@rainbowbattlekid#27578 I just finished Uncharted 4 and the trophy for killing 1,000 people is called “ludonarrative dissonance” and I thought that was hilarious.
@robinhoodie#27511 Thank you.
Let me say parenthetically I find it interesting you've played Peace Walker and V but not 3, tomjonjon has played 1 and 4 but not 2 or 3. Playing different combinations of these games creates entirely new meaning for these characters and the stories surrounding them. Thank you for sharing.
@captain#27642 I maybe have a warped perspective on the series having only really played Solids 1, Peace Walker and V. I was thinking about it with what @Syzygy said about how much of this series happens off screen. By being such a disjointed story with so much being left unexplained (despite what I gather MGS IV does), there starts to be a lot of room to put yourself in. AND the times where they really get at the themes end up buried as radio plays where you still have to imagine the visual component.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ4oZ_1J1Gg
I gather that say 2 and 4 don't leave that kind of room for the audience.
I have a place in my heart for Survive as well because it is so light on story but has plenty of atmosphere and of course the near perfect MGS V gameplay.
I remember obsessively playing a pizza hut demo disc of MGS1. Man was that game great and still remains my favorite in the series. The story is just so concise compared to what the series became. It doesn't bite off more than it can chew. Never got the chance to play MGS 4, been hoping for a PS4 release but that seems unlikely.
I also remember being highly disappointed by the gamecube remake the twin snakes, those cut scenes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoxMYHpMqT4
@robinhoodie#27646 I find this especially interesting thinking about Peace Walker—one reason I don‘t like it so much is because I find it difficult to square it with my feelings about MGS3, whose themes and resolution I see in some ways as running counter to PW. I don’t want to get to into it since you may play it, so I hope that isn't saying too much!
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I gather that say 2 and 4 don’t leave that kind of room for the audience.
I might not say that, honestly. There's a ton of stuff which happens in the gaps between 1, 2, and 4 which feels jarring even if you've played them all. I think you could similarly craft your own narrative just playing one of those; I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's experienced 2 or 4 in that vacuum. In 2's case in particular I think it is unambiguously stronger when viewed as a complement to 1, but I'm biased toward that reading since that's how I played 2. The fact that @tomjonjon and I were able to play and (I am presuming) enjoy MGS4 without having gone through 2 or 3 first indicates there's something to be had there aside from narrative connections between games (though 4 certainly relies strongly on those, you're right).
Excellent point about the audio logs in V and PW, there's a lot of work the player has to do to fill in those gaps.
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@downtonabbey#27649 the twin snakes, those cut scenes
lol I feel the cutscenes are the best thing about The Twin Snakes, which otherwise is just uglier MGS1 with worse voice acting. That choreography is ridiculous but is at least entertaining (to me, I mean my taste might not be a great litmus test for quality here)
@captain#27651 MGS1 Snake is maybe the most interesting example of the player doing some story lifting. When most to of us met him at the end of the 90‘s we had likely not played Metal Gear and certainly not played Metal Gear 2. So even though those games get some slight recapping, much of that part of the story is left to the player’s imagination. So much so that they could retcon Big Boss telling Snake he is his father into the overall story and have the player just imagine that moment. I think its one of the triumphs of MGS1 that the majority of people who played it back in the day where joining a story three games in and yet probably had a better experience for it.
But yeah, just as for the majority of player's time with Solid Snake beginning after he had killed Big Boss. My time with Naked Snake (and Venom Snake) begins only long after The Boss is dead. The reasons for what happened being far less important than the after effects.
@robinhoodie#27646 I‘ve said before that I might like Survive more than V. It made better use of the MGSV maps, and forced you to explore nooks and crannies while considering the terrain and your route. V just blasts you around a huge Caffiene-Free Assassin's Creed world full of empty bases, deserted nothingness and repetitive objectives. You can see the ambition (huge map of interconnected Ground Zeroes-style areas) but it just didn’t work.
The best MGSV 'product' is of course Ground Zeroes. I probably put more hours into that than V.
Also:
_2023 edit: I completely disagree with this now. 2021 billy was an idiot. 4 should be higher, 2 should be lower._
hmmm
MGS2
MGSV
MGS3
MGS4
MGS
Peace Walker
MG2
MG
I‘m not gonna do a ranking, but I will say that the first Metal Gear Solid is the best one in my opinion. The way the series refused to settle for the bigger and better route for the sequels, and instead kept poking at that first game until almost every part of it was subverted was one of the best things in videogames, but I just really appreciate how it just straight up tells a story and doesn’t require the player to be familiar with earlier games. I also think it has a great sense of place. Shadow Moses isn‘t huge, it’s kinda shabby (yet high tech) and really cold and there‘s fairly little artifice in the layout, and I think that was somewhat lost in the later games. MGS2 is shiny and artificial as hell (on purpose, I know) and 3 might have bigger areas but there’s still jungle painted invisible walls if you look hard enough. I love all the MGS games but as a standalone experience, I still think 1 is the one to play.
@captain#27462 man I went back and reread and I seem real snippy in this back and forth. I’m sorry about that, I must have been having a sugar low or something. Love what you love! I don’t even get what I said because I freaking love these games and am an absolute Kojima apologist.
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@robinhoodie#27656 retcon Big Boss telling Snake he is his father into the overall story and have the player just imagine that moment.
It was so effective that I forget it even happened. Started with MGS1 and definitely didn't feel too left behind.
Also you and @billy are warping my whole worldview saying Survive is any good (never played, assumed it was a cash-grab).
@CidNight#27673 Well now I'm feeling a little crazy because I didn't get that sense at all! Don't worry about it, fellow lover of games. Feeling the <3
4
2
3
1
V
Ground Zeroes
Peace Walker
Revengeance (am so very bad at this game)
Hm I‘ll try my hand at a ranking. Of course only including the ones that I’ve played.
3
1
5
4
2*
*I would say that 3/1 and 4/2 are very very close to ties. The order here decided by a hair
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (lol I love/hated this game)
Ground Zeroes (great little thing to play, but it doesn't feel enough like a full game to be higher)
MGS VR Missions (I had actually a pretty difficult time here deciding if this should be above GZ)
MGS Twin Snakes
@captain#27691 Releasing it as its own game was almost certainly a cash grab - it should probably just have been DLC for V. You should play it! The marketing at the time made it seem like a multiplayer game, but I never touched that side of it and enjoyed the single-player story mode immensely.
There's so much stuff in there that ended up in Death Stranding that it must have been at least in the early design stages under Kojima's watch. I'm surprised there wasn't legal action to be honest. Some examples off the top of my head
There are some other more specific story-related things too, but I don't know how to do spoiler tags here so I won't get into them.
@billy#27663 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.
One of the most iconic moments in all of Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y897tozJeg8
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
Honestly I wouldn't fuck with a guy who would meow on the battlefield