Metal Gear Solid Series

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Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

Is anyone else as anxious to play "MGS V: The Phantom Pain" as I am? I doubt it, lol. MGS has long since been my favorite video game series, and The Phantom Pain looks to be the best yet. Waiting for this game to come out is harder than waiting for the next Berserk chapter. I always go through this when waiting for a new MGS, but I don't think I've ever been this anxious to play a game in my life, lol. There's a really good chance the game will be released on March 18, 2015. The release date was leaked on the website The Guardian for a single day, until they changed the listing to early 2015. Not only is The Guardian a reputable website, but also that would be exactly 1 year after the release of Ground Zeroes. So I think it's a fairly safe bet at this point. Anyway, I just felt like making a new thread for general MGS discussion. So feel free to talk about any of the games in the series here, and if you have any questions about MGS, just let me know. It's kind of my thing. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it, lol. Now, have some awesome Phantom Pain videos!

Official 2014 "MGS V: The Phantom Pain" Trailer. I love this video, and the song has really grown on me as well.
http://youtu.be/3g03cfetuwg?list=FLeFBK ... 8lSPDAhQVg

[E3 2013] Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain | RED BAND Extended Director's Cut Trailer
http://youtu.be/2ht7xat2Gjk

E3 2014: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Gameplay
http://youtu.be/seCnZifeI7k
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

I love it. I love every MGS but 4 (it sucks, MGS4 sucks) and The Phantom Pain is shaping up to be amazing. I was a sucker for the base-building stuff in Peace Walker, so having that combined with the systems we got a taste of in Ground Zeroes can't be anything short of a religious experience. And Kiefer owns.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

Well I was holding off for an English version, but in the meantime, you've gotta check out this brand new MGS5 game-play footage. This is from last week's TGS, and it's awesome. A lot of new stuff is revealed, such as calling in characters like Quiet as a Support Buddy, and so much more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t6ofIKAekg#t=1151

More new features include, Big Boss's new sneaking suit (among other types of suits and camos that can be developed.) Boss can climb more than ever, and he does it like a real life pro. The African jungle looks amazing! There's a new type of sonar where Snake punches the ground to detect nearby lifeforms, called the PIN Radar. Speaking of Snake punching things, you can also develop various robot arms (prosthetics) for BB, which include various functions like stun shocks and clicking sounds to lure guards. While we're on the subject of luring guards, there are also new decoy balloons that can be used in a variety of ways, including knocking guards off of ledges. As I've mentioned you can summon Support Buddies, such as a wolf named D.D. and who knows what other types of human and animal friends you may find and recruit along the way. Just remember to use those Fultons people! Now that we're on the topic of the FRS (Fulton Recovery System), your main method of recruiting forces into Mother Base, the analyzer makes a return as an upgraded function of the binoculars. The unlockable feature will allow you to analyze guards to see their stats. That way you can Fulton all the best soldiers back to MB! Support Buddies can be trained to use all sorts of different commands while active in the field as well. At one point Snake blows up a bridge to prevent reinforcements from reaching his location, so certain structures can be destroyed. For the first time ever MGS is taking place in a fully open world environment, so there are numerous ways you can approach your missions and carry them out. The map is so massive that without the use of radar technology, you can literally get lost in the environment. Almost anything can happen depending on how you play. You can even miss major characters like Quiet.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by War Machine »

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but I'm a huge fan and have bought pretty much every major release of the MGS series (except for The Essential Collection and the PSP games), and... I haven't played Peace Walker.

I bought the HD Collection so I own Peace Walker and can play it now, but I don't know why I haven't started it. I played Ground Zeroes and not Peace Walker. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think that maybe I'm afraid that this new Big Boss saga is not going to be as good as the Solid Snake saga, story-wise (no doubt that the gameplay is gonna be great though, what I've played of Ground Zeroes is beyond impressive).
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

I wouldn't worry too much. Solid Snake's storyline includes MGS4, which automatically makes it worse than the tale of Big Boss' rise to power. :ssh:

Many count Peace Walker as their favorite MGS, and I can see why. It is extremely video game-y, but in a different way from the numbered entries in the series. The bosses are bad and if you're a completionist it's super grindy, but the plot is straight-forward enough and its ending is probably the most pivotal point in Big Boss' character development so far. The gameplay is good, but the game does get almost nonsensically easy on a big screen.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by War Machine »

Ok, I'll bite. What is so abhorrently bad about MGS4? At worst I always figured it was on par with MGS2 overall.
"Clearly my escape had not been anticipated, or my benevolent master would not have expended such efforts to prevent me from going. And if my departure displeased him, then that was a victory, however small, for me." - Raziel
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

The gameplay runs out of steam two-thirds into act 2 and is overloaded with meaningless systems that interact only in the most edge-case scanarios, and I can get into that if you want, but for now let's start with plot and tone.

MGS4 is tonally inconsistent at best, and tonally abhorrent at worst. I'm happy to accept beloved characters being treated with a pointed lack of respect and decency if there is a point being made, but for most of MGS4, there isn't. Some of this can be explained by the rather intense pressure on Kojima to wrap up loose ends, even after he intentionally painted himself into a corner with the ending of MGS2 (intending that expression of post-modern uncanny to be the end of the future/present-day storyline).

So, we have Naomi, returning for reasons, to do things, for reasons, all of which are poorly explained and, even when fully explored, mostly nonsensical. There is no reason offered for Vamp's return, or why he's thrown his lot in with the, to him, traitorous Ocelot, or the, to him, completely unknown Liquid. He exists as a "villain" seemingly only because Raiden exists as a "hero" - though the likely motivation for their feud (the murder of Emma Emmerich) is never mentioned. Raiden dies thrice in the game and experiences no meaningful character development. EVA returns, but does nothing but dump powerpoint presentations on the player. Then she dies.

And then of course there's the infamous nanomachines, used to crassly handwave away all plot points from previous titles, whether they've already been sufficiently explored or not. It is perhaps here that Kojima's self-destructive streak is the most obvious, aside from his obsession with the age and torment of Solid Snake. MGS4 is not the product of a creator who is in a good place.

But those are mostly things that are in the game because they were in previous games. The same can not be said of the MGS4 grossly misjudging that precarious Metal Gear balance between serious and silly. We get a number of mildly interesting to mediocre boss fights, each ending with a ~sexy babe~. Then a thirty-minute codec call explaining that actually, the sexy babe was sad. We get Naomi killing herself (with CANCER) in the most stupid, overwrought and impossible way. The Colonel is not Meryl's uncle, but her father. Somehow. He pretend-marries a woman he's never met to keep her child, the son of a man he's never met, safe, from people who are most likely watching him (Campbell) very closely. Johnny shits himself to plot device status, and he proposes to Meryl while they brutally slaughter dozens of brain-washed women. Snake breaks character and does not kill himself just in time to hear the villain of the piece noisily shit himself, before said villain has his life-support turned off by an anarcho-fascist monster of a man who is now somehow a fairly agreeable old man. And also alive. After being killed not once, but twice.

There's more, but goddamn look at all these words I've written already.

In closing, I'm willing to forgive a lot in the face of the single greatest cutscene in Metal Gear history (Ocelot seizing the SOP system on the river at the end of act 3), but MGS4 is a crime.

EDIT: You probably can't tell, but I'm mostly over being mad at MGS4. I used to be legit angry.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by War Machine »

I always saw MGS4 as a fan service extravaganza. Lots of weird decisions in story and appearances, I agree, but it seemed to me like MGS4 was made to be the MGS that ended all MGSs in terms of action, appearances and spectacle.

Bringing Johnny Sasaki to the forefront and have him be a key player in the story, having the doctor that revived Gray Fox be Paramedic, having the DARPA chief that died getting tortured by Ocelot be Sigint, explain Solid Snake's sudden mastery of CQC as a conscious decision by himself to not use Big Boss's moves, have the B&B Corps. be a "greatest hits" of all previous gangs you've seen through the games (Fox Hound, Dead Cell and Cobra Unit), have Mei Ling command the ship used to launch the assault on Outer Haven, have Liquid-Ocelot attempt to revive Big Boss' "Outer Heaven"; these are all additions that were not necessary to the core of the story, Kojima could have just as easily have done anything else in its place without changing the general pace and development of the story (he could've said Paramedic and Sigint died of natural causes, for example, and nothing in the rest of the story would've changed), but to me it seems like Kojima added all of that to give us all that we wanted (and maybe as a way to say goodbye as well since he had been threatening to stop making Metal Gear games since 3).

As for the Vamp-Raiden feud, I think that was planned to be fleshed out in Metal Gear Rising, Kojima said that MGR was going to take place in between MGS2 and MGS4, but that story got canned when Konami moved to have Platinum develop it. I don't know whose decision it was to not tell that part of the story (if Platinum's or Konami's) but the point is they decided to simply have MGR:Revengeance be its own game that happens a long time after the events of MGS4.

Campbell being Meryl's real father was established way back in MGS1 and bring it back was nice since that plot-line never got finished. And Campbell's deal with Rose might've also made more sense if MGR had been made as it was originally planned, we seem to only get the aftermath of an almost suicidal, mentally broken Raiden in MGS4. Rose's decision to fake-marry Campbell to protect Raiden's secret son from the Patriots also seems flimsy but it also feels like a plot point that was supposed to be fleshed out in MGR. During MGS2 and MGS4 Raiden did mess with the Patriots (he rescued Olga's daughter, that much we know) and it makes sense for them to want to mess back with him as well, but that whole chapter is still lost.

I really don't know how they convinced Kojima to stay for more Metal Gears after MGS4 considering he did his best to deliver on all fronts and close off all plot-lines, but I guess a truckload of cash goes a long way.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

The game is a very deliberate fanservice fest, and I don't begrudge it that, but what I take issue with is that it is kind of... reductionist? Almost spiteful in its delivery. Also there's the gameplay. I mean, recycled boss concepts, but now with sexy babes? This is what's supposed to appeal to me, Kojima? "Living battlefields" where there is a clear dominant strategy and the whole thing just disappears after two and a half acts? There are a million guns, none of which are fun to use. Not that you, the player, knows that, because what are you, a pleb not going for a no-kill run? But the shitty, lethal 1911 and M4 are forcibly thrust into your inventory after every cutscene.

There is nothing respectful about the way Kojima ignores alternately destroys what few plot thread trajectories he had left. As you rightfully point out, much of what happens in the game can be explained away with some leaps of faith and assumption-wrangling, but the whole thing is rudderless. Thematically MGS4 is a walking corpse, exhumed for the people who did not realize the story ended, in all meaningful ways, with MGS2 (MGS2 was incidentally going to be his last Metal Gear game; MGS3 was the first MGS game he made after saying he wouldn't).

The ending of MGS4 is a perfect microcosm of the entire experience; Snake does not get to die on his own terms, he is not afforded any dignity at the end of his life. Instead, he is forced to endure a poorly translated, meandering cutscene in which a new deus ex machina is introduced only to be swept off the board moments later, just to tie up a plot thread that did not need tying up. It's telling that Kojima, notoriously draconian in his direction, did not give enough of a shit to veto the dev team's pleas to let Snake live. MGS4's ending, universally recognized as the worst part of the game, is the direct result of Kojima not caring.

I liked MGS4 the first time I played it. After the second time I played it, I felt insulted. Then watching someone else play it, I just felt sorry for Kojima. MGS4 is not a good game.

MGS5 though? You can tell he's all about that. Big Boss is inherently a much more interesting character than Solid Snake, and Kojima is seemingly more passionate about telling his story. I have very high hopes.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

Sweet posts guys. I love discussing MGS. Yeah, Kojima has wanted to stop making the series after MGS2. I don't know if this is true, but from what I heard, he saw what they were doing with Peace Walker, and got involved to "fix" the project. Ultimately, making PW inspired him to finish telling Big Boss' story and complete the loop in the timeline. I agree for the most part that MGS4 was a forced let-down. However, you can tell his heart's really in it again. The Phantom Pain already looks amazing!
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

An interview with Kojima reveals the release date for The Phantom Pain to be 9/1/15
http://youtu.be/6yOuGmZ0THk
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Sandman »

Waiting for this game to come out is harder than waiting for the next Berserk chapter.
I respectfully disagree... *cough* *Cough* blasphemer *cough* :twisted: but I hope, that with the new open world environment and new mechanics, it will be the best yet.

I lost interest after playing sons of liberty with Raiden naked at the end of the game doing no handed cart wheels holding his junk :evil: uncalled for if you ask me.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

Everything about MGS2 owned.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

Yeah dude, the ending of MGS2 is epic. If you can get passed naked Raiden (which I found to be humorous, as it was meant to be), the existential mindfuck that follows is amazing. Also, if that means you (Sandman) haven't played any of the games after MGS2, then you're seriously missing out, especially when it comes to MGS3. Seeing as how MGSV picks up where Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes left off, I'd recommend going back and playing those if you haven't already. You need to play MGS3, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes, & The Phantom Pain in that order to get the full story of Big Boss.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Sandman »

That was another thing that pissed me of was the whole "your playing solid snake... no your playing Big Boss... but it looks like Solid Snake with an Eye patch... its ok Solid snake is just a clone... WTF" now solid snake might be a clone but the unique experiences that we all had with him in MGS made him different than Big Boss... needless to say that I want to know more about Solid Snake then Big Boss or Raiden or who ever else they make the main character its just not the same.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

Oh I see, personally I like Big Boss a little more.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Sandman »

I guess I should play the other games so that I can get a better understanding of Big Boss and the reasons behind the cloning. That, I guess, would be worth the price of the HD pack that they came out with... still they need to bring back Solid Snake :twisted:

Also have they fleshed out the story of the patriots or any of the other Metal Gears yet... It would be nice to know... I felt a little cheated at the end of two with that cliffhanger, then MGS3 went into the past... WTF I just spent a significant chunk of time beating MGS2 and now your going to make a MGS3 that doesn't satisfy the WTF moments of previous game :evil: That is why I stopped playing.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Starnum »

The HD collection is a great deal, as it includes Peace Walker, which has over 100 missions and online multiplayer. The best online interaction I've had was fighting metal gear online with friends. I understand how the time shift can be jarring, but it actually does give a lot of insight into The Patriots and the story behind Solid's origins.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

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SOLD... it shall be my next gaming mountain :twisted:
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by War Machine »

I love how in the Kojima interview he says MGS5 is gonna be the last MGS. Why even bother saying it anymore. Even if it's true, no one's gonna believe him.

Anyway, in defense of MGS2, here's a little in-depth review I recommend to you that might change your mind on the game not being good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2YuPGYabw

Also, I'd like to add that I still haven't gotten into Peace Walker, but I did re-buy Ground Zeroes on the PC (was only $13 and I'm bad with money when it comes to Steam sales), and I'm now dead set on getting MGS5 on the PC as well. My PC is good enough to run the GZ at max settings so all I had to do was connect my PS3 controller to get the full experience and let me tell you, it feels amazing. I'm thinking of re-buying MGR:Reveangance as well just to have the game on solid 60fps and low loading times (as opposed to the PS3 version I currently own), but I'm gonna wait until another sale for that one.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

Everything about MGS2 owned.

EDIT: You should get on that Peace Walker train ASAP my man. It suffers a bit from being a PSP game (partially due to the new target demographic that came with that), but it's an extremely bold evolution of the traditional MGS mechanics. By all accounts The Phantom Pain will be more Peace Walker 2 than a sequel to MGS4. Tactical Espionage Operations supremacy, eat shit Tactical Espionage Action.
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Sandman »

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Thought this was interesting...
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by Gaiseric »

So, I've never played a Metal Gear game before. Where should I start?
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by War Machine »

I'd say start with Metal Gear Solid 1 for the PS1, but the gameplay hasn't aged that well, so you might want to replace that with The Twin Snakes instead (remake of MGS1 for the gamecube). After that just follow them in order of release: MGS2, MGS3, MGS4, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes, Phantom Pain.

You could play them in chronological order, but the games always feature lots of easter eggs and callbacks to old characters and jokes, that playing them out of order will significantly diminish the experience.

As for the rest of the games: Portable Ops is officially canonical as far as I know, but Kojima has stated that he was not involved in it, and the events from that game are barely even acknowledged, so I think it's safe to ignore. Acid and Ghost Babel are not canonical. MG Rising: Revengance is a spin-off that I recommend as a fun Devil May Cry style game, but not for the story since the events of that game have no relevance to the rest of the saga. And finally, the originals MG1 and MG2 are canonical but the events of those games are told and retold several times during the series, so you'll be fine with skipping them as well.
"Clearly my escape had not been anticipated, or my benevolent master would not have expended such efforts to prevent me from going. And if my departure displeased him, then that was a victory, however small, for me." - Raziel
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Re: Metal Gear Solid Series

Post by LordMune »

You can definitely jump straight into MGSV: Ground Zeroes as a lead-in to MGSV: The Phantom Pain. Some nuance will be lost and the ~lore ramifications~ of the events in the game will be lost on you but that doesn't mean you won't enjoy it tremendously. GZ even has a helpful and brief (by Metal Gear standards) refresher course on the events up until that point.

That said, if you're serious about getting into MGS (and you should be), listen to what War Machine said. To reiterate some points;

MGS1 for the PSX still holds up if you know what you're getting into. It's available for the PS3 and PSP (Vita?) on PlayStation Network. The Twin Snakes remake fucks with the design of the game and is harder to get ahold of so I wouldn't recommend it as a first choice.

MGS2 is available in the HD Collection, PS3/360. You should definitely play them in release (rather than chronological) order if you can, as each title iterates on the systems of its predecessor.

MGS3, also HD Collection.

MGS4, PS3. Don't play it it fuckin sucks and is bad

Peace Walker, in the HD collection.

Ground Zeroes and the Phantom Pain, available on the platform of your choice, including PC. GZ is out now, TPP releases on September 1st on consoles and two weeks later on Steam.
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