Lowering The Bar (Guest Article)

This article was written by Jack Wade, who contacted me by email. Since I’ve written a whole book studying the careful forethought given to MGS2’s polarizing writing and design choices I find it invigorating to see a good old fashioned trashing of the man behind the legend. Although Jack clearly hasn’t read my book, which accounts for many of the strange disparities he points out about MGS2’s development, he makes a compelling case for not accepting Kojima as some literary genius — especially in the vein of the usual fanbase, who all seem to have blinders on when discussing the series. He casts doubt on the purported complexity behind it all. Since first proposing the VR Theory and fleshing out the metanarrative analysis of the series, I’ve watched the community slowly absorb the positive ideas I put forward about Kojima, but reject the unflattering side of the analysis. They don’t debate it, they just reject things they don’t want to hear. Ironic, of course. I much prefer people like Jack Wade, willing to step up and make the discussion more interesting.


There is no such thing as a clean and simple discussion of the Metal Gear series and it is the fault of a singular entry within it. Metal Gear Solid 2 had some of the most jarring idiosyncrasies, not just in its own world, but among fans of the franchise. If Metal Gear just skipped over MGS2, tweaked MGS4 to match the changes, and then proceeded normally, it would be another unremarkable series with a very high bar set by its opening iteration that just gets worse over time much like Deus Ex or StarCraft.

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Metal Gear Rising SUCKS: The Debriefing

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With vengeful tool of justice in hand, the mysterious warrior “Solid Kenny” slices apart Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance in this epic article, which exposes the artificial insides of the gaming community’s gory little cyborg darling.  It doesn’t get any more brutal than “Metal Gear Rising Sucks”.

Not only that, but brace yourself for an unthinkable TWO HOUR VIDEO dissection of the smash hit, with knowledgeable commentary, behind-the-scenes research, and endless razor-sharp arguments for anyone who dares to defend Rising as a worthy entry in the Metal Gear franchise!  If you’ve never cared about the game before, you will after this.

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MGR: Revengeance Is A Problem Best Taken Seriously

 

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Have I failed myself, my fans, and the Metal Gear series by not being harsh enough on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance?  Did I give it a free pass when I should have cut it limb from limb?  Some people think so.

The following is a response I received regarding my review of MGR:R, from a reader named Typocorism, explaining the importance and danger of Revengeance.  My responses are included. 

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Revengeance analysis video “Give War A Chance”

Here’s a thoughtful commentary on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and action games that posture as “intellectual”.  It’s an interesting take on the subtext of Revengeance (yes, apparently it has some!) in which the “true nature” of action games is explored.

Give credit to Chris Wagar from GatherYourParty for this.

Special Limited Time Revengeance Ultimate Edition Bundle!

Everybody, I need to interrupt my Ground Zeroes commentary to tell you about a special limited time offer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance available now on PSN!

For only $74.99, you can buy your favorite Platinum Games action game starring Raiden, along with the following super rare and valuable things:

– VR Missions ($2.99 value)
– Jetstream Side Mission (free value)
– Blade Wolf Side Mission (free value)
– Cyborg Ninja Skin (previously pre-order only)
– MGS4 Raiden Skin ($1.99 value)
– Commando Armor Skin (previously pre-order only)
– White Armor Skin (previously pre-order only)
– Inferno Armor Skin (previously pre-order only)

Check out how amazingly cool these skins are in this exciting video:

This is an amazing value that you won’t want to miss!  The regular edition of MGR can be bought for $49.99, which means you’ll get this amazing $5 worth of extra content for only an additional $25!  The “Ultimate Edition” is for true fans who want to show how smart they really are!

Cut them into a million pieces for extra points

Otakon

So Otakon just barely happened in Baltimore, and a group known as Pro Voltage decided to cosplay as Revengeance characters. Apparently some other people did too, resulting in pictures like this one. Who’s the chick with the ugly mug and the blender?

Anyway, there’s a bunch more on their Tumblr, including an impressive model of that ninja cyborg dog thing that you should see. Or you can go to Kotaku and see some more group shots.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

[Updated again: Kojima says the game is a “spinoff”, an “interpretation”, and a “parallel” universe in this interview.  Considering that he’s the final authority on the subject, I guess my initial review was correct after all (I knew he’d said that somewhere before!)  Either way, I’ll leave the review as it is, and you can see my take on the game no matter what they decide in the future.
Thanks to
JMG519 for having my back with the link — go watch his videos!]

Revengeance Review

Bottom Line: Platinum Games does their best with a failed experiment.

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Kojima promotes Revengeance with overblown rhetoric

Kojima TwitterKojima and his almost-translator have taken to Twitter to give us a four paragraph promotional outline of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which comes out two weeks from now.  To me it comes off as little more than typical Japanese marketing spin: unnecessary philosophical rhetoric and stretching the truth until you can pretend your product is somehow totally unique.

In the tweets he compliments Platinum Games for delivering such a good product on schedule, and claims that shooting games haven’t evolved in 30 years while using a sword is revolutionary.  According to Kojima, “lot’s [sic] of games with jumping, running, kicking, crunching [?], punching, and shooting” have been created, but “game with hiding did not come out easily”, which is why “game with free slashing wasn’t even exist.  This is invention.”  Yeah… right.  Anyway, he then slips into Metal Gear metaphor mode, saying that while his “sons” with his “genes” (ie. the Kojima Productions team) failed to deliver the game, the non-blood-related Platinum Games were able to inherit his “memes” and accomplish the goal.

For those who don’t know the significance of this whole MEME/GENE obsession, check out the Kojima VS MGS4 article and the MGS4: Sold Out series I did years ago.

Below is a compilation of the full twitlonger posts in chronological order.

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