The Metal Gear Megathread

Syzygy

Spoilers are double pipes || on either side of the text.

While I’m at it I’d also put my hat in the Survive is Pretty Good, Actually camp. And yeah, the development of MGSV, Survive, Death Stranding, and PT were all closely entwined. Probably one reason there hasn’t been legal action is it’d be extremely complicated to untangle and might just lead to the plaintiff losing a counter-suit.

robinhoodie

billy Ground Zeroes is excellent for putting you a super powered one man army against incredible odds. There are only a handful of missions in Phantom Pain that hit those heights of tensions without involving a giant killer robot. I think that is why I like Survive as well, it is equally desperate in a different way, and the engine allows you so many ways to eke out a solution to that challenge. Skillfully walking the knife’s edge is always my favorite moment in games. And as a single player game you can run through Survive in about 10 hours and never be bored, which is very welcome in my book.

Gaagaagiins

One of the most iconic moments in all of Games

Gaagaagiins

Now I’m just thinking about Ocelot 19 years old with the Ocelot Unit being like “it’s really cool and intimidating right guys” and they’re all into it

Gaagaagiins

Honestly I wouldn’t fuck with a guy who would meow on the battlefield

captain

Gaagaagiins

good recommendation here

SuperEffective

Syzygy

I will be watching/listening to this playthrough now. This is quite good.

captain

Gall darn it, Survive is on the shopping list now. Thanks @billy @Syzygy @robinhoodie for the insight.

fridgeboy Revengeance (lol I love/hated this game)

Don’t let me go and turn this into a hater thread but I’d like to hear more about this. I’m a fan of Bayonetta and DMC and such (and obviously Metal Gear) so I felt like Revengeance should’ve appealed more to me but the language of play just never made sense to me. Always felt like bashing my head against the wall. (and that it became popular with a more mainstream audience was/is confusing to me only because of how much trouble I had playing it)

fridgeboy

captain I mostly love it. I played it a long time ago, but I remember also being quite frustrated by some of the sections, like in a bad way. The infamous final boss more so than any. I think what I loved was the injection of the Platinum-craziness, a la Bayonetta, sort of allowed MGS to be its peak, unambiguously dorky self. The game was so over the top, so ridiculous, that it makes accepting some of the insane stuff in the mainline games seem pedestrian. I have a warm place in my heart for that sort of nonsense.

Syzygy

captain
And anyone else who was interested by the discussion of Survive, it’s $6 for Steam here right now, which is the lowest non-bundled price I’ve seen.

Gaagaagiins

captain There’s a certain meow that cats make to remind those around them that the Colt Single Action Army is the greatest handgun ever made

captain

fridgeboy Think my fondness for that same nonsense might have made me feel more frustrated at the game—it’s really something I want to like, I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around proper parry timing, weapon usefulness, the dodge mechanic, etc.

SuperEffective

Too many details!

Syzygy

I take back what I said about the best-written subplot

billy

SuperEffective

This is how to make an intro to a video game

Official_Danimalz

I’ve seen (extremely dubious) rumors flying around for years about Bluepoint remastering Metal Gear Solid, and recently they’ve really got me thinking about what I would even want from a project like that. So many aspects of the original’s gameplay are so hilariously antiquated that a direct remake would probably feel kinda strange, but once you start changing things the entire design concept collapses (see the twin snakes).

You can’t quite go the FFVII-Remake approach of wild expansion because you lose the tightness of the scope of the original, and you can’t quite go the FFVIII-Remaster approach because the game is antiquated beyond words. So like, what do you do? Go for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin and rebalance the entire game with a texture bump? I honestly have no idea

fridgeboy

Official_Danimalz ive been thinking a little about these Blue Point remakes and their place in games. I recently played a bit of the Shadow of the Colossus remake which looks great but definitely still feels like a game of its age. I remember thinking time and again “why can’t I just climb like in Uncharted 4 - for a game about climbing it feels like ass.” But I also sort of love that Blue Point leaves the game mostly intact while just tweaking it a bit to make it bearable. This formula works pretty great for 10 year old games like Shadow and Demon’s - but I don’t know if it would hold up for a game that’s 25 years old.

Official_Danimalz

fridgeboy Very well put at the end there, I think Bluepoint remakes have worked for me because of contextual factors: Demon’s Souls has an entire franchise scaffolding the gameplay and Shadow of the Colossus is as streamlined as it could ever be. With something more uneven and dated I have no idea how that approach works.

fridgeboy

Official_Danimalz I don’t think it’s meaningless that successful remakes from that era (FF7, RE1-3 come to mind) are true remakes, reimaginations from the ground up. They look and play like your memory remembers them. For this reason I suspect a similar approach would be best for MGS1. The through line for all these games though, including Blue Point, is an obvious respect and love for the original material on the part of the new artists.

GigaSlime

One of the things I love about the Metal Gear series is how later games will often flash back to past games and just show you 8-bit or low poly footage, like that’s just how everything looked back then. I love replaying the series in order and seeing that progression. I like that the series values what’s unique about each game’s aesthetic, even when they become outdated. MGS1 has those great chunky textures and that cool winter color palette, MGS2 has that smooth plastic, sterile sheen that just happens to gel so well with the game’s themes of artifice and the encroaching power of misinformation in the digital age. So I dunno, there’s a lot about the specific feeling of playing the original games that I’d miss in any remake. But I guess it could be cool

Syzygy

On this topic, for anyone who’s not seen them:

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