It begins the creator of GEARS OF WAR calls MGS4 " passive entertainment"

[Ian]

el_rika said:

Ian said:
As I mentioned earlier, I think Cliff is just being rude here and has not earned the right to be so arrogant.

Kojima should be commended for his efforts to bring story telling and gaming together. The game/movie that is Metal Gear 4 is a very cool idea. I hope Cliff is wrong, and we see more things like this (if the gaming industry is big enough for Wiifit then why not a movie/game?)

That said, Kojima's work should also be seen for what it is, a hybrid of corny comic book story telling and games, but nothing more.

Don't get me wrong, the production values, camera angles, voice acting, character models, and animation of his cut scences are excellent. But it is very definately a comic book style event, and even then there are some problems with it's excecution (no not their length or lack of interactiveness).

If I were going to point out a few of the most glaring issues with these scences it would be that he has crammed way too much into the story and as a result it jumps around from idea to idea way too much, the story and the points it's trying to make lack cohesion, the delivery of often complex ideas are both overly explained and under developed, almost to the point of being preechy or condesending to the audience, and the dialog between characters is often unnatural and overly verbose.

The best story tellers say more with less, not the other way around.
On the other hand, if you look at it like a corny comic book, it's pure gold.

..that's because you compare it to a western/Hollywood type of movie/script/direction, which is the worse thing you could do. It is like trying to write with your feet and walk on your hands. In other words you are looking at the picture all wrong. You should take it for what it is not for what you think it should be.

The storytelling in MGS games is the purest anime way of storytelling (think Berserk or Evanghelion). It is a style loved by easterns and (i'm generalising here a bit) hated by westerns. It is very heavy handed, with tons of background informations, goofy humour, overblown melodrama, subtle ironies and strong messages and it is targeted to the more patience people. But saying it is bad is pure ignorance. It is like saying Shakespeare was bad 'cose it used rhymes. It is just different from what you know. 

And your last sentences are somewhat contradictory. A manga (anime comic book) does say more with less. Let's take Berserk for example. There are no fancy special effects or famous actors to enhance the experience like in a Holywood blockbuster, just pure storytelling with a brilliant script and amazingly deep and unpredictable character development which puts it next to any Oscar winning Hollywood drama if not above. 

So yes, i agree, MGS4 is more of a digital anime/manga than a Holywood blockbuster and that's the very reason why it is so amazing.

 

 

I'm not comparing it to a Hollywood film (which is a pretty vague over genralization of anything made in Hollywood I might add).  I think the story has issues within it's own genre of story telling (comic book, anime). 

Here's a tiny example of how the script is flawed.  Throughout the game, everything is explained to Snake as though he has no previous knowledge of the world around him.  If snake is supposed to be some kind of War hero, and unless he's has been living under a rock all this time (chessy pun intended), why doesn't he know about these things.  Point is, the writer obviously needs to convey this information to the player, but has neglected to consider the fact that Snake should already know this stuff.  A good writer whould have included these details in a way that shows Snake knows about them, even has a deep knowlege of them from his experiences.

Here's another example-  throughout the dialog, characters take turns talking back and forth without ever interupting each other (it's very unrealistic, unnatural, and is a sign of an inexperienced movie director/screne writer).  I could go on and on...

 

Read my previous posts and you know I think what kojima has done is note worthy and that Cliff, as a spokes person for the industry, has no right to be publicly bad mouthing his creation.  But his story telling, even as a comic/anime, is no where near as good as other stories about similar things. 

As a gamer, I would have prefered a Metal Gear with two more chapters or so and half the cut scences with the same info in them? But that's just me.