Thrik

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

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t probably wasn't wise to do something this prominent, especially during a few years where tolerance for titillation and female flesh in games is at an all-time low. It's kind of set up a situation where unless the game really lives up to what Kojima said below and creates a worthwhile narrative around her appearance (not just some in-universe technological reason but an actual story thread), there's going to be a lot of avoidable criticism.

Kojima stated, "I know there's people concerning about 'Quiet' but don't worry. I created her character as an antithesis to the women characters appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed. 'Quiet' who doesn't have a word will be teased in the story as well. But once you recognize the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds. The response of 'Quiet' disclosure few days ago incited by the net is exactly what 'MGSV' itself is."

 

I read a suggestion somewhere that her character was caught up in a fire (possibly the same one we saw Snake in during an earlier trailer which left him looking like a mess), resulting in her being horrendously scarred and mutilated including the destruction of her vocal cords — and her appearance is itself a result of the shape-shifting camouflage. Or maybe Kojima just wanted some hot cleavage. We'll find out soon enough I guess.

 

Even so, I don't think it counts as a defense if you are not willing to provide an accompanying contextual explanation for the far greater number of people who see the promotional images but don't care to buy or play through the product.

 

I say promotional because IMO the overriding purpose of sharing these images is to sell the game, and as such, the marketing technique makes me uncomfortable:

 

 

In a series of tweets last week, Kojima said he directed MGSV's art director to make some of the game's characters, including Quiet, "more erotic" in an effort to encourage cosplay and promote figurine sales. He has since clarified these tweets, saying "sexy" was a better word to use.

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Yeah it doesn't really matter to me how good the narrative rationale around that outfit is. It was still a conscious choice on their part to go that route and every time I see her it kinda bums me out. It's too bad too because the gameplay looks really cool.

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Isn't it more that Kojima is just generally a bit of a perv rather than him being sexist? We are talking about a series where you played for a portion of the game like this:

 

That doesn't justify anything. Raiden being naked was Kojima's way to emasculate Raiden and make fun of him. Vamp being very flamboyant is how Kojima thinks queer people act, and most of the women being sexualized in the MGS games is because Kojima is an objectifying sexist. He's skeezy when it comes to his women characters. I mean, fucking Policenauts had options where you could smell, ogle, and fondle women characters. MGS Integral had a cut feature where you'd fucking photograph women like zoo animals, and the more points you get, the closer you can get to them. Which of course, would make its return in MGS4 as an actual feature. 

 

Yes, he is a perv, but not towards all his characters. And tbh, I couldn't give 100 fucks what narrative context he gives to why he sexualizes his women characters, he still obviously does it out of his own perviness and in Quiet's case, cuz he wants more of that hot cosplay action.

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As silly as that photograph mode was, it is not as terrible as it sounds. Not anything like Metal Gear Solid 4's nasty photograph easter egg. In VR Missions, it's just Naomi sitting at a desk and Mei Ling standing there. They aren't really doing anything sexy and are pretty low poly anyway. Considering they aren't bending over and crawling like MGS4 and are just sort of standing and sitting there with idle animations, the photograph mode in VR Missions/Integral comes off more like you're a lame ass fashion photographer in a sneaking suit.

 

But otherwise, yeah Cine, I think he's always been sort of skeezy towards half of the female characters. However it never really seemed that prominent to me in MGS1-3. I will always maintain that looking at Meryl's butt is a funny little plot point rather than salacious, considering how it's framed and modeled.

 

Also since I'm not trying to sour so much on this game at the moment, look at this! Big Boss has a wolf! Awwww!

2662506-wolf+%284%29.jpg

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Entertaining article about Snake's climbing technique in MGS5:

 

http://kotaku.com/why-snake-is-the-best-climber-in-video-game-history-1636633722

 

I do enjoy the level of detail put into these games. Great memories of being told endless facts about jungle fauna in MGS3. :tup:

Yeah, that's one of the things I really enjoyed: I'm a 5.12 climber in real-life and it's nice when people take the time to get the details right.

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Yeah it doesn't really matter to me how good the narrative rationale around that outfit is. It was still a conscious choice on their part to go that route and every time I see her it kinda bums me out. It's too bad too because the gameplay looks really cool.

This is basically how I feel. I'm really tired of feeling like I'm being pandered to. I can't say I've ever purchased a product because of a "sexy girl" on or in it, and if anything it'd make me less likely to buy. It's insulting.

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I think lately, I've started to hate Kojima more and more as time goes by, for very few people stand up and call out his gross ass bullshit. He gets away with it because he's the "grand auteur" and "great visionary". 

 

Reminder: He made a game that featured the rape of two minors at the hands of a Saturday morning cartoon character called Skullface. This scene was handled with the deftness only a fucking teenager who thinks he's edgy can handle it. And like, this caused very little discussion, and very little crticism.

 

Naw, let's talk about how Ground Zeroes is like 30 minutes of gameplay, guys, it's just a demo, guys, so expensive, why you are doing this to us, Kojima? Oh no wait, but the stealth is cool, so it's a Good Video Game™. All Hail Kojima.

 

Fucking nerds.

 

:spiraldy:

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From what I hear the last decade or so has been Kojima building up a posse of people who will never question a thing he says. So you have this strange eccentric who just kind of puts whatever in the game at his very whim, including what a pervert he is.

 

I wish the gruesome content in Ground Zeroes would have caused more discussion but I think it was a combo of games journalists really dropping the ball and that a lot of people, including die hard Metal Gear Solid fans, didn't even play the game after reading about the commotion of how short it is. My guess is it's just going to be rolled into either the package or the game itself when Phantom Pain is released.

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Yeah, I don't think that many people have been buying Ground Zeroes. I know a lot of MGS fans who haven't touched it. I would assume that once the full game comes out (and presumably provides broader context for whatever the hell happens in Ground Zeroes) there'll be more of a reaction from press and players alike.

 

I haven't played it so I can't comment. I mean that Skullface thing certainly sounds bad but I can't say that I know what it's referring to and whether or not the severity is being exaggerated. If it really is that bad I think it's a safe bet that there'll be some serious criticism coming MGS5's way.

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I can't see "Metal Gear" without mentally auto-completing it with Scanlon anymore.

Dammit Giant Bomb!

 

...

That is all.

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Yeah, I don't think that many people have been buying Ground Zeroes. I know a lot of MGS fans who haven't touched it. I would assume that once the full game comes out (and presumably provides broader context for whatever the hell happens in Ground Zeroes) there'll be more of a reaction from press and players alike.

 

I haven't played it so I can't comment. I mean that Skullface thing certainly sounds bad but I can't say that I know what it's referring to and whether or not the severity is being exaggerated. If it really is that bad I think it's a safe bet that there'll be some serious criticism coming MGS5's way.

 

I played it. I didn't find all the audio tapes when playing, but I went and listened to some of the ones I missed afterwards. If you're curious, you can listen to all the

and judge for yourself. Audio tapes 4 and 7 are the two most important ones, if you want to jump around (and honestly, listening to the whole thing in a row alternates between being painful and painfully boring). In my earlier long comment, I focused on the mechanical and design issues that bothered me, in part because I really didn't know how to address this part. I mean, bad shit happens to most of the characters in MG at some point, and it looks like they are ratcheting that up for V. And that's what the thing with Paz/Chico feels like to me, not that it is necessary, interesting, or compelling in any way. But that it was an easy way to deliver shocking trauma to multiple characters in one shot. And Ground Zeroes is supposed to be setting the stage for, in part, these characters dealing with the all these different traumas. The handling of it in GZ just doesn't give me any faith in their ability to explore these issues going into the main game.  

Tied into that idea of V being about the traumas of GZ, there's also a fairly compelling theory about Quiet's

(spoilers, obviously), which if true, would probably be far worse than anything in Ground Zeroes. It's equally ridiculous and possible, so it naturally fits in with the Metal Gear world.

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Tied into that idea of V being about the traumas of GZ, there's also a fairly compelling theory about Quiet's

(spoilers, obviously), which if true, would probably be far worse than anything in Ground Zeroes. It's equally ridiculous and possible, so it naturally fits in with the Metal Gear world.

Honestly if that ends up the case, it is a more satisfying outcome than horrific stuff just happening for the sake of getting Big Boss mad and vengeful. But it will probably handled badly if so.

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It sounds awful, yet absolutely convincing. Let's hope the theory won't quite hold true.

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I'd like to see more Metal Gear Rising someday. Or even other spinoffs.

 

I have this dream game I've wanted for years, it's like an MGS-themed Hidden & Dangerous where you play as the Cobra Unit, using their stupid abilities in concert. Even a simpler framework like Commandos would work.

 

It would be especially good in cooperative multiplayer. "On three, I'll haunt the soldier on the left, and you shoot bees at the other one."

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Honestly if that ends up the case, it is a more satisfying outcome than horrific stuff just happening for the sake of getting Big Boss mad and vengeful. But it will probably handled badly if so.

Yeah, the problem with it is that

trans people are already portrayed or viewed in shitty or incorrect ways all the time, and many people have next to no knowledge whatsoever about what it means to be trans, or to just be gender non-conforming in any way. And pop culture has filled those knowledge gaps for people. So this would be delivering a narrative about how this person is trans because of trauma, which is a relatively common belief that people have about being trans. It's one of those cases where if it existed in a context where we had a number of accurate or positive portrayals of trans people, it wouldn't necessarily be terrible. But occurring in a greater context where we have none of that, it reinforces many of the existing shitty stereotypes.

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Kojima has specifically said that Quiet is not Chico on multiple occasions.

 

Which means its probably 50/50. 

 

Though she's almost certainly linked to Paz and Chico in some way. Paz is Spanish for Peace after all. 

 

Peace and Quiet. 

 

It's just stupid enough to be Metal Gear clever. 

 

And yeah, if Chico is Quiet, it will almost certainly be handled badly. 

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Yeah, that's true. God damn it Metal Gear.

 

Of course that's assuming it's true and not just made up bullshit!  Which is very possible.  But given the insane history of pretty much every single MG character (clones, cyborgs, ninjas, cyborg ninjas, cyborg PTSD-suffering animal vixens, bee men, vampires, ghost possessed transplanted arms (or not!))  It would actually come off as being rather sane compared to some of the previous

stuff.

 

Kojima has specifically said that Quiet is not Chico on multiple occasions.

 

Which means its probably 50/50. 

 

Though she's almost certainly linked to Paz and Chico in some way. Paz is Spanish for Peace after all. 

 

Peace and Quiet. 

 

It's just stupid enough to be Metal Gear clever. 

 

And yeah, if Chico is Quiet, it will almost certainly be handled badly.

 

The thing that would convince that it's wrong would be if Kojima said, "Yep, good work guys, you nailed it. Quiet is Chico."  Then I would be convinced that something else entirely was going on.  Being a MG fan kind of makes you a bit of a conspiracy theorist.

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clones, cyborgs, ninjas, cyborg ninjas, cyborg PTSD-suffering animal vixens, bee men, vampires, ghost possessed transplanted arms (or not!)

 

Hahaha, oh god Metal Gear...

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Well, this releases in some hours on Steam. I honestly can't wait to try it, never expected to see metal gear on PC.

To be fair, I only played MGS2 and 3 HD on PS3 (only finished 2 though), but didn't really enjoy any of those because of outdated gameplay. It just didn't seemed right the way it played, very clunky aiming, movement and hiding, weird camera angles.

However, the videos from Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain just seem too good, I think they probably updated the game to more modern standards now.

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But MGS 1 and 2 were on PC long ago, plus Revengeance. And technically Metal Gear 1 and 2 were on PC in Japan if you count MSX as a PC.


Besides the handhelds, really just MGS3, MGS4, and Twin Snakes have been console exclusive.

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