Metal Gear/ Metal Gear Solid

It took a lot of work, to be sure- English has a lot of modulated sounds even before factoring in singing's liberties with such things.

Hearing ZEKE quote Kubrick movies as it attacks makes the effort worth it.

Kojima should make a Mad Max game.

Until it turns maestro Miller there is just Liquid Kojima in disguise.

If Kojima does leave Konami post-Phantom Pain, sets up a new company, and makes a new IP, with the IP being the Xenosaga to Metal Gear's Xenogears (pun intended), think fans will give the new IP a chance, unlike all the other times Kojima made a game that wasn't Metal Gear?

edited 4th Jun '15 6:30:28 PM by HallowHawk

I dunno. Part of what's so great about Metal Gear is all the history behind it. Even if he copied the gameplay and narrative style it just wouldn't have all those old jokes, characters, ect. that it accumulated over the years.

I mean, Policenauts and Snatcher were never released on things I owned, or, in the case of Policenauts, in countries I lived in.

Also, in Snatcher's case, I didn't know who Kojima was at the time.

Also I didn't quite have my own income and we were basically poor as dirt. When I played video games it was mostly when I went to see friends or relatives. Asked to borrow some.

...Also, I've bought both Zone of the Enders games new like three times now, so I'm not sure what else I could have done there.

...Still don't understand how Konami could have given Zone of the Enders, a good but niche franchise, to High Voltage Software for the HD ports, but Silent Hill 2 and 3 to the developers of Frogger Returns.

I mean, it's not like Silent Hill 2 is the most critically acclaimed horror game basically ever or anything.

...Zone Of the Enders 2's ps3 version actually got a patch too.

edited 4th Jun '15 6:49:21 PM by unnoun

You mean High Voltage Software, the guys also responsible for the horribly botched Mortal Kombat X PC port, that released ZOE HD with tons of framerate issues that had to be patched by the guys at Hexa Drive?

Would you really rather have that for Silent Hill? ._.

They have a lengthy production history and have demonstrated moments of minimal competence.

And, again, somehow, for some reason, Zone of the Enders 2 got patched on PS 3.

...On the one hand, the fact that Konami couldn't be bothered to patch the first one, or to patch either for 360 is par for the course.

On the other, the fact that a patch got made at all? That they even bothered?

That's weird.

Konami doesn't normally do that.

I mean, alternatively, they could have outsourced both Zone of the Enders and Silent Hill to Bluepoint Games. And actually paid enough money to be sure they were good.

For all that Konami basically forced Kojima to make Metal Gear, they gave him a lot of patience and resources and cut him a lot of slack in the process.

The Metal Gear Solid HD port was by a group of people that were very very good at HD ports.

The Zone of the Enders HD port was by a studio that. Um. Had made games before that weren't completely awful, and had a lot of experience with a lot of games.

The Silent Hill HD port was by a new studio of bargain bin rejects.

edited 4th Jun '15 7:12:22 PM by unnoun

I was under the impression that Konami lost the code for Silent Hill 2/3 and it was too expensive to fix it entirely.

Maybe ZOE 2's fixes weren't that expensive.

-

Also, I heard from a few posters on Neo GAF that the companies that do those shitty HD Ports try to undercut each other fiercely on their pitches, and then after they land the deal they try to wrangle more money/time to do the project.

edited 4th Jun '15 7:13:24 PM by RunoEddie

...Not published by Konami, but they lost the code for the original Kingdom Hearts, and when Square did the HD port for that, it got reprogrammed from scratch by two guys at first in Square's development team in Osaka.

The story the way they tell it is kind of amazing.

I mean, yeah, that's extremely unrealistic and unusual. And they said it wasn't easy. And, obviously they had other people come on during development, bug fixing and modeling and retexturing and stuff. But for the first year or so it was just the two people. Which is frankly insane.

But there is so much wrong with Zone of the Enders HD, and Silent Hill HD managed to be so much worse than even that.

I feel like competence shouldn't have been too much to ask for.

Apparently it is unless you happen to be Hideo Kojima.

And I guess Konami finally noticed after all this time that they actually still had a studio that knew what the hell they were doing. And that simply could not be allowed.

edited 4th Jun '15 7:30:33 PM by unnoun

Yes, it is insane, but that was done in-house, so presumably they care about the franchise a lot more than some contractors.

Kojima oversaw the HD Metal Gear Solids, and the HD Collection was pretty good. And.

The disconnect in all of this is that.

I partly can't believe that Kojima, who has practically been Konami's golden boy all this time, finally got the boot.

There are horror stories from other former creators at Konami about all the ways they've been screwed over. And while Kojima was forced to work on projects he wasn't necessarily wanting to do, he was given an exceptional amount of leeway in terms of how he got those projects done.

...I mean. God, I remember reading about Kojima productions Los Angeles opening not even that long ago.

The place hasn't even been opened for two years yet.

So many people got jobs there and were excited about what they were doing and.

...Everything about this news stuff has just made me feel sick to my stomach.

edited 4th Jun '15 7:43:19 PM by unnoun

You think that Konami got sick of all the "taboo" stuff that Kojima was putting into MGSV, feared that their reputation while be irreparably mired by this apparent folly on his part, and decided that they we're wrong all along in giving him that much leeway?

Even if that were the case they are having the completely opposite problem right now.

Seriously, just one press report explaining what happened would have stopped all the negative press that's been going on right now.

It's not like Kojima was making Hatred. That would've been understandable, especially given the extremely touchy and deliberately controversial nature of that particular game. Although he tends to handle some topics oddly, such as the explanation of the War Economy and the eventual resolution of that plotline in MGS 4, he's never been one to make a point too dumbed down for "casual consumption" or gory for the sake of being gory.

Case in point, Paz's torture and eventual death in Ground Zeroes. Yeah it was gruesome, but it all had a point of establishing Skull Face's character, as well as giving players a reason to hate the guy. And it's not like he's breaking new grounds either; both games and other forms of media have gone that far in the past. Best example I can think of right now would be Game of Thrones: it's had so many controversial moments that have gotten under the skin of both fans and outsiders alike, such as Sansa's rape or Daenerys' being treated like property in the first two seasons. Yet, the series gets so many of its ideas not from a twisted imagination, but the actual historical events, customs, and behaviors of medieval Europe.

So if it ends up being a game where Big Boss can recruit, harm, or even kill children, randomly gun down civilians, or torture people, I'm pretty sure Kojima's gonna have an explanation for the line Big Boss is crossing. Which means any excuse of Konami being afraid of moral guardians falls flat pretty fast.

edited 5th Jun '15 5:43:08 AM by SgtRicko

I dunno, GTA 5 had an interractive torture segment and nudity across the board and is still sold in shops and made Rockstar incomprehensibly richer than they already are. If anything Konami, though trying to be safe in regards to the "tabooS" in MGS 5 are shooting themselves in the foot that way.

Or rather, blasting their legs off with a blunderbuss.

I dunno. Soldier shoots himself in the legs with a rocket launcher all the time and it just makes him jump extra-high.

edited 5th Jun '15 11:24:17 AM by Anomalocaris20

He's aiming at the ground and using backblast to launch himself though, not specifically aiming the warhead at his limbs directly.

That and he's made by Valve who have pretty good businesses sense.

I think if Konami gave a damn about their image they would have handled all of this very differently. Been a lot less deceitful. Not actually had PT taken down from the goddamned servers.

So, I recently remembered the thing where, in Huey's briefing tapes, he mentions that Peace Walker's self destruct function, a hydrogen bomb more powerful than the Tsar Bomba, is the sphere on Peace Walker's head.

...And I can't help but think about how that sphere is also able to project a poison beam and an EMP field, as well as the fact that most of the time when she's using the EMP field we normally start shooting the head a lot with bullets.

And also how I've managed to recover the head to equip to ZEKE.

...And I'm not entirely sure what to think about the fact that aside from that briefing tape, there's nothing about the hydrogen bomb. I mean, I would think shooting it would be a bad idea. And I'm not sure how she could generate the EMP field without also detonating herself.

Also, kinda think it's weird that you need the rail gun for ZEKE. And how the camera zooms in on the rail gun when telling you not to let ZEKE launch a nuke, when, first, REX is the first to use a railgun to fire a nuke, and, second, the nuke they recovered was Peace Walker's ICBM, which is pretty definitely not fired by a railgun.

...Also, ZEKE fires the rail gun at you during the fight, so.

I'm not sure that I understand how Peace Walker or ZEKE actually work or do things I guess? I know nukes are bad, but I don't think they can fire paralysis beams like that.

edited 5th Jun '15 1:25:03 PM by unnoun

The Rail Gun is required for ZEKE because of the story battle against Paz, I think. There's no nuke-firing option otherwise.

Can't answer as to why the Super Co-Op Weapon they mounted on it fires lightning bolts, though. Then again, Metal Gears also tend to have an unexplained roar-like-a-dinosaur function, so.

...But the nuke from Peace Walker wasn't designed to be fired from a railgun.

She had that big missile tube thing.

edited 5th Jun '15 2:58:53 PM by unnoun

I really don't know what the hell's going on.

Maybe MSF's R&D team modified it? I mean, they managed to harness the Balloon Particle that allows spontaneous generation of Fulton balloons from sleep gas, retrofitting an ICBM so it can be fired from Chrysalis' rail gun isn't as crasy as that.

...Peace Walker's head has a hydrogen bomb in it.

What did Mother Base do with ZEKE's spare parts during Ground Zeroes?

Because five giant robot heads that are also hydrogen bombs is the sort of thing you'd want to hide during a nuclear inspection probably.

Ridin' dirty.

Probably the same thing they did with ZEKE: tossed 'em into the ocean.