Why Kojima fails

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

I paid money for it, so I figured I'd give 2nd runner a second chance. Then this happened:

Gf: "Where are you going?"
Me: "I'm going to play Zone of the Enders HD collection."
Gf: "Is that the one with the penis robots?"

[Skykid]

This thread is bait... Just let it die. I've been sucked in before.

Too late! We've already made it to the second page with almost unanimous agreement that Hideo Kojima is seriously lacking in editing skills and narrative focus. So La Li Lu Le Lo I'm not listening!

But this thread is really about that interview. It's a good read, with the most pertinent question and answer in the OP.

But I'm going to do that today, because I've been playing Policenauts.

My save file tells me I'm more than five hours in. More than five hours of mind-numbing tedium.

Policenauts is my most restarted text adventure. I love Snatcher through and through, and I really like Policenauts opening, but for whatever reason I keep losing interest after a few hours and forget to revisit it.

I wouldn't go as far as to say I disliked it, but I agree it's already starting down the road of ridiculous exposition. Kojima gets his teeth into a new format, reaps success, and then assumes that's a green light to start expanding like a hot air balloon.

I'm definitely going to play Policenauts through though.

[Softdrink 117]

I'll admit that I'm a fan of the Metal Gear series overall, but it is definitely starting to feel forced. MGS4 had some truly great gameplay moments along with some very meh ones and way too many cutscenes, but it did actually manage to mostly resolve the series plotline in a way that made some modicum of sense. Not saying it couldn't have been done better or more succinctly, but it did what it was supposed to do. Of the main series games, 1 and 3 are definitely my favorites.

Everything that has come since though just seems like Konami pleading for money. Even when it was done relatively well (like Peace Walker, which I played extensively for a very long time, since it's mission-by-mission format works really well as a portable game), it still feels like it's just unnecessary. Kojima has said repeatedly that he doesn't want to do more MGS games, but either he is too afraid to actually do something different or Konami and the fandom is putting enough pressure on him that he feels compelled to keep some creative control.

As a side note, I actually really liked MGR, but that has more to do with it being a completely different take on the same universe and Platinum being incredibly good at making that kind of game.

[Ed Oscuro]

Did you know that a railgun "sends electric current through a magnetic field?"

That may have just been fucked up by the translation though.

Good news though: Peace Walker (and the codec system, ever since it's been around) has done a good job letting me ignore that stuff completely, and just get back to the fight.

[Skykid]

MGS4 had some truly great gameplay moments along with some very meh ones and way too many cutscenes, but it did actually manage to mostly resolve the series plotline in a way that made some modicum of sense.

Did it make some modicum of sense? I remember thinking during the process that it seemed to be getting somewhere and certain aspects of the overarching plot were starting to unravel, which was a nice feeling, but by the end I was left with a few new kernels of information and a bucketload more of nonsensical dross.

It always brings a smile to my face to imagine the team sitting in the office when they were proposing MGS4. Did anyone download the MGS4 Database? I think it was free on PSN if you had a copy of MGS4 on release.

That DB was written internally prior to MGS4's production so the team could try to establish what exactly had happened previously in an attempt to resolve the plot. It was then released to the public as a freebie so that we could go through it with a fine tooth comb and go, "Oh yeah, it does all make sense!" Except it doesn't. I read it through twice (it's enormous) and revisited loads of sections trying to get a handle on it, and it's just as confusing in written form.

Hideo: "Right, we're going to have to figure out how this ends, and to do that we need to build an encyclopaedic chronology so we have some idea of every fine detail that's already occurred, and then tie it all together."

Everyone looks sheepish.

"So does anyone have any idea what the hell is going on in the series so far?" he continues.

A few murmurs, playing with feet.

"Okay then, let's get started. Anyone know who The Patriots are?..."

[BrianC]

I was hoping this would be a "why Konami fails" topic. I wan't a new good non outsourced Contra and a new game with Pentarou!

I like MGS 1 and 3, as well as the first MG on MSX and the GBC Metal Gear. I have MGS2 and MG2 Solid Snake, but I haven't played them yet.

[neorichieb1971]

Companies fail in this generation because they are trying to fit triangles into squares.

Ridge racer didn't fit into a burnout.
Castlevania didn't really fit into a God of War
Street Fighter didn't fit into Tekken


In just those 3 cases above, the copycats came afterwards and were worse than the originals.

Then, the companies are too scared to take the franchises in their NATURAL direction.


With Kojima. He gets praise because he came up with some good ideas at first, then he emphasized a great deal of details in his games. The one thing he has never done is good gameplay. He puts the gameplay in small boxes with great atmosphere especially in MGS. You just move from one side of the box to the other side without being seen and I have never understood why that is so amazing.

If MGS 4 was built around the Uncharted engine and consisted of more gameplay you would have a good game. The cut scenes should be less than 30 mins in any game.. even thats a bit much imho.

[trap15]

Please no. MGS gameplay is actually really good, and if you disagree, this probably isn't a series for you.

[Limbrooke]

This thread is bait... Just let it die. I've been sucked in before.

When the lunatics are running the asylum, this is what you get. I wonder how many more MGS threads that guy will make.

[drauch]

Please no. MGS gameplay is actually really good, and if you disagree, this probably isn't a series for you.

I can agree there. Solid gameplay and some neat mechanics, but I hate just about everything else about the series.

[Xyga]

I want to love ZOE because of the great visuals and setting - but the gameplay and story are barely noteworthy. I only played 2nd Runner last year too. What a horrific disappointment. Might still buy the toys though.

I love ZOE2 :/
I actually got chills from the intro when

Spoiler

dingo is on the brink of death

DINGO fucking EGRET
Best main character name evar.

Only disappointment; his sister ZOOT not featured.

[neorichieb1971]

In MGS4 I hid behind a drum with my ass sticking out and an enemy came right up to me without seeing me. If thats good gameplay you can keep it. Each level is a puzzle of "line of sight" and thats it. When you are seen the most ridiculous things happen like you start a fire fight against unimaginable odds or someone chases you into a dead end and doesn't think to look in the box.

Metal Gear is wanted by every government in the world, but ONE MAN with a rocket launcher can take numerous counts of them out all by himself.

The characters are brilliant though and the music/atmosphere top class. The storylines are wishy washy at best. The series has a host of highlights. I loved many of the bosses.. But overall I'd say Kojima used up his best ideas early on and any release after that just got diluted aspects. The law of diminishing returns definitely applied to me as the series went on.

The main reason the games sell is because of the graphics. They are always ahead of their time because of the small arenas they are based in.

[Octopod]

I haven't had interest in this series since the NES days. I remember a friend of mine playing Solid on PS1 back in the day and talking it up and telling me I should play it but it looked supremely boring to me. I'm not much into cinematic narrative gaming in the first place and this series seems to be about nothing but that from what I can tell. I'll freely admit that I could be wrong since I have only played the first game on NES. When it came to PS1 stealth games I just stuck with Tenchu. I'm sure that a lot of developers use focus groups and the like but when someone says it it just turns me off for some reason. I think I read it as telling me the game will present no challenge what so ever. Perhaps that is not justified and I could be way off base with that but it is what springs immediately to mind.

A bit of an aside but I have actually played a bit of Rising. I think I played about an hour maybe hour and a half. Way too many cutscenes and quick time events. I felt like the action was constantly being interrupted. Maybe it gets better after that though?

*This post should be read as I have no idea what I am talking about really and my judgement is based off viewing 20 minutes of gameplay 15 years ago. I basically threw this out there even though I am probably talking out of my ass. *shrug*

[trap15]

In MGS4 I hid behind a drum with my ass sticking out and an enemy came right up to me without seeing me. If thats good gameplay you can keep it. Each level is a puzzle of "line of sight" and thats it. When you are seen the most ridiculous things happen like you start a fire fight against unimaginable odds or someone chases you into a dead end and doesn't think to look in the box.

So you're going with the good ol' "realism" argument then. Yeah, you just don't get it then.

[Skykid]

In MGS4 I hid behind a drum with my ass sticking out and an enemy came right up to me without seeing me. If thats good gameplay you can keep it. Each level is a puzzle of "line of sight" and thats it. When you are seen the most ridiculous things happen like you start a fire fight against unimaginable odds or someone chases you into a dead end and doesn't think to look in the box.

So you're going with the good ol' "realism" argument then. Yeah, you just don't get it then.

Yeah realism definitely unnecessary in games and never really been MGS's USP. I agree the control layout is overcomplicated with a lot of unnecessary frills, but it's not where I'd level explicit criticism.

This thread is bait... Just let it die. I've been sucked in before.

When the lunatics are running the asylum, this is what you get. I wonder how many more MGS threads that guy will make.

"Lunatics."

You and Strider77 are like clockwork. Several years go by and anything I post in relation to Kojima's ineptitude guarantees to bring you out of the woodwork like two peas in a pod. I'm sure you can deal with some people not kissing the guy's ass. Suck it up, you'll be fine.

[Ed Oscuro]

Things start getting interesting in Peace Walker's Chapter 3!

Too bad when I went to capture another KPz 70 that I died in the final seconds without a ration involved. Damn PKM fire. The more important thing is that the inventory is awkward to use - nothing impossible but definitely awkward. Gameplay still flows pretty well around the inventory / supply chain functions though.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Metal Gear Solid 3 and Japanese supergamers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le23bsVURds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWmrzwWclzE

[Formless God]

Sounds more like an AI design issue than a "realism" issue to me.

[Marc]

Best Metal Gear review I ever read was a guest spot on World of Stuart. I'd link to it, but I'm pissed, but everyone should read it, fucking priceless.

[Skykid]

Best Metal Gear review I ever read was a guest spot on World of Stuart. I'd link to it, but I'm pissed, but everyone should read it, fucking priceless.

Found it. It is absolute gold, perhaps beyond all compare, and you're right, everyone should read it. So much so, fuck it, here it is:

I've more or less finished it now.

Words cannot adequately describe my disgust, horror and contempt at how stupendously terrible this game is. The first "act" is fun, but too cutscene-y. The second is less cutsceney, and the best part of the game. The first level of the third act is neat and pretty fun, mostly sneaky with some chances for killin'. There's one level very near the end that's fun (I got killed on my first go, then got through it in half an hour without getting spotted once on my second try. It was probably the best bit of the game, in fact, though it's nothing revolutionary, just a nice little tricky stealth section. Deus Ex or all the Hitman games have about 20 bits this good, though). The rest of it is 90% cutscenes, and 100% utter, utter shit.

My advice: If you must play this (at a friend's house or something. Don't buy it. Do not buy this "game"), once you've done the level where you tail the resistance member, switch the game off, and never play beyond that point. There is absolutely nothing in the rest of the game that comes close to justifying a quarter of the shit this game contains. Some examples? Okey dokey.



- a cutscene. The game gives you control. You have no choice but to run directly forward along a very long, empty walkway with no scenery while flashbacks play in the audio (most of them from about five minutes ago, so hardly worth flashing back). As you reach the end, another cutscene starts. So, you don't get to control the scene where you beat up five guys in close quarters, nor the scene where you 'ambush' six guys in a helicopter by firing over their heads and hoping for another of the series' trademark dei ex machinis. But you do get to control the cutscene where you walk along an empty corridor in an empty room in a straight line while nothing happens. Great. Thanks.

- there's a corridor that kills you as you walk through it (and you have to, as it's the only way to the advance the sequence of shit cutscenes, or "game" if you're feeling generous). At least, it almost does. It's a microwave corridor, which should kill you and any living thing in seconds - as is pointed out by everyone in the vicinity - but you walk through it, getting slower and slower, as the screen goes split again and shows some random footage of shit characters nobody worth pushing out of the way of a speeding car gives a toss about, as they try to be dramatic. You get slower and slower, to an agonising crawl, and have no choice but to sit there like a twat holding forwards for about four minutes... and then it tells you to press a button repeatedly. You have to press this button repeatedly, faster and faster, for two full minutes, or you die before you reach the other side.

- you meet a recurring (and annoying) boss who you get to fight until he's almost dead, then let him recover, then get someone else to fight him until he's almost dead again. Then, instead of letting you finish the loathsome prick off however you see fit (slit his throat? Kick him around for a while? Fire tranquilisers into his head until he dies? A grenade? Shotgun execution?), you get another cutscene where someone pops up to say how you should make it easy and be merciful, and then she injects him with something that makes him grunt and wince and ARGH before dying. Which is not only less satisfying than simply shooting him in the head, but it's less merciful, too.

So you get to fight an annoying boss down to a sliver, but don't get the satisfaction of finishing him off, despite this being the whole point of a boss fight. For NO REASON. Oh, and someone who has cancer stops taking their medication, and dies almost instantly. That's some fucking fierce mitosis, man. The hell kind of cancer was that?



- "I created an anti-Thing to the Thing that caused all this. Then instead of giving it to you, I gave it to your friend, asked her not to tell you, but to hide it until after I've inexplicably killed myself for a betrayal that was totally pointless and use it as a deus ex machina later on. Oh, also, you know how it's the Thing that's slowly and incurably killing you? This anti-Thing I just made must logically cure it, but even though you saved my life and the entire world about six times, I thought I'd just look really torn up about whether or not to tell you about it so that you can flashback to it later, even though I've no reason not to give it to you and save your life and, by extension, the entire fucking world." *

* Disclaimer: They may go on to use the anti-Thing to save you. I'm not watching the rest of the cutscene to find out, because if I don't watch it, I can always imagine that absolutely all the characters die in a freak steamrolling accident and feel slightly better. If they do use the anti-Thing to cure the Thing, they deliberately withheld the cure for your illness for no reason even though they're supposed to be on your side and you're the only thing that can save the world. If they don't, the protagonist will die a horrible death for no reason. Well done, that writer.



- a character is making a heroic last stand. This person has one more clip of bullets, and says as much while looking at the clip. She then checks her gun, which has one bullet in. She then puts the spare clip down on the floor and runs deliberately out towards a bunch of enemies with one bullet, which she fires right away, leaving a full clip of ammunition behind instead of, oh I don't know, TAKING IT WITH HER AND PUTTING IT IN THE GUN AND KILLING THE ENEMIES WITH IT INSTEAD OF KILLING ONE AND THEN BEING TOTALLY FUCKED OH WAIT DEUS EX MACHINA QUELLE SURPRISE.

- two heroes (you'll wish bacterial death on them at least six times, but by the time you see this cutscene, you'll be wishing sandpaper torture on their children) are in an alcove, cornered by about five hundred heavily armed elite soldiers. They instant head shot about thirty of them (both of these character have proved themselves to be unreliable at best, but are now suddenly superhuman) while trading revolting lines and attempting the poorest excuse for comedy that I've seen since... well, the last one Kojima made.

At no point do any of the FIVE HUNDRED ELITE SOLDIERS think to (a) Throw a grenade, (b) AIM before shooting (although in their defence, they did kill the shit out of Deus Ex Machina Boy before he machina-ed to such an extent that an entire clip of assault rifle ammunition emptied directly into his torso at short range merely knocked him unconscious for a few minutes, after which he was not only fine, but suddenly capable of superhuman reflexes and accuracy, where earlier in the film he didn't even know how to work the safety on his rifle), or (c) Do something other than queue up to be slaughtered two at a time. Who the fuck hires these soldiers?



- "She was abused and tortured for years and everyone she knows was murdered to shit for no reason. Her every waking moment is hell and she's totally batshit insane and responsible for the orgiastic murder of countless innocents. Every negative human emotion has consumed her very soul for years (although it's had a remarkably positive effect on her figure and endowment). But you cured her by, er, firing several grenades into her head until she dropped her weapons, then beating her to death with the butt of your shotgun."

(This happens four times. Apparently, if you violently assault an extremely mentally disturbed woman for long enough, you'll cure her.)

- you're rolling around on the floor, practically dead. About ten soldiers see you, and put their guns away, and start walking towards your helpless body. Really, really slowly, about a foot every ten seconds. Why are they doing this?. The hero - the guy your boss wants you to kill - is lying prone and helpless in a dead end twenty yards away and YOU ARE ELITE SOLDIERS WITH GUNS. SHOOT HIM. Don't advance slowly and menacingly just long enough for a deus ex machina (#7, I think) to appear. NOBODY WOULD DO THAT.



- all the soldiers in a squadron are affected by an evil spell, or something, near the start of the game. Except for one, who is unaffected and the only one who can stand up while they roll around in agony. He rescues some of them. This happens again hours later in a great scene where a million soldiers surround the villain over the course of about twenty fucking minutes, even though they know he can just instantly disable them all at will. In a SHOCKING TWIST, he casts his evil spell and instantly disables them, and everybody takes a fortnight to understand, even though this spell of his is the very fucking reason they're trying to kill him.

(Oh, incidentally, the villain can disable all "ID locked" guns at will, and everyone knows this. Despite the fact that they are well acquainted with an arms dealer who can give them non-locked guns, they equip all the soldiers with ID locked guns, and then look baffled for about two minutes when they stop working. Snake, despite having an armory of functional, non-locked guns and a clear shot of the villain with a scoped sniper rifle, nowhere for him to run and the element of surprise, does not take out a gun and shoot the villain, thus fulfilling his only goal in life. Oh, no. He's far too busy watching the proceedings and uncomprehendingly going "Hruaarwh" in that stupid fucking grunt/sigh he uses in every single scene.)



- the same character is unaffected and saves a few people again. It's not until a third time this happens, TWELVE GAME HOURS LATER, that somebody who witnessed both prior times thinks to ask him why he's not affected, and thus is the only person who can save the day. How can you write this? How can you sit down and write this and film and animate and voice it, and never realise how atrocious it is?

- a character gets on your side, betrays you, then kills herself in a fit of guilt, then turns out to have been trying to stop the villains all along with a highly portable deus-ex machine that she gave to your mate earlier. She has no reason whatsoever to betray you. She intended to help you all along. Her betrayal gained nothing and had no motive beyond trying to make the plot look complex. How in the name of fuck did this get through a writer, a director, the sound bods and the voice actor? "I'm sorry I betrayed you." Okay, great. WHY did you do it? THERE IS NO REASON. YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD US YOUR PLAN AND STAYED WITH US AND NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED IN THE SLIGHTEST. RGRAAAAAAARRRRGGH! HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE?



- HE DIED. OH WAIT HE'S OKAY. BUT HE GOT CRUSHED TO DEATH. BUT HE'LL BE FINE. IN FACT HE'LL COME BACK LATER ON AND INEXPLICABLY BE A ROBOT EX MACHINA AND FIGHT A BUNCH OF GUYS BY HOLDING A SWORD IN HIS MOUTH AND SUDDENLY HAVING THE POWER TO MAKE PEOPLE DIE JUST BY LOOKING AT THEM FOR NO REASON. JEGAGARH.

Okay. Okay. Calming down. Right. More examples coming in a few minutes. I'm going to go and do the washing up until I calm down.

Righto. Did you hold out hope that the ending, that glorious final confrontation would make it if not worthwhile, then at least less indigestible? Please listen to me now. I'm going to spoil the end of the game for you. You'll thank me.

After a cutscene in which you are abandoned on an enemy ship by your best friend while he goes to get you a medic (oh, by the way, the microwaves that would kill you in moments but this turns out to mean will almost kill you, over about six minutes, but then you'll suddenly have the strength to fight a bunch of robots? They didn't kill you), instead of, for example, shouting to the crew of the friendly warship about 100 yards away, who know precisely who you are and how you've just saved the world, or sending one of the three or four deus-ex-machina guys you presumably teleported past on your way back up to the surface to get help while he guards your helpless, near-dead self from the marauding enemy soldiers and the nemesis character who everyone knows is on board but who hasn't showed up yet, your nemesis pops up. He injects you and himself with supersaiyan juice and suddenly your incurable medical condition, severe third degree burns and internal scalding are cured, and you're the picture of health.

(Read through it again if you need to, I'm on a rant here and sentence length can fuck off.)



Another cut scene follows, in which you and he go karate-mental (again making you wonder why you were restricted to a single totally useless three hit combination for the rest of the game) for a while, and are somehow evenly matched despite your degenerative illness, near fatal injuries and several days of fatigue compared to his respectable physique, experience and several days of doing nothing more demanding than waving his hands around dramatically and being allowed to walk out of harm's way by a moustachioed cretin.

Then you're allowed to play again. You go hand to hand against your nemesis, with totally different controls to the rest of the game, no explanation, and only three buttons that do anything. You can hammer the attack button for a longer, farther-reaching, faster and more satisfying combination attack that again, you were unable to use for the rest of the game for no reason. You can block unreliably, or attempt a grab unreliably. If you do anything but grab you'll do next to no damage. If you grab, you get quicktime events. This is the climax to a decade-spanning story, Kojima? Fucking quicktime events? PRESS R1. PRESS R1. PRESS TRIANGLE. WELL DONE. PRESS R1. PRESS R1. That's it. That's the best they could come up with - a fight that's actually worse than the final fight in the first game. Ten years in the making and you get "press triangle as rapidly as possible" followed by "PRESS THIS. PRESS THAT. PRESS - too slow, you lose."

(If you get the quicktime event wrong, instead of slowly and unsatisfyingly hitting your opponent, he'll counter and twat you one. So your only effective move will end up hurting you more than him if you're not an efficient Pavlovian drone. And to think, the plot's supposed to be about granting people freedom....)



The controls are clunky and barely responsive, the collision detection (I got laid out by a punch that quite clearly missed by half a foot, and later laid out by a punch even though I landed a blow as he was drawing back to hit me - my blow just didn't register) is slack, just as you think you've won, the game runs out of ideas and just fills both your energy bars up again, and it was at this point that I died, and said, very loudly "Fuck this, this is fucking bullshit", and chose 'Exit'.

It. Doesn't. Let. You. Exit.

I had to switch the machine off to stop playing. I could go on. I could go on. Every single reviewer in the universe who gave this game more than 3 out of 10 is a corrupt, incompetent piece of shit. Fuck every one of them. If a reviewer or mag gave this game 8, 9 or god fucking help us 10 out of 10, never, NEVER believe a single word they say. They are a cunt. Hideo Kojima is the OverCunt. Don't buy it. Don't rent it. Don't allow your friends, or even enemies, to buy it. Don't even fucking PIRATE it, because that'll encourage them too. Not even if it's 50p. If you get it free with something else, snap it in two and send it back to Konami (I think it's them, right? I don't want to know, because if I know, and I meet someone who works for them, I will be morally obligated to stab them in the face) in a padded envelope filled with faeces.

This is quite possibly the worst game I have ever played. I want to like it. I WANT TO LIKE IT, but I cannot. Even I cannot delude myself to that extent. If there were a full, decent game in amongst all the cut scenes, it might be worth playing beyond the first couple of levels. As it is, there's only about 25% of actual game in there, half of which is shit. So:

14%

Original:

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.c ... t/mgs4.htm

[Limbrooke]

You and Strider77 are like clockwork. Several years go by and anything I post in relation to Kojima's ineptitude guarantees to bring you out of the woodwork like two peas in a pod. I'm sure you can deal with some people not kissing the guy's ass. Suck it up, you'll be fine.

Strider and I don't go around every couple years making a "Kojima sucks or how I learned to hate the Metal Gear series". This series really seems to bother you, and I will grant you that getting it off your chest is better than letting it fester away at what seems to be your soul.

For me the series ended with MGS2. The drive for realism began to cut off my interest in MGS3 and was nearly realised in MGS4. Energy drinks, ipods, compress pads, etc. Not it's an overload but I like MGS2 and MGS for being good to play games. I don't give a crap about the cutscenes or the codec sequences as they can all be skipped, but ultimately playing a game that controls well and is designed well in terms of navigation and interaction MGS2 was and is a great game. Keyword game.

With this recent MGS5 business of being 2 seperate releases I figured to get it several years later when both are bundled together for the umpteenth time. Less is more so in terms of cutscenes and influences from movies, I'd be more interested in MGS5 if it was a movie instead of a game at this point.

[neorichieb1971]

Blu ray and Kojima.. A match made in heaven..

[jepjepjep]

Metal Gear Solid 3 and Japanese supergamers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le23bsVURds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWmrzwWclzE

That's hilarious!

[Edmond Dantes]

Things start getting interesting in Peace Walker's Chapter 3!

Too bad when I went to capture another KPz 70 that I died in the final seconds without a ration involved. Damn PKM fire. The more important thing is that the inventory is awkward to use - nothing impossible but definitely awkward. Gameplay still flows pretty well around the inventory / supply chain functions though.

I am honestly impressed that you can stick with Peace Walker. No lie: That is the game that caused me to forever abandon the MGS series.

To be honest, I loved MGS2--I feel its misunderstood... or no, wait, its completely understood, but gamers got butthurt that the game is basically a commentary on cash-in sequels and how fans lap them up unthinkingly. The game outright says "gamers just want games to be stupid power fantasies" and the fanbase resented that. And then they went on to prove MGS2 was absolutely right when Snake Eater was released and lo and behold, its heralded as the best game in the franchise :eyeroll:

I almost feel like MGS3 was a test. The camo system was stupid--Snake Soup put it best: "Move five feet, go into menu to change clothes. MODERN GAMING SURE IS GREAT!"--as was all the other needlessly thick and obtuse crap. Seriously did we need to micromanage our injuries like that? Did it actually add ANYTHING to the game besides unnecessary annoyance? It didn't make the game harder--far from it: In MGS3 stealth is optional, you can just run-n-gun through everything. In fact stealthing is almost impossible to pull off without excessive memorization now, so its like its outright telling you to just pull out your gun and shoot everything. The story itself was the exact kind of story that counts as "deep" in video games--it's not much better than a Saturday Morning cartoon, just they added a lot of vague dialogue and meaningless implications and things going bad because things going to shit even if it makes no sense makes people think its deep when it isn't. People don't even know what that word means anymore. What do you expect, in a world where nobody reads books or watches any movie they didn't grow up with. I was on another forum recently where people were telling me Disney's Frozen was the next Citizen Kane. So lame formulaic fairy tale rehashes are quality cinema now.

But MGS3 had a lot of shooting, and to top it off there was a woman who kept making suggestive poses because that's what gamers liked. And it becomes a beloved classic while the better-in-practically-every-way MGS2 goes on to be reviled either because it went over people's heads, or because it didn't.

I never played MGS4--never owned a PS3--but I did play Portable Ops. Funny that for a game often considered the "other" black sheep of the series (often solely for the fact that Kojima had minimal involvement with it), it was actually fun to play. Funny, that: Take the guy who visibly hates the series and has said multiple times that he doesn't want to make more MGS games off the project and somehow, it improves. Don't get me wrong: There were obvious signs of rushing and it still wasn't as good as the first two MGS games, but it fixed practically all the issues I had with MGS3 and added new (albeit almost-useless) features.

Then Peace Walker came, and... well, it was MGS3 all over again, except worse. Once again, it demonstrated Kojima's need to ruin his own franchise. He took things that were awesome in Portable Ops, and rather than improving them, he made them stupid and useless.

Just for example: Portable Ops added a nifty little hearing-based radar that visualized the enemy's direction based on sound. One thing I hated about Snake Eater was the lack of a (worthwhile) radar, and on a Portable gaming system (where, remember, you won't always have the option of playing with sound on, if there's other people around) its nice for the game to anticipate "the player might not be able to hear for himself" and give you a visual indicator. Peace Walker? Turns this into a device you have to equip (so Snake needs to equip HIS FUCKING EARS now?) and it runs on battery power. Why? What is the fucking logic in that? The only logic I can see is "here is something that is good, lets make it shit."

Not to mention how Peace Walker seems to think its a console game, with areas that are wayyy too long for something meant to be played on the go, and no checkpoints or breaks in between. You need look no further than the camera controls for an example--it would be fine on a dual shock, but on a PSP, having to manually control the camera AT ALL TIMES is just atrocious. Portable Ops automated this process a little, but of course, that would've been good and we can't have that.

Seriously, the fact that people still play MGS and often hate what is probably the best game in the series while lavishing praise on its inferior, broken sequels is why you should never give any credence to gamers, and perfectly explains why gaming has become the shithole it has. The whole medium should just die.

But hey, maybe the next MGS game will have all its story contained in a coloring book and require you to fire your gun by doing a pirouette with a flower in your mouth while rapidly pressing L and R in sequence while humming Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and will end the minute you actually succeed at shooting even one guy, and it'll go on to receive industry awards!

... Oh, sorry, I got a little over-emotional there, didn't I? Well, that's what threads like this are for. Hope you had fun. I know I did.

*Has beaten 50% of the VR Missions in MGS2: Substance, but could never get the hang of that skateboarding minigame.*

[Despatche]

not sure what's going on in that woc diatribe, i don't remember any of that from the game. clearly there needs to be some serious study. i agree with most or all of the above post, though

Ridge racer didn't fit into a burnout.
Castlevania didn't really fit into a God of War
Street Fighter didn't fit into Tekken

...what?

unbounded was literally a burnout. noone was trying to "fit" anything into anything, all that happened was the actual burnout guys got together and made a successor for namco. they called it ridge racer because branding: there hadn't been a big new "ridge racer" product in a while, they were probably still kinda pissed off over 2006 (do i really need to explain the cause and effect), and most people never would have seen the difference between this and that arcade racer had it not been for some idiot who randomly decided to gather a mob and row row fight the power. you can't look at it as a ridge racer at all, but you can look at it as a burnout, so please do that.

castlevania is also a brand, and brand means "who's publishing" more than anything else. but even that aside, konami is partly responsible for a big vampire game that has a lot to do with castlevania's basic concepts... there is absolutely no reason they should not be using the name, except to please people who... were gathered into a mob and are row row fighting the power. i'm not gonna make any judgement calls on lords of shadow's raw quality itself, because that would be irrelevant. never mind that i've never played it, and that the game has quite a few fans who are pretty reasonable people.

tekken fit into street fighter (not the other way around) pretty well, about as well as marvel vs capcom always did, and a lot of people were hype for it before release. the problem has absolutely nothing to do with the concept; it's that the game on release had various gameplay issues, which led to bad word of mouth and thus bad sales. most of those problems have been fixed, and the others are debatable at this point; people have actually been trying to play the game since, because it's a decent game at its core. as for the impending txsf, that's going to be really easy if they just do it like scv.

speaking of, i'm really hoping for some jab at vf with ryu aka akira.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think the only decent review Stuart has ever done is Raiden DX. Dude's got some legendary rep (for mostly the wrong reasons).

I didn't realize Portable Ops was a separate thing, so I will check that out sometime.

Too many things in Peace Walker make me happy to worry about the radar. I mean, I can just use my eyes, right? I just switch between a good healing item and the Fulton.

Just need to develop the Fulton variety of the Carl Gustav (can't really say I am worried about the game's inability to deal with different ammo types) and I'll be all set.

[Mortificator]

castlevania is also a brand, and brand means "who's publishing" more than anything else.

Isn't that silly, though? Anything could be named Castlevania - a cover-based FPS, a vertical danmaku shooter, a hidden object game - but if it doesn't share the developers or game design or aesthetic, what's the point?

[Jonathan Ingram]

I don't believe the absence of the radar hindered the stealth aspect of MGS3 in any way. A bigger emphasis was placed on the necessity to carefully observe the environment and learn AI routines before proceeding forward. Going with the Rambo approach was no more an option than in the earlier games(especially on higher difficulties where healing items are difficult to come by) and was further discouraged by the introduction of the new healing system which had play a surgeon every time you were shot or cut.

The camo system was an interesting addition, but it would've been a lot less of a hassle if you could access the camo selection from the quick L2/R2 menus instead of having to go into the main menu and waiting for it to load.

[Damocles]

My favorite part of the MGS series.

http://www.doctorshrugs.com/foxhound/comic.php?id=1

[trap15]

And mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucr7GAjD6rk