Big Boss in MGS4 was Richard Doyle. I guess if they have an older voice to fit with Snake’s aging, it could make sense.
Exactly. 9 years? That would put it at 1984? Big Boss would be 49…
Nooooooo! Kojima! Do you know how fucking long it took me to figure out how to upgrade the Mother Base just right to get the ‘secret’ boss battle at the end? Fuck!
Even more reason to ruthlessly hunt down the XOF. I still need to play PW. Planning on picking up the HD collection soon.
Yeah, Peace Walker is the best PSP game there is, but it belongs on consoles. Plays just about like MGS3 with some tweaks, obviously.
Hahaha fuck you fanboys, no more Hayter for you.
Writing will also probably be as shit as MGS4. Unless Tomokazu Fukushima is going to come back to edit Kojima’s bullshit.
But hey, looks like they’re bringing Ocelot and P.Mantis in?
Cool. I guess.
I don’t think MGS’s writing has every been literature tier. I enjoy all the corny stuff. I also don’t mind Hayter not being in, though awhile ago on his Twitter he was posting stuff that made it seem he was in the game in some capacity so maybe he’s not playing BB but another character. I actually really enjoyed MGS4 but this game looks like it’ll be better from what we’ve seen.
MGS4 is one of the better last/current gen console games, make no mistake.
But compared to MGS1/2/3, MGS4 writing is actually appalling - especially compared to MGS1 and a sizeable chunk of Sons of Liberty.
So bad it barely even felt like actually belonging to the series it was supposed to continue, rather taking the piss out of everything that was established prior, with its ridiculous shoehorning and retcons.
It can’t be rationally explained by anything other than Fukushima leaving as a co-writer. And Kojima actually admitting his own incompetence to create any more decent Metal Gear related stuff. Don’t blame him. MGS2 was supposed to be the last, after all.
Leave alone writing, it simply went on and betrayed, if not everything, most things that made Metal Gear game a Metal Gear game, instead giving us - drebin points, complete diminishing of the importance of stealth gameplay (even by MGS3 standards), worst fucking excuse for Boss characters, absolutely worseless Act-3, that slap in the face with Gekko insfested Shadow Moses in act 4, 2 minutes of crawling in Act5 (the only time you actually have to go tealth mode),
/Rant over
MGS1 is best MGS
Agreed. Back then Hayter actually remembered how to do Snake’s voice properly.
My two favorites are MGS3 and Peace Walker. The former had the hands-down best story in the entire series and utilized it’s “survival” mechanics well, and the latter took all of the better parts of MGS4 and gave us a ridiculously awesome in-game base that expanded as you played. (Plus, you can build your own damn Metal Gear. Sadly you can’t pilot it like in 4 though.) I do wish there were more real-time cutscenes though- the comic art was fine and dandy, but half the reason I play Metal Gear games is for the great real-time cutscene direction and tight camerawork.
MGS1 was good, but was quite different in terms of the overall gameplay allowances. Non-lethal runs were much harder since there was no tranq gun, and Liquid Snake’s overall motivations were complete horseshit to anyone with even a passing interest in genetics.
Twin Snakes added in the good stuff from MGS2 to MGS1 along with updated graphics, but the bullet time cutscenes were just plain silly. I think that was something Kojima sanctioned on purpose, to visually exaggerate the importance of the events of Shadow Moses and how much the fans worship MGS1 and Snake. A modern day “tall tale,” so to speak.
MGS2 was also very good. In fact, I kinda liked Raiden’s character arc- it’s a merciless deconstruction of the industry of video game sequels, and exceptionally effective. Spec Ops: The Line tried so hard to be this game for the Modern Warfare style shooter market, but honestly, MGS2 did it much better AND allowed the player more freedom to choose non-lethal means of making your way through the game. It simply used the cutscene narrative beats, ordinarily taken by players as visual rewards for progress, and used them against the player to destroy almost all semblance of progress. It’s a brilliant deconstruction and far ahead of it’s time.
MGS4 on the other hand, is a mixed bag. Amazing visuals and fluid gameplay, but holy GOD is the story nuts. You really have to be paying attention to the whole series to even understand what the hell is going on. Even when you do, there are retcons all over the place, and some character turns that don’t make sense. I mean, Otacon and Naomi is the third most awkward romance in gaming history, next to Zoe and Damien in Dreamfall and Lucas and Carla in Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. It comes out of nowhere and is obviously an attempt by Kojima to sink the Snake/Otacon ship. The stronger parts of the game dealt with how Snake and Meryl interact- we don’t know what precisely happened between them after MGS1 seemed to have them ride off into the sunset together, but the implications are heavy. Everyone starts treating Snake different because of his accelerated aging, and how this is dealt with in-story and in-game (with Snake’s random bursts of back pain) is rather poignant.
The B&B core would have been far more effective in terms of their backstories if Drebin wasn’t the one narrating them. Snake should have taken a trip through their brains in Beauty mode after the fights and seen some of this stuff firsthand- after all, the crazy audio cues during these sequences already correspond directly with Drebin’s stories afterwards, so why not use it? Mise en scene would do wonders for this aspect of the game, and considering how much Kojima Productions draws on the language of cinema, we might as well see it for ourselves.
As for the actual gameplay conceit, it’s most intact and at it’s most fun in the first two chapters. Afterwards, the “sneaking through battlefields” game focus is broken over it’s knee to facilitate the new locations. Act 3’s following sequence was allright, honestly- it was a nice changeup from the typical gameplay, and a lot easier if you just have Campbell or Otacon’s face camo to just walk around in the trench coat for the first couple of maps while taking care to stay out of spotlights. Also, there was a golden oppertunity for them to force a MGS3 Eva escort mission after the Raging Raven fight, and they DIDN’T take it. That deserves some praise.
Act 4 and 5 are just fuck-awful though- Act 4 pits you against tons of robots and only gives you FROG enemies when you fight Crying Wolf. (Admittedly, since Ocelot did just take control of SOP, that means the entire world’s conflicts are at a standstill at the moment, so the break in Act 1 and 2 style gameplay makes sense from a story perspective.) Act 5 sees Ocelot’s entire ship alerted to your presence from the start and it’s incredibly difficult to remain undetected- FROGs and Gekko are absolutely everywhere and capable of killing you in very short order.
Lol? MGS3 story was easily the weakest out of the first three. Please don’t go telling me that “BBs relationship with the Boss” was well-written. Horse. Shit.
I’ll give it to you, it’s way better than MGS4 and PW and one of the better VG stories on PS2, but best story in the entire series? Please.
There is no such thing as non-lethal in MGS1.
Lol how the hell did real life genetics had anything to with the fictional Perfect Soldier Gene project? The term recessive and dominant was used for conventionality’s sake.
It actually ruined the MGS1 design and gameplay mechanics. Psycho mantis boss fight, useless lockers, etc.
Music was shit, voice acting was shit. And the character models were lazily ‘upscaled’ instead of properly remodelled.
Hahaha nooo. It’s because Ryuhei Kitamura is a notorious Matrix circlejerker and Kojima simply didn’t give a shit/is a member of Kitamura’s circlejerk fan club. Also, who cares about nintendo anyway.
Playing through the plant chapter now and it still holds up - especially as a satiric look into U.S. society, media, political and economic system. Yet sometimes I wish the Tanker chapter and Metal Gear Ray plot arc didn’t end so prematurely.
Point 1: Snake’s relationship with The Boss was pretty hilariously awful, yes, but it’s more how it impacted his interactions with EVA that made it interesting. Most games feature our macho male protagonist hitting on anything with legs, and anyone like EVA would be fawned over or fucked for most of the game. Snake showed some emotional vulnerability, because EVA is eerily similar looking to the Boss. As she tried to get closer to him, he moved further away, turned inward. It’s only at the end of the game that this dynamic changes meaningfully, and then she screws him over because she’s an enemy spy. It’s a break from video game AND film romance conventions and for that the game gets my respect.
Plus, the fight with The End. Hhhhnnnngggg. Best boss fight ever.
Point 2. Exactly. There isn’t, which is why it’s a lot weirder to play compared to more recent installments. I think someone did a mostly non-lethal run (killing no one but where it’s required- boss fights and that bit with Meryl’s escaping from prison). One point I will levy against MGS1 is that stupid part where the un-killable security camera sees you and forces you to run up the entire tower with guards chasing you.
Point 3. It’s still pretty silly. Ocelot remains the more compelling villain, and in some ways he’s still the main antagonist of MGS1 instead of Liquid, because he was running his typical behind-the-scenes manipulation games for George Sears/Solidus Snake.
Eva/Snake pairing was a pretty cringeworthy and forced relationship - but was written in a quite humorous nd self-aware ‘J.Bond parody’ way. If anything, Snake Eater is a good self-aware vintage James Bond parody for what it’s worth.
Lol you like to make stuff up, don’t you. She was constantly trying to get in his face and on his dick - the hoe was simply getting in the way and BB was too busy playing pocket pool off to the Boss.
Agreed.
Ocelot is the best character in the series. Period.
Yet it still is an actually well-written sci-fi premise that was linked to then current interest - genome mapping, just as GW was for Y2K.
Speaking of MGS2, still gutted that Kojima was enough of a pussy to cut out a huge chunk out of the ending due to the silly bullshit reason that was 9/11.
Everyone cut stuff out because of that.
Honestly though, they should have restored those bits for the HD version at least…
Exactly my sentiment. Kojima, that piece of shit
To be fair, Bluepoint was the staff that did the porting.
Also, would anyone keep cut assets from a 11 year old game lying around in the office? They would probably have had to make new art assets, which could have clashed with the originals. It was probably just too much trouble to add for something that would have just made the GIGANTIC cutscene players had to sit through before the final fight EVEN LONGER.
I still would have liked to see it.
Just as no one keeps master rolls of films? Hah.
That shit is still out there somewhere.
I once saw the vid with the assholes in Konami playing the original MGO in 2012.
Still better than that awful jump cut.
1984? I thought this series was set in the near future.