Category Archives: Site

Site update | MGS2: A Complete Breakdown part 6 and MGS4: Sold Out

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Readers, I know you’re waiting for the next installments of MGS4: Sold Out and MGS2: A Complete Breakdown.  I’m working on part 6 of A Complete Breakdown again, and progress is good.  It’s a bit of an odd piece, but we’ll all struggle through it I’m sure.

I also want to go back and finish my MGS4 analysis — don’t think I’ve forgotten.  With Metal Gear Solid V on the way, and the HD Collection released not long ago,  it feels like a good time to put some more of my crazy theories out there.

If you have any contributions of your own (a lot of you said you’d like to in the Site Survey!) you can now come directly to me by emailing metagearsolid [at] gmail.com.  Comics, articles, videos, audio recordings — send them my way, if you want to get them put on the site.  A few notes, however:

  • Stuff that’s ready to be published will naturally be published faster
  • You should have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish.  I’ll give notes if I have any suggestions, and try to help the process
  • Don’t be afraid to do something different than what I usually do.  You can examine aspects of the series that I’m completely neglecting, or even talk about areas of culture that I don’t, as long as they’re relevant somehow to the general themes of this place.

Sit tight, and if you haven’t read the first 5 epic parts of my MGS2 analysis, what are you waiting for?

MetaGearSolid.org Reader Survey (updated!)

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I’ve created a quick little survey.  Go here and fill it out!

Update: Survey results have been pouring in already, so thank you.  I’ll continue to read them as they come.  A permanent link will be put in the sidebar for future reference, too!

Thankfully, results have been consistent with my expectations; which is encouraging because it means I’m not totally out of touch with what you guys are interested in.  All your suggestions are great, it’s the kind of stuff I’d love to get around to as well, so we’ll see how many of them I can do yet!

 

For those who’d like to do news hunting:

I hereby demand that you USE THIS IMPORTANT LINK to submit your suggestions, which I will certainly read, probably keep in mind for future writings, and possibly even bring up in “News Roundup”-style posts.  Basic instructions are on the page, and I look forward to having my own gang of snitches working nonstop in my service.  The more the merrier, I say!

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For those who’d like to submit original content such as articles, comics and videos/animations:

Contact me at contribute@metagearsolid.org and let me know what you’d like to contribute, how you’d like your stuff to be published/linked, and who you are as a person.  I’ll reply when I can, and we’ll go from there.  Sorry it’s not more convenient but hopefully getting your stuff on the site is a worthwhile tradeoff!  I look forward to seeing your cool shit and getting to know the talented, opinionated people who’ve been reading my own work for a while.  There’s no hurry, so keep that email in mind for when you’re ready.

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If you’ve listened to Podcast #8 you know that I’ve got a few different projects in the slow-cooker — including game reviews, part 6 of MGS2: A Complete Breakdown, a new series of commentaries on the state of gaming, and possibly video content — and now I’ve added something else to the mix: game creation.

Using the free game creation engine Unity4, I’ve started learning programming and game creation.  I’ve already learned some coding through web design, Flash animation, and old Blizzard map editors, but this time I’ll be learning JavaScript.  This is not just a hobby or a distraction (although it could become both of those,) but a very practical form of research, getting my hands dirty with the nuts and bolts of game creation so that I can get better insight into the process, complications, and political reality of making something that does or doesn’t suck.  After one night, it’s already taught me a lot.

My game creation goal is to create a game shell (start menu, option interface, etc.) and a single activity, and hopefully not make it terrible.

Ongoing site security concerns

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Hey everyone.  Yeah, embarrassing as it is to say, I’m still dealing with some security issues with my site. I have been randomly logged out of my own dashboard (leaving me unable to post) because my password was changed!  I’ve tried a few things to bump up the security today, I’m dealing with tech support, etc. so hopefully it will be smooth sailing in the coming days.  If I’m locked outside my site again, you can always look for updates on my Twitter, though.

Podcast #8: It’s Not Over Yet!

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What the heck, we’re back!  And it wouldn’t be fair to keep y’all in the dark, so here you go!  In this podcast I simply explain what happened with the site, and what I’ve got in the works right now.  It’s a straightforward update for those who want to fill in the blanks and know what to look forward to!

Click here to listen to Podcast #8: It’s Not Over Yet! (mp3 file, 15:08 long)

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Now that I’ve finally put up Part 5 of the MGS2 review, I plan on taking a short break from the series before diving into Part 6.  In the meantime, I want to do some more reviews of games, although not as lengthy as the XCOM: Enemy Unknown review.

I’ll probably review Retro City Rampage and Path of Exile (once I’ve played the full version), but that’s not all!  I also plan on adding a rating to things I’ve already examined such as Intrusion 2, Brink, and The Last of Us.  Now granted, I haven’t personally played those last two games, and one of them isn’t even released yet, but I feel comfortable judging them anyway, because it’s fun and I trust that my cautious deductions are good enough.  Not only that, but my superpower of insight allow me to simulate the entire game in my head from just a handful of screenshots or a single promotional trailer.  Don’t believe me?  I looked up your Facebook pictures and am judging YOU right now.  I give you a +2.  Keep up the good work.

The -/+ Rating System Explained

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If you’ve seen my recent review of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you’ve seen this rating system already.  This is an explanation for how it was designed, split into right (positive) and left (negative) sides.  The decision to account for “outside factors” is very important to me for rather philosophical reasons:

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