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The Ultimate Playthrough, Metal Gears!?

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Yeah no chance of that happening, I wouldn't worry about it.

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There's one part about halfway through the first game where you're probably going to need a buttload of chaff grenades. Shouldn't be a problem though - the game gives you plenty (just be economical with your supplies and look for more when you can).

 

when you're climbing Tower B and there's a sentry gun on every level. Only other way past is to use Stinger missles IIRC, but you need those later!

 

The only other advice is that your life will be considerably easier if you pick up the thermal goggles near the start (I think it's the third area). They're not required for finishing the game though.

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16 hours ago, Beasteh said:

There's one part about halfway through the first game where you're probably going to need a buttload of chaff grenades. Shouldn't be a problem though - the game gives you plenty (just be economical with your supplies and look for more when you can).

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

when you're climbing Tower B and there's a sentry gun on every level. Only other way past is to use Stinger missles IIRC, but you need those later!

 

 

The only other advice is that your life will be considerably easier if you pick up the thermal goggles near the start (I think it's the third area). They're not required for finishing the game though.

 

appreciate these tips! because i'm shameless, i looked up how to get the thermals and it turns out i have already made difficult for myself. if you don't pick up the gun in the first area, the spot where the thermals are will instead spawn a gun! also, having to hold X while holding square to run and gun feels like a really bad choice.

 

that said, i'm about 2 hours into the game and having fun with it. i really like the low poly, low res texture style going on here.

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MGS1 is one of those rare PS1 games that still graphically holds up today. It's awesome!

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12 hours ago, Twig said:

MGS1 is one of those rare PS1 games that still graphically holds up today. It's awesome!

 

it's neat how visually readable everything is while sticking to what feels like a narrow set of colors.

 

I wrapped up MGS and here are some thoughts presented in easily consumable bullet points:

  • story didn't feel as wild as i expected from second-hand descriptions of Kojima games. that said 'Super Baby Method,' Otacon and roaring robots were pretty good
  • Dialogue was mediocre and verbose, but what made it drag was how a lot of interactions felt like they were 3 or 4 conversations jammed into one. 
  • it was amusing to think about Assassin's Creed 1 boss kills which were criticized for having death monologues and then seeing them here
  • controls are super-particular in a way that made it feel less like a 'Tactical Espionage Action' and more like 'bumbling goof stumbles into saving the world'
  • the 'stealth' aspects of the game show their age, but i still really enjoyed playing the game.

Onto MGS2!

 

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8 hours ago, SgtWhistlebotom said:
  • story didn't feel as wild as i expected from second-hand descriptions of Kojima games. that said 'Super Baby Method,' Otacon and roaring robots were pretty good

 

I guess one thing that's always impressed me about Metal Gear is the extent to which the plot is ultimately subject to the play of ideas, rather than the other way around. It's not so much that the characters are 'good' or believable or well-rounded as individuals -- most of them are entirely ridiculous -- but what's great is the way in which the game uses them as a movable perspective for what the game as a whole is about. 

 

And MGS is about a lot of stuff! Nuclear proliferation, pacifism, the military-industrial complex, the horrors of war, genetic manipulation, all wrapped up in a basket of Pynchon-esque conspiracy theories. If you think about where video games were at in 1998, nothing else (that I know of!) comes close to the kind of thematic ambition displayed in MGS. 

 

Of course it's often pretty dumb too. But even when those games are dumb, they're often dumb in interesting ways. Like the famous sequence where you've got to identify Meryl in disguise from the way she walks: you're basically looking at a bunch of different butts and seeing which one moves with a wiggle. But again, I can't think of another game from that era which so earnestly asked players to consider the difference between the ways in which men and women move in 3D space.

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Here's the thing about the story of MGS games: it might be complex at times, but it's very rarely confusing, because at every single step, every single thing is explained.* This holds true all the way up until MGS4, at which point some of the stuff becomes somewhat unclear, but not anywhere near the degree the internet might make you believe.

 

Basically the joke that "MGS is incomprehensible because it's complex" has become reality because any joke repeated enough to people who don't know better becomes reality.

 

(MGSV, however, is very obviously and blatantly just an unfinished game. So you won't get shit out of it, except a few minor retcons, even if you've played all the previous games.)

 

*MGS2 spoilers:

 

Literally at the end of MGS2 they explain the entire plot and all of the characters' betrayals and double betrayals and whatever. They hilariously go from one character to the next let those characters justify everything.

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15 minutes ago, Twig said:

Here's the thing about the story of MGS games: it might be complex at times, but it's very rarely confusing, because at every single step, every single thing is explained.* This holds true all the way up until MGS4, at which point some of the stuff becomes somewhat unclear, but not anywhere near the degree the internet might make you believe.

 

Basically the joke that "MGS is incomprehensible because it's complex" has become reality because any joke repeated enough to people who don't know better becomes reality.

 

(MGSV, however, is very obviously and blatantly just an unfinished game. So you won't get shit out of it, except a few minor retcons, even if you've played all the previous games.)

 

*MGS2 spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

Literally at the end of MGS2 they explain the entire plot and all of the characters' betrayals and double betrayals and whatever. They hilariously go from one character to the next let those characters justify everything.

 

More MGS2

I distinctly remember being confused at the end about whether or not any of this stuff was meant to be real. Was Raiden fake, as well as the Colonel? Was it all some weird training thing? I still didn't really get what the patriots were either. In general I read it as a cliffhanger ending that was intentional holding back answers, though I can't go into detail on what that might be cause it's been literally a decade.

 

I would say that the overall series is confusing and hard to follow, but within an individual game if you can keep up with the info dump then you'll follow it. Just don't try to follow the lasting canon of the series.

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I think the tension between the highly (or perhaps just wiki) researched and grounded military tech speculation and the ninjas and dino-mechs is where the series' narrative wildness comes from, and I think that reaches a peak at 2. Once you get to 3 the whole tone feels more camp. And from what I understand (which is admittedly little) 4 goes full anime he said knowing full well someone would tell him he's using the word anime wrong.

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4 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

but what's great is the way in which the game uses them as a movable perspective for what the game as a whole is about. 

 

this is an interesting observation and i'll keep this in mind as i go through the series.

 

4 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

I can't think of another game from that era which so earnestly asked players to consider the difference between the ways in which men and women move in 3D space.

 

i knew a lot of the standout moments from MGS (Pysho Mantis reading the memory card, codec on back of the box, etc) from cultural osmosis, but i never heard about this specific one, and i was pleasantly surprised when i ran into it.

 

1 hour ago, Twig said:

it might be complex at times, but it's very rarely confusing

 

for me personally, what made understanding the MGS series difficult was just the names. As much as I enjoy Kojima's way with proper nouns, explaining the story with "Big Boss sends FOXHOUND rookie Solid Snake to Outer Heaven in search of Metal Gear" is utterly baffling if you don't have the context. I didn't even know what a Metal Gear was until I took the time to look it up a couple of years ago.

 

also, a thing that's bothering me is why is everyone worked up about Metal Gear specifically as a nuclear delivery device? i understand the advantages of a walking tank, but when you're firing nuclear-level destructive fire power, isn't a stealth bomber a smarter way to go as it avoids the terrain problems and can carry just as effective a payload?

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Otacon says something about the railgun being a way to launch warheads completely undetected. That's quite scary!

 

On the story: MGS1 was played quite straight. Because I never played the PS2 games, I came back to 4 and had no idea what the fuck was going on. Seriously, I bailed when Raiden and Vamp showed up because none of it was making any sense at that point. Shame because the gameplay was excellent!

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Yeah if you don't play all of the previous games, MGS4 is completely meaningless jibberish. But if you have, Raiden and Vamp showing up isn't all that shocking.

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MGS2 in the bag!

 

i think my enjoyment of the game may have suffered a bit because of how much MGS2 is a mechanical iteration of MGS. sure, there are cool, minute changes, but it felt like i was playing the same game in a lot of ways for another 12 hours.

 

On 12/12/2016 at 7:04 AM, marginalgloss said:

I guess one thing that's always impressed me about Metal Gear is the extent to which the plot is ultimately subject to the play of ideas, rather than the other way around. 

 

my only criticism here is that a lot of the ideas don't ever feel like they're conveyed well through the medium of video games or storytelling (at least in these first 2 games). the last section of the game feels like i'm reading a high school essay where the writer is trying to explain a thesis in their last paragraph that they didn't express through the rest of the piece. this is unfortunate because i think something interesting is happening in the way which MGS2 intentionally recreates moments/plot elements from MGS that Kojima didn't really explore. there's also something really fascinating about the way in which Kojima played with player knowledge and expectations, but what we end up with is 5 minutes on a character monologuing about internet echo chambers.

 

to be clear, there's enough compelling stuff here to keep me interested and excited to play MGS3, but i think i now more fully understand the criticism of Kojima needing an editor.

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He needs an editor but I'm glad he doesn't have one, because very few people have the privilege to make something with these ridiculous budgets without being edited. I don't like everything he does or has to say in his games, but it's interesting experiencing his mind vomit.

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13 hours ago, SgtWhistlebotom said:

the last section of the game feels like i'm reading a high school essay where the writer is trying to explain a thesis in their last paragraph that they didn't express through the rest of the piece.

 

Yeah, this is definitely a thing, and I think it's semi-deliberate. There's a tendency throughout all the MGS games for them to reflect and comment on what's come before, in terms of what you've just been playing in this game, and what you've played in previous games (both MGS titles and otherwise).

 

In basic terms it's usually framed as a plot twist - 'you thought you were the good guy but you were getting played all along!' - 'you thought this guy was on our side but they're actually a double agent!' - or in MGS2, it goes so far as to suggest

'you thought all this was a real terrorist incident but it's actually an elaborate VR simulation!'.


MGS3 does it from pretty much the first cutscene in the game. It's a tendency which leads to accusations of manic incoherence - most of which are entirely fair. But for me, I think the stuff which falls out of this wilful inconsistency is varied and interesting enough to justify the sprawling excess of the storyline.

 

Also, re: themes expressed through mechanics, I wrote this thing a while ago (spoiler free, I think?) about the use of music in MGSV: TPP, and how it's an example of that in a very subtle but entirely self-conscious way.

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Played through both 3 and 4, and I can see why 3 is a lot of people's favorite. I also think my opinion of 2 has worsened, especially as it stands between 1 and 3.

 

I think the main word that comes to mind when thinking about MGS2 is 'dull.' The world design doesn't match up to 1/3 and neither does the level design. Moving through 1 & 3 felt like I was actually making progress through a space. The continuous circling around the shell in 2 was unsatisfying even when all three games lean on going back through the same areas. 1 feels concise and focused. 3 is longer than the other two but the plotting is incredibly good so it never felt like a drag like 2 did. I even think the writing is better in 3. I'm also obviously not saying anything new when I say how good a lot of the boss fights are in 3. Not all of them are great, but when they hit, they hit really well. I also can't imagine trying to play the original version where you didn't have complete 3rd person camera control while not having a Soliton radar; what a wild design choice.

 

While I think there are some fun moments in 2

the sword fighting, sneaking by the marines in the tanker

i think a lot of it is hampered down by the rest of the game.

 

4 really feels like a last hurrah from Kojima. Not just narratively, but mechanically as well. It also feels the most indulgent of the series, with the most detrimental of these indulgences being the overlong cutscenes. That said,

god damn how much did i love going back to Shadow Moses. The Metal Gear fight being a match between equals was a really nice inversion of obligatory scene. And the weird fighting game twist at the end with Liquid and calling on the series' past with the music choices was such a conceptually neat/weird idea even if it didn't quite work mechanically for me.

There's also a part of me that wants to say that 4 feels very much like a game of its time, though I'm curious if that's just because I'm more familiar with games of that era.

 

On 12/13/2016 at 5:35 PM, Twig said:

He needs an editor but I'm glad he doesn't have one, because very few people have the privilege to make something with these ridiculous budgets without being edited. I don't like everything he does or has to say in his games, but it's interesting experiencing his mind vomit.

 

To be clear, I'm not necessarily looking for someone to restrain Kojima, but just help him to express his ideas in more coherent ways. I think the variety/expansiveness of ideas he wants to tackle is really neat, it's just that I don't think he always manages to hit them in more than a superficial way. 'Mind vomit' also made me think of Twitter and how much I legitimately enjoy reading people's stuff there, and maybe that's why the idea of pure spew isn't as appealing to me when it's so easy to get that already (and better versions of that, I might argue).

 

I also can't help but think about Kojima's use of repeated elements throughout the series and George Lucas with Star Wars. There's a clear way in which Kojima seems to be both criticizing video game sequels and meta-commenting on his own exhaustion with making these games that I find sympathetic. In fact- going back to how MGS4 feels like a 'last hurrah'- I'm actually really curious as to why Kojima went back to the series to make MGSV. I'm also curious as to what Death Stranding will be. If he makes another 3rd-person stealth shooter, I'm going to be incredibly baffled.

 

One question for ya'll: should I play Peace Walker? It came with the Legacy Collection I'm not sure if it counts as part of the 'main series.'

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4 minutes ago, SgtWhistlebotom said:

I think the main word that comes to mind when thinking about MGS2 is 'dull.' The world design doesn't match up to 1/3 and neither does the level design. Moving through 1 & 3 felt like I was actually making progress through a space. The continuous circling around the shell in 2 was unsatisfying even when all three games lean on going back through the same areas. 1 feels concise and focused. 3 is longer than the other two but the plotting is incredibly good so it never felt like a drag like 2 did.

 

This is definitely not an uncommon opinion but in 2's defense, 1 & 3 take place in real working locations whereas 2 is narratively meant to take place in a fake place, functioning entirely as a training ground.

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Peace Walker's an interesting game, but imo mostly only intellectually, as the predecessor to MGSV. It's very restricting in its gameplay, because it plays out in missions, but is far far far less open than MGSV ends up being, even though the game/menu structure is nearly identical, heh.

 

I'd say give it a shot and if you aren't feeling it, feel free to drop it. Definitely don't 100% it, though, as that will drive you mad. (I haven't 100%'d it, but I do intend to some day. I'm already mad!)

 

EDIT: And yeah I get what you're saying re: editor, and those are definitely thoughts I've personally had before, too. Buuttttttttt at the same time, like I said, I like that there exists someone who has the privilege to just display their mind vomit on the screen in high-budget video game format. I wish we had more of that, to be honest. (Preferably in the form of people who aren't as undeniably sexist as Kojima D: !!!) Editors be damned. Let people go nuts.

 

Twitter's a funny analogy, and I like it. It's also somewhat accurate. But there's a fundamental difference between a series of 140 character messages and a game that costs millions to make, heh.

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On 12/19/2016 at 8:09 AM, Twig said:

But there's a fundamental difference between a series of 140 character messages and a game that costs millions to make, heh.

 

Absolutely, and I also wish everybody who wanted to make big productions out of their creative desires could. Something I wrote down in my notes when I was thinking about this was 'ALEX JONES.' While the conspiratorial similarities between Kojima's plots and Info Wars was what inspired the thought, I was actually thinking about the 'mind vomit' phrase and how I enjoy Jones' brand of it when it's edited down to its most ridiculous parts. I'm not interested in hearing his weird, racist ramblings, but damn I love those videos of him repeatedly using 'goblin,' yelling 'I'm coming.' and going from ripping his shirt to pitching a product. Along with Marginalgloss' observation that Kojima's plots are subject to the play of ideas, I think my conclusion is that Kojima's narrative style isn't really my thing.

 

A separate thought: a lot of MGS characters feel like NES bosses carried forward. Imagine rendering Double Dragon's Abobo with PS4 technology and keeping stylistically faithful to the original 8bit version- it'd be a little silly. I'm reminded of how people teased the Mass Effect 2 boss because it looked like a Contra boss in scale and style. This isn't a criticism, just a revelation I had that I enjoyed.

 

I'm about 30 hours into MGSV and really enjoying it. Before I started, I posted here about why would Kojima make another game in the series, but MGSV feels different enough that it might provide neat, new design challenges in ways that previous games haven't. Overall this makes me a little more interested in Death Stranding, though I'm still hoping it'll be a high production iteration of his old visual novel games.

 

Some assorted MGSV thoughts

  • Dive button is silly and good
  • Giving the players the on-screen visual as to when you're in range to grapple someone has been long needed and appreciated
  • It's very noticeable how little Big Boss speaks, especially with how many times the camera will just linger on his face. Not sure what situation created this (casting Sutherland, intentional choice) but it's bad
  • I was thinking about Nick's comparison of this game to Far Cry 2, and while I appreciate the similarities, I think this also highlights how much less daring Kojima is as a designer than Hocking.

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Peace Walker is great, and I'd consider it well worth your time, considering how much you seem to be getting out of the series. With a little distance from both, I think I may like it more than V. PW has a lot of the stuff that makes V great, but the portable format made it necessarily less laborious. It also directly sets up major story stuff in V. 

 

I also think you might want to check out Ground Zeroes at some point. MGSV in a small, densely designed playground works really well. 

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MGSV update.

 

I'm now 55 hours into the game and my enjoyment fell off soon after I posted my last thoughts here. Having played through so many of the other game recently there's a desire to see this one through that's being battered down with how sated I became of all the gameplay elements here. That said, I think it's important for me to recognize that my particular playstyle of being slow and thorough probably contributed to me getting tired of game right as I hit the second map. I'm also not getting any of the highest highs I got in past MGS games; I think this is Kojima's least interesting game of the series design-wise.

 

I'm at mission 22 or so- if I stopped now would I miss anything great?

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On 16/01/2017 at 5:51 AM, SgtWhistlebotom said:

MGSV update.

 

I'm now 55 hours into the game and my enjoyment fell off soon after I posted my last thoughts here. Having played through so many of the other game recently there's a desire to see this one through that's being battered down with how sated I became of all the gameplay elements here. That said, I think it's important for me to recognize that my particular playstyle of being slow and thorough probably contributed to me getting tired of game right as I hit the second map. I'm also not getting any of the highest highs I got in past MGS games; I think this is Kojima's least interesting game of the series design-wise.

 

I'm at mission 22 or so- if I stopped now would I miss anything great?

 

Ehhhh...I played this game to death so I'm probably the wrong person to comment on this, but I'll try anyway!

 

Looking back on it now, I think the best missions are probably in the first half of the game (by which I really mean Afghanistan). 'Hellbound', and the Side Op that precedes it, is probably the pinnacle. There's some great moments in Africa, but there's also some parts where the missions will start to get really frustrating if you don't have some high quality gear unlocked. This is where you can really start to to feel the game's ambitions straining under the weight of expectation. I don't just mean in terms of plot satisfaction - there's at least two missions in Africa where the enemy scripting is so complex that it's easy to make your additional objectives impossible with even the slightest disturbance.

 

And yet, and yet - there are some great story missions all the way up until the end of 'Chapter 1'. Africa has a bit more filler, but I can't in good conscience recommend skipping it altogether. I would be inclined to just blunder through to the end of Chapter 1 and try not to worry too much about your rankings. 

 

There's some interesting story stuff in Chapter 2 - and one or two moments that really are extraordinary, IMO - but I wouldn't recommend going beyond the ending of Chapter 1 unless you're positively salivating at the thought of unlocking all the gear and replaying the earlier missions with some new (and often very tough) modifiers. Alternatively, I'm sure you can easily catch the best bits of Chapter 2 on YouTube if you're curious.

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Chapter 2 is definitely worth seeing (even if on youtube), and there is at least one mission that is very interesting from a mechanical point of view. I'd stick with it at least until the end of Chapter 1 (protip: if you're playing mostly nonlethal as I was, you might want to develop at least one high-level rocket launcher). 

 

If you decide to go for chapter 2 as well, you will not need to play every mission to get to the end of the story bits. However, the criteria for unlocking new missions become fuzzy at best and I think no one quite figured out what exactly needs to be done, so be warned it's a lot of "play a bunch of side missions and wait for the next story bit".

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