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[Crossing Eden]

As the helicopter scene is the (for want of a better term) 'peak' narrative moment and we haven't really witnessed anything like it before in this game or any MGS, showing all the gory detail was a particularly effective technique, acting as both a shocking moment and statement of intent. The scene builds and builds layers of tension quite expertly.

Not really. Like I said, the imagination is a great tool for any director, especially when it comes down to effective cinematography. You can get the same message across without explicitly showing everything and just letting the viewer/player imagine what's happening. It's basic film logic. Imagine if the american version of the first resident evil had shown the first zombie from the front in explicit detail eating while Japan got the original shot with his back turned. Showing small glimpses and peaks is interesting and allows the viewer to use their brain to envision what is happening. It's more clever that way. Because now the scene just isn't about shocking value for the sake of shock value but it also involves the viewer in a way besides "I bet you're shocked right now by how gross that was." It's the reason why films like Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, Alien, and Predator were super successful. I'm not saying MGSZ is a horror film. I'm just saying how I feel about the version that has more subtlety instead of shock value.

 

[Crossing Eden]

She was an enemy spy, and despite her starting to turn a lew leaf, she tried blowing up Mother Base and all its occupants. If I were Big Boss, I wouldn't feel sorry for Paz at all. I'd do what Boss did and rescue her to see if she leaked any info, and if so; what. Then I'd have her silenced. No point in being lenient on enemy spies wanting to kill you & all you've worked for.

Dude I just said that earlier. ಠ_ಠ And that brings up another strange thing that happened. BB screaming NO! and reaching out for Paz before she blows up as if he cared about her well being. Despite like we said earlier immediately suggesting killing her and basically capturing her himself.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Not really. Like I said, the imagination is a great tool for an author to use, especially when it comes down to effective cinematography. You can get the same message across without explicitly showing everything and just letting the player imagine what's happening. It's basic film logic. Imagine if the american version first resident evil had shown the first zombie from the front in explicit detail eating instead of the shot while Japan got the original shot with his back turned. Showing small glimpses and peaks is interesting and allows the viewer to use their brain to envision what is happening. It's more clever that way. Because now the scene just isn't about shocking value for the sake of shock value but it also involves the viewer in a way besides "I bet you're shocked right now by how gross that was." It's the reason why films like Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, Alien, and Predator were super successful. I'm not saying MGSZ is a horror film. I'm just saying how I feel about the version that has more subtlety instead of shock value.

I understand how economical cinematography works perfectly, and I'd agree with you if the game had been either full of such shocking moments or if the scene was at the very beginning of the game, but it wasn't. If it had done either of those, it wouldn't be nearly as effective.

As I said, the scene isn't just about shocking the player. We've never seen anything like this in a Metal Gear game. It's a message. Weirdly, one of the main themes in the Metal Gear games has been about dispelling certain cosy Hollywood myths about war, yet the series has never really done that. I think this is Kojima showing us that he is prepared to actually dig that deep (no pun intended) rather than simply moralise. People may call it crutch for maturity, but I don't see it like that at all. I think it's actually a pretty brave move considering he's in charge of a multi-million dollar brand.

 

[Palpable]

Dude I just said that earlier. ಠ_ಠ And that brings up another strange thing that happened. BB screaming NO! and reaching out for Paz before she blows up as if he cared about her well being. Despite like we said earlier immediately suggesting killing her and basically capturing her himself.

To a certain extent, maybe he did care. But I'm thinking it matter more to them to find out what she or Chico told their enemies about Mother Base. After all, what was the point of rescuing her if they didn't get to extract what she told Skull Face about them?

 

[Crossing Eden]

I understand how economical cinematography works perfectly, and I'd agree with you if the game had been either full of such shocking moments or if the scene was at the very beginning of the game, but it wasn't. If it had done either of those, it wouldn't be nearly as effective.

As I said, the scene isn't just about shocking the player. We've never seen anything like this in a Metal Gear game. It's a message. Weirdly, one of the main themes in the Metal Gear games has been about dispelling certain cosy Hollywood myths about war, yet the series has never really done that. I think this is Kojima showing us that he is prepared to actually dig that deep (no pun intended) rather than simply moralise. People may call it crutch for maturity, but I don't see it like that at all. I think it's actually a pretty brave move considering he's in charge of a multi-million dollar brand.

With Chico tape 4, the snuke, the bomb removal scene, chico's chest headphone jack+achilles heel, the villain having tons upon tons of burn marks all over his body and causing a duel rape scenario, the game is just chock full of shock value that has very little to say when it comes to maturity. For something so short, there's shock value around every corner. It's never been seen in a metal gear game but it's been seen before in the film industry, and handled with much more care, nuance, The subjects of torture, rape, bombs, human bombs, i've seen it all handled much better. As far as mature content goes, the last of us handles the subject of rape and torture with much more care. Even Metal Gear Solid 3 handled torture and rape more gracefully. I'm just saying for a guy who said "we need to have these subjects in games for them to be considered on the level of breaking bad" it's just sloppy and feels shoehorned. And I consider the destruction of motherbase to be the climax of the story as that's much more significant than the helicopter scene. The helicopter scene is rising action.

 

[Swarming101]

Just got this game because it was like £12 on the PSN Store.

Turns out I'm nowhere near as good at this game as I remember being at MGS3 years back. I keep getting spotted from long distances away. Guess I need more practise.

 

[Screaming Meat]

With Chico tape 4, the snuke, the bomb removal scene, chico's chest headphone jack+achilles heel, the villain having tons upon tons of burn marks all over his body and causing a duel rape scenario, the game is just chock full of shock value that has very little to say when it comes to maturity.

The snuke and bomb removal both happen after the surgery; the tape is hidden in the game and therefore not immediately obvious without some serious digging, so up until the surgery there isn't anything nearly as gory. The Achilles' heel+jack is the only other moment and that is, depending on who you save first, midway through and pales in comparison.

Also, with regards to your earlier mention of Horror films: It would be better to compare MGS to War films rather than Horror. War films, especially those that have an anti-war slant, tend to show the horror rather than hide it: Hamburger Hill, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan etc. The whole point is that viewers don't know what War is actually like and the film depicts for them the horror as realistically as possible> Why? Because war is always worse than we imagine: child soldiers, rape as a weapon of war/torture, battlefield surgery, the actual damage a gun can do etc. Are the films I listed not "clever" because they depict the horrors of war in great detail...?

 

[Palpable]

Just got this game because it was like £12 on the PSN Store.

Turns out I'm nowhere near as good at this game as I remember being at MGS3 years back. I keep getting spotted from long distances away. Guess I need more practise.

Croutch and crawl a lot. Just be cautious. The guards can see a lot better than in any other MGS game.

 

[Crossing Eden]

The snuke and bomb removal both happen after the surgery and the tape is hidden in the game and therefore not immediately obvious, so up until the surgery there isn't anything nearly as gory. The Achilles' heel+jack is the only other moment.

Also, with regards to your earlier mention of Horror films: It would be better to compare MGS to War films rather than Horror. War films, especially those that have an anti-war slant, tend to show the horror rather than hide it: Hamburger Hill, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan etc. The whole point is that viewers don't know what War is actually like and the film depicts for them the horror as realistically as possible> Why? Because war is always worse than we imagine: child soldiers, rape as a weapon of war/torture, battlefield surgery, the actual damage a gun can do etc. Are the films I listed not "clever" because of they depict the horrors of war in great detail...?

Well first of all, all of those films are way better written than any metal gear. Second of all, the way those films handle violence and characters is to actually show it instead of glorifying it. The beach scene in Saving Private Ryan never feels like objectification or glorification of something as horrific as war. They also didn't feel shoehorned into the film in an attempt to seem more mature than they actually are. There's no pointless monologues and the messages are not shoved in the viewer's face. They accurately portray war because the moments they show those horrors aren't for the sole purpose of establishing a cartoonish villain as evil and making the viewer despise them. That's the difference, the purpose of showing the horrors of war is infinitely more effective and respectful in a film like battle of algiers and saving private ryan because their purpose is to actually SHOW the horrors of war instead of include them for the sake of a villain. We as an audience already know that war is horrible, we've seen tons upon tons of films showing us the horror of war way more effectively than this game. MGSZ is not breaking any ground or doing anything new to show that war is a terrible thing. Saying that viewers don't actually know what war is like is very insulting to the movie going audience that's been exposed to this kind of subject for more than fifty years. We KNOW for a fact that war is horrible. We've seen it all, in tons of media already. And it's not like MGSZ is handling it with any type of care or enlightening anybody about the horrors of war. That's all i'll say on the matter.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Well first of all, all of those films are way better written than any metal gear. The way those films handle violence and characters instead of glorifying it. The beach scene in Saving Private Ryan never feels like objectification or glorification of something as horrific as war. They also didn't feel shoehorned into the film in an attempt to seem more mature than they actually are. There's no pointless monologues and the messages are not shoved in the viewer's face. They accurately portray war because the moments they show those horrors aren't for the sole purpose of establishing a cartoonish villain as evil and making the viewer despise them.

That's not why I brought those up. They are a closer approximation to what he is intending, rather than the economical cinematography of Horror which you delineated as being "more clever" and more appropriate because it didn't show stuff. I'm just pointing out that wouldn't work in this genre.

Whether Kojima is successful is down to you (I suspect you don't like his work much so I can't work out why you even play his games), but I feel you are misreading his intentions. This isn't him tackling subjects apropos of nothing, he's touched upon most of these issues in one form or another throughout the series (Child Soldiers in MG2, Rape in MGS3, Torture in MGS1; Christ, he made battlefield surgery a mechanic in MGS3!). The new technology is allowing him to depict them more accurately. Can you imagine Saving Private Ryan rendered in 8 bit? Wouldn't be as effective, methinks.

If you think that those horrors are there only to depict Skullface as a baddie and not as a broader statement, then you may be missing the point.

Also, everything on-screen, be it in a film or a video game, is objectified and glorified in some way, whatever the message may be. That's always been the irony of graphic anti-war films.

Saying that viewers don't actually know what war is like is very insulting to the movie going audience that's been exposed to this kind of subject for more than fifty years.

What the hell? Saying that viewers actually know what war is like because they saw it on TV a few times is insulting to people who have actually been caught up in or fought in one.

 

[ExReey]

Replaying this game, before I start with TPP.

Is there a way to get into the large guard tower, just north of the heli pads (it's part of the larger building)? There's a guard up there, would be nice to reach him.


And another question: is it actually possible to incapacitate all guards, or do they keep spawning?