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Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Saucer Men From Mars

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Yesterday and today I watched a friend play Metal Gear Solid 4, and watched the beginning, and there were three things that I latched onto:

1. The voice-acting is horrible. Snake sounds like a bad young actor desperately trying to sound old but failing. I know saying this gets fans angry because they seem to have gotten used to the voice, but he's an overactor and it hurts the believability and maturity of the plot.

2. The writing sucks. Okay, it's not abysmal, but, again, for a high profile game like Metal Gear you'd expect something vastly better. The opening monologue where war apparently 'never changes' is a great example of self-indulgent teenage poetry. Perhaps this is also due to Japanese styles of writing (which are always quite exhaustive, repetitive and symbolical) translating quite poorly to what is acceptable in English.

3. There was an elevator Snake had to enter in a room. That helper guy in the robot had the following paraphrased dialogue: ,,You need to find the elevator, Snake. There's the elevator, to the left. Go enter the elevator." I know Snake is old, but does the player need to be lead by the hand as well?

There are probably good other reasons why this series is so popular, but this is, while perhaps acceptable in games of lesser stature, really poor performance and makes me question whether Metal Gear really deserves its high accolades. I can easily picture a scenario where the hype makes it more and better in the minds of many than it really is.

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I'd recommend it, if only because now I'm curious as to what you'll say when you're playing it. I think a good chunk of why the game was so good came from my investment in the characters. Raiden in particular, as I felt like one of the very few people who actually enjoyed playing as him in MGS2. Most of the backstory is explained enough, I hope, though not knowing it right away could give the entire game a very different spin. I'm interested to know what you'll think now.

Also, if you're getting a PS3, get Uncharted. Just saying.

Yeah. I will most likely buy a bundle with PS3, GTA4, Uncharted, Fifa 08 and erm.. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Blu-Ray tomorrow. I'm buying it because it costs a little less than or equal to the console, GTA4 and Uncharted combined, and while my hopes aren't too high for Fifa 08, I think it could be at least somewhat entertaining.

Will probably buy MGS4 a bit later, most likely after finishing Uncharted and playing through a good chunk of GTA4. I promise to post my thoughts on it here, provided that I still remember to.

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Yesterday and today I watched a friend play Metal Gear Solid 4, and watched the beginning, and there were three things that I latched onto:

1. The voice-acting is horrible. Snake sounds like a bad young actor desperately trying to sound old but failing. I know saying this gets fans angry because they seem to have gotten used to the voice, but he's an overactor and it hurts the believability and maturity of the plot.

2. The writing sucks. Okay, it's not abysmal, but, again, for a high profile game like Metal Gear you'd expect something vastly better. The opening monologue where war apparently 'never changes' is a great example of self-indulgent teenage poetry. Perhaps this is also due to Japanese styles of writing (which are always quite exhaustive, repetitive and symbolical) translating quite poorly to what is acceptable in English.

3. There was an elevator Snake had to enter in a room. That helper guy in the robot had the following paraphrased dialogue: ,,You need to find the elevator, Snake. There's the elevator, to the left. Go enter the elevator." I know Snake is old, but does the player need to be lead by the hand as well?

There are probably good other reasons why this series is so popular, but this is, while perhaps acceptable in games of lesser stature, really poor performance and makes me question whether Metal Gear really deserves its high accolades. I can easily picture a scenario where the hype makes it more and better in the minds of many than it really is.

From what I've seen of MGS, it's all campy fun. It's like 80's action movies ramped up, but with some actually cool stuff, too (great gameplay, excellent set pieces, great visual direction). And it's the cool stuff that it's respected for.

Snake's voice is so campy it just puts a smile on my face. I love it.

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Damn right. He's based off of Snake Pliskin, and holy crap does it show through. Luckily, I love Escape From New York and can really appreciate that.

Nappi, that actually sounds like a great deal. No sounding embarrassed over the newer TMNT movie either. Saw it in the theaters and was actually pretty impressed with how fun it was. Enjoy two of the best games the PS3 has to offer. And FIFA. It's ok, from what I've seen. If sports games are your thing, anyway. Not really mine, but there you have it.

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Snake Plissken, now there's a hero.

I guess that's where the Metal gear franchise falls apart for me. On the one hand it tries to be so mature and epic and serious, but it continuously shoots itself in the foot by being so goddamned campy all the time. The two just don't gel well.

I think a good analogy is Grand Theft Auto. It too sort of evolved as a rather goofy game into a very critically thinking, culturally loaded series. GTA reflected this however, in part 4, by having excellent voice-overs, doing away with all the zany stuff and generally being quite excellent and consistently mature in terms of storytelling. I feel from what I have seen that Metal Gear didn't make that step and now clumsily tries to play both the wacky card and the games-as-art card.

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I'm going to ignore Rodi's post :shifty: and all of Metal Gear Solid's faults :mock:

I just wanted to bump this thread to direct you to some MGS related blogging I wasn't previously aware of and might be of interest to Rodi (et al). There's one in particular which deals with questions those new to the franchise might have.

http://sexyvideo gameland.blogspot.com/2008/06/revolution-will-not-be-televised.html

http://sexyvideo gameland.blogspot.com/2008/06/laughing-and-crying.html

http://sexyvideo gameland.blogspot.com/2008/06/sorrow-and-joy.html

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Just been watching a Louis Theroux episode involving 'Survivalists' and came across this fellow; Bo Gritz, a celebrated Green Beret who served in Vietnam, believes he was the inspiration for 'Rambo', is something of a conspiracy theorist (citing 'the new world order'), ran for president and finally founded a covenant for 'patriots' to live free from government control and prepare for Armageddon.

Technically it doesn't even qualify as a coincidence - as there's no direct correlation between his story and the MGS story - but I still couldn't help but laugh when I realised he named his covenant 'Almost Heaven'. Check it here;

(Starts at 6:31)

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Looks interesting, thanks. Especially like the fact Louis Theroux has reviewed it :grin:

In one of the book's funniest chapters, Ronson accompanies an ultra-right-wing conspiracy investigator named Big Jim Tucker as he attempts to infiltrate a meeting of the Bilderberg Group (a semi-secret council of international industrialists and statesmen, and a favourite bugbear of the paranoid fringe). They end up being chased by scary-looking security personnel in dark glasses and Ronson panics, trying to get the British Embassy to rescue him. "I am essentially a humorous journalist," he pleads down the phone. "I am a humorous journalist out of my depth."

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Back on topic: I just went all weekend playing MGS2 on my PS2 and damn if it wasn't the best fun I've had in ages!

I read the "Previous Story" before I got started (all 328 pages of it(!)) and it really helped my memory of what had happened in the first game (although I don't fully understand how Baker didn't give Snake the code, but gave it to Meryl instead... and why was it the launch sequence... bah!).

But I LOVE MGS2. So many great moments (so far). I've had yet another plot-twist and am now running around a lab in the nude. Good stuff.

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Almost at the end there. Prepare for not getting a whole lot more. It took me three watches of the final section to even sort of understand it,.

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Finished it last night. What an excellent game! I think one of the final cut-scenes was something like 40 minutes, but I somehow didn't (completely) notice, as it was unveiling interesting bits of the story.

The ending was very confusing... how many double-crosses can one story have?(!)

Baddie 1: "Ha ha! I've double crossed you!"

Baddie 2: "Actually, I knew you'd double cross me, so I double crossed you!"

Baddie 3: "You're both wrong. I orchestrated everyone's entire lives up until this point and so knew all of this would happen! It's been part of my plan since you were born!"

Baddie 4: "That's what HE thinks! We've been controlling HIM all along!"

Baddie 1: "I was just kidding, I'm really a double-double-secret agent."

Baddie 2: "Me too."

Baddie 4: "...I knew that."

Snake/Raiden/Player: "Huh?!"

I think I just about managed to understand it... and ordered MGS3 when I was done! :) It's a shame Subsistence is so rare, I'd love to check out the older Metal Gears, but I really can't afford to pay $200 for a game. (Unless it's Rock Band.)

Here's my understanding of the ending of MGS2:

Actually, I read a decent quote that supposedly summed up the themes of MG: MGS1 was about how your genes can/can't shape you. MGS2 was about how information can/can't shape you. The final speech by the AI was excellent in regards to this. It up an excellent argument as to why we SHOULD basically all be controlled by an impartial AI (scary!). It's a shame it was left until the very of the game, there was some really potent stuff in there.

Anyways, The Patriots apparently turned out to be some sort of super-computer, not 12 "Wisemen" after all. The Sons of Liberty was actually an attempt by ex-President Solidus Snake (didn't Snake ever notice the resemblance? - I guess he was getting drunk in Alaska at the time, wasn't he?) to stop The Patriots from controlling all the world's information. Revolver Ocelot was actually working for the Patriots all along... apparently, but not really, orchestrating the S3 program so they could engineer another Solid Snake. This turns out to be gumpf as The Patriots (the weird AI thing) was actually using the S3 program to justify/research its own actions in censoring all the world's information(?!).

Fortune, daughter of nice-guy Navy commander Jackson, just wanted The Big Shell to kill everyone because she thought she couldn't die... Except she could... Except she could stop bullets after all! Olga was being forced to help/orchestrate Snake by The Patriots (who had her child). Vamp was just... er, Vamp.

I'm not sure if that even makes sense! But I believe that's what the game was saying.

Roll on MGS3!!!

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(lots of spoiler)

Yeah, pretty much. Well done paying attention. Glad you weren't as put off by it as many people are. The story in MGS3 is much more straightforward. Just a warning if you want to finish the plot you just saw, you'll need to get MGS4 sometime if you want to resolve the whole thing.

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I think the MGS2 story is excellent too. :) It is a complex set of events that'll confuse the hell out of you if you're not expecting it and thus prepared to pay close attention, but if you are and do it's very fulfilling IMO.

MGS3, though... fuck me. I envy you experiencing that for the first time.

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Is MGS 3: Subsistence worth the extra money? Seems like I could get it used for 50€. From a quick look it is Snake Eater plus two of the old MGS' plus a new camera angle (?) plus a lot of bonus fan-stuff (plus at least 30€). I think there is a way to play those old games via something involving a big african bird - is the rest worth the money? Is the game itself, is MGS3 a lot better in the Subsistence version? You guys make MGS3 sound like an excellent game, it would bug me somehow to play an inferior version.

(I bought MGS2 years ago for the PC but I never could play it, because of some major graphic-bug making everything except the rain-effect completely transparent. I searched the internet, but couldn't solve it - do you guys happen to have an idea?)

[sorry for the derailing questions, but this seemed like a good opportunity]

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I'd just play the PS2 version personally, which you can grab extremely cheap. It's a better game on its native console for sure.

As for Subsistence, yes it is a superior version. Although the camera seems like a throwaway feature, it does actually make a huge difference to the way the whole game is played. In a nutshell, instead of being locked to pre-defined camera angles like in MGS1 and MGS2, you're given the free-range camera that's used throughout MGS4.

If this were MGS1 and MGS2 it wouldn't really matter, and indeed the many indoor sections of MGS3 are no worse off with the original camera. However, the huge, open jungle areas are definitely better and feel more tactical when you have a free-range camera, as you can look around properly rather than having to jump into first-person view every time you want to check the road ahead.

I would go for Subsistence if at all possible. It still seems to be quite widely available in the UK:

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=metal+gear+solid+subsistence

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I would go for Subsistence if at all possible. It still seems to be quite widely available in the UK:

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=metal+gear+solid+subsistence

Unfortunately, not one of those places actually has it in stock, which is why it sells for at least £60 on eBay and some times up to £100 :(

I loved the MGS2 story and how they expanded on MGS1. I just need to get a PS3 so I find out what happens... *arg*

BTW - Where was Meryl?

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Excellent :yep:

It's hard to believe that Subsistence is so incredibly rare. There's some guy asking £200 ($400) for it on eBay! It's the most expensive one, sure, but still! £200?!? I've checked for t*rrents, but they're only US versions and I don't think my PS2 could play burned games anyway.

It would be an epic find to stumble across this in a second-hand store!

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It does seem mental. I didn't realise I was getting something so valuable when I bought it in late 2006. :tup: Not that I'll ever be selling it. :fart:

I'd go trundling through GameStation and whatnot, though. Relatively rare stuff does randomly turn up there quite frequently.

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Thanks for the insight, Thrik, I'll try to get Subsistence.

(And fuck, a few months ago I had it in my hands. Gamestop, less than 20€, but couldn't decide to buy it, not even knowing which MGS3 version is the newer one.)

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