×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
GAME: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes


Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
lizardking461





PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:27 am Reply with quote
Yeah, the main negative that this review points out is what really does it for me, especially in light of some of Kojima's comments on it. He really must be as far up his own arse as he can possibly go if he truly believes that gratuitous and unpurposeful violence and gore is what elevates a form of entertainment to something perceivable as 'serious' and worthy of intelligent discourse, or to something that can widely be perceived as 'art'.
Back to top
Mister Ryan Andrews



Joined: 28 Jan 2014
Posts: 219
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Kojima made it clear the direct he's taking the series in. Less beating around the bush, less apologetic, more straight forward to the presentation of war in our culture. I have to applaud him for not pulling any punches. Child soldiers, rape, treating enemies as sub-humans, you can't exactly say he's being untruthful with how war actually is unlike certain other games out there.

I dunno what bothers me the most about most reviews for the game on the web. The ignorance of the series as a whole, like all the criticisms on it not being new player friendly/clear indication they never played Peace Walker when they say certain characters don't get much focus before they die, or the expected Shonen Jump Weekly drama. The latter you can just write off as typical opinionated stuff, but the former is just 'why are you reviewing a Metal Gear game if you've never played Metal Gear'

Either way, I'm glad Kojima doesn't feel the need to censor his own creative vision and is totally willing to stand up for himself and call people out like with the whole Quiet thing. As far as Quiet goes the whole crazy spoiler[Chico gets a sex change to become Quiet in guilt for what he was forced to do] is one of my favorite crazy theories right now Wink
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Completely agree with all the negative talk behind the story, but then again this series has been pretty crap since three.

MGS3 is my favorite game ever basically. I love MGS2 and find it pretty interesting no matter how crazy it is.

MGS1 though is still pretty much the perfect "the action movie the game" game. Even after all these Uncharteds and Gears of whatever, I don't think anything has beat MGS1.

Yes it has a goofy story with faulty science. So does every action movie, but it creates a world where you believe all it's talk about genes. It has a charismatic villain which I don't think any Uncharted really had. It ramps up the set-pieces extremely well. The cast from the hero and villains are beaming with so much personality and purpose. It's just a good game.

So many people seem to equate ridiculous and crazy with stupid and I don't understand it. I read comic books about super powered dudes in capes, by thier very definition they are ridiculous. But these comics create a world where this is fine and you go with it. You get ridiculous stories, but they are fun and plenty of times legitimately dumb. I don't think they are stupid, because there's a craft in doing that stuff right. For the most part MGS did it well. MGS4 went too crazy and seemed to not understand the series character's and plots too much for me. Plus as a game it did'nt work. PW was just devoid of fun and really un-needed. MGS5 may be a fun game, maybe even great, but I'm not sure if it's going to retain the self awareness and balance it self.

MGS1's idea of torture was putting Snake on some giant metal table looking sci fi thing and electrocuting him. A lazer out of golden eye would almost fit here. All while Ocelot breaks the 4th wall.

MGS2 makes penis jokes during it's "torture".

Ground Zeros has implied rape, sticking a bomb in a girl's vagina, and torture that is so graphic they thought they needed a "red" band trailer. All played seriously.

Yeah there's quite a difference in tone and direction with the previous games and this

MGS in general has not earned this serious storytelling and I very much doubt Kojima could pull it off.

Seems like the actual game will be pretty fun. Probably the best playing one and most fun to play with a real MGS3 like bent. Though, I don't know the third person shooting felt a bit off. Still, the stealth seemed pretty great and the games movement is very well done. Game also looks great. So as far as a game it should be pretty cool.

Ground Zero's is pretty awful though. The main mission feels shorter then even MGS3's prologue and even less happens in it. Or so it feels. You just go and rescue to people who are pretty close together, you don't even need to stealth around most of the base. Kojima could have easily padded this with little detours that would have taken you around the base and where there to allow you to get access to you're targets. Maybe, have a computer system you need to take out to get to chico. I don't know, something because there's nothing here. Could have easily thrown in one boss battle stopping you from getting to Paz. It's just really lazy. Instead of having a simple firefight at Motherbase to top off the game, it's just a cutscene. This is a really lazily put together thing. So lazy that they couldn't even put in a new trailer of MGS5 or even one of the longer ones. Just a crapily cut together i minute one with scenes we've already seen.

As for the story. Yes it does seem they remote controlled the back up vagina bomb, because you do see a quick glance of a enemy soldier looking out of a passing helio. What happens is that this pretty much sets the base for the coming conflict. Mother Base and pretty much everything you created in PW is gone and this is the opening Salvo in what I assume is Zero's war with the boss. MGS5 is all about us seeing what Snake did that made him evil. Though this is kind of fair story premise, it still dosen't make much sense. If he was so evil and the world hated him so much, how did he make Foxhound in MG1 and 2? Again, this desire to keep adding to a plot that was pretty clear with MGS3 makes no sense to me.

Whatever, I'm sure MGS5 will be a fun play.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime
Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:54 pm Reply with quote
Thirty dollars for ninety minutes of gameplay?

Nuts to that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1197
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Fronzel wrote:
Thirty dollars for ninety minutes of gameplay?

Nuts to that.
It's not 90 minutes of gameplay. The main story will take that long, but there are bonus missions after that. You can also collect items to unlock a platform specific extra mission as well.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:40 pm Reply with quote
varmintx wrote:
Fronzel wrote:
Thirty dollars for ninety minutes of gameplay?

Nuts to that.
It's not 90 minutes of gameplay. The main story will take that long, but there are bonus missions after that. You can also collect items to unlock a platform specific extra mission as well.
Oh please. No one cares about cheaply thrown together missions. Not in a MGS game at least. People play MGS games mainly for the main story(which also feels really thrown together here) not for bonus stuff. No one ever said MGS1 is 20+ hours long with VR missions, no they said MGS1 is so and so long because the main story was that long.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime
spankminister



Joined: 09 Jul 2010
Posts: 15
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:56 pm Reply with quote
So I say this as a longtime fan of the Metal Gear series, but Kojima's head is indeed pretty far up his own ass, and it really always has been. The question is if he manages to produce something interesting despite that fact, and I think he often does. He pays homage to or outright steals from movies he likes, and yet he's proven himself to be a great director in his own right with some of the best examples of machinima in video games. He often manages to evoke emotion or pathos in Metal Gear even though it's basically a big commando morality play cribbing in equal measure from Bond movies and anime.

The real question is if he's bitten off more than he can chew. There are games like The Line and Hotline Miami that want you to feel disgusted with what we've come to expect from the medium. Metal Gear hasn't hesitated to talk at length via extended monologues regarding "the horrors of war," and while part of me wants to write Ground Zeroes' violence off as gratuitous, because that's how it feels... there's also the fact that the series was always too ready to "tell" rather than "show." MGS1's torture is via electric shocks in a scene more tame than an average episode of 24. Raiden is stripped down and interrogated in Arsenal Gear in a segment that's basically absurdist comedy. Drebin's post-battle explanations of each Beauty/Beast history range from goofy "scary story around campfire" to genuinely horrifying, but they're safely related to you via the radio. MGS3 is probably the only place the torture scenes were directed for suspense and discomfort, but there wasn't a larger message there.

Kojima wants to tackle race and child soldiers? I wish him luck, but let's not forget the series' front and center "child soldier" is a long haired pretty white guy who's a cyborg and enjoys murder.

I was honestly on board until Ground Zeroes wrapped up and I found more of the tapes, and the final twist in the helicopter had me rolling my eyes. There's also serious issues with the English script, mainly that they seem to have borrowed a little too heavily from the Arkham City school of "mature audience vidya gaem dialogue writing". Like, Kaz' lines in that scene are awful, and half of them being "bitch" really smacked of writers trying way too hard. Maybe pointing that out makes me a Shonen Jump Weekly, I dunno.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
DangerMouse



Joined: 25 Mar 2009
Posts: 3980
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:08 pm Reply with quote
And on that subject of how MGS tackles some of these, that's why my biggest disappointment is still the potential complete removal of Hayter, he knew exactly how to deliver some of those "trying too hard" or "cheesy" or gratuitous lines even on some of the touchier issues to get the proper response since he's been voicing in the series since day 1.

And that's not even down to the in-jokes that Kojima and MGS love, even just the "Kept you waiting, huh?" loses it's value without Hayter and in the trailers comes out super dry from Keifer Sutherland (who I quite like in a lot of stuff including 24)

But we'll see. I hope Phantom Pain delivers since I love the MGS games.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:11 pm Reply with quote
After Peace Walker, David Hayter needed to be removed. He lost it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime
Levitz9



Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Posts: 1022
Location: Puerto Rico
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:29 pm Reply with quote
Mister Ryan Andrews wrote:
*snip*


So, your stance is "These guys clearly don't get Metal Gear"? Funny, because the reviewer almost states having played Peace Walker.

He's not some tense PTA-parent clutching at his metaphorical pearls, he's an adult with a history of playing videogames who's decided that this "mature" route feels anything but.

Every time I hear someone use the "It's supposed to be[X]!", it feels like when people try to defend bad movies by saying "It's supposed to be a parody!". It feels more like the defenders know less of what they're talking about than the people they're arguing against.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:37 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
and the effect is so overblown that it saps some joy from one of our first big tastes of next gen graphics.


Graphics us PC gamers have had since like 2007.

My PC is mid-range and it blows "next-gen" games out of the water.

I don't have much to say on the rest of the review. Kojima has always been a guy who does crazy stuff, though maybe this game might be pushing it (I haven't played it but I have some distant relationships with the MGS world). Games today are going through some growing pains as they become more and more accepted as serious pieces of fiction.

Quote:
Either way, I'm glad Kojima doesn't feel the need to censor his own creative vision and is totally willing to stand up for himself and call people out like with the whole Quiet thing.


Yeah man, standing up for misogyny is truly a respectable thing and totally cool!

You're pathetic.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:44 pm Reply with quote
The real question is what did Kojima stand up to in the whole Quiet thing?

He didn't make some statement, creatively or not. He just admitted that they made the character that way to sell merchandise and make her popular.

He just admitted that what they were doing was the complete opposite of artistically driven, but actually completely exploitative. We should applaud him for this?

And oh please. MGS's "realistic" take on war is just as shallow as those certains seriers you're trying to attack there. First, we know you're talking about western games. 2nd most lilely your Battlefields and your Call of Dutys. Mearly putting serious sounding material in your game dosen't mean you've done something with it. Because if that's so I guess Call of Duty the most mature game on the subject of war. Both games efforts are shallow and weak, except MGS belive's it is saying something. Yet it makes a mockery of real life torture when it decides to put a vagina bomb in a girl and use her as a cheap ploy. It is cheap and it is a hacky writing. Because it's exploiting the fact that "oh no this ounce cute girl has been tourted" feel bad for her. It's playing up that angle of women in danger for your sympathy. It's bad writing and tacky at the same time. MGS is a GI Joe military fantasy series. Tackling something like rape is unnecessary. Why did Paz- a character who piloted a Metal Gear in her underwear- need to be raped? Well one because she's a girl and of course rape only happens to girls and you'll feel extra sympathetic to her because she's a girl. What does that even add to the series? Really nothing.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime
Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:57 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
We should applaud him for this?


No, you see, we should applaud him for standing up to the "feminists" Rolling Eyes

There's a large subset of male gamer fandom which REALLY wants to keep gaming as this incestuous and puerile cesspit of whiny manchildren, the Quiet thing is just another example of that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Levitz9



Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Posts: 1022
Location: Puerto Rico
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:03 pm Reply with quote
All of that kind of proves the point. Metal Gear Solid, to this day, is still held as a turning point in Video Game history for the quality of its writing. It was supposed to lead the way for video games. Since Snake Eateeeeeer~ and the whole bit with The Boss, Metal Gear--and many that aspire to be like it--have fallen into the Rob Liefeld school of doing things. Rahzephon, you said it: this kind of thing doesn't do anything for the Metal Gear series. If it's not helping the series progress, not trying to make a point, or anything, then why are you going out of your way to put it in? That Kojima, known for being an auteur, is going out of his way for cheap monetization, isn't particularly heartening.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Mister Ryan Andrews



Joined: 28 Jan 2014
Posts: 219
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:21 pm Reply with quote
Levitz9 wrote:
So, your stance is "These guys clearly don't get Metal Gear"? Funny, because the reviewer almost states having played Peace Walker.


I was talking about other reviewers.

Chagen46 wrote:
Yeah man, standing up for misogyny is truly a respectable thing and totally cool!


Is this how lose the term misogyny has become? A woman in a bikini? Jesus Christ. Rolling Eyes

Rahxephon91 wrote:
The real question is what did Kojima stand up to in the whole Quiet thing?


"When you realize the reason for her exposure, you will be shamed by your words and deeds"


Quote:
Why did Paz- a character who piloted a Metal Gear in her underwear- need to be raped? Well one because she's a girl and of course rape only happens to girls


Are you purposely ignoring Chico's role in the events and what effect it has on him or what? Chico was raped too. Please don't tell me this is some kind of "men can't get raped" double standard thing. "Oh well he doesn't count LOL"

As for why, well, if 'Skullface is crazy' isn't enough of a reason it was also to get what we wanted and to force Chico to do what he wanted. Did you even play the game? They pretty clearly explain it all. And I guess his soldiers needing something to do and like it or not POWs tend to be how soldiers release their stress.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  Next
Page 1 of 6

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group