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Metal Gear Solid V's Disturbing Scenes Must 'Go to the Limit'

I'm sure he does, but the logic he's presenting in the interview makes it sound like he has to push this arbitrary boundary (implied to be of shock or something) to push the medium forward.

Well sometimes you have to do things in a specific way to capture the audience's attention and have them go "oh waw this is interesting" or "wow this is horrible! how could they do that to a poor child?". But it takes more than just moving pictures or words to get this done. I think it takes a perfect music composition that will also influence our thoughts and make us feel what he feels about that specific scene. Words, pictures and music all work together to make this thing happen.
 
Well sometimes you have to do things in a specific way to capture the audience's attention and have them go "oh waw this is interesting" or "wow this is horrible! how could they do that to a poor child?". But it takes more than just moving pictures or words to get this done. I think it takes a perfect music composition that will also influence our thoughts and make us feel what he feels about that specific scene. Words, pictures and music all work together to make this thing happen.

And all of that is dependent on a sense of restraint that Kojima hasn't shown in a decade.
 
How is BB pushing the limit of mediocre TV writing? Assuming you meant raising the bar for what is considered mediocre on TV.
Oh look how edgy you are.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I meant that BB is way above most TV in terms of writing, i.e. all (or near all) TV writing is mediocre in comparison. Basically BB pushed the limit by setting the bar way higher. That's what I meant.

Breaking Bad has its main protagonist do some really awful shit while still expecting its audience to remain engaged with the show. I'm guessing Ground Zeroes is really when Big Boss "turns heel" so to speak, or becomes an anti-hero and Kojima wants to to stay with Big Boss on this journey even though he's making you do a lot of bad things. That's my guess.
Hmm, good point, maybe that's what Kojima meant. Though I doubt he has the writing chops to pull that off. :\
 
Well sometimes you have to do things in a specific way to capture the audience's attention and have them go "oh waw this is interesting" or "wow this is horrible! how could they do that to a poor child?". But it takes more than just moving pictures or words to get this done. I think it takes a perfect music composition that will also influence our thoughts and make us feel what he feels about that specific scene. Words, pictures and music all work together to make this thing happen.

What you describe sound like cheesy and cheap manipulation. :P

Maybe have a poor Dickensian child beg a rich, fat old man for a few pennies to buy medicine for his sick mother, and then have the rich man laugh in his face and kick the poor child into a pool of mud.
All with a sweeping orchestral music that gets more and more dramatic.

EDIT: Jokes aside, i agree with the core point that a scene must be viewd in context and it will resonate in different ways for different people anyway.
 
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes ends with one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s gross, it’s violent, it’s painful, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s something I won’t spoil here. But it’s going to draw attention.

I'm never believing writers who spit this junk out again. Every single they do, it's a bunch of nothing.
 
Breaking Bad has its main protagonist do some really awful shit while still expecting its audience to remain engaged with the show. I'm guessing Ground Zeroes is really when Big Boss "turns heel" so to speak, or becomes an anti-hero and Kojima wants to to stay with Big Boss on this journey even though he's making you do a lot of bad things. That's my guess.
That and the way Breaking Bad went from a black comedy into darker subject matter to do with the drug world to make it's point I imagine is kind of similar to how Kojima wants to push the next chapter of MGS.

Does Breaking Bad show amputation, torture and child soldiers? No, that wouldn't make sense because it's not got an anti-war message like MGS, it's got an anti-crime/anti-drug message (and showed how children could be exploited in that btw), but the show pushed it's boundaries of it's subject matter compared to it's first episode and I imagine that's what MGSV will be doing by showing all the messed up stuff in comparison to the lighter, more comedic Metal Gear stories of the previous iterations and where most of the controversial stuff was told, not shown like Raiden's backstory as a child soldier. I think that's the comparison as well as staying with a protagonist that does bad things. How far they go obviously fits a different context. The harsh realities of warfare are going to be more "shocking" and disturbing than the harsh realities of the drug world.
 
He is not doing it for the sake of it. He has a story to tell and it happens that showing those scenes perfectly depict what he is trying to tell us.

Yeah, I remember when he was trying to tell us about PTSD and war trauma, so he hired models from around the world, dressed them in skintight latex suits, and had them pose for the player's camera after you beat them in a boss fight.

War sure is hell, huh.
 
Pretty sure the scene refers to
Snake being forced to carve Chico up in HD in order to extract some bomb/homing device inside him.
 
Yes, Kojima, you are clearly the right man for the job. I know this because reading about your stupid ideas is already torture.
 
You haven't seen the red band trailer for MGSV, have you?

I enjoy the stories in MGS games for how over the top and crazy they get, which is why I think it's too bad that Kojima is suddenly taking the series into a more disturbing direction that just seems to try too hard.

I have, and I've seen nothing to indicate it could be as bad as 4. Cheesy and over the top as it might...will be. Besides, even if it somehow did match it, the game play looks tons better and more inviting to just screw around with. Finally getting the controls of SC mixed with the zaniness of Kojima characters.
 
no MGSV seems to be a game that Kojima actually wants to make

yeah, and honestly I feel the footage shown so far in the promotional materials should make that abundantly clear.

the cutscene that's meant to be at the start of ground zeroes, the one with the joan baez song, might just be the best cutscene I've ever seen in a game. it's just superbly well crafted. remember that the song is a eulogy, cleverly foreshadowing the fate of foxhound. there'ssome interesting use of imagery involving reflections, that being how skullface is introduced while also possibly suggesting something about the character. plus, the whole scene is just one shot. now its a video game, so it ain't exactly the children of men shot in terms of how impressive itis but the way it ebbs and flows is still fantastic.

combine this all with the heavy political overtones("ground zeroes", base modelled after guantanamo, big boss going on a campaign of revenge and torture through afghanistan after suffering a large attack) and my hype is pretty dam high. I really can't wait to see more of the open world gameplay.
 
The gameplay looks great. It's the story that's turning me off.

Really ? Man, everything I've seen about the story makes me hyped up even more. I consider this game the true sequel to MGS4, as I was very disappointed with Peace Walker limited ambition and scale, with it designed as a Monster Hunter competitor and such. For me, Ground Zeroes (and Phantom Pain) will be the first true Metal Gear in six years.

I've been waiting for this. (wink)
 
Remember this scene from the E3 red band trailer? IGN probably was talking about these stuff too:

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Pretty heavy stuff, especially the way the cutscenes and camera is done.
 
Pretty fucked up.

If we can recruit child soldiers, and, like in Peace Walker, play as members of our army, then we might be able to play as child soldiers themselves, which would be pretty controversial.

They could even be meta about it and have the kids talk about how they are answering their call of duty for their family/homeland and such. Having them scream about what they will do to the player's mother might be a bit over the top though.
 
What qualifications does Kojima have to be writing about these things? Of course you don't need to have been a soldier to write about war but the amount of naval-gazing he engages about concerning war, torture, soldiers, soldier comradery, and war in general has forced me to ask if he at least studied military history in school?
 
The MGS V hyperbole being thrown around by Kojima has made me so bummed out. Not looking forward to this game at all anymore.

How dare he try to better, and streamline, his writing abilities and try and push the boundaries of the medium!

I get where you're coming from as the goofiness is part of the charm of the older Metal Gears, but I'm not gonna begrudge him for trying something different. And it could be great!
 
What qualifications does Kojima have to be writing about these things? Of course you don't need to have been a soldier to write about war but the amount of naval-gazing he engages about concerning war, torture, soldiers, soldier comradery, and war in general has forced me to ask if he at least studied military history in school?

Watched a lot of movies.

Jokes aside, it seems to me like he often times tried to use his war themed series to tackle larger points, but then there's so much time spent on war related, specific themes (not to mention all the gun-porn etc etc) that i'm not sure.

Seems to me like MGS being the only thing he was able to work on for so many years, made him put everything he wanted to tell into it, for better or worse.
 
well yeah, he had that interview a couple months ago where he feared he'd be doing nothing but metal gear and wanted to pass it on. And that he wanted to do other things like write a novel or a movie.

Source? All I remember from recent interviews is the opposite of what you're saying: that he's accepted that he's going to be working on MGS into the future, and that he's using the series as a platform for new ideas.

What qualifications does Kojima have to be writing about these things? Of course you don't need to have been a soldier to write about war but the amount of naval-gazing he engages about concerning war, torture, soldiers, soldier comradery, and war in general has forced me to ask if he at least studied military history in school?


Don't go down that hole. A lot of great fiction writers aren't well-qualified in what they write about. Especially war fiction writers.
 
the man made a better spec ops the line than spec ops the line a decade before it even came out. and now his new game has waterboarding and child soldiers. i'm psyched.
 
i wouldnt mind graphically killing women or children. you gotta try everything once.

ive seen worse in movies. id like to experience it a least once in interactive form. push the boundaries of the medium and all that.
 
Don't go down that hole. A lot of great fiction writers aren't well-qualified in what they write about. Especially war fiction writers.

I agree. It's baseless criticism to say "oh, he wasn't there, he doesn't really know." At the same time I had to cut short a replay of MGS3 because the opening opressive slog of This is what a Soldier is, this is what it means to Fight means, rang very hollow
 
I'm guessing it's a combination of
Paz getting the bomb/tracker(?) cut out of her while she's still conscious as seen in the trailer, and possibly a final scene of Big Boss getting shot or being next to an explosion as Mother Base is destroyed, and the shrapnel in his head and his blown off limbs are explicitly shown before cutting/fading to black.
I don't think its the Paz bomb extraction part as that's already in a trailer. Its pretty graphic too.
Probably something we haven't seen yet.
 
Choke Chico or most probably extract the package from the guts of the prisioner (kid?) while alive as shown in the trailer.
 
If he's saying what I think he is, I see no reason to take issue with this statement. Seems to be like he's asserting that he doesn't want any arbitrary "limits" to influence how a story is told through this medium. There's a lot of really intense stuff in the Red Band trailer, and thinking about it gets me really excited.

The premise has a ton of potential - I just really hope it lives up to it. MGS1-MGS3 inspire me with confidence, and I'm willing to give MGS4 a pass considering the circumstances surrounding its development.
 
I genuinely do not think I trust Kojima to handle such topics with all the care they need.
I'm sure their's some mention of a rape scene in the game also.

I'm already turned off by Metal Gear Solid's cut-scenes about serious subjects such as nuclear disarmament and cloning, moments before you fight a boss monster who is a man made out of bee's.

I know people love him, but I honestly don't think telling stories is what he's very good at.
 
I'm already turned off by Metal Gear Solid's cut-scenes about serious subjects such as nuclear disarmament and cloning, moments before you fight a boss monster who is a man made out of bee's.

It requires suspension of disbelief, and personally I've never had an issue with it. The stores have always been crazy and over the top, but that doesn't mean the themes can't be down to earth and relatable.
 
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