Did Kojima go too far? (Chico's Tape spoilers)

Does it really matter? I mean really, does it matter? Does everything have to be set up and knocked down these days? Having expected and predictable structure is boring to me, I love nonsensical out of left field bullshit, you didn't see that coming? GREAT! I didn't wanna see that coming or have some sort of relevance for that thing that I don't care too much about as it is. Look at Far Cry 3, did you give any shits about the people you were rescuing? I sure didn't and I sure did't give a shit about the cave drama in the game, I guess I just don't give too much of a shit but I am also easy to please. Does this post make sense? I hope not. :P

I guess what I am trying to say in too many words is... I just don't care about this type of stuff, I just enjoy games at their simplest levels and everything else comes after, that's why when I beef with a game it's usually because of gameplay issues or fun factor, everything else is gravy for me. I probably shouldn't have joined this convo with such an attitude lol, my apologies.

If this had any context what-so-ever, sure, if he could make it fit, go with it. But everything up to now has been shock value. Like No Russian in CoD... Oh my god, you're play a terrorist killing people in an airport, but it's for the greater good! And even that had more context than this massacre of a story does. Kojima has lost his touch, his insanity had some semblance of reasoning, but now he's doing shit just cause. That said... mechanics-wise, he's on a gold mine and Ground Zeroes was a fairly enjoyable and replayable experience, it's a bit of a shame the story seems to be jumping the shark, with laser beams, controlled by the system and being tortured by having a bomb shoved up his gills. I guess I'm slightly less offended in general and more sighing in disappointment.

It isn't.

"Time for a taste test!" Rolling my eyes into the back of my head.

Huh, that really is something else if it goes to those extremes, i could see skullface being the villian that tips snake to go full big boss. and being a villian that you'ill really want to go after and to kill.

but games are like any other medium, people will definitely be disturbed/turned off by phantom pain, and they have every right to, but games also have every right to tell the story they want to tell.

Well that sounds like something that would be almost impossible to justify from the perspective of what the story gains from listening to kids being gangraped and molested in various ways.

@dannyhibiki: The phrase itself seems "cheesy" (can't think of a better term) but I'll need to hear it in context to really judge.

truth tellah expressing some more truth!

but as far as i see, especially with the onset of VR, this kind of discussion is just the beginning.

Damn that is messed up. I will enjoy killing skullface in PP but yeah that made me uncomfortable.

Get out of here Major Zero.

I haven't seen/heard everything that transpires in Ground Zeroes for myself so I can't come to a conclusion if it's all handled appropriately and serves a purpose... But Jesus, MGS has always straddled a fine line between goofiness and actual drama, and for stuff as dark as that to be happening in an MGS game is only going to conflict very heavily against the usual MGS antics.

Also, MGS voice acting has always been... mixed. I'd say it's at its most consistently good during MGS1, though I'd never state any of the MGS games to have outright bad voice performances. Although Christopher Randolf has never been that great... When he's your know-it-all-solve-this-boss-for-me codec guy his calm and articulate voice fits perfectly, but whenever there's a little emotion involved it always goes a little overboard. But then when you're to actually say out loud ''E. EEEEEEEEE.'' I'm sure it's difficult for anyone to not sound awkward.

Still, it's crazy to think how MGS was often regarded as having some of the best voice acting around. Oh how the standards have changed.

Kojima has stated that he has wanted to leave the shits and giggles behind with MGS V, and I am very happy about it. I also consider Daniel Craig to be the greatest James Bond of them all, thanks to how it too went toward serioustime with only a tasteful amount of "oh ha ha".

Besides, doesn't this do a great job at showing what a sick fuck Skull Face is? Don't you want to play TPP and end him? Kojima said he wanted to go far with the game and he did, he'll go a bit further in TPP. If this bothered you deep to the core, he has achieved his goal. If you want to take to the streets about this part of a game, try watching TV, a movie or reading a book: There's even more rape and gutting on there! See the young girl favourite Twilight for just one example.

I wasnt going to get the game, but now htat you say vagina bombs im interested...

This sounds like a total hack's idea of how to make a villain seem really diabolical.

It's fine that others have concern about these types of things, but personally, I prefer the unpredictable to the standard, so the romance movie with the murders would be interesting to me, I guess I am one whom prefers to take in what's given out and enjoy it for what it is(if I am interested in it), instead of trying to break it apart to see if it's good, I am not hung up on story as I can enjoy a story for what it is with no problems. I saw many many many people trash the story of Final Fantasy XIII and I didn't understand why and I have not really seen one of these people explain why, but they don't need to explain it but I am curious of their thoughts on it, but usually I only get the usual, story sucks, characters suck, lightning/hope/vanille/sarah sucks, but there is usually no explanation. I am just glad I can enjoy stories at their face value, I can honestly say that I have not had any problems with stories for movies or games, when I have issues it's usually something else. Anyway, I get what you're saying though.

Actually, there is one thing I can admit, I hate movie reboots that totally takes a shit(in a bad way)on the spirit of the original, I opted out of watching the following reboots because I know they are garbage and seeing them would piss me off big time.

1. Fright Night
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street
3. Fright Night 2

They changed the stories in bad ways and had awful rebooting of every possible thing in these movies, my best friend saw the Fright Night movie and has been trying to get me to watch it because she wants to see me rant like a madman, I have refused everytime.

@nmc2008: As you said:

I guess what I am trying to say in too many words is... I just don't care about this type of stuff, I just enjoy games at their simplest levels and everything else comes after, that's why when I beef with a game it's usually because of gameplay issues or fun factor, everything else is gravy for me. I probably shouldn't have joined this convo with such an attitude lol, my apologies.

I think you already explained the disconnect reasonably well. You should play the game, and if it gives you your jollies, let us know. I like having fun with games, and while it's cool to have serious subjects even in silly games, random rape and gore is generally detrimental to my having fun. But if you're immune to stuff like that, more power to you.

@truthtellah: I feel like people are maybe too quick to attribute this to just shock value or trying to hype up a particularly evil villain, or even just being 'random'- the Metal Gear Solid games have always had prominent torture sequences. Big Boss is beaten and shocked by Volgin in MGS 3 until he pisses himself, and Snake and Raiden both have to squirm and resist torture in their own games; the difference here is that the characters in the way of the torture aren't the protagonists, and that it's gotten progressively worse to go along with the darker story... and unfortunately, as ridiculous and gruesome as it is, it's still not as bad as some shit people have done to each other in real life, and for even more bizarre reasons. I guess it's hard for me to feel like this is a weird 'jumping the shark' moment when all of the games have had some messed up things in them directly related to this. It's a natural progression of the same things that Metal Gear Solid has had from the start.

@make_me_mad: It's a strange progression, because the torture in MGS1 (and the weird homage in MGS2 to that scene where Raiden is naked and barely tortured) is very much a Goldfinger, strapped-to-a-table "Do you expect me to talk?" sort of moment where a villain waxes philosophical about stuff, or just gloats about how you don't know shit. Snake very much plays the tough guy and it kinda doesn't faze him that much.

Then it gets a little more serious starting in MGS3, and now the torture is on a whole new level of fucked-up-ness in MGS5.

(For now on I'm going to be more careful about these subjects, So I won't get banned)

Well kojima did say he wanted to go for more shock value in mgs V. I can understand if some people have issues with it, but I'm sure kojima already knew he was going to get some backlash. He already stated that he wanted mgs V to be more of a gritty mgs game that'll disturb the players. Personally I got no problems with it, but obviously there'll be people that are sensitive about it.

@make_me_mad: I agree that I don't think it's necessarily jumping the shark. Obviously, Kojima has been ramping up a bit. But the point is when you go too far in that ramp up. In general, people take stock of what's needed for a game and only push things even further if it feels needed, because you wouldn't want to just go that far without a good reason. I mean, you're subjecting people to something, and it does impact a game. And the issue is that it doesn't feel necessary or appropriate. Stuff like this can be handled well in some media, but also, generally you give people an idea of what they're getting into.

If I go see the movie Antichrist, I have been prepared to expect one of the most graphic torture and rape scenes I've seen in a movie, but Metal Gear Solid? The series with a mode where you run around catching animated monkeys? The series with a minigame in the last entry where you photograph women in skin-tight suits while they sing JPOP? The new game whose direct prequel had this character in a silly implied lesbian scene played for laughs? And now she's getting brutally raped and murdered in graphic detail. That's nuts.

No one's saying this kind of thing should be banned or censored, but we're saying, "What the fuck, man?" Is this what he thinks people enjoy? What people want? Because maybe there are those people who will be over the moon that they get to listen to a character getting raped and then watch her mutilated in a terribly gruesome scene, but for many folks who have simply enjoyed MGS, I think this is understandably jarring. And when not perceived to fit the tone or be handled with the proper warning or respect to pull it off, it's reasonable for people to ask whether it is actually a negative for the game that simply went too far. And while this kind of thing shouldn't be banned or anything like that, maybe Kojima as an artist should take a step back, really think about it, and perhaps discern a better way to convey things like this in the future.

I wouldn't call that jumping the shark, but in his escalation to push it further and further, eventually he may push it past good sense. Some people may want this in a game, but as a fan of the series, I feel like he could probably achieve the same end without handling it like this.

This kinda statement always makes me chuckle a bit, not you're not calling for it to be banned but indirectly calling for self-censorship. Why should he take this step back? I am pretty surprised that Giant Bomb attacked this before NeoGaf did as they are usually the ones to point out these type of things(I am self-censoring myself now, it feels bad).

I'm not prissy about games ever, but I don't think I will be playing this anymore. Not really comfortable with this at all. Granted I was planning on getting it from redbox or something. I think the thing isnt that its only talked about in a sound clip but with background noises to back it up? Too far for me, I'm drawing the line.

Disclaimer: I havn't played the game and only read a few posts on this thread

2nd Disclaimer: I don't watch TV shows that show rape in them either, that shit shouldn't be glorified and re-enacted for me

Edit: This is just too far FOR MY TASTES. Also MGS has had shit jokes and people staring at boobs and masturbatory jokes. This seems out of place for the series as a whole out of context.

@truthtellah said:

This boils down to "I recognize this art as X and therefore can never be anything but X".

Also this.

Criticism isn't censorship, goddamn.

This is basically my biggest point for it. It sounds really gruesome and as far as video games go, it might be, but some worst shit happens all the time in real life. Some of it we hear about, some of it not.

It might be clumsy, I don't know, but someone has to try to go there at some point. Kojima might stumble, but I command him for even trying.

Because that's criticism. Expressing your opinion on the merits and faults of something in the hopes of possibly informing or influencing someone.

What do you think people are doing when they complain about a camera they feel is detrimental to the gameplay? Or complaining that a character is bland and uninteresting? In general, that's in hopes that maybe they'll fix the camera or write more interesting characters. If not in the current game, then in future ones. What's the point of saying anything if you aren't at all interested in communicating something to someone?

Choices like this are as much part of the process as designing gameplay. Many videogames have story and gameplay, often with characters, and just as someone might raise issues with a book or movie in how they handle things, someone may raise issues with a videogame.

For example, an artist I know decided to start painting fetuses. They weren't completely terrible paintings, but he was just doing it to be "edgy". Yet, it simply read as trite and dumb. And people said as much. He was talented, but he was wasting his time. Eventually, he realized it was stupid and moved on to something else.

That isn't self-censorship. That's someone listening to criticism, thinking about it, and then deciding to make better work. Obviously, he could have kept going if he really believed in it and maybe even made something great; I don't know. And I'd say the same of someone like Kojima or anyone who creates something. People will offer their criticism of everything, from story to gameplay. And it's okay to listen and maybe make decisions that end up better for your work. But if you hear them out and still believe in how you're already doing it, well, then keep going that direction.

What's bad is forcing someone to change, not trying to convince someone to change. I do believe games are art, and artists should make what they want to make. And then people will respond. And maybe the artist will care about and listen to what people say, or maybe they won't. Doesn't mean people shouldn't still express their opinions about it.

So, I hope Kojima does consider that maybe he should handle stuff like this differently and help his games be even better, but hey, if he believes strongly in it regardless of what people say, then more power to him. I may be more turned away from his games if he does, but ultimately, it's the developer's decision whether they listen to criticism or not.

I'll say this: for how seriously Kojima has sold himself as wanting to be taken, this is much more Sin City than Schindler's List.

This boils down to:

Maybe developers can make mistakes in story just as much as in gameplay or technical details.

@dark_lord_spam: Bad comparison as those films tackle completely different subjects and have completely different goals.

A better analogy would be "this game is like Django Unchained instead of 12 Years a Slave". They talk about the same subjects with wildly different tones, and for my money I think Django worked better. The moments where the film looked seriously at slavery and the disgusting treatment of slaves in that era had a far greater impact on me because I liked the charming characters and the spaghetti western motif. It did a lot to disarm me for the inevitable gut punches that the film threw my way.

@oldirtybearon: I'm saying insofar as their respective depictions of needless, evil acts. One is cartoonish, the other is grave. Kojima appears to be doing everything in his power to evoke the latter, and he is failing. I haven't seen Tarantino's film yet, but I'm willing to bet that (despite his penchant for unreality) it doesn't make a trifle of the very act of enslavement.

Where was Skull Face in Peace Walker? I can't recall any mention of that character.

@truthtellah: I'm not sure anyone would ask if Kojima thinks people would want something like this in the game. Of course people don't want shit like this in the game, they don't want it in real life either, but that doesn't make it not exist and it doesn't make not talking about it the right option. This reminds me of my initial reaction to all the horrible reveals at the end of Alice: Madness Returns, where I really kind of wish I'd never finished that game because you learn some real disgusting events took place and it's generally unpleasant to even recall. That said, I think that for that exact reason it's kind of a great ending, in that the entire game you're given warnings about asking questions you might not actually want answered. I simultaneously wish that game had not taken the turn that it did, and also appreciate that it took that turn and gave me those days of real, tangible unhappiness.

I kinda got away from Metal Gear a bit there, but I feel like it's comparable. I'd much rather that this shit hadn't happened, but worse shit happens in the real world and worse things will continue to happen, and it's really shitty and unfortunate and wrong. It's supposed to be. I'm repulsed by what happened in the story, not that the story went there.

@make_me_mad: I'm not necessarily repulsed by its inclusion, at least in concept. I don't think having rape or graphic murder is a no-go zone in videogames. But it does come down to the tone and how it's handled. And ultimately, whether you feel it added to the experience or distracted from it.

As I said earlier in the thread, I can imagine there are some people who will feel it added something, but I also think it's understandable for some people to not feel that way. Those people can encourage more and others will encourage less. That's pretty much the essence of us discussing videogames like this. ha. Just like there are story things I may find more objectionable or mistaken in a game, there are things I may be more okay with gameplay or storywise in games than others might, and it's something to discuss and express ourselves about.

I have never played a MGS game completely but I always laugh a bit when I see people talking about them online. The character names are so dam stupid:

Big Boss

Skullface

Revolver Ocelot

Hot Coldman

And on and on.........

Peace Walker did a horrible job making me feel anything for characters that weren't named Big Boss, so anything they did to try to play off of them would have went poorly. This is just ridiculous though.

Chico was a garbage character. Paz lost everything making her a decent character by the end of the game. This is just a Hostel-level attempt to shock the player. I don't think it ruins the series (for me anyway) because as I said, I didn't care about those characters. But it just seems tactless.

Just wait for Phantom Pain when Real Paz is still working with Zero and the tapes were just a sham to get Big Boss away from Mother Base so it could get destroyed.

@chrissedoff said:

Basically.

"So we need to make the worst villain ever. What should we do?"

"Have him hurt kids!"

"Have him rape kids!"

"Have him make kids rape other kids!"

"Have him make kids rape other kids until they explode!"

It's like Kojima took all the worst, most tired and cliched tropes for villains and turned them up to eleven. Besides that, there is nothing, nothing! that Kojima can do to make Skullface a compelling character. Sure, he can still be a hell of an obstacle, but any attempts to make him a human are at best going to fail miserable and at worst be absolutely disgusting. Which is a pretty big problem, given the Metal Gear series given how character driven they are and the lengths to Kojima will go to in order to give villians some level of redemption ("Can love bloom on the battlefield?").

It's like Souther in Fist of the North Star. Fuck you're master, you enslaved kids! You don't get sympathy, I don't care how hard you try!

I thought Paz and Chico were pretty crummy characters, but... wow. Even if it's just an audio log, that's a bit of a hard turn for Metal Gear to take.

Well, this clearly portends to The Phantom Pain portraying serious subjects in a mature light... followed immediately by some ridiculous over-the-top boss fight of one sort or another.

Well, I must've missed a fair bit.

I like the direction they're going since Big Boss going bad would necessitate a fairly dark tone. Guess I gotta hear these for myself, though.

@nmc2008: The remake of Fright Night is a good movie, so you're missing out.

Only thing i'm missing is a headache and a bastardization of one of my favorite movies, no thanks. I am assuming you have seen the original.

so what you're saying is that MGS5: Ground Zeroes is the Aristocrats of stealth action adventure video games

This is one of those moments when I'm suddenly really glad that I'm deaf.

@humanity said:

Well, the man does love his radio dramas. He has written quite a few I believe.

Wait.

What.

STRAP IT ON

So yeah, that shit is kinda fucked up. And it made me uncomfortable to listen to, and the guts spilling out near the ending was a bit messed up. But all in all, I found it done tastefully (well, as tastefully as you can do such messed up things). Especially considering that Kojima didn't go the "show, don't tell" route with it, it would be super unpleasant if they straight up just showed you it being done. But the real horror is your minds eye and imagination really getting a field-trip out of it.

All in all, it made me more excited for The Phantom Pain, as I can't wait to see how far down and dark our hero will be forced to go, to stop the atrocities of war (if he even can do that?). I wouldn't be surprised if you end up failing in The Phantom Pain...