The best part of MGS, IMO, is how cracked up Hideo Kojima was when he made that game. I mean, how else would you think of things like the Psycho Mantis fight? or looking at the actual box to find Meryl's frequency. It was out-of-the-box ideas like that which made MGS a great game for me.
Metal Gear Solid's story; touchy subject.
- Thread starter Enigmatic_Apple
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I can't believe how long it took me to figure out which box he was talking about...Mage26 said:
I'm sorry, but neither MGS or MGS2 qualifies as having a "good" story. I can't speak to 3, because I was fed up with it by that time.
A good story is not simply defined by complexity - which is all those MGS games have going for them. The pacing of both games carried no sense of tension. If it wasn't people chirping in on the radio to blather on about their personal problems - the boss characters themselves (ostensibly practiced killers) would feel the need to pour their soul out either before or after being defeated. I'm willing to believe that perhaps it losses something in the translation - but that does not give the story a free pass to be "good" once spewed forth in English.
After seeing the bizarre focus on male genitals in the preview movies of MGS4 - I'm convinced that the entire series is one mans titanic practical joke. These aren't games, these are social experiments - how far can people read meaning and significance into something that is rapidly approaching abstract art?
A good story is not simply defined by complexity - which is all those MGS games have going for them. The pacing of both games carried no sense of tension. If it wasn't people chirping in on the radio to blather on about their personal problems - the boss characters themselves (ostensibly practiced killers) would feel the need to pour their soul out either before or after being defeated. I'm willing to believe that perhaps it losses something in the translation - but that does not give the story a free pass to be "good" once spewed forth in English.
After seeing the bizarre focus on male genitals in the preview movies of MGS4 - I'm convinced that the entire series is one mans titanic practical joke. These aren't games, these are social experiments - how far can people read meaning and significance into something that is rapidly approaching abstract art?
Well, I have seen Saving Private Ryan - and I agree that CoD4 does a better job than any *game* of conveying the raw violence of modern warfare. Sure - it's a bit cartoony, but they're not trying to shell-shock people.Katana314 said:
I like that your character doesn't have a face - that's the point of a first-person shooter, isn't it? The entire point of it being first-person is that you, the player, empathize in a personal way with the game actions. We get to play war, without having to genuinely be there. The story interacts with the player in a more personal way - rather than showing what happens from the third-person.
Did we really play the same MGS? MGS1 and MGS2 really well set up games but they are nowhere even close to the quality of MGS3. I'll admit the MGS story is a little hokey at times but that's part of the charm. I know plenty of people, like myself, who love the MGS series and plenty of people who don't. I think it's a point of view based sort of thing. You make the game as good as you want it to be. You may have just glimpsed the outside (unfunny jokes and seemingly useless banter) but if you look deeper, Hideo Kojima revolutionized gaming as mentioned above with MGS1. It's a shooter that wasn't really a shooter.Chiggins said:
I'm surprised anyone would say that the Metal Gear Solid games have really great writing when compared with serious games. The MGSes have always been rip-roaring comedies as far as I'm concerned - insane plots, over-the-top cliches, unimaginable characters and a whole lot of fun. They are not, in my opinion, to be taken in any way seriously. They're absolutely brilliant (for both story and gameplay), and some of the best games ever made, but not something you can properly compare to a game that takes itself seriously.
I have not seen a compelling and yet reasonable, in its base, story for a long time. Neither in books nor in movies. The untold history in MGS Saga (ignoring the lame names of the bosses, etc.) was one exception.
In fact, I haven't read a interesting book that it wasn't a thematical one, yet.
In fact, I haven't read a interesting book that it wasn't a thematical one, yet.
I agree with you there, especially about MGS2. As far as video games go, it's pretty good. But it pales in comparison to MGS and especially MGS3. MGS3, I think, is one of the best stories ever created in a video game. And the boss names aren't completely ridiculous, either.wellington said:
I think that MGS2 was a bit of a experiment on Kojima's part. There's a lot of that philosophical underpinning to the MGS2 story. The facts of the story don't make much sense in that there are so many plot holes you'd have to wonder if it were manufactured my a Swiss dairy company (natch). However, the philosophy came out intact and made an interesting statement about the new Wikiality that seems to have taken hold in our socity.
The storylines and characters in MGS games have always been silly, not to mention anime- or at least Japan-ized up the rear, even MGS3, which I thought had the best storyline of the three. This isn't to say the storylines are bad, and in fact I thought some of the things going on in the background that are not spelled out are pretty brilliant (like the fact that Ocelot is really screwing over everyone he works with, in every game), but as previous posters have said, it really only seems good for a video game. Like Final Fantasy and to some extent Half-Life MGS never really told an amazing story as much as it told a comparatively good story with unprecedented presentation. If MGS is ever made into a movie, particularly an American movie, you can guarantee the story is either going to be changed beyond belief or will remain exactly the same and none of the hardcore fans will understand why their family and friends laughed at them for watching it.