@reicifr: I know you mentioned Peace Walker, I was just pointing out that you were using a conversation from MGS3 (again, I don't remember anything about two person box sex in there) that I don't think was actually supporting your argument.
Also, I don't see evidence for Kojima lumping homosexuals and bisexuals together, your argument makes it seem like it's all bisexuals, aside from Raikov, who is shown to only be "in a relationship" with Volgin. Aside from him, they're all bisexuals.
Either way, you've certainly changed my view of how he treats these things, but I'll also say that it doesn't change how I feel about the games.
The only criticism I've read that I agree with so far is that this game has some tonal dissonance with the rest of the series.
This is the main problem for me. It's Kojima's game and he can do whatever he wants with it and anyone calling for it to be changed or banned or whatever else are kinda dumb... but it's not for me. It's not what I come to Metal Gear for. I won't buy it not in some egotistical boycott but because the tone has done a complete flip and simply no longer appeals to me. That saddens me; I loved Metal Gear Solid.
Wait. So Snake and Signit having a conversation about how hiding in a cardboard box is a pretty dumb idea is some form of commentary on homosexuality? You lost me. I'm all for people drawing their own conclusions from experiences, but I'm definitely not on your logic train. That scenes only purpose is to poke fun at the gameplay mechanic and to intrinsically link Naked Snake to Solid Snake as characters. Like. That's it. I get the aspect of really applying critical thinking to everything, but that's a situation to me where it seems you are looking so hard for some link, that you are imagining things that aren't there. You wanna poke holes in Kojima and his faulty creative logic, go for it. That scene aint it though.
@reicifr: Ah, well that's totally legit. I like Kojima and all, but it's not like he is the pillar of all we should strive for and is certainly open to criticism. I just thought the scene you pointed out was a bad choice for your overall point. Keep on keeping on duder.
I definitely think the way Kojima portrays most, if not all of his female characters is a little weird, but no, I don't think this in particular goes too far. I mean, these are some pretty horrible, mean dudes. Maybe I'd be more upset if I actually cared about Paz (or most Peace Walker characters in general) as a character.
And yeah, I definitely agree with some of the people in this thread on not liking the total tonal shift V seems to be going through. MGS has never been happy fun time, but it's always had a little light heartedness to it, and that seems to be totally gone now. I'm still gonna buy V because I love Big Boss and wanna see more of him, but yeah.....gonna miss David Hayter, the cardboard box, etc. But hey, at least the characters still tell you the controls and stuff. :P
I finally got tape #4..... I don't think it's too offensive. I often keep thinking of darker anime like Golgo 13, crying freeman of Ninja scroll. I'm reminded a lot of first time I introduced to a friend to Sonny Chiba's the Street Fighter, and there's the scene where he takes the guys sister sells her to a slave trader, they put her on opium and then rape her. He was just immediately offended and said "he's not a hero." but so is the way of these grind house films, exploitative nature can come off as just...... schlocky.
I mean I don't think Kojima wins any favors by saying "This is how we have to push medium into art like, breaking bad." It's a really subjective thing, just reminded there's still a lost in translation aspect where this might come off as "cool" to some audience and to another just a weird mess. Because I still don't think it's unearned unless at the end of this HE BECOMES BIG BOSS, and not that lovable character that Big Boss..... which is also the biggest problem of this character arch. Just reminded how stupid the whole microwave choice is in MGS4 was when Otacon does all the work, but I guess in Japanese culture it comes off as "Nobel samurai sacrifice."
Again, I am not too offended, I just keep thinking grind house exploitative and not the art kojima is intending.
@bocam: I guarantee if this was in a TV show or a movie nobody would have said a thing. Why is Kojima "Going too far"? Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has multiple rape scenes and won oscars. Its a double standard and I'm SICK of it.
@mooseymcman: That's their point. The games preceding Ground Zeroes were full of cardboard boxes, eating a mushroom to refill your batteries, or a psychic telling you that you like Castlevania.
And this one features a brutal rape and torture scene. It's a bit of a tonal shift, even if most games have had (relatively light) torture scenes in the past.
Metal Gear has been self-serious and over-dramatic while being tonally goofy and "fun". Ground Zeroes seems to remove the latter and double-down on the former.
Of course I'm going to play it for myself to decide, and I admit it won't turn me off from the series, but it will be a disappointment if I agree with this assessment.
@wrighteous86: But there is plenty of goofiness in Ground Zeroes, you just need to dig a little deeper to find it. The Deja Vu mission on PS4/PS3 is nothing but goofiness, and I can't imagine the Jamais Vu one on Xbox One/360 is much less goofy.
Also, after listening to all the tapes in question, I don't think they're as rape-y as people make them out to be. Even the part where people say Chico was forced to rape Paz. It just cuts from that to Chico giving in and talking about Mother Base. If I had managed to find and listen to that tape before reading about all this hullabaloo, I would have thought that he started talking to avoid that. Maybe I'm wrong though, no one else seems to be thinking that.
Though, let me be clear, they're still pretty brutal.
I haven't played it so I can't make a judgement and I'm not gonna say you can't deal with dark stuff in a video game but I'm sorry, personally, this pretty intense terrible stuff (ie gangrape) being perpetrated by a dude named SKULLFACE. Yeah, no. Pick a tone Kojima and try to stick with it. I will say this doesn't make me wanna play this at all.
This is a reminder that Kojima has officially stated several times that he's leaving the goofy MGS behind in favour of rough dark shit with only a few easter-eggy comedybits.
@wrighteous86: But there is plenty of goofiness in Ground Zeroes, you just need to dig a little deeper to find it. The Deja Vu mission on PS4/PS3 is nothing but goofiness, and I can't imagine the Jamais Vu one on Xbox One/360 is much less goofy.
Also, after listening to all the tapes in question, I don't think they're as rape-y as people make them out to be. Even the part where people say Chico was forced to rape Paz. It just cuts from that to Chico giving in and talking about Mother Base. If I had managed to find and listen to that tape before reading about all this hullabaloo, I would have thought that he started talking to avoid that. Maybe I'm wrong though, no one else seems to be thinking that.
Though, let me be clear, they're still pretty brutal.
I hope you're right. I'm glad to hear there is still some of that trademark weirdness. Hopefully they realize that's part of what makes the series special. And yeah, I listened to "that tape" and thought that he talked to prevent the rape too... Glad I'm not the only one.
This entry in the series did promise a more serious tone. And when the series deal with war so directly, talking about the ugly stuff like private military companies and child soldiers. It's interesting that this time it went the extra step to show a bit further what the horrors of war can really be. I mean, behind every war there's cruelty like rape, torture and mutilation -- it's just that you never see it in your average war glorification fantasy, like Call of Duty.
Also it does a really good job at genuinelly showing how evil the villain is. He didn't just kick a puppy, he maimed, raped and tortured (both physically and psychologically) two characters.
I think this gives creedence to the recent GDC talk about stories having a hard time in games, because of the dissonance in story and gameplay. Is this really a medium that can tell a story like that? That's a big question, I know. More fittingly though, can it be told in this kind of game? And no, I'm not thinking about Kojima's crazy stories, but the genre itself. To me, a games story has to work in tandem with the gameplay to be any good, and the story should always work in service of the gameplay.
@wrighteous86: But there is plenty of goofiness in Ground Zeroes, you just need to dig a little deeper to find it. The Deja Vu mission on PS4/PS3 is nothing but goofiness, and I can't imagine the Jamais Vu one on Xbox One/360 is much less goofy.
Also, after listening to all the tapes in question, I don't think they're as rape-y as people make them out to be. Even the part where people say Chico was forced to rape Paz. It just cuts from that to Chico giving in and talking about Mother Base. If I had managed to find and listen to that tape before reading about all this hullabaloo, I would have thought that he started talking to avoid that. Maybe I'm wrong though, no one else seems to be thinking that.
Though, let me be clear, they're still pretty brutal.
I hope you're right. I'm glad to hear there is still some of that trademark weirdness. Hopefully they realize that's part of what makes the series special. And yeah, I listened to "that tape" and thought that he talked to prevent the rape too... Glad I'm not the only one.
The ending to that turret mission is also super dumb/great.
I finally got tape #4..... I don't think it's too offensive. I often keep thinking of darker anime like Golgo 13, crying freeman of Ninja scroll. I'm reminded a lot of first time I introduced to a friend to Sonny Chiba's the Street Fighter, and there's the scene where he takes the guys sister sells her to a slave trader, they put her on opium and then rape her. He was just immediately offended and said "he's not a hero." but so is the way of these grind house films, exploitative nature can come off as just...... schlocky.
I mean I don't think Kojima wins any favors by saying "This is how we have to push medium into art like, breaking bad." It's a really subjective thing, just reminded there's still a lost in translation aspect where this might come off as "cool" to some audience and to another just a weird mess. Because I still don't think it's unearned unless at the end of this HE BECOMES BIG BOSS, and not that lovable character that Big Boss..... which is also the biggest problem of this character arch. Just reminded how stupid the whole microwave choice is in MGS4 was when Otacon does all the work, but I guess in Japanese culture it comes off as "Nobel samurai sacrifice."
Again, I am not too offended, I just keep thinking grind house exploitative and not the art kojima is intending.
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Well its quite clear this is where that ends. The entire underlying theme of this game is Revenge. Just simply revenge. BB is finally to the point where he is sick of everything and he is going into business for himself. And in his anger he is going to lose himself. Phantom Pain won't end happy I can guarantee you that.
All the comments about how the game 's tonal shift made them not like the series anymore weird me out.
Did you seriously love Metal Gear because of the goofy scenes between the all the war, politics and terrorism talk? For the little snippets of toilet humor or movie references in between the torture scenes and talks of PMCs and child soldiers? Because that's a really stupid reason to like it.
For me what makes it special is more about how unique the story and characters are put together, coupled with a very twisted worldview and bleak take on things like war, genetics, loyalty and family that you hardly see in other games. The series has constant tonal shifts within every game. Weird that someone who would be bothered by the place it went to now would even play through a single MGS entry anyway.
I finally got tape #4..... I don't think it's too offensive. I often keep thinking of darker anime like Golgo 13, crying freeman of Ninja scroll. I'm reminded a lot of first time I introduced to a friend to Sonny Chiba's the Street Fighter, and there's the scene where he takes the guys sister sells her to a slave trader, they put her on opium and then rape her. He was just immediately offended and said "he's not a hero." but so is the way of these grind house films, exploitative nature can come off as just...... schlocky.
I mean I don't think Kojima wins any favors by saying "This is how we have to push medium into art like, breaking bad." It's a really subjective thing, just reminded there's still a lost in translation aspect where this might come off as "cool" to some audience and to another just a weird mess. Because I still don't think it's unearned unless at the end of this HE BECOMES BIG BOSS, and not that lovable character that Big Boss..... which is also the biggest problem of this character arch. Just reminded how stupid the whole microwave choice is in MGS4 was when Otacon does all the work, but I guess in Japanese culture it comes off as "Nobel samurai sacrifice."
Again, I am not too offended, I just keep thinking grind house exploitative and not the art kojima is intending.
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Well its quite clear this is where that ends. The entire underlying theme of this game is Revenge. Just simply revenge. BB is finally to the point where he is sick of everything and he is going into business for himself. And in his anger he is going to lose himself. Phantom Pain won't end happy I can guarantee you that.
I hope they do, because it's been 2 core games and one side game of Big Boss as this LOVABLE GUY! He's goofy, nerdy, has problems with women, loves talking about boxes....... but then the other problem is that Patriots/Cipher/Philosophers are these cheap excuse for another more EVIL Villainous master mind that makes Big Boss more about this sad character who can't deal with rejection. And then on top of that, Big Boss doesn't die in MG1 and MG2, he appears in ending credits of MGS4 happy to really solve all of Snake's problems with a Hug.
I'm just reminded while watching Breaking Bad, the point where he poisons the child was where I knew "Okay, this is fucked up, what if it didn't go the way he expected." They need to go into that level of darkness and not make up "more evil bad guys to take down." Because right now Big Boss is more or less a miss understood anime villain trope.... a trope I do enjoy.
@development: It's not that far off. I think the actual line is "There's another bomb in my..." then she jumps off the plane. I remember rolling my eyes at the delivery of that.
All the comments about how the game 's tonal shift made them not like the series anymore weird me out.
Did you seriously love Metal Gear because of the goofy scenes between the all the war, politics and terrorism talk? For the little snippets of toilet humor or movie references in between the torture scenes and talks of PMCs and child soldiers? Because that's a really stupid reason to like it.
For me what makes it special is more about how unique the story and characters are put together, coupled with a very twisted worldview and bleak take on things like war, genetics, loyalty and family that you hardly see in other games. The series has constant tonal shifts within every game. Weird that someone who would be bothered by the place it went to now would even play through a single MGS entry anyway.
The tonal shifts between the goofy and the serious is one of my favorite things about the series, so to me, the idea that Phantom Pain will go from being even more serious to goofy sounds great, even if the time between instances of goof is longer than it used to be.
Hearing about all of the dark stuff that happens to Paz was bad sure, but the parts where Chico had to hear and take part in the torture/rape is just kinda soul crushing for me. It's cool that Kojima is trying a new tone and there is no way I won't play Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain when I can, but what I like in my MGS games are the over-the-top stories about soldiers and politic satire with dumb stuff in between, not so much anything that just makes me feel shitty.
If you are going to make a hero a villain, something soul crushing must happen to that hero to make him a full blown villain. I think that it's going to get much worse than this. The Metal Gear Solid games always talks about the horrors of war, and now we are experiencing it.
I won't be surprised if one of the late missions has us killing child soldiers, like in that E3 trailer.
Played through it having heard about the issue before I came across it in the game. I found it to be lazy writing and not much else, a poor attempt at trying to make the player feel an emotional connection with the characters.
In context, for a lawless black site used primarily for torturing enemies, it seems like pretty standard goings-on to me. Doesn't make it any less awkward to listen to, but the secret war between Big Boss and Zero was always going to go to some dark places.
I'm willing to go down the rabbit hole with Kojima Productions and see what their take on video games getting more mature entails, if only for the concept rather than judging it solely on the quality of writing.
I think their biggest misstep was including this with Ground Zeroes, as a part of the larger whole in The Phantom Pain this might not come across as so out of character and unnecessary.
I also think some of you crying foul are going a bit overboard for what is actually presented explicitly in the game versus what is alluded to, it is still afterall appropriately rated for "sexual violence." If you want to argue further ratings problems that's an entirely different discussion. Videogames have never been rated appropriately. However if you compare it to movies (not that they're a much better example) there's no reason why what is actually present in Ground Zeroes would get anything but an "R" rating.
All the comments about how the game 's tonal shift made them not like the series anymore weird me out.
Did you seriously love Metal Gear because of the goofy scenes between the all the war, politics and terrorism talk? For the little snippets of toilet humor or movie references in between the torture scenes and talks of PMCs and child soldiers? Because that's a really stupid reason to like it.
For me what makes it special is more about how unique the story and characters are put together, coupled with a very twisted worldview and bleak take on things like war, genetics, loyalty and family that you hardly see in other games. The series has constant tonal shifts within every game. Weird that someone who would be bothered by the place it went to now would even play through a single MGS entry anyway.
The tonal shifts between the goofy and the serious is one of my favorite things about the series, so to me, the idea that Phantom Pain will go from being even more serious to goofy sounds great, even if the time between instances of goof is longer than it used to be.
Have you played the agent rescue mission of ground zeros? The goof is still well and good, don't worry.
@pyrodactyl: I have played all of the missions. The best part (for me) is that I saw pictures Kojima tweeted of the mocap session for that end cutscene at some point last year. But based on that mocap, I thought he was just doing the mocap for that cutscene from the Phantom Pain E3 trailer, but no! It was for that goofiness.
Actually, now that I think about it, that end cutscene is partly a joke about a trailer for a different game, and that in itself is pretty great.
Having finished a lot of Ground Zeroes I don't think Kojima has gone too far at all, unless you include how your going to be fighting a guy called Skullface and a host of other crazy bosses. But you can't have Metal Gear without the crazy. Anyways in a game where your murdering people and dealing with subjects like PMCs and torture it would be even worse for it to be sanitized like most games. It's important to have to sit through the sounds of that horrendous torture so you can't just push it out of your mind.
As someone who's played military shooters as long as I can remember I'm sick of the subjects of most of them: "Alright go in, get the bad guys (Peruvian Drug Lords - Russian- Chinese- Terrorists - Muslims - other Donovans ). Don't worry about civilians (there are none). War is suppose to be fun." I come to a Metal Gear game for an experience, which i'm definitely getting in five. Rape in an American black site in a video game makes everyone uncomfortable? Good. The things that are commissioned by my country are far more horrifying in real life. Among the never ending stream of war games in the industry I think it's important to get a game that reminds us of the atrocities a military commits.
Reading that I am now super hesitant to play this game. I don't trust Kojima of all people to handle that very well at all. I bet it goes too far and is unnecessary overall.
@mooseymcman: That's their point. The games preceding Ground Zeroes were full of cardboard boxes, eating a mushroom to refill your batteries, or a psychic telling you that you like Castlevania.
And this one features a brutal rape and torture scene. It's a bit of a tonal shift, even if most games have had (relatively light) torture scenes in the past.
Metal Gear has been self-serious and over-dramatic while being tonally goofy and "fun". Ground Zeroes seems to remove the latter and double-down on the former.
Of course I'm going to play it for myself to decide, and I admit it won't turn me off from the series, but it will be a disappointment if I agree with this assessment.
I know it is a bit late for that but many MGS games feature torture scenes. And in these games they even showed them and made "it playable". MGS was always the combination of goofiness and very serious stuff but due to advancement in games through graphics or in this case voice acting and sound these scenes become more heavy and more "realistic" So saying this is a huge shift is not really true. Yes it became more visual like the last scenes in Ground Zeroes for example but the shift was not that big compared to other MGS games to be honest. Phantom Pain maybe a different thing and there will probably a lot of stuff you will not like, like killing children for example but it really is his decision and right to do so.
@darji: True, there were torture scenes in the other games and you even took part in them, but there is most definitely a tonal shift in this. I think the main things that make this different are that
1. In the other games the person getting tortured is snake and big boss, who are hardened soldiers and who we know can take it. On top of that, the torture in those games is pretty standard physical torture. In Ground Zeroes the physical torture is one thing, but the things that are done to break their minds are way beyond anything I can remember in the series. To your point though, there is a throwaway line in MGS 1 by Meryl that could be taken to mean that there was sexual torture too.
2. Did you see Paz in the last game? She was a 16 year old with a kinda goofy accent, so to see her be broken like she is in GZ has a lot of impact. Not to mention that her just being a woman getting tortured will bother a lot of people.
I do think that the whole ending scene is written well though. There needed to be a second bomb, and Skullface picked a logical place. The way the scene was written was cheesy, but I just take that as Metal Gear being Metal Gear.
@darji: True, there were torture scenes in the other games and you even took part in them, but there is most definitely a tonal shift in this. I think the main things that make this different are that
1. In the other games the person getting tortured is snake and big boss, who are hardened soldiers and who we know can take it. On top of that, the torture in those games is pretty standard physical torture. In Ground Zeroes the physical torture is one thing, but the things that are done to break their minds are way beyond anything I can remember in the series. To your point though, there is a throwaway line in MGS 1 by Meryl that could be taken to mean that there was sexual torture too.
2. Did you see Paz in the last game? She was a 16 year old with a kinda goofy accent, so to see her be broken like she is in GZ has a lot of impact. Not to mention that her just being a woman getting tortured will bother a lot of people.
I do think that the whole ending scene is written well though. There needed to be a second bomb, and Skullface picked a logical place. The way the scene was written was cheesy, but I just take that as Metal Gear being Metal Gear.
1. Paz is also a trained soldier/agent. She is no civilist or someone who was not aware that this can happen to her if she ever get caught. I think the reason why many people suddenly feel so disconnected or shocked is because she is a woman. Even through these "beasts" in MGS 4 also had suffered through these pains like rape, murder and so on. But here it was again not that much visible for the player.
2. PAZ was never 16. She said she was 16 to come over as more innocent, but I am pretty sure in reality she said somewhere in Peace walker or it is written there that she is I think it was 21.
And yeah MGS is always cheesy even in scnenes like that. For example the wihle microwave scene and the cuts in between was cheesy and emotional as hell and that is how Kojima or Japanese media in general does this. In all the serious stuff that happens there is always this goofiness around. It was Japanese written^^ Which I really love to be honest^^
It doesn't sound or look nearly as bad as some people (I think Patrick and Jeff have been publicly disappointed about it recently, right?) have made it seem. I only heard tapes 2 and 3 but they're vague enough that, for lack of a better phrase, they're tastefully done. In fact I was playing the game in headphones and, along with the rest of the audio mixing in the game, the audio logs were fantastic from a sound design perspective.
I do think that due to both the brevity of the experience and my lack of knowledge about what goes on in Peace Walker or Portable Ops I was left wanting for a reason to care that any of this was happening, so in that sense it did seem gratuitous. After the game I read the back story and listened to Paz' diary and audio logs but I'm still not sure why I care about Chico and Paz other than Boss does. It's a series full of unreal characters but since I spent all of a half hour with her total and most of it was just her voice telling super-weird stories about bro-ing out at Mother Base I just don't have any real opinion of her at all. She came and went as a confusing blur.
After being highly disappointed in MGS4 when it first released, I'm still a little reticent to believe Kojima can tell a proper story anymore without needlessly pushing the envelope or leaning on nostalgia (Ground Zeroes is easily both those things) but I'm intrigued by all the cutscenes in this game being shown as one-takes (albeit with some pretty awkward camera angles) and I'll be really curious to see if he's trying to do that for the entire Phantom Pain as well? Ground Zeroes proves if nothing else that from a creative perspective Kojima's studio can be trusted to pull off whatever it's going for within the world it's creating; I don't always agree with the ham-fisted way it can approach things but I never get the feeling they half ass their convictions, either.
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