The big lie of war in video games is that it's something you can win. -- Robert Yang
That thought process led me to feel quite strongly I'd prefer for sentimental reasons for there to be no MGS5, or at least for Hideo Kojima to at last get his apparent wish not to be heavily involved. Read all about it here. Surprisingly the biggest trigger of nerd rage for this particular column was my offhanded claim that I'm 'pretty much the biggest Metal Gear Solid fan there is.' How dare I!
Changing gears a little, I've done a new editorial at Gamasutra about the changing shape of the social gaming space, and why so many core developers are capitalizing on new opportunities there. Whether or not you play or make them I'd appreciate you giving it a read, because I think there are a lot of prejudices (some admittedly earned, and yet) and misinformation about the social sector out there.
I'm also excited to go to Toronto this week. I have the honor of giving the keynote for TIFF Bell Lightbox's women in film, games and new media day. I have never been to Toronto (or anywhere in Canada, for that matter), but I know enough awesome folks there that I fully expect to love it. And Mathew Kumar has promised to take me for poutine so I'm completely thrilled. Expect coverage and thoughts on the experience in the coming days.
One of the things I love about MGS, besides the stealth gameplay, is its nuanced examination of what war means to different people. In that vein, here's an editorial I highly recommend. I've written a lot about how "realistic" war games make me kind of uneasy. Mostly I just find them spiritually off-putting, aside from the fact I just don't really enjoy playing first-person shooters as a matter of taste. I don't consider myself particularly pacifistic, even; I just find the relationship between war games and the reality of our modern climate a little bit uncomfortable for reasons I struggle to articulate sometimes (see my piece from last year, 'Who Cheers For War?')
And I struggle to articulate the reason because every time I try, a legion of enraged young men rises up to tell me to shut up and get back in the kitchen, which in itself is disturbing. Anything for which maladjusted people are tempted to scream at the top of their lungs in defense would appear to have a red flag upon it, I think.
12 comments:
I remember reading your posting on Kotaku and thinking "finally, someone else gets it." As an MGS fan I'd love for 4 to be the end of it all and let Snake get the rest he so desperately deserves. And there's a part of me that is shocked but not surprised at the nerd rage. :/ But that's why I continue to watch your blog. You keep doing what you're doing and speaking from your point of view. The fanboys can get over it. Maybe they should go back outside to digging in the coal mines and roughing it in the woods without food, water, or shelter. Since they're so adamant about us being in the kitchen they should experience their gender-defining hard labor as well. >.> Yeah that was mean and I probably would never say that. I have to take the high road and be the bigger person. Damn my senses.
Though I agree about letting Solid/Old Snake rest, I disagree about ending MGS period. To continue your theater analogy, Kojima doesn't have, and may never again have, a stage as great as Metal Gear Solid. Very few developers create a commercially/critically successful franchise to begin with, so why not continue to use it? Those kinds of resources won't be provided to Kojima for, say, Boktai or Snatcher sequels (no disrespect to those games).
Even as obviously fatigued as he is about the franchise, Kojima has never let that put him in the trap of sterile sequelization. Metal Gear Solid 2 was a surreal deconstruction of video gaming itself, Metal Gear Solid 3 was an affectionate parody of Cold War spy movies, Metal Gear Solid 4 was a contemporary military third-person shooter featuring a literally and figuratively archaic hero, and Metal Gear Solid 4 is a mix of stealth and action-RPG elements drawing upon the riches of recent Central American history. None of these games are like each other, except in being in the same continuity and being stealth-action games.
er, the last one was supposed to be Peace Walker. OOps :(
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For every nerd raging fan who tell you to get back in the kitchen dont you have raging fans that love your columns and feel that someone with a voice that can be heard across the nets like yours, "gets it"?
Why not talk more about them? You never mention us, you overlook us way too easily.
That MGS5 article needed to be written since the day after MGS4 launched!
Might I recommend you check out Poutini's House of Poutine while in Toronto? It's a healthy, fairly scenic walk from The Lightbox and has some of the best poutine I'm aware exists.
I also really hope I'll be able to tear myself aware from furious studying and check out your keynote. The event sounds really interesting and it would probably make for a far more fascinating Friday afternoon than most.
Bah!! Forgot to share: Poutini's website = http://www.poutini.com/
No, they shouldn't even ending the MGS series. Maybe snake can rest for the time being but they should make a remake of a previous MGS games.
Remakes of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake could prove worthwhile, especially after exposing Big Boss as a character players can relate and sympathize with. As players have experienced guiding Big Boss in three separate games, and Snake in three others, Kojima Productions has an opportunity to use current technology to better present the conflict between the two in a way the limitations of the MSX2 couldn't allow. I'd certainly feel conflicted about seeing Big Boss as the main antagonist after having experienced his formative years into the legendary soldier he's become (or into the legendary soldier I created through play, as it were).
And while I agree MGS4 should end Solid Snake's story, I'm unhappy about the prospect of a proper Metal Gear never being released again. Unlike movies, videogames aren't valuable primarily for the ideas they present through narrative. Their primary value is playability, above all else. Ideas are very important to a creator, and to some of the players, but how the game plays is of unequal value. It would be nothing short of a tragedy to stop making games that feel, sound, look and play like Metal Gear Solid games. I know this is a concept a few people still struggle with, and some outright denounce it, but that's just how it is. I see previous dissentients of this principle, that of the unequal value of play, are catching up after acknowledging the current state of "art games," which has actually never changed and has always been what they're just now discovering, but I digress.
If Mr. Kojima were given the opportunity to create a brand new IP for the latest console systems, it would be hard for me to believe he'd return to the stealth-action genre. Hopefully he doesn't get discouraged that professionals in the industry so carelessly voted for Cut The Rope over Peace Walker for the handheld game award at GDC11, and ends up forced into entering the social space (the man did not look happy).
Hopefully he feels just as strongly on high-end, quality games as he did in his GDC09 keynote speech. Either way, I'll look forward to whatever he decides to work on next.
I agree with your concerns on their being a potential MGS 5. Especially with MGS Rising in the pipeline, I feel that the series needs to just finish.
Contained stories always work the best in my opinion (like most of the mainline Final Fantasy titles). When creators try to drag a game story out for too long it just gets needlessly convoluted and less impactful (like with the Kingdom Hearts franchise).
No, I'm the biggest Metal Gear Solid fan....
How dare you.
Hideo Kojima on remaking MGS1, in fewer words for those that skip reading long paragraphs from strangers. :) (emphasis mine)
“I was just making the game I wanted to make. Looking back, there’s not anything in particular I want to go back and fix. If you change anything, you change the game – and I want to avoid that. If you bring the gameplay up to modern standards, then you lose a bit of the original game. It was a game made for a certain era – not just the story, but the controls and everything about it reflect that era in which the game was made.” - Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima remembers Metal Gear Solid 1
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