PART I – PART II – PART III – PART IV – PART V – PART VI – PART VII
{NOTE: Clips are best watched in Full Screen mode.}
Part three is a careful study of Metal Gear’s creator, Hideo Kojima. More specifically, it’s a study of his motivations for betraying player expectations with Metal Gear Solid 2. As confusing as it may seem, there is a logical explanation for it all. (Here’s Part 1 and Part 2)
PART I – PART II – PART III – PART IV – PART V – PART VI – PART VII
{NOTE: Clips are best watched in Full Screen mode.}
So, the game was controversial because it pulled the rug out from under players’ feet, and because it denied them the trademark experience they were expecting; but what about the game’s actual story? In part two we analyze the plot in order to find out whether its as convoluted as its critics have said.
There’s a new Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance teaser site up now, called “War On Our Shores”. It features the voice of a character named Senator Armstrong, who seems bent on incriminating himself over the phone to somebody who wrote a speech for him.
I’ll admit it: everything about this game is guilty pleasure to me, and the writing in this is no different. The speech does a good job nodding to the story of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and provides some decent social commentary as well. I wonder whether the “Tea Party” mentioned in the trailer is actually supposed to refer to the current-day libertarian movement? If so, I have to give them big credit. Maybe Platinum Games can churn out an enjoyable plot in two months after all?
There’s also this trailer, named “Eye”, which was uploaded May 4th. It’s got more hints, including backwards-audio which I’m too lazy to decode. The subject is clearly a little boy, and at the end we see the words “Subject Name / Raiden” and “2/3”, indicating that this is a flashback, and that we will have another of these videos. Something else I noticed is that according to the login data on the screen, the username is “jtripper@216.55.248.24”. Look up that IP address and it brings you to Valley City, Ohio and a guy who I’m positive has no clue about Metal Gear. According to the “whois” data it was registered in 1997 by Infonexion Corp.. Hmm, something tells me this isn’t an ARG on par with Portal 2, and I should have stuck with my first instinct, which was to not bother looking deeper.
I found this interesting. Fans of Metal Gear Solid 2 know that the game comments on the permanence of digital information, portraying traditional culture as fragile and transient, and digital culture as a swelling “flood” of eternally accessible garbage. Physical records conform to the idea of evolution and natural selection, he suggests. But yesterday, respected technology prophet and bestselling author Nicholas Carr flipped this idea on its head by suggesting that it’s actually old, physical culture that remains accessible, and digital information that becomes swept away in a stream of technological change…
It’s just the first draft, but I’m quite proud of it. With a few changes it would be good enough to publish as an article here, but I’ve also got the video to go with it, so now it’s just a matter of editing the script, recording myself, collecting more video, and editing it all together. I plan to do artwork to use in the video, so there’s that, too.
Why the hell are people writing articles about this now? Shouldn’t you be too busy kissing Call of Duty’s ass? Seriously. Since when do you care about the deeper themes of MGS2? Go back to sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich, this is my turf!
Here I am, right in the middle of making the definitive Metal Gear Solid 2 analysis, and guys like this have to come along and try to steal my thunder. Thankfully, they barely scratch the surface, and I don’t need to prove that I wrote about this shit years before they did. I’m a hipster like that.
Anyway, I suggest you read the whole thing. It’s kind of neat, but doesn’t nearly do the game justice still.
I don’t understand it, but it made me laugh and inspired me to work even harder on my MGS2 video, which, just so you know, is coming along really nicely. So thank you… uh… NSDAP1945HeilHitler…
Hm.
Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that “NSDAP” stands for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei? Maybe you learned something today, too.
