How bad is MGS4 for the image of our hobby?

[jalsonmi]

HappySqurriel said:

Honestly, the problem with Metal Gear is not the storyline or the game it is the moronic reaction and undeserved hype of Fanboys ... Metal Gear Solid's story is very similar in delivery to a movies like Wild Wild West or Van Helsing; poorly acted and directed over the top movies that are entertaining when you turn your brain off. It is (somewhat) better than these movies because there is an effort to add some deeper content into the story, but these messages are poorly integrated into the story and end up seeming clumsy. From what I have seen, the only people who really see Metal Gear as being particularly deep are people who tend to only see the surface messages in movies/books/videogames and miss the subtext of a story.

When someone who truly understands and enjoys deep subtext hears about how "Deep" Metal Gear Solid is, and then plays the game, they are bound to think that either games are the most shallow medium ever created (if this is the deepest game created) or that Metal Gear Fans ar morons.

 

I don't think Metal Gear is quite as bad as, say, Van Helsing or Wild Wild West. Is does try to be cerebral, even if it kind of hits you over the head with it and oversimplifies the concepts. I'd say it's more in line with The Matrix and it's sequels, in that it's kind of philosophy for dummies. In fact, you could say both The Matrix and MGS2 act in certain ways as "Jean Beaudrillard for Dummies," though both try to add their own other elements in as spice--The Matrix adds a little Derrida (oversimplified to hell and slightly bastardized), MGS2 a little Nietzche and Machiavelli (ditto).