Best Metal Gear poll

(that was technically a spoiler, but don't worry; this game is in the volume business.)

we need to link this thread in: Metal Gear Solid 2

Yeah Raiden is hilarious, when he takes over. I finished Revengeance last week and he's basically and unstoppable killing machine in that, so it's funny to see where he came from. Nontop bewilderment otm.

The more I read about Kojima the more it seems like a George Lucas case, of an artist who accidentally made a huge genre-defining work and is now forever beholden to that work if only out of monetary necessity. Every successive game he says is the last one, and yet they won't let him go. The list of all the Metal Gears he has written/directed/produced comes to nearly 30 games in the past 15 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideo_Kojima#Metal_Gear_series

Btw the PC port of MGS2 is amazing, one of the best ports ever. It even recognized my Rock Candy wireless PS2 controller at the key config. (And of course the controller always turns itself off during the cutscenes. Then someone in a cutscene goes "Snake! Snaaaake!" and I turn it on again, ready to play. Then the cutscene continues for another 5 minutes and the controller turns itself off again LOL)

lol volume business

this talk is almost inspiring me to finally pick up Snake Eater. almost. i'm almost there.

The build up and ending of MGS2 is the most nonsensical thing I've ever encountered in video game form! It's kind of amazing that it exists.

this is a common Japanese conversational device, drives me nuts when i hear it - "this cake is good" "... so, you think this cake is good?" "yes ... yes" "... i see" - well thank fuck they established the cake is good

I thought I heard that there is no cake, though.

this talk is almost inspiring me to finally pick up Snake Eater. almost. i'm almost there.

setting/plotwise i prefer time-crisis-on-acid to coldwar fantasia because while both are "dumb" the first one is video games devouring themselves and leaving nothing behind and the second is them wading kinda ineptly into a different pool, but 3 really does have terrific gameplay setpieces. the muddy greens/browns of the "soviet jungle" were kind of a problem for me on the ps2 (compared to the clean, anonymous "facility level" lines of the big shell, or even shadow moses) but i expect that's a lot better in the hd remaster. anyway the sniper duel alone is worth whatever you get it for.

Japanese conversational device!?

haven't played any metal gear since the first MGS, but i'm playing Revengeance now and it's just damn fun, plain and simple. it's like everything i could want out of an action game. platinum games is definitely becoming one of my favorite developers.

Interested because I see it as one of the options on this poll -- did anyone ever play Ghost Babel? iirc it was a color remake of MGS, but with different characters... I had a friend who played it (a guy who didn't own a tv console after the SNES, but was pretty faithful to portable gaming) and he said it was fantastic, one of the best portable games he'd ever played. I am fascinated, but probably not enough to go back to a 2000 game boy game.

I did! can't say I remember much but I was super impressed at the time. I'd bet that it holds up.

It has a good reputation, though I've never played it either.

Holy shit MGS2 is starting to go crazy on me! I love this:

Colonel: I hear it's amazing when the Purple-stuffed worm in Flap-jaw space, with the tuning fork, does a raw-blink on Hari-kiri Rock! I need scissors! 61!

Colonel: I was a North American Fall Webworm in my past life. Those were the good old days... What were you in your former life?

Sorry, if these are spoilers, this is amazing, like walking into a David Lynch movie.

At that point, I was just like, oh good... they're finally going with full gibberish instead of pretending the game makes sense

Haha, by the time the game gets to this point nothing really makes sense anymore

This stuff about the rise of junk data is so OTMFM it's like Kojima predicted the future.

Yeah this is incredible. It's also a little sad cos so many games rip off stuff that this game did first, only they do it with really lame storytelling. This and the first MGS are basically every mainstream AAA video game from 1998 onward, including current gen. I have to say I have heard a lot of hype about this game over the years, and this ending completely rids me of any doubts as to it's greatness.

OK I just finished it completely, back at the title screen now. I haven't felt like this since the first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think I prefer the first MGS as a game but good gracious the end of this game is amazing! Best ending ever!

Also, I like how the last words spoken in the game are "What the hell?"

Pretty insane that this came out in Novemeber 2001. Especially with the heavily anti-authoritarian stuff, one of the heroes being called a terrorist, the villains being called The Patriots, etc. This was at a time when "Leaving on a Jet Plane" was banned from US radio. I suppose Japan is just years in the future, and Hideo was seeing things 5 years in the future (who was talking about internet leaks in 2001?).

The meta stuff really works because the AI is very convincingly self-aware.

RAIDEN!! TURN THE GAME CONSOLE OFF NOW!

Gonna play some VR missions. But reading for later:

http://junkerhq.net/MGS2/

This could be a BS rumor, but I remember hearing somewhere that the original setup was even more NYC-based, with a WTC setup for the part of the setting, that for obvious reasons had to be changed quickly

i like that all its deepthoughts are couched in a mean joke about how the player is an underqualified girlyman manipulated by uncomprehended forces who doesn't even deserve to "play" as "snake"

don't they reveal the "patriots" or w/e have all been dead 100 years?

lol

the new Captain America movie felt very very Metal Gear at certain points

Captain America: Winter Solidus

It's really insane the amount of stuff they put in these games (at least MGS2). There are hours of unrepeated dialog that is hidden Easter egg type stuff you may never hear playing the game normally. Tonight I was hiding in a locker and some guard found me so I punched my way out. The door to the locker ended up getting torn off and falling to the ground. I couldn't put the guard in the locker because the door had fallen off! I know that's a very small thing, but it's also something deliberately programmed in, another variable that can be triggered for further immersion. They don't make games like this anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAUDFch-2UI

haha, that's a great video.
also totally otm wrt kojima anticipating junk data/internet control, thematically works really well - personally i just grew tired with a lot of the dialogue. otacon's monologue is so terrible...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P5qbcRAXVk

lol @ raiden in the bathroom

I use the MGS alert as the notification sound on my phone. Makes me jump every time I hear it.

that is an excellent idea

i might make that change.

my ringtone has been "uppers nsfw" for like a year now

Mine is the dungeon music from NES Zelda.

I just bought the HD collection and Revengeance for cheap thanks to the current PSN sale. Having never played any MG games before, should I bother with MG 1 & 2 or just jump straight ahead to MGS? My completist tendencies have me leaning in the former direction but suggestions are welcome.

I couldn't stomach the early MG games,when I got Metal Gear Solid 3, with them included.

its a bit like slogging through all the Zelda games prior to Ocarina of Time. Good games, but you might find their aged game mechanics put you off the 3D goodness that the second generation brings....

I'd go straight to MGS, sit down for the night and dig in deep.

Yeah, I got roughly ten minutes into MG 1 before I came to that conclusion. Perhaps another time.

I was never able to beat the original MG. I think there's probably a bonus menu somewhere the later games in that that will catch you up storywise

(OG Zelda/Link to the Past still classic IMO though)

Metal Gear 2 (not Snake's Revenge) is pretty dope IMO. Worth checking out. A lot of MG gameplay standards originated there. I didn't even know the game existed (wasn't released in English language markets back in the day) until it started showing up in MG anthologies.

MG2 is a quantum leap over the first one. recommended if you like the later games

Yeah, it's basically 8 bit Metal Gear Solid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nolq5EPpOcA