What is the deal with Ocelot? He seems like a different character in every game. I know that in 3 & 5 you play as Big Boss so Revolver is a friend at times and in 4 he‘s taken over by Liquid (sort of) and in MGS 1 you play as Solid Snake so Ocelot isn’t an ally – but there doesn't seem to be any larger through_line for the character. I say this only having completed MGS 1, 4, most of Peace Walker and most of 5, so perhaps I am missing something.
@captain#27447 Yeah apparently when we saw he had a Cameo account I had off-handedly said “oh lol we should pay him to do the Phantom Thread breakfast scene” but obviously never really planning to do it, or expecting that haha.
Now we always say "butter" and "scones" like he does int hat vid
@rainbowbattlekid#27450 He is probably the perfect person to be on Cameo. Not too famous, mostly known for his unique voice, seems to have a good sense of humor and not take himself too seriously. This was a danged treat.
@rainbowbattlekid#27450 I admit when I saw Phantom Thread I did go and research what the “proper” pronunciation of “scones” is supposed to be… and was pleased to see David imitate the way they say it in the movie
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@tomjonjon#27448 perhaps I am missing something
yes you're missing MGS2 and 3 lol
Seriously though I get what you mean, and they basically rewrote his character in every game. I find it compelling to try and piece him together, even as I think I have all* the information you'd supposedly need to do so (*have come to accept that holding "all" the relevant information in your head at any one time is impossible, there's so much of it, much of it is contradictory, etc.).
Think of Ocelot not as one man with defined goals and interests, but maybe as an extension of every genre preoccupation the series has. Or think of him as five separate characters. Within a given game the concept of Ocelot is graspable, but to look at the whole series makes him incomprehensible.
"Ocelot" is a quantum superposition; when observed the Ocelot waveform collapses to show Revolver Ocelot... Liquid Ocelot... Lieutenant Ocelot... Mecha Ocelot... Super Saiyan Ocelot... etc.
@captain#27456 haha it’s probably peak Kojima-love to view this as a positive, though. I’ve always found this aspect of Ocelot’s character to be jarring. I think you can make a case that he’s the ultimate opportunist and kind of a sycophant. So his relationship to Snake in every game being usually totally unique means you see very different sides of him. I’m giving Kojima way way too much credit I think.
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@CidNight#27459 peak Kojima-love
This is the life I've chosen . . .
I got into the series after 1-4 were already released, and I was pretty young then anyway, which is to say it's only in the past few years (or maybe after MGSV) that I've grasped the idea that these games were not conceived from the beginning as a series with multi-game arcs which "make sense" in a conventional way. I think it's clear KojiPro and Kojima himself made these games with clear artistic goals in mind, but I do also enjoy what seems like fertile ground for new, invented meanings in these games (individually and as a collection of work).
@Syzygy#27460 Okay, this is peak Kojima-love.
@captain We're all searching for meaning in our lives, and you are far from the only one to find it in the batshit insane mind of Kojima. I love everything he does, frankly. The messiness is the point.
Definitely, don't mean to undersell the monumental feat it was to write all these sequels which each added such a glut of new information to the canon, and to get anything like MGS4 written at all, never mind made into a game. And not forgetting the best PS3 non-game app ever made, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database!
EDIT Who am I kidding, the MGS4Db is better than most PS3 games.
@captain#27387
Well, you see, I couldn't find a Metal Gear focused thread in the forum search and figured it would be nice to have one to get some good Metal Gear conversations happening. I was going to write something interesting last night after I started the thread, but I couldn't think of anything good and eventually forgot!
It was all worth it though, because now I present this thing:
https://youtu.be/Gvgo1jNLyLY
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@Syzygy#27468 And yeah obviously Ocelot’s changes in personality are retcons, he was just COWBOY BADGUY in MGS1— but the retcons are neatly executed.
I've always taken it as a given, more or less, that the zig-zagging of his character had a lot to do with just how much time there really is in between those games, combined with, shall we say, ideological flexibility?
At the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 3, he only turned 20 about 2 months prior! Ocelot was only newly not a _teen_
@captain#27387 To me Peace Walker is the story of a man who made a very bad decision that he wishes he could take back. So much so that a facsimile of what he once had almost fools him into thinking he can get the past back. And that is the heart of the arc of Naked Snake to me. The endless fallout of hurting (killing) someone you love (The Boss). I've never even played MGS 3, but the weight of what Snake did really comes through in Peace Walker.
I dunno, this is perhaps too personal. But at the time, I was dealing with a similar fallout. A mistake I would spend over a decade obsessively trying to correct. Only to learn I couldn't fix it. Couldn't get that person back. That's why men like Naked Snake, Skull Face, and Venom Snake speak to me on a thematic level. The delusional hole you can fall into when you think you're doing the right thing. How the thing that drives you can eat away at your soul and take you far from your original purpose with you even knowing it. I suppose the same applies to Liquid, Solidus, Huey, Miller, Strangelove.
Peace Walker ends with Naked Snake having learned worse than nothing, he learned the wrong lesson. He can't get The Boss back but he conflates what he wants with what he thinks her will was. It something almost all of the movers and shakers in the series end up doing.
This thread is great.
remembering kojima's short-lived attempt to pass himself off as a Swede named “Joakim Mogren”
@yeso#27539 That name is the perfect bland Swedish name. I'm pretty sure every single Swede has gone to school with someone called something very much like Joakim Mogren.
Metal Gear is also the only game I play that involves a realistic 3D space where the main gameplay feature is to point a gun at someone‘s head and shoot, has military themes, etc you know what I mean.
The other night, I tried Lost Planet 2, because it was $4, my friend wanted to play with me, and I know it’s secretly Mega Man Legends 3. I was surprised to find that it shares many voice actors from Metal Gear…. Kaz Miller and the Colonel specifically…. But yeah, can't stand shooting these beautiful creatures and hearing them cry, sorry.
Metal Gear obviously is the exception because of how much of a self aware commentary/satire on the military industrial complex it has been, basically since the beginning!
@treefroggy#27568 Yeah Uncharted was the first time I was like “Wait hmm i don't like this”
stuff like Resident Evil or Dead Space has enough abstraction that it doesn't hit me the same way.
Peak MGS hype for me was watching the trailer for 4 which IIRC has the Japanese voice for old Snake talking about ID-tagged weapons. I had played 1-3 and was drinking in the alt game commentary MGS fandom, like yeah I’m a part of something for liking this. Then 4 came out and I shamefully decided I didn’t like it after reading Tim’s review. It’s ok because I was 20 at the time. Nowadays I just don’t really like the games bc the controls are bewildering to me
yeah those 45 minute cutscenes would just totally drain whatever controller muscle memory I had. Started every boss fight completely panicked and brain wiped
@tapevulture#27579 half of everything my dad & I read on Kotaku back then was probably written by him, which explains a lot because he is almost the exact median of our ages. (my dad is only 20 years older than me, lol)
I have a distinct memory of feeling bad about the guards while playing the MGS2 demo. At the time, it was the most detailed and “realistic game” I had ever played and the whole game wasn‘t even out yet! There was a thing that you were able to do where if you shot a guard’s leg, he would limp. I remember experimenting to see what would happen if you shoot all their limbs and it didn't take long for me to feel awful about it.
I paid full price for Zone of the Enders just for that demo. I 100% played the demo for more hours than ZoE too. I probably watched the MGS2 ice melt for longer than I played ZoE. It's always been the details that have really attracted me to all the games in the MGS series. I spent hours shooting pots, pans, boxes of vegetables, liquor bottles and lights. I remember discovering the big sexy poster in one of the lockers and then discovering you could "smooch" it if you pushed a button. Then I discovered if you pushed that button too hard, it would make a loud noise and you could get caught!
I could go on and on about all these quirky details that also add tiny layers to the gameplay experience.