Welcome to the premiere of Gaming With Intellect, where I get really dirty from digging really deep into games to reveal its very smart side!
As you guys may know, I'm gonna kick it off with one of my favourite game series of all (on second thought my favourite series of all time), and I'm talking about none other than the Metal Gear series! So let's get this @#$% started!
I remember playing Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons Of Liberty when I was 7, a mature rated game that wasn't visually violent, but it had that eeire mature, and sophisticated feel when playing it or watching it. It got to me very easily, but that drew me in much closer. The amazing stealth mechanics, long, but amazingly executed cinematics, a story that still rapes my mind but is still well woven, what's not to love?
So I followed the Metal Gear series for a while, then I saw MGS 3: Snake Eater, and boy was I amazed at that game. Not only was the it perfect cinematically, and the gameplay was much more intuitive, but that's when I realised MGS games aren't just masterpeices in gaming, but its a masterpeice in art form.
Hideo Kojima didn't want game just to play a game, he want's you to be immersed with the game. He wants you to bawl in sadness when EVA gives the final debriefing about The Boss in the last cutscene of Snake Eater, he wants you to test your patience when you want to get really stealthy, and he wants you to see what it takes to being a true soldier; and he (Mr. Kojima) succeeded.
For that exact reason, I'm (and was) being very skeptical about the portable installments and Rising. I mean yeah, I knew it was gonna be really good but I really worried that it wasn't gonna feel like a true Metal Gear game that has stripped of its goodies due to the PSP's limitations. Luckily, Portable Ops and Peace Walker exceeded my expectations, it felt like a big ass adventure was in the palm of my hands. But there's still MGS Rising, the true "black sheep" of the series that I'm worried about.
I already didn't like Raiden that much in MGS 2 cause honestly, no one can outbeat Snake as a hero character, and plus, it was just unnecessary. That was one of my biggest concerns with Sons of Liberty. In Guns Of The Patriot, Raiden was back and more badass thankfully, but that costed him his personality, another negative. Yeah, his pain and suffering conveyed in MGS 4 got to me, but he was just a meer robot. So why bring a robot back as the starring characterin the next installment? Not mention, the completely irrelevent gameplay mechanics. Again, its a very good mechanic, slicing and dicing people and other things, but there's a time and place for every thing, and slicing $%^& up like an asian cutting vegetables does suit well in the MGS universe. Worst of all, Metal Gear games made you keep your mind in the game and the game punishes you if you start to play mindlessly, and Rising completely abolishes that policy that I come to love, so now, you can just go ahead and slice everything in your path, without even a wee-bit of thought. Is Kojima truly giving up of the seires but ending it on a low note, or is it just a tech demo to see what motion sensign controllers are capable of doing? If that's the case either way, consider me officially losing hope in the franchise.
In conclusion, the Metal Gear series are the a series of games meant for your mind. You have to form a strategy, outsmart your enemy, pay attention to ALL the cutscene if you want anyhope in understanding the whole plot; and I love all that. It sheer cinematics make the games feel like a movie and sure it may give gameplay a bad rub, but you can`t do nothing but admire how well both are executed. But I'm starting to get the itch about the story. Everything has an end, and Kojima needs to close the book on the series soon; but his next project Rising, seems like a sign of a "video game series apocalypse" where the whole seires crumbles in a disastrous ending. I truely love the series, but watching something (heck even someone) deteriorate until its death is hard sight to watch, and I don't that to happen to a series that I have adored for so long.
I don't know much about rising, but as far as I know, Kojima isn't using motion controls in Rising... correct me if I'm wrong. I also don't think that he's ridding the series of the stealth mechanic. Qutie frankly, I LOVE that mechanic. It's a shit pile of massive fun. In shit form. Ok, bad analogy, but you know what I mean.
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