It wasnt that it was a bad idea for a story, its just it was more like the kind of thing you write with your friends when your 14, pages and pages of exposition about shit that nobody cares about, without characterisation or pacing, purpose or direction. It was like a 10 hour mission de-briefing, all facts, over and over again. There was a character that had like 30 minutes screen time, and all he did was fart. The arms dealer guy was like half the story, for no reason, and its attempts at emotive or philosophical divergence from the fact-vomits were amateurish (the whole eggs thing).
The bosses were just awful, "i am sadness" "I am war" "I am uninterested".
My main gripe however, was:
Its reliance on previous storylines and events. About half the damn game was left over storylines that were dragged across this game despite having been concluded and shelved in previous instalments. It did nothing new. It had no reason to exist as a narrative. It kept referencing previous games, which would've been a nice nod if it wasnt for the fact that it did it so much, even down to repeating a level from the first game. Now this is fine, but given there was basically only 4 environments in the game, it was hardly inspiring, it felt lazy, not nostalgic. I refused to enjoy the game based on nostalgia I felt for previous instalments.
Also fire effects were the worst ive seen in a game and I hated the constant fading in and out transitions, 5 during a chase sequence, slowing it to a crawl. Fuck it. I do not have random hatred for MGS4, I have very specific hatred for it. Especially since critically it is extremely well received, and I feel unjustifiably so.
It wasnt that it was a bad idea for a story, its just it was more like the kind of thing you write with your friends when your 14, pages and pages of exposition about shit that nobody cares about, without characterisation or pacing, purpose or direction. It was like a 10 hour mission de-briefing, all facts, over and over again. There was a character that had like 30 minutes screen time, and all he did was fart. The arms dealer guy was like half the story, for no reason, and its attempts at emotive or philosophical divergence were piss (the whole eggs thing).
The bosses were just awful, "i am sadness" "I am war" "I am uninterested".
MGS2 was queer and no doubt MGS4 was, but I really enjoyed what was in MGS3. It was pretty simple, but it was great and the finale was one of the only moments in a game I'd actually call emotional.
It wasnt that it was a bad idea for a story, its just it was more like the kind of thing you write with your friends when your 14, pages and pages of exposition about shit that nobody cares about, without characterisation or pacing, purpose or direction. It was like a 10 hour mission de-briefing, all facts, over and over again. There was a character that had like 30 minutes screen time, and all he did was fart. The arms dealer guy was like half the story, for no reason, and its attempts at emotive or philosophical divergence were piss (the whole eggs thing).
The bosses were just awful, "i am sadness" "I am war" "I am uninterested".
MGS2 was queer and no doubt MGS4 was, but I really enjoyed what was in MGS3. It was pretty simple, but it was great and the finale was one of the only moments in a game I'd actually call emotional.
Also, Volgin punching oil drums.
MGS3 is my favourite MGS because it has themes I could actually identify with; loss, betrayal, duty, that kind of thing.
MGS2, it's like, how am I supposed to identify with this story about a man who may or may not be fighting an AI inside of a virtual reality programme trying to kill a clone of his hero who was also the President and what.
[edit]What really irked me about 4, too, was that dumb codec call after you beat every member of the B&B unit from arms dealer black dude explaining to you why you should feel sad you just killed them. "When she was little she was raped by an octopus and now she spends all her time thinking about being raped and crying AND YOU KILLED HER!". No thanks.
DarkWarrior your posts never have much weight behind them. They are always like 'XYZ? Really? You're crazy!'. Maybe if you explained why the person is wrong you would get further.
I did this with GTA and is was largely just responded with "Well what game was I playing then because it was fucking awesome and blew me as I played".
So there isn't much incentive and/or point in writing out some long chunk of text about why you are so, so wrong. But i'm guessing its cool to just randomly hate on MGS.
I mean so far all I've read is "The story is shit bitches, eat it".
No reason why its shit, its just shit. But I guess thats enough weight when it supports your side of the arguement right?
Well no, you largely hate GTA because it wasn't Saints Row 2 and didn't let you do wacky and zany things. Not because it's actually bad for what it is.
People are criticising MGS 4's story for what it is.
And not that the GTA IV discussion even has anything to do with this particular area anyway.
It wasnt that it was a bad idea for a story, its just it was more like the kind of thing you write with your friends when your 14, pages and pages of exposition about shit that nobody cares about, without characterisation or pacing, purpose or direction. It was like a 10 hour mission de-briefing, all facts, over and over again. There was a character that had like 30 minutes screen time, and all he did was fart. The arms dealer guy was like half the story, for no reason, and its attempts at emotive or philosophical divergence were piss (the whole eggs thing).
The bosses were just awful, "i am sadness" "I am war" "I am uninterested".
MGS2 was queer and no doubt MGS4 was, but I really enjoyed what was in MGS3. It was pretty simple, but it was great and the finale was one of the only moments in a game I'd actually call emotional.
Also, Volgin punching oil drums.
MGS3 is my favourite MGS because it has themes I could actually identify with; loss, betrayal, duty, that kind of thing.
MGS2, it's like, how am I supposed to identify with this story about a man who may or may not be fighting an AI inside of a virtual reality programme trying to kill a clone of his hero who was also the President and what.
Yeah. MGS1 and 3 are all you should even care about in the MGS series.
DarkWarrior your posts never have much weight behind them. They are always like 'XYZ? Really? You're crazy!'. Maybe if you explained why the person is wrong you would get further.
I did this with GTA and is was largely just responded with "Well what game was I playing then because it was fucking awesome and blew me as I played".
So there isn't much incentive and/or point in writing out some long chunk of text about why you are so, so wrong. But i'm guessing its cool to just randomly hate on MGS.
I mean so far all I've read is "The story is shit bitches, eat it".
No reason why its shit, its just shit. But I guess thats enough weight when it supports your side of the arguement right?
Well no, you largely hate GTA because it wasn't Saints Row 2 and didn't let you do wacky and zany things. Not because it's actually bad for what it is.
People are criticising MGS 4's story for what it is.
And not that the GTA IV discussion even has anything to do with this particular area anyway.
So basically responding as you did before, ignoring my points, valid as they are. Saints Row 2 was what GTA WAS, its basically next gen San Andreas without the variety of areas. GTA4 was bad, and I won't reiterate the 3-4 paragraphs I wrote about it, but it was lesser than last-gen San Andreas and its main features were a horrible drain on life.
I think the fact of the matter here, is that some people were disappointed with MGS4, and some others are taking offense that these people that were disappointed didn't love the game.
I, personally, wasn't disappointed with MGS4. It was exactly what I was expecting it to be.
You know, I've never even played MGS4 and I was disappointed.
It was really the only thing I wanted to play on the PS3 and I was excited at the prospect of playing it when it was either ported or I got a PS3 some time down the road, which is looking increasingly like it will be even further down the road.
Now not so much. I heard a lot about it and then watched a bunch of videos and there's nothing there that interests me. And that makes me sad, especially since they took such great strides to add in more actual playtime, tomake the stealth system more interesting, and to tone down the weirdness in the story while still keeping it eccentric in MGS3.
No More Heroes disappointed in that the hub-world was uninteresting and anything outside of the story missions felt like a chore. Don't bother arguing that it's supposed to be that way either.
No More Heroes disappointed in that the hub-world was uninteresting and anything outside of the story missions felt like a chore. Don't bother arguing that it's supposed to be that way either.
Hurghlrgh that is the ultimate cop-out.
Topical anecdote: I once read some kind of thesis that excused MGS2's story being dreadful on the grounds that it was supposed to be. HrgLRUGRLGURg.
Thinking back I wasnt dissapointed with the story, just bored by it. I was however dissapointed with the technical side of the game. It was not that visually impressive, presented no great graphical or programming feats, and seemed like it was constantly begging your forgiveness while it got its shit together as you played.
"sorry we just gotta fade in and out a few times while we pass through these environment boxes, I know you're in a chase sequence and you're going through a box every 10 seconds, but seriously, have you seen how cool our motion captured main character models are? Pretty swank huh? So you dont mind? Cool. Oh also INSTALL."
Pretty much all the visual effects were identical or bizzarely similar to MGS3. On the ps2.
I spent like 10 minutes gob-smacked at how awful the flame effects were. I will take it to the grave with me.
I do not normally get this worked up over games. But MGS4 got such positive reviews it really just throws me how different my experience with the game was to most critics.
No More Heroes disappointed in that the hub-world was uninteresting and anything outside of the story missions felt like a chore. Don't bother arguing that it's supposed to be that way either.
Hurghlrgh that is the ultimate cop-out.
Topical anecdote: I once read some kind of thesis that excused MGS2's story being dreadful on the grounds that it was supposed to be. HrgLRUGRLGURg.
It's post-modern...you just don't get it, man. Yeah, I hate reading apologists in action.
Thinking back I wasnt dissapointed with the story, just bored by it. I was however dissapointed with the technical side of the game. It was not that visually impressive, presented no great graphical or programming feats, and seemed like it was constantly begging your forgiveness while it got its shit together as you played.
"sorry we just gotta fade in and out a few times while we pass through these environment boxes, I know you're in a chase sequence and you're going through a box every 10 seconds, but seriously, have you seen how cool our motion captured main character models are? Pretty swank huh? So you dont mind? Cool. Oh also INSTALL."
Pretty much all the visual effects were identical or bizzarely similar to MGS3. On the ps2.
I spent like 10 minutes gob-smacked at how awful the flame effects were. I will take it to the grave with me.
I do not normally get this worked up over games. But MGS4 got such positive reviews it really just throws me how different my experience with the game was to most critics.
You invalidate any point you ever have and ever will make every time you mention the graphics being bad. Even Tube agreed with me that they're stunning and Tube will go out of his way to disagree with everyone. He swears Jesus is the anti-christ.
Ok not bad, I take that back, overall they are effective, but nothing wowed me, and often random stuff stood out glaringly as bad. The kitchen area where you fight those wall-crawly dudes in particular looked awful, for example. The character models were superb, but again it didnt impress me because so much was sacrificed to do that. Its like fighting games, im never that impressed with the visuals because I know its being done within a small loading environment.
I genuinly believe the environments themselves were fairly uninspired though, lazy, if not bad looking, lazy. Outside of the desert section, which had a lot more sewers and bunkers than i'd have liked, there was nothing visually that I havent seen done in other games more effectively.
And nobody can explain the flame effects to me. Its like they forgot to add them in, especially with the molotov.
And I know im going to sound like a colossal dick for this, but playing the Gears 2 rider level, on the back of those big tank thingies, really cemented my views on MGS4's technical profficiency. If Gears can do shit like that with no loading screens at the cost of like half a texture not showing up for 2 seconds at the start of a level, I dont see why Kojima couldn't have done the same thing with his game.
I haven't played MGS4 yet (damn you Sony, lower the price of your goddamn console to something sane!), but I feel the key to enjoying the overall MGS series is to not take it so seriously. I mean, the title character is a big fuck-off tank with legs. (Though personally, I prefer the 1960s big fuck-off tank with arms.) Maybe I just have a taste for random weirdness like the bee guy who uses bees to form a bee gun that shoots bees at you. When you start thinking of it as a big crazy B-movie, Kojima's hamhanded attempts at philosophising blend in and become a part of that melodrama.
Or maybe MGS4 makes it impossible to enjoy that way? I dunno.
I'm sure a certain person will now call me a failure as a human being for failing to enjoy MGS in the correct way, but whatever.
I love the wackyness too. MGS4 wasnt really wacky enough or straight enough to be enjoyable for me, it just dawdled in the middle. But a lot of people seem to get the same enjoyment as the old titles out of it so it may just have been my experience with the game. There wasnt even that much good ol' Hideo phiosophising. 90% of the games dialogue was just explaining the same old stuff I've known since the first trailer, over and over again, from different angles.
I deserve to be eaten alive for this also, but I felt MGS2's structure and pacing was the best in the series. The prologue mission was nice and immersive, and set up the world very effectively. I love going from that into a focussed single situation like a terrorist attack of a facility, it was great. And it made the crazy AI shit easy to digest because I had such a grounding to fall back on in terms of my presence in the game world; I was on the tanker, rescuing people. When crazy stuff started happening I felt it was warrented as it had at least given me some footing before going off on its enjoyably silly tangents.
MGS4 was divided strangely, hopping between 4 environments evenly divided in legnth but with different quantities of gameplay and very little connection to one another outside of "this character is here, so you should go here, quick hop on the plane!" I didnt care about Snake, I dont care if hes old for some reason, he can die in the ass. Now give me a president to save and some hostages on an off-shore oil tanker and you're in business. Its kind of why Die Hard 1 is so much better than Die Hard 3. Stupid analogy, but yeah
No More Heroes disappointed in that the hub-world was uninteresting and anything outside of the story missions felt like a chore. Don't bother arguing that it's supposed to be that way either.
I both agree and disagree. I finally got NMH after all the hype and loved the shit out of it. But yes - there were numerous times I decided not to pop it in simply because I didn't want to deal with the hub world and do jobs around the town to get money.
But - I think there's a grey area in the description, "thats the way its supposed to be". The fights were so damn interesting, and so entertaining, I wanted to get to the next one SO badly every time. But, overall, there's only 10 or so fights. So, I wonder if there was no hub world if I would have enjoied the fights as much. So - because the hub world wasn't 'broken', just boring, I actually think it played a huge role in amping up my anticipation for the fights. There were so many times that I loathed driving from one end to the other just to grab another mission, but when you finally get enough to open the next battle, it was a really great feeling.
So while I won't defend how boring it was, I think saying "its supposed to be boring" is too cut and dry. I think it's a purposeful lull that sucks, but I'd argue it makes the great parts of the game even better.
But - thats also why I beat it on sweet and haven't played it again since. I've already seen how it ends, I've already had all the fights, I don't feel like dealing with the hub world for stuff I've already seen. But my first play through was one of the highlights of my gaming year.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
I deserve to be eaten alive for this also, but I felt MGS2's structure and pacing was the best in the series. The prologue mission was nice and immersive, and set up the world very effectively. I love going from that into a focussed single situation like a terrorist attack of a facility, it was great. And it made the crazy AI shit easy to digest because I had such a grounding to fall back on in terms of my presence in the game world; I was on the tanker, rescuing people. Then when crazy stuff started happening I felt it was warrented as it had at least given me some footing before going off on its enjoyably silly tangents.
I consider myself to be of average intellegence here, and I still honestly can not wrap my brain around what happened in MGS2.
I enjoyed it until Raiden was naked. From that point on I was totally lost. I remember thinking events were cool, and having a good time playing, but I could not explain what happened from that point to the end at all. Most of that hinges on the fact I don't fully understand Liquid/Solidus/Ocelot and that whole thing.
MGS2 was fun, but as I said earlier here, I lost any desire to continue playing the series after it. It just got way too screwy.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Let's put it this way: taking MGS deadly seriously is like taking Dragonball Z deadly seriously. Though that doesn't stop far too many people from doing that.
Let's put it this way: taking MGS deadly seriously is like taking Dragonball Z deadly seriously. Though that doesn't stop far too many people from doing that.
i was pleasantly suprised by Halo 3. I think its because I was so dissapointed with 2 it left me jaded and uninterested in the series. I basically didnt even realise it was out until it was in my console and I was co-oping the campaign with a mate
Or you just appreciate story and characters. And tube can come in here and drop some sarcastic comment about the story but I enjoy it because Snakes in it and if you didn't feel for him in that tunnel, you really are playing the wrong game.
Exactly. You like it because you're a wild fanboy of the series and you would have liked it no matter what. That's why your opinion on it is worthless, because you're just like any other deluded, frothing fanboy.
Just to play devils advocate here but isn't it possible that the character of Snake is interesting enough and drives the gameplay that his inclusion in the game warrants interest, because it actively improves everything around it. The biggest complaint of MGS2 was the raiden flipover and lack of snake. I mean yes, you're right, the majority of people will like it just 'cause and because snake is sooo cool and he's the last hope for humanity and a bunch of other indoctrinated fanboy utterly insane comments but i think a significant amount of metal gear solid fans are drawn to the snake character because it informs a lot of the other game dynamics.
It might help if you'd actually back up that point with some actual examples rather than just saying "drives the gameplay" or "informs a lot of the other game dynamics". Because it sounds like you're just using the "Snake is cool so the gameplay is better" arguement but using more words to get there.
I'm unsure whether you understand what playing devil's advocate means.
I was waiting for the supporters of Snake to come in an fill in the blanks here with details, because I'm not in support of the series in the same way many are, certainly not thematically or from a narrative standpoint.
The_Scarab on
0
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Lastly, Mirror's Edge rocked. It delivered exactly what I was expecting. Complaints about clunky controls and combat are a load of BS. She does the respective action when you press a button. You can knock a guy out by punching and kicking him, and you can disarm him when his weapon turns red. What is clunky or disappointing about that? It's exactly what was expected and I'd like to see evidence to the contrary if you care to dispute this.
I never thought the controls were clunky, but my problem was that, in the parts of the game you were forced into combat, the situation was more often than not akin to the final mission in Advance Wars: Day of Ruin: you could do everything right, accourding to what the game had taught you to do, and still end up dying almost every time. You had to exploit the AI, and pray to god they didn't get stuck somewhere that they could unload a clip on you before you even got halfway to them.
No the problem is that far too many people have been obsessed with getting the no combat achievement in the game, while this is possible, it is definitelynot how the game is intended to be played. The big combat section in Chapter 7 I was immensely frustrated with but I ended up realising it was because I was refusing to actually shoot anyone.
What gets me confused is for as many people that hate MGS4, you hear that many more people (some of them the same ones, though thankfully none here) crying for a 360 port.
I'd say, in regards to MGS, its always been about goofy action. Snake was even based on Snake Pliskin from Escape from New York and Escape from LA, and two goofier action movies would be hard to find.
A hard-boiled, world-weary, cynical killer. A sense of duty thats been almost ground out of him by both his employers and his enemies. Mannerisms from a mixture of old western cowboys and anime samurai. Snake has, at least to me, always been more of a normal soldier trying to cope with a world of madness, sometimes making fun of it, sometimes becoming embroiled in it, but in the end, just a guy with a gun and a need to be doing something. As well as a patsy throughout.
The reason the story has always been so serious business, underneath the goofy action, bizarre dialogue, and unconscious soldier humping, is that the story has always been about the Patriots, who are serious business. There's something romantic and urgent about a small group of people, normal people with perhaps greater than average ability, intelligence, or wealth, imposing their idea of the world. Not just conquering the world, but enforcing a culture onto it that is embraced as the norm, as how it has always been, and always will be.
I thought MGS3 was the best of the series, for a number of reasons. Pacing, the gameplay itself, the secret agentish story, the fun boss fights.
Spoilers for the entire series throughout, don't read if you haven't beaten em or don't care
It was fascinating that the small group of people that actually did it were the characters who supported Snake/Big Boss in MGS3, the quirky characters I had come to know and love. Paramedic, the innocent movie-fanatic, making Grey Fox? Major Zero, the james bond fan, wanting to create a reality where the James Bonds of the world would be properly uplifted, not betrayed and manipulated? And even Sigint, once condemning the idea of Metal Gears, being intimately involved in their creation?
And yet, I was willing to believe that the circumstances they were placed in, the mission that had brought them together, had been enough to create a cohesive group of people, with determination enough to remake the world, however flawed their ideal of it may be.
So, while the games often focused on, and emphasized the poignancy(however nonexistent it was) of many moments that had very little to do with the story, I can enjoy both the bizarre gameplay, and appreciate the epic story underneath.
Oh, and in answer to the question of why Snake was trying to stop Ocelot at all in MGS4:
Snake didn't want Ocelot to be in control of the entire world. Cause he's fucking crazy. I think it entirely possible that Ocelot is a fucking liar, as well. At the end, when he claims that he wanted Snake to upload the virus, its entirely more likely that he would have preferred greatly having control of the sole remaining AI with control over everything. This other way just works alright for him.
Far Cry 2, on the other hand, I have to force myself to take in extremely small doses. The game might as well be 'sandbox in which you drive around a lot. And maybe shoot a guy.' Whats funny is, it could've been fixed if you could shoot the damn turret while driving in third person.
Not sure why everyone hates Assassin's Creed, honestly. Repetitive somewhat, but unless you were trying to clear out all the side missions and find all the flags, the main storyline is pretty entertaining. Its not a 60$ game, though. More a 30$ demo for the next one.
Well, I finished MGS4 last night and I have to say I was tolerating the plot up until the epilogue but by the scene in the graveyard I wasn't even paying attention anymore.
People say things about ridiculousness and go 'lol series always had monkeys and bees and psychic monkey bees ridiculousness ain't no thang'.
Thats not what makes MGS4 ridiculous. What makes MGS4 ridiculous is that it consistently and repeatedly undoes and redoes important plot points from past MGS games. Hell, it keeps on undoing and redoing points from the previous acts. There are only so many times that someone can betray somebody before I just stop caring. There are only so many times that someone can be put in a situation where they are clearly going to die before i just stop caring.
I absolutely loved the core gameplay. It was amazing. The octocamo is probably the best thing any videogame character has ever had. Crawling through the desert in the first act with shots flying overhead was absolutely amazing. It sucked me in completely. I really felt like a ghost infiltrating a battlefield, and the times where I was lying on the ground with my gun trained on a PMCs head praying that he wouldn't spot me as he walked past 20cm away from me I was literally holding my breath.
And then later on when you get the face mask, It just increases that incredible badass feeling. You feel invisible, but you feel like you are invisible because you are a skilled badass. Crawling through the snow sniping frogs and fighting Crying Wolf was amazing, and the incredible graphics only made it even more immersive.
The first two acts have the amazing stealth battlefield dynamic. And then it dissapears, and doesn't come back. We get a taster selection of a variety of gameplay styles, some of which are awesome and some of which aren't so awesome. I was praying that there would be filler, send me back to act one and make me do it backwards. Please Kojima, I'll listen to 2 hours of bullshit about how someone wasn't actually someone if you do that.
Specific storyline complaints:
The fact that they completely integrated the Patriots with the events of MGS3 seemed pretty stupid to me, even for MGS. I didn't mind the events of the conclusion of MGS2 so much, when the Patriots were a faceless and incredibly powerful organisation. The patriots were at least menacing then. But then, actually no, they were just your buddies from the 70s. That makes no sense. For a supposedly omnipotent group of AIs, the Patriots were incredibly stupid in this game. The seemed basically helpless to stop Liquid's scheme. And the revelation at the end makes no sense as well. We knew Liquid Ocelot was trying to destroy the patriots, and the only difference is that in the end he doesn't actually want to take their place. If that was the case, then all the deception was basically pointless, and Naomi could have just uploaded the worm in Arsenal Gear that she always had access too.
Finally, the 'snake will die' thing was one of the only interesting things about the story. Then they undo that as well. And Drebin injected Snake with a FOXDIE that would kill Big Boss when at the time of injection Big Boss was the Patriots slave? RIDICULOUS HAROUHFOUSAFHOASUBAJB CXACV.
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So MUCH FUCKING STUPIDITY
Also I never want to watch another romance scene made by Kojima. That is some of the worst bullshit I have ever seen. ANOTHER GEEKY GUY FALLS IN LOVE WITH A GIRL BUT IS INCAPABLE OF MAKING A MOVE, BUT FOR SOME REASON THE GIRL LOVES HIM ANYWAY? It is the worst form of wish fulfillment I have ever seen. And if I ever see Otacon push his glasses up one more time...
Heh, I think I'm probably the only person on here who has more of a problem with the MGS gameplay than the story/characters. I should really play Subsistence, it's just been sitting here for...months now.
Heh, I think I'm probably the only person on here who has more of a problem with the MGS gameplay than the story/characters. I should really play Subsistence, it's just been sitting here for...months now.
Noep. Me, too.
I played Splinter Cell before I played any MGS (started with 2, then went to 1 -> 3 -> 4). It was like a step backward for all of them except 4 (it was the original 3, not subsistence).
4 was great, though. I enjoyed all of it, 30 minute cutscenes and all, and the end fight with Ocelot was magnificent, though I can see how someone would not like the story since it was convoluted to say the least :P
For me, the biggest one is always going to be Ocarina of Time. It's been so long that I think a lot of people forget (and, hell, probably didn't even experience) just how hyped that game was. It was in development from before the 64 even came out, all the way through about 80% of that system's shelf life. It was supposed to be the be-all end-all of not just Zelda but adventure games in general.
Then we get it, and it's not such a bad game. In a lot of ways it's actually a pretty good game. But it had many, many flaws that should not have been present in a game that was being developed for more than five years. I mean, we go from the vast and open-ended world of the previous Zeldas into the "Spokes on a Wheel" Hyrule-Field model that sucked major ass. Going back and forth in time was cool, yes, but came with its own set of problems. Can somebody explain to my why the hell adult Link couldn't use the boomerang anymore (30 minutes and half a dungeon after you get it)? There was also exactly one more dungeon in the past that you could do, and exactly one dungeon that required you to act in both time periods. You got the feeling that they just put those in there to say that those features were in it. Hell, I know they did.
Another game, perhaps not Big-Name enough for this thread but still pretty big-name, that really disappointed me was Bully. Don't get me wrong, it's one of my favorite games of all time; I've probably logged more hours in Bully than just about any game since Final Fantasy Tactics (300+). It's a great game just to fuck around and do whatever in. However, there was shit that was not in the game that damn well should have been. I remember leading up to the release, much was made of the different cliques and how you could align yourself with them; "Choose your allies wisely", and that sort of thing. This was released alongside screenshots of, for instance, a huge-ass redheaded Jock in a varsity jacket, looking very much like a beefed-up version of Jimmy in his senior year. We were clearly meant to think that we could somehow join these cliques, customize our appearance based on it (the preppies were said to have a frat house with its own gym), perhaps even experience a different story arc. When you played it, though, the story was very linear, and the cliques were just the same people with different ways of kicking your ass (Which they weren't very good at). There was also shit that was blatantly half-assed (can somebody explain why I can buy a tuxedo in a game set in high school, and not go to the fucking prom in it??, same with the various girlfriends, who are functionally identical), or inexcusably left out (you can dribble a basketball but not play the basketball minigame that was in San Andreas?).
Then, about a year later they come out with the "Scholarship Edition", which will presumably have all this shit in it that they should have damn well put in the game a year ago. What does it end up having? A few more lame-ass, underdeveloped classes that don't do shit for gameplay, have no rewards other than giving you stupid outfits that literally make everyone in school laugh at you, and has improved graphics that somehow manage to make the game look worse. Damn, what a letdown.
Heh, I think I'm probably the only person on here who has more of a problem with the MGS gameplay than the story/characters. I should really play Subsistence, it's just been sitting here for...months now.
Noep. Me, too.
I played Splinter Cell before I played any MGS (started with 2, then went to 1 -> 3 -> 4). It was like a step backward for all of them except 4 (it was the original 3, not subsistence).
4 was great, though. I enjoyed all of it, 30 minute cutscenes and all, and the end fight with Ocelot was magnificent, though I can see how someone would not like the story since it was convoluted to say the least :P
The story wasn't convoluted. It was stupid
EDIT:
let me rephrase that: the story was convoluted, it was stupid
And then we get something else instead. It didn't even feel like a Zelda game, it felt like an imposter, like somebody murdered your best friend and was wearing his face as a mask.
Played fine, but it was retardedly boring. I kept waiting for it to deliver; gave it every chance in the world. I even thought it finally had something going for itself when I got to the Arbiter's Ground desert asylum and Snow mansion.
And then that was it. The rest of the game was boring.
Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess? Really? I can see the elitist forumer sticking their nose up at twilight princess because it wasn't the original, but ocarina of time?
This is turning into the "I have bad taste" thread.
Wind Waker was the game that made me excited about the Zelda franchise for the first time in ages since Link to the Past or even Links Awakening.
Then they went and ruined all that new ground treading they were doing with the visual style and the gameplay mechanics.
What a completely dead series Zelda is to me now. I mean sure, the next one will probably be good and a lot of people will love it. But why the fuck should I be excited, they haven't changed in twenty years. Almost literally in some cases. How many Water Temple boomerang flip switch puzzles can they have? God dammit.
And it wasn't just the cel shading, which I will say fit that franchise so perfectly and was so expressive and dynamic, it was the change in pace. A more open world, albeit an ocean. More civlization, more vibrancy to the locations. There was a feeling of scale, not to mention a supremely satisfying final boss sequence culminating in a, dare i say that word, epic final fight right in the head!
Then Twilight Princess comes along and it is almost entirely Zelda By Numbers. Even the wolf/midna thing was just so tiresome and predictable I could have sword we had done this whole thing before somewhere else. Not to mention it looked painfully outdated, graphically speaking. Which is why the Celda style would have worked so fucking well.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited November 2008
The fanboys would have lynched Nintendo for using a "kiddies" style again.
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It wasnt that it was a bad idea for a story, its just it was more like the kind of thing you write with your friends when your 14, pages and pages of exposition about shit that nobody cares about, without characterisation or pacing, purpose or direction. It was like a 10 hour mission de-briefing, all facts, over and over again. There was a character that had like 30 minutes screen time, and all he did was fart. The arms dealer guy was like half the story, for no reason, and its attempts at emotive or philosophical divergence from the fact-vomits were amateurish (the whole eggs thing).
The bosses were just awful, "i am sadness" "I am war" "I am uninterested".
My main gripe however, was:
Also fire effects were the worst ive seen in a game and I hated the constant fading in and out transitions, 5 during a chase sequence, slowing it to a crawl. Fuck it. I do not have random hatred for MGS4, I have very specific hatred for it. Especially since critically it is extremely well received, and I feel unjustifiably so.
MGS2 was queer and no doubt MGS4 was, but I really enjoyed what was in MGS3. It was pretty simple, but it was great and the finale was one of the only moments in a game I'd actually call emotional.
Also, Volgin punching oil drums.
MGS2, it's like, how am I supposed to identify with this story about a man who may or may not be fighting an AI inside of a virtual reality programme trying to kill a clone of his hero who was also the President and what.
[edit]What really irked me about 4, too, was that dumb codec call after you beat every member of the B&B unit from arms dealer black dude explaining to you why you should feel sad you just killed them. "When she was little she was raped by an octopus and now she spends all her time thinking about being raped and crying AND YOU KILLED HER!". No thanks.
Well no, you largely hate GTA because it wasn't Saints Row 2 and didn't let you do wacky and zany things. Not because it's actually bad for what it is.
People are criticising MGS 4's story for what it is.
And not that the GTA IV discussion even has anything to do with this particular area anyway.
Yeah. MGS1 and 3 are all you should even care about in the MGS series.
So basically responding as you did before, ignoring my points, valid as they are. Saints Row 2 was what GTA WAS, its basically next gen San Andreas without the variety of areas. GTA4 was bad, and I won't reiterate the 3-4 paragraphs I wrote about it, but it was lesser than last-gen San Andreas and its main features were a horrible drain on life.
I, personally, wasn't disappointed with MGS4. It was exactly what I was expecting it to be.
It was really the only thing I wanted to play on the PS3 and I was excited at the prospect of playing it when it was either ported or I got a PS3 some time down the road, which is looking increasingly like it will be even further down the road.
Now not so much. I heard a lot about it and then watched a bunch of videos and there's nothing there that interests me. And that makes me sad, especially since they took such great strides to add in more actual playtime, tomake the stealth system more interesting, and to tone down the weirdness in the story while still keeping it eccentric in MGS3.
Topical anecdote: I once read some kind of thesis that excused MGS2's story being dreadful on the grounds that it was supposed to be. HrgLRUGRLGURg.
"sorry we just gotta fade in and out a few times while we pass through these environment boxes, I know you're in a chase sequence and you're going through a box every 10 seconds, but seriously, have you seen how cool our motion captured main character models are? Pretty swank huh? So you dont mind? Cool. Oh also INSTALL."
Pretty much all the visual effects were identical or bizzarely similar to MGS3. On the ps2.
I spent like 10 minutes gob-smacked at how awful the flame effects were. I will take it to the grave with me.
I do not normally get this worked up over games. But MGS4 got such positive reviews it really just throws me how different my experience with the game was to most critics.
It's post-modern...you just don't get it, man. Yeah, I hate reading apologists in action.
You invalidate any point you ever have and ever will make every time you mention the graphics being bad. Even Tube agreed with me that they're stunning and Tube will go out of his way to disagree with everyone. He swears Jesus is the anti-christ.
I genuinly believe the environments themselves were fairly uninspired though, lazy, if not bad looking, lazy. Outside of the desert section, which had a lot more sewers and bunkers than i'd have liked, there was nothing visually that I havent seen done in other games more effectively.
And nobody can explain the flame effects to me. Its like they forgot to add them in, especially with the molotov.
And I know im going to sound like a colossal dick for this, but playing the Gears 2 rider level, on the back of those big tank thingies, really cemented my views on MGS4's technical profficiency. If Gears can do shit like that with no loading screens at the cost of like half a texture not showing up for 2 seconds at the start of a level, I dont see why Kojima couldn't have done the same thing with his game.
Or maybe MGS4 makes it impossible to enjoy that way? I dunno.
I'm sure a certain person will now call me a failure as a human being for failing to enjoy MGS in the correct way, but whatever.
I deserve to be eaten alive for this also, but I felt MGS2's structure and pacing was the best in the series. The prologue mission was nice and immersive, and set up the world very effectively. I love going from that into a focussed single situation like a terrorist attack of a facility, it was great. And it made the crazy AI shit easy to digest because I had such a grounding to fall back on in terms of my presence in the game world; I was on the tanker, rescuing people. When crazy stuff started happening I felt it was warrented as it had at least given me some footing before going off on its enjoyably silly tangents.
MGS4 was divided strangely, hopping between 4 environments evenly divided in legnth but with different quantities of gameplay and very little connection to one another outside of "this character is here, so you should go here, quick hop on the plane!" I didnt care about Snake, I dont care if hes old for some reason, he can die in the ass. Now give me a president to save and some hostages on an off-shore oil tanker and you're in business. Its kind of why Die Hard 1 is so much better than Die Hard 3. Stupid analogy, but yeah
I both agree and disagree. I finally got NMH after all the hype and loved the shit out of it. But yes - there were numerous times I decided not to pop it in simply because I didn't want to deal with the hub world and do jobs around the town to get money.
But - I think there's a grey area in the description, "thats the way its supposed to be". The fights were so damn interesting, and so entertaining, I wanted to get to the next one SO badly every time. But, overall, there's only 10 or so fights. So, I wonder if there was no hub world if I would have enjoied the fights as much. So - because the hub world wasn't 'broken', just boring, I actually think it played a huge role in amping up my anticipation for the fights. There were so many times that I loathed driving from one end to the other just to grab another mission, but when you finally get enough to open the next battle, it was a really great feeling.
So while I won't defend how boring it was, I think saying "its supposed to be boring" is too cut and dry. I think it's a purposeful lull that sucks, but I'd argue it makes the great parts of the game even better.
But - thats also why I beat it on sweet and haven't played it again since. I've already seen how it ends, I've already had all the fights, I don't feel like dealing with the hub world for stuff I've already seen. But my first play through was one of the highlights of my gaming year.
I consider myself to be of average intellegence here, and I still honestly can not wrap my brain around what happened in MGS2.
I enjoyed it until Raiden was naked. From that point on I was totally lost. I remember thinking events were cool, and having a good time playing, but I could not explain what happened from that point to the end at all. Most of that hinges on the fact I don't fully understand Liquid/Solidus/Ocelot and that whole thing.
MGS2 was fun, but as I said earlier here, I lost any desire to continue playing the series after it. It just got way too screwy.
I think I'll just let this speak for itself.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I'm unsure whether you understand what playing devil's advocate means.
I was waiting for the supporters of Snake to come in an fill in the blanks here with details, because I'm not in support of the series in the same way many are, certainly not thematically or from a narrative standpoint.
No the problem is that far too many people have been obsessed with getting the no combat achievement in the game, while this is possible, it is definitelynot how the game is intended to be played. The big combat section in Chapter 7 I was immensely frustrated with but I ended up realising it was because I was refusing to actually shoot anyone.
If I used guns is would have been far easier.
Satans..... hints.....
That just doesn't make sense.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
A hard-boiled, world-weary, cynical killer. A sense of duty thats been almost ground out of him by both his employers and his enemies. Mannerisms from a mixture of old western cowboys and anime samurai. Snake has, at least to me, always been more of a normal soldier trying to cope with a world of madness, sometimes making fun of it, sometimes becoming embroiled in it, but in the end, just a guy with a gun and a need to be doing something. As well as a patsy throughout.
The reason the story has always been so serious business, underneath the goofy action, bizarre dialogue, and unconscious soldier humping, is that the story has always been about the Patriots, who are serious business. There's something romantic and urgent about a small group of people, normal people with perhaps greater than average ability, intelligence, or wealth, imposing their idea of the world. Not just conquering the world, but enforcing a culture onto it that is embraced as the norm, as how it has always been, and always will be.
I thought MGS3 was the best of the series, for a number of reasons. Pacing, the gameplay itself, the secret agentish story, the fun boss fights.
Spoilers for the entire series throughout, don't read if you haven't beaten em or don't care
And yet, I was willing to believe that the circumstances they were placed in, the mission that had brought them together, had been enough to create a cohesive group of people, with determination enough to remake the world, however flawed their ideal of it may be.
So, while the games often focused on, and emphasized the poignancy(however nonexistent it was) of many moments that had very little to do with the story, I can enjoy both the bizarre gameplay, and appreciate the epic story underneath.
Oh, and in answer to the question of why Snake was trying to stop Ocelot at all in MGS4:
Far Cry 2, on the other hand, I have to force myself to take in extremely small doses. The game might as well be 'sandbox in which you drive around a lot. And maybe shoot a guy.' Whats funny is, it could've been fixed if you could shoot the damn turret while driving in third person.
Not sure why everyone hates Assassin's Creed, honestly. Repetitive somewhat, but unless you were trying to clear out all the side missions and find all the flags, the main storyline is pretty entertaining. Its not a 60$ game, though. More a 30$ demo for the next one.
People say things about ridiculousness and go 'lol series always had monkeys and bees and psychic monkey bees ridiculousness ain't no thang'.
Thats not what makes MGS4 ridiculous. What makes MGS4 ridiculous is that it consistently and repeatedly undoes and redoes important plot points from past MGS games. Hell, it keeps on undoing and redoing points from the previous acts. There are only so many times that someone can betray somebody before I just stop caring. There are only so many times that someone can be put in a situation where they are clearly going to die before i just stop caring.
I absolutely loved the core gameplay. It was amazing. The octocamo is probably the best thing any videogame character has ever had. Crawling through the desert in the first act with shots flying overhead was absolutely amazing. It sucked me in completely. I really felt like a ghost infiltrating a battlefield, and the times where I was lying on the ground with my gun trained on a PMCs head praying that he wouldn't spot me as he walked past 20cm away from me I was literally holding my breath.
The first two acts have the amazing stealth battlefield dynamic. And then it dissapears, and doesn't come back. We get a taster selection of a variety of gameplay styles, some of which are awesome and some of which aren't so awesome. I was praying that there would be filler, send me back to act one and make me do it backwards. Please Kojima, I'll listen to 2 hours of bullshit about how someone wasn't actually someone if you do that.
Specific storyline complaints:
Finally, the 'snake will die' thing was one of the only interesting things about the story. Then they undo that as well. And Drebin injected Snake with a FOXDIE that would kill Big Boss when at the time of injection Big Boss was the Patriots slave? RIDICULOUS HAROUHFOUSAFHOASUBAJB CXACV.
ADSPAJCVAIOJAV:JKX V
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So MUCH FUCKING STUPIDITY
Also I never want to watch another romance scene made by Kojima. That is some of the worst bullshit I have ever seen. ANOTHER GEEKY GUY FALLS IN LOVE WITH A GIRL BUT IS INCAPABLE OF MAKING A MOVE, BUT FOR SOME REASON THE GIRL LOVES HIM ANYWAY? It is the worst form of wish fulfillment I have ever seen. And if I ever see Otacon push his glasses up one more time...
https://medium.com/@alascii
Noep. Me, too.
I played Splinter Cell before I played any MGS (started with 2, then went to 1 -> 3 -> 4). It was like a step backward for all of them except 4 (it was the original 3, not subsistence).
4 was great, though. I enjoyed all of it, 30 minute cutscenes and all, and the end fight with Ocelot was magnificent, though I can see how someone would not like the story since it was convoluted to say the least :P
Then we get it, and it's not such a bad game. In a lot of ways it's actually a pretty good game. But it had many, many flaws that should not have been present in a game that was being developed for more than five years. I mean, we go from the vast and open-ended world of the previous Zeldas into the "Spokes on a Wheel" Hyrule-Field model that sucked major ass. Going back and forth in time was cool, yes, but came with its own set of problems. Can somebody explain to my why the hell adult Link couldn't use the boomerang anymore (30 minutes and half a dungeon after you get it)? There was also exactly one more dungeon in the past that you could do, and exactly one dungeon that required you to act in both time periods. You got the feeling that they just put those in there to say that those features were in it. Hell, I know they did.
Another game, perhaps not Big-Name enough for this thread but still pretty big-name, that really disappointed me was Bully. Don't get me wrong, it's one of my favorite games of all time; I've probably logged more hours in Bully than just about any game since Final Fantasy Tactics (300+). It's a great game just to fuck around and do whatever in. However, there was shit that was not in the game that damn well should have been. I remember leading up to the release, much was made of the different cliques and how you could align yourself with them; "Choose your allies wisely", and that sort of thing. This was released alongside screenshots of, for instance, a huge-ass redheaded Jock in a varsity jacket, looking very much like a beefed-up version of Jimmy in his senior year. We were clearly meant to think that we could somehow join these cliques, customize our appearance based on it (the preppies were said to have a frat house with its own gym), perhaps even experience a different story arc. When you played it, though, the story was very linear, and the cliques were just the same people with different ways of kicking your ass (Which they weren't very good at). There was also shit that was blatantly half-assed (can somebody explain why I can buy a tuxedo in a game set in high school, and not go to the fucking prom in it??, same with the various girlfriends, who are functionally identical), or inexcusably left out (you can dribble a basketball but not play the basketball minigame that was in San Andreas?).
Then, about a year later they come out with the "Scholarship Edition", which will presumably have all this shit in it that they should have damn well put in the game a year ago. What does it end up having? A few more lame-ass, underdeveloped classes that don't do shit for gameplay, have no rewards other than giving you stupid outfits that literally make everyone in school laugh at you, and has improved graphics that somehow manage to make the game look worse. Damn, what a letdown.
The story wasn't convoluted. It was stupid
EDIT:
let me rephrase that: the story was convoluted, it was stupid
https://medium.com/@alascii
I was so excited. Fucking ecstatic.
And then we get something else instead. It didn't even feel like a Zelda game, it felt like an imposter, like somebody murdered your best friend and was wearing his face as a mask.
Played fine, but it was retardedly boring. I kept waiting for it to deliver; gave it every chance in the world. I even thought it finally had something going for itself when I got to the Arbiter's Ground desert asylum and Snow mansion.
And then that was it. The rest of the game was boring.
So very disappointed.
This is turning into the "I have bad taste" thread.
Then they went and ruined all that new ground treading they were doing with the visual style and the gameplay mechanics.
What a completely dead series Zelda is to me now. I mean sure, the next one will probably be good and a lot of people will love it. But why the fuck should I be excited, they haven't changed in twenty years. Almost literally in some cases. How many Water Temple boomerang flip switch puzzles can they have? God dammit.
And it wasn't just the cel shading, which I will say fit that franchise so perfectly and was so expressive and dynamic, it was the change in pace. A more open world, albeit an ocean. More civlization, more vibrancy to the locations. There was a feeling of scale, not to mention a supremely satisfying final boss sequence culminating in a, dare i say that word, epic final fight right in the head!
Then Twilight Princess comes along and it is almost entirely Zelda By Numbers. Even the wolf/midna thing was just so tiresome and predictable I could have sword we had done this whole thing before somewhere else. Not to mention it looked painfully outdated, graphically speaking. Which is why the Celda style would have worked so fucking well.
Or something.
https://medium.com/@alascii