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windbane on 21 May 2008
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rocketpig said:
windbane said:
rocketpig said:
HappySqurriel said:
Ajax said:
ey rocketpig, aren't you getting a little too harsh on Metal Gears plot now? It might have it's short commings, but give it a brake dude.. cause it's also not like the genre and setting allow for Xenogears like stuff you know.. and Konami does really try to make the best of it. And it still is better than plots of many comparable games, for as far as you can compare games to Metal Gear.

RocketPig's tone may be a little harsh, but I wouldn't say that it is entirely unjustified ...

I'm of the opinion that fairness in most critiques comes from considering what something is as well as what it is trying to be; in this way you don't (necessarily) hold a Startrek episode up to the same level as you would a very serious award winning dramatic movie.

If people want to hold Metal Gear Solid up to even the standard of bad literature it deserves the harsh critique that RocketPig has provided; if you want to hold it up to good literature you should be laughed at.

If Metal Gear didn't try to be a deep, engrossing storyline and admitted its schlocky nature and embraced it, I would be all over the game in a Starship Troopers sort of way.

The problem is that it's taken as a serious piece of art and held up as such by both critics and fanboys. And for that, it deserves every bit of spittle-fueled malice I can throw in its direction. 


There's a reason so many people like the story. No other videogame series is like it. It's both serious and shallow. Most dramas are. Every Metal Gear thread is filled with your hatred over the story. We get it. You don't think it's an oscar script. Ok. Lots of people like it. It's really good for what it does.


Lots of movies are loved for their cheesy nature. If people would just admit that the MGS story is cheesy and rather badly told, I would go away and you wouldn't see me talking shit on the game so damned often.

The problem is that people aren't saying that. I keep hearing people try to say that MGS is somehow enlightening or brilliant in a thought-provoking sort of way... I have one thing to say about that. Read a few fucking books written before the 19th century, watch the AFI top 100, and then get back to me. Then try to tell me how brilliant the game really is.

I have absolutely no problem with people liking the game if they accept it for what it is. God knows we all like a little cheese with our wine. What I don't like is people trying to play up kitsch as fine art.


I've seen a great many of the AFI top 100. Stop being so elitist. I've had emotional responses to the themes presented in the MGS games. Parts are cheesy. Parts are meant to be cheesy. However, there's significant meaning with a lot of what is in there. Granted, I was younger when I played the other games, but your crusade to convince people that it ALL cheesy and meaningless is not going to get you anywhere. It's not a book of philosophy, but every book of philosophy has the same detractors that you have become towards MGS. YOU don't like it. YOU think it's cheesy. YOU don't think there's much intelligence in it. Well, I disagree. I think there are thought provokin elements, emotional elements, cheesy elements, and much of it is grounded in the truth of what's going on in the world. It's also fiction. Entertaining fiction. So there we are. Should we continue this debate forever? I'm not any more likely to change my mind as you are, heh.