battles finally started becoming interesting, which, while still fairly reliant on a certain "gimmick" like MG2's battles, are now more of a challenge instead of being almost insultingly easy. The battle with Metal Gear REX is far more interesting and challenging then the Metal Gear D battle from MG2.
The game has some excellent cutscenes and codec calls, with the downside that they occasionally tend to go on a bit too long. THis is particular noticeable when Solid and Liquid finally meet up near the end, and Liquid does relish going on and on and on about his "Recessive genes" and how much he hates Big Boss despite trying to emulate him. The voice cast is fairly good, with David Hayter beginning his long series of roles as Solid Snake(and later, young Big Boss).This game would go on to set the tone for the rest of the series.
""Not yet, Snake! IT'S NOT OVER YET!"
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Essentially a much improved, fleshed out remake of Metal Gear(but still treating the first game as canonical), MG2 is the first "real" Metal Gear game and codified a lot of the tropes the series is known for.
Pathos mixes with camp in fairly good measure, with some of more tedious elements of the previous game removed(but significant backtracking still remains and while keycard hunting is still there, it's made less annoying). There's also some interesting (if occasional stupid) puzzles, such as using rations to attract animals or the first use of a temperature sensitive object.
Characters now have tragic backstories(Grey Fox in particular) and motives, Snakes heroics in Metal Gear turns out to have had darker consequences(NATO's bombing of Outer Heaven, a soft retcon of the explosion from the ending of Metal Gear) and Big Boss returns as a bit of an anti-villain who talks about the treatment of soldiers, the victims of war and PTSD(but not how Snake is his clone son, because Kojima hadn't writ....er, he saw Snake as a soldier, not a son).
"It doesn't matter who wins here. Our fight will continue. The loser will be liberated from the battlefield, and the survivor will live out the rest of his days as a soldier."
MGSV: Ground Zeros
While part of MGSV, it was released on it's own and feels distinct enough to get it's own entry. Serving as a bridge between Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeros beautifully shows off the FOX engine while delivering a taunt if small episode in the saga. The new mechanics are well done, XOF and Skull face get a great introduction and the fall of mother base as well as what happens to Chico and Paz is a well done gut punch for anyone who played Peace Walker.
The game does have some extra scenarios based around the same map for some extra play time and any prisoners rescued will show up later in The Phantom Pain. Unfortunately, the game really should have been released as part of the full MGSV once entire thing was released, since it's effectively the prologue.
"They played us like a Damn Fiddle!"
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Canonical end of the series, MGS4 is a mix of awesome and awful bound in a very mixed package. From the start, it aims to wrap up the storyline of Solid Snake(who is now suffering from premature advanced aging), expand on Patriot storyline introduced in MGS2 and generally tie everything up into a neat package. To some extent it succeeds in all of this, though not without a generous amount of Nanomachines to bind everything together. There's also a significant amount of fanservice, some of which works better then others.
The gameplay is generally very good, with a few exceptions, and boasts some excellent moments(The final boss fight, the REX vs. RAY battle). However, the cut scenes which make up the other half of the game(9 hours or so) are much more varied in quality, with a lot of them seeming to drag on forever to exposit about not much of anything(NANOMACHINES!) with a few highlights here and the(Big Bosses Return, Ocelot being a massive ham sandwich and enjoying every minute of it). The boss battles are general interesting and fun, as well and would mark the last time in the series the quirky mini-boss squad would appear.
"Nanomachines, Nanomachines, Nanomachines, Nanomachines..."
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The final entry in the series sets off with the premise that "Venom" Snake has been in a coma for the past 9 years after the helicopter crash at the end of Ground Zeros and is now ready to exact his revenge on XOF, CIPHER and Skull Face who put him there. The game boasts some of the best and most robust gameplay in the series due to the FOX engine and no Metal Gear game has ever looked so good.
Sadly, the game is also a mess in so many ways as to undermine it's vast potential. The open world, while vast and pretty, is fairly empty and uninteresting and the plot starts to lose it way after a while and never really finds the way back. Numerous characters are brought in from other Metal Gear games for fan service but are wasted and those that that aren't end up being rendered unlikable(Huey, Miller) or strangely unlike their other appearances(Ocelot, Big Boss). The games twists could have been really clever if not for the fact they're often not developed very well and the central conceit of magical parasites feels like a reuse of the magical nanomachines from MGS4.
"We pull in money, recruits, just to combat Cipher. Rubbing our noses in bloody battlefield dirt. All for revenge."
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
MGS2 has the unenviable job of following up Metal Gear Solid and as a result, ends up being a very peculiar beast. It's gameplay and graphics are much improved in many ways over MGS and it's narrative can be fascinating at times. The Introduction of the Patriots would define the arc of the rest of the series and it's metanarrative concept was way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately, it freely admits it's a blatant copy of the previous game in many respects, most of the bosses are not particularly memorable or interesting and it's final act is often a massive exercise in frustration. It also has some series issues with cut scene/codec/gameplay pacing, where it felt like you couldn't go five minutes without triggering a mandatory codec conversation or cutscene. Unfortunately, some of Kojima's creepier tendencies start showing here(Otacon and his stepmom), the Rosemary/Raiden relationship thing feels like a tumor on the narrative and this is the game that introduced the ludicrous Clone arm plot to the series.
"I need Scissors! 61!"
Metal Gear
The game that started the series, 30 years ago and more or less founded the stealth genre. It also gave us Snake, Big Boss, Gray Fox and the Cardboard Box. Unfortunately, that's about all that's worth talking about in it's favor because most of the game involves avoiding or killing insanely stupid enemies in very boring buildings to find items, prisoners and oh so many keycards to open up more of the game.
It ends up being one of the few times where reading a plot summary makes the game sound far more interesting then it really is(and later games make the Outer Heaven mission sound much more epic then it really was). Even the showdown with Big "Punished" Boss and the "first" Metal Gear are rather anti-climatic. Worth playing only for the sake of completionism.
"This is Big Boss....Turn off your console!"
Anyway, that's it. Thanks for everyone who stuck with my rambling for this long.
This 6 month journey through the Metal Gear saga has been fairly surreal. When I started this journey, it was because my interest was peaked by the trailers and hype for MGSV. However, the fact that Ground Zeros starts off with Big Boss raiding a POW camp(Not Guantanamo) in Cuba to rescue two people I'd never heard of that I realized I was gonna need to dig deep into the background and in this case, that meant play every game in the series that matters.
What started as a historic, though fairly video gamey exercise in finding keycards and recusing random hostages(punctuated by a twist where your boss was the bad guy) became a story about mistreatment of soldiers and distrust of the powers that be. Cut scenes took over the games at times and the serious discussions would occasionally be followed up by a Russian Cowboy being possessed by a clone arm or a bisexual electric man controlling a nuclear rocket tank by holding the wires.
Solid Snake's story eventually gave way to the Story of Big Boss, in a rather fascinating move to show the rise of the Villain and how he may not have been as bad as previously imagined(especially in a universe full of shades of grey), slingshotting the series back and forth on the timeline(MGS3 is 50 years before MGS4 and the final game immediately precedes the very first game).
As such both the story and mechanics have gotten increasingly complex and watching it evolve(and seeing where Kojima retconned) has been fascinating. Despite my griping, it really has been a fun ride, though an exhausting one. The Phantom Pain being open world and much longer then the others(Making it feel bloated) makes me happy to be done with it so I can move on to something else. I'm sure I'll revisit the series someday, though not all at once and some of them I'm good with playing them once(Sorry Metal Gear 1).
Ranking this series has been a challenge of itself. I pretty much had to go how I felt about each game as a package, how well the story and gameplay worked and even then, a couple of the games were difficult to decide where to rank them. MGS2, MGSV: TPP and MGS4 felt mixed enough that they might as well be tied for the same place. Along the same lines, MGS and MG2 would be fairly close competitors for the same spot.
So, from Best to Worst, here's my take on the series:
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
After 4 games following the life and times of Solid Snake and throwing a massive curveball at both the fans and the storyline, Snake Eater took an interesting step back. 45 years before MGS2, MGS3 dives into the Cold War era and follows a young Soldier known as Naked Snake, agent for the newly formed FOX unit who would later become the Villian Big Boss.
A routine mission into the soviet union goes horribly wrong and leaves Snake with two options. Find and kill his Mentor/Mother figure known as The Boss or risk almost certain nuclear war. MGS3 is a loving homage to James Bond and Dr. Strangelove that somehow manages to mix Comedy and Tragedy and make both of them work. The game introduces a default over the shoulder type camera system which gives a better viewpoint as well changing up the formula with camouflage and survival mechanics. While most of the bosses have less background, the boss fights are better balanced then most in the series up till this point.
While very little in the game is new, overall the whole thing feels much better executed then any other game in the series before or since. It also has the nice little bonus of having perhaps one of the best theme songs in a video game ever(and possibly the best Bond theme music as well).
"I'm still in a dream, Snake Eater...."
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
The 2nd game in the Big Boss saga(Sorry, Portable Ops Fans), Peace Walker is a direct continuation from the end of Snake Eater, because Kojima pretty much decided that Portable Ops more or less doesn't count(and makes that clear by barely acknowledging it's existence). Snake, rejecting the title of Big Boss, has teamed up with Kaz Miller and in 1974, has founded Militaires Sans Frontiers(MSF), "A new type of business" AKA a Private Military Company. Intrigued by a job offer in nearby Costa Rica, Snake and MSF soon discover the development of Fail Deadly Nuclear Weapons System called Peace Walker, which also happens to be the World's first Metal Gear.
Peace Walker tells a tight story about Nuclear deterrence, the development of the Metal Gear and the beginnings of the AI system which would later become the Patriots, and the rise of Snake's Private Army to a Nuclear Powered Rogue state(AKA Outer Heaven). However, most importantly, it deals with the fact that Snake still hasn't been able to come to terms with having to kill The Boss and his attempts to deal with this slowly start pushing him towards the Villain from the original Metal Gear games. It's all very well executed, though the final chapter is essentially grinding in order to unlock the final Boss battle and the True Ending, where CIPHER is revealed by a Latina Tara Strong in a swim suit piloting the Metal Gear you spent half the game building.
The new audio tape database which provides background info without slowing down the narrative and provides some incredibly amusing moments such as the revelation that Big Boss still believes in Santa Claus.
Along with the normal covert ops gameplay comes the Base Building mode, where Snake develops his offshore fortress "Mother Base" between missions and staffs it with soldiers he kidnap...er, recruits from the battlefield, which will later be reused in MGSV: The Phantom Pain. There's also an interesting mechanic, exclusive to this game, where fighting and defeating bosses can yield pieces to build a Metal Gear of your own, which eventually becomes a final boss battle once certain conditions are met.
While not perfect in any respect, it feels like a very balanced and compelling game in the series, which The Phantom Pain would later build off of.
"And yes, we may all be headed straight to hell. But what better place for us than this? It's our only home. Our heaven and our hell. This is Outer Heaven"
Metal Gear Solid
After two successful games on the relativity limited released MSX console/gaming computer, Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation was the entry that put the series on the map for much of the gaming public. Essentially another remake of the games before it(borrowing liberally from both Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2), this first 3D iteration of the series refined the series elements, more or less removing the keycard hunting from previous entries. Unfortunately, the overhead view from previous games has now been zoomed in and makes it more difficult to see enemies coming, and this is a bit of a problem considering the first person viewpoint is only useful with binoculars and not for actual aiming.
It also started the trend of giving the quirky mini-boss squad more personality, this time in the form of FOXHOUND, Snake's unit which had gone rogue after Snake quit the unit. Snake himself, cynical in Metal Gear 2, more or less had to be forcibly grabbed by the US government and sent back into action due to his attempts to retire from a life of combat, and finds some sympathy with the group, despite their act of domestic terrorism.
The boss battles finally started becoming interesting, which, while still fairly reliant on a certain "gimmick" like MG2's battles, are now more of a challenge instead of being almost insultingly easy. The battle with Metal Gear REX is far more interesting and challenging then the Metal Gear D battle from MG2.
The game has some excellent cutscenes and codec calls, with the downside that they occasionally tend to go on a bit too long. THis is particular noticeable when Solid and Liquid finally meet up near the end, and Liquid does relish going on and on and on about his "Recessive genes" and how much he hates Big Boss despite trying to emulate him. The voice cast is fairly good, with David Hayter beginning his long series of roles as Solid Snake(and later, young Big Boss).This game would go on to set the tone for the rest of the series.
""Not yet, Snake! IT'S NOT OVER YET!"
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Essentially a much improved, fleshed out remake of Metal Gear(but still treating the first game as canonical), MG2 is the first "real" Metal Gear game and codified a lot of the tropes the series is known for.
Pathos mixes with camp in fairly good measure, with some of more tedious elements of the previous game removed(but significant backtracking still remains and while keycard hunting is still there, it's made less annoying). There's also some interesting (if occasional stupid) puzzles, such as using rations to attract animals or the first use of a temperature sensitive object.
Characters now have tragic backstories(Grey Fox in particular) and motives, Snakes heroics in Metal Gear turns out to have had darker consequences(NATO's bombing of Outer Heaven, a soft retcon of the explosion from the ending of Metal Gear) and Big Boss returns as a bit of an anti-villain who talks about the treatment of soldiers, the victims of war and PTSD(but not how Snake is his clone son, because Kojima hadn't writ....er, he saw Snake as a soldier, not a son).
"It doesn't matter who wins here. Our fight will continue. The loser will be liberated from the battlefield, and the survivor will live out the rest of his days as a soldier."
MGSV: Ground Zeros
While part of MGSV, it was released on it's own and feels distinct enough to get it's own entry. Serving as a bridge between Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeros beautifully shows off the FOX engine while delivering a taunt if small episode in the saga. The new mechanics are well done, XOF and Skull face get a great introduction and the fall of mother base as well as what happens to Chico and Paz is a well done gut punch for anyone who played Peace Walker.
The game does have some extra scenarios based around the same map for some extra play time and any prisoners rescued will show up later in The Phantom Pain. Unfortunately, the game really should have been released as part of the full MGSV once entire thing was released, since it's effectively the prologue.
"They played us like a Damn Fiddle!"
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Canonical end of the series, MGS4 is a mix of awesome and awful bound in a very mixed package. From the start, it aims to wrap up the storyline of Solid Snake(who is now suffering from premature advanced aging), expand on Patriot storyline introduced in MGS2 and generally tie everything up into a neat package. To some extent it succeeds in all of this, though not without a generous amount of Nanomachines to bind everything together. There's also a significant amount of fanservice, some of which works better then others.
The gameplay is generally very good, with a few exceptions, and boasts some excellent moments(The final boss fight, the REX vs. RAY battle). However, the cut scenes which make up the other half of the game(9 hours or so) are much more varied in quality, with a lot of them seeming to drag on forever to exposit about not much of anything(NANOMACHINES!) with a few highlights here and the(Big Bosses Return, Ocelot being a massive ham sandwich and enjoying every minute of it). The boss battles are general interesting and fun, as well and would mark the last time in the series the quirky mini-boss squad would appear.
"Nanomachines, Nanomachines, Nanomachines, Nanomachines..."
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The final entry in the series sets off with the premise that "Venom" Snake has been in a coma for the past 9 years after the helicopter crash at the end of Ground Zeros and is now ready to exact his revenge on XOF, CIPHER and Skull Face who put him there. The game boasts some of the best and most robust gameplay in the series due to the FOX engine and no Metal Gear game has ever looked so good.
Sadly, the game is also a mess in so many ways as to undermine it's vast potential. The open world, while vast and pretty, is fairly empty and uninteresting and the plot starts to lose it way after a while and never really finds the way back. Numerous characters are brought in from other Metal Gear games for fan service but are wasted and those that that aren't end up being rendered unlikable(Huey, Miller) or strangely unlike their other appearances(Ocelot, Big Boss). The games twists could have been really clever if not for the fact they're often not developed very well and the central conceit of magical parasites feels like a reuse of the magical nanomachines from MGS4.
"We pull in money, recruits, just to combat Cipher. Rubbing our noses in bloody battlefield dirt. All for revenge."
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
MGS2 has the unenviable job of following up Metal Gear Solid and as a result, ends up being a very peculiar beast. It's gameplay and graphics are much improved in many ways over MGS and it's narrative can be fascinating at times. The Introduction of the Patriots would define the arc of the rest of the series and it's metanarrative concept was way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately, it freely admits it's a blatant copy of the previous game in many respects, most of the bosses are not particularly memorable or interesting and it's final act is often a massive exercise in frustration. It also has some series issues with cut scene/codec/gameplay pacing, where it felt like you couldn't go five minutes without triggering a mandatory codec conversation or cutscene. Unfortunately, some of Kojima's creepier tendencies start showing here(Otacon and his stepmom), the Rosemary/Raiden relationship thing feels like a tumor on the narrative and this is the game that introduced the ludicrous Clone arm plot to the series.
"I need Scissors! 61!"
Metal Gear
The game that started the series, 30 years ago and more or less founded the stealth genre. It also gave us Snake, Big Boss, Gray Fox and the Cardboard Box. Unfortunately, that's about all that's worth talking about in it's favor because most of the game involves avoiding or killing insanely stupid enemies in very boring buildings to find items, prisoners and oh so many keycards to open up more of the game.
It ends up being one of the few times where reading a plot summary makes the game sound far more interesting then it really is(and later games make the Outer Heaven mission sound much more epic then it really was). Even the showdown with Big "Punished" Boss and the "first" Metal Gear are rather anti-climatic. Worth playing only for the sake of completionism.
"This is Big Boss....Turn off your console!"
Anyway, that's it. Thanks for everyone who stuck with my rambling for this long.
...does this mean you're going to do a Lord of the Rings marathon next?Dalisclock said:
Anyway, congratulations on getting through it (though for better or worse, I don't see any mention of Rising, Survive, or the spin-off games). Since I never made it beyond 3, I couldn't really comment too much on the games after that.
Lies....
How can you play the entire Metal Gear series and still not question whether the mountains of inane melodrama hasn't warped your idea of decent writing, pacing, and character development? It basically takes human agency, turns it into wank, then that wank takes you hostage at gunpoint ... dragged you into the next SpaceX rocket and screams; "Take this rocket to Gamma Epsilon V!!"
And it does all of this with a totally straight face.
Like ... no hint of parody, satire, or self-awareness. No real attempts at parody, satire, or self-awareness beyond hackneyed popculture references that are cringingly bad. I will say MGS3 is the only one I legitimately enjoyed actually concerning the plot, characters, and delivery. Right until it tried to inject itself into the greater narrative.
I will say it's 'creative' ... but that's another way of calling it utter shambles.
How can you play the entire Metal Gear series and still not question whether the mountains of inane melodrama hasn't warped your idea of decent writing, pacing, and character development? It basically takes human agency, turns it into wank, then that wank takes you hostage at gunpoint ... dragged you into the next SpaceX rocket and screams; "Take this rocket to Gamma Epsilon V!!"
And it does all of this with a totally straight face.
Like ... no hint of parody, satire, or self-awareness. No real attempts at parody, satire, or self-awareness beyond hackneyed popculture references that are cringingly bad. I will say MGS3 is the only one I legitimately enjoyed actually concerning the plot, characters, and delivery. Right until it tried to inject itself into the greater narrative.
I will say it's 'creative' ... but that's another way of calling it utter shambles.
Oh, I did LOTR a couple years ago. The Extended Editions over New Years.Hawki said:
And then the entire Harry Potter series the year after that. I might have a binging problem.
I decided to only stick with the mainline Kojima games, which are apparently the only Canon ones (Rising is probably Canon as well but leaving that aside). Otherwise this would have taken a lot longer(not to mention some of those other games are a bit hard to get ahold of).
Not to mention Survive doesn't look like it's worth the money or time, even if I wasn't pissed at Konami.
I'm not sure how much of the above thread you read but I'm pretty sure I did call the series out numerous times on it's issues(as I saw them), including how fucking batshit it can be at timesAddendum_Forthcoming said:
I was more so making fun of the title of the thread. I think the only way to keep your sanity is to forget 99% of what the games tell you (because both the games and your brain will inevitably tell you it's wrong, anyways) ... I did read (in part) some of your posts and you're remarkably more patient than I was.Dalisclock said:
Oh, believe me, there was a lot of having to tell myself "Just go with it" or I never would have made it. In the Phantom Pain, there's a scene where Eli jumps in a floating Metal gear and flies off into the sunset. Nobody(Miller, Snake and Ocelot) watching this even so much as say "Well, that's different". I didn't comment on it in the thread because I'd pretty given up on trying to trying to criticize why nobody thinks any of this is strange. Granted, nobody in universe ever commented on the possession clone arm thing either.Addendum_Forthcoming said:
Granted, I'd also sat through 50 or so hours(or maybe it just felt like that) of mind numbing BS about magic language parasites and a floating 50 foot tall mecha felt normal in comparison.
Concerning Rising, it's effectively second tier canon. To quote Kojima:Dalisclock said:
"...the games in the series that I've personally designed and produced - Metal Gear on MSX, MG2, MGS1, 2, 3, 4, Peace Walker, and now MGSV - are what constitute a single "Metal Gear Saga."
The Metal Gear wiki uses this to distinguish between "Metal Gear Saga" games from the likes of Portable Ops, Rising, and tie-in material (e.g. novels). I admit I dislike Rising for a variety of reasons (reasons that come entirely from watching the game rather than playing it mind you, so I can't comment too much), but unlike, say, Snake's Revenge or Ghost Babel, there's nothing to stop it from being in canon.
Though one must ask, given how insane the Metal Gear universe can get, is a parallel dimension overrun with zombies really that far fetched? 0_0
I've heard that the gameplay is actually fairly good, but part of it is that I thought Raiden got a lot less interesting when he became the breakdancing cyborg ninja dead machine of MGS4 instead of the newbie who is actually suppressing his memories of being a child soldier(with the help of the Patriots manipulating his life every step of the way) he was in MGS2.Hawki said:
I hadn't seen that particular qoute but it does put to rest Portable Op's station in the canon. Ironically, Peace Walker does make some very brief references to Portable Ops(the Sneaking suit, a single mention of FOXHOUND and "That mess in San Hieronymo"), completely ignores the rest of it and MGSV in turn completely ignores it, summarizing the events of Snake Eater and Peace Walker before jumping into the main game.
I was thinking more the fact that I was over zombie games 5 years ago and it's very rare I find a "survival" game I actually like. The parallel dimension thing basically just makes it a shaggy dog story rather then anything particularly implausible.Hawki said:
I know it doesn't really matter at this point and I'm probably a fool for even bothering to point it out, but something reminded me that the whole Paz subplot in MGSV completely falls apart if at any point Snake had walked up to either Miller or Ocelot and said "So, how's Paz doing?". I know the whole thing is supposed to be a foreshadowing of the fact Big Boss was brainwashed and hallucinating because of the Shrapnel sticking out of his skull and there's plenty of hints that Paz was dead all along(her survival makes no sense, her memories make no sense, mooks nearby mention the boss just standing on a half constructed platform alone) but this was all supposed to be occuring over months and it seems really hard to swallow that at no point did Big Boss even mention Paz during any of this time. Or hell, Ocelot making a comment about Snake going over to the Med platform so often to just stand there talking to himself.
Or maybe this did all happen and Snake just forgot all about it because of his Shrapnel? I mean, He did hallucinate entire audio tapes of Paz narrating into his inventory because....something something emotions?
Or maybe this did all happen and Snake just forgot all about it because of his Shrapnel? I mean, He did hallucinate entire audio tapes of Paz narrating into his inventory because....something something emotions?