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.

well if you keep refering to great books, then you can kill any game-story-line with that argument; there are always better books written of course; i praise the story of Xenogears and regard it very highly, highly then many written story's, but I also have a book shelf filled with the books of Nietzsche, and even the great Xenogears cannot tip the great Nietzsche himself you know.. but should I keep comparing them..?.. but on the otherhand I do understand what you mean Rocketpig, but I do wonder how many guys on this site think of MGS plot as brilliant.. I must have missed something I guess..?

I think it's brilliant entertainment laced with some great ideas and humor.

I'm not completely fair with my comparison though, cause Nietzsche didn't write stories or novels.. but I could just as well have used Homer or Ferdowsi as an example

actually, I think it would be interesting for elitist rocketpig to suggest games that have a better storyline. perhaps I missed that in an earlier post.

ok windbane.. you can exaggerate too (how do you spell that word?).. there are enough games with a better plot, but if you mean in the same 'genre' or close to Metal Gears genre it does get more difficult I guess..

 I want to go on the record right now and say I hate you for what you are about to make me say.

So you would agree that the Wii is the best console this generation? 13 million people can't be wrong right? McDonald's is also better than anything you can get in a fancy restaurant. Nintendogs is clearly the best game made in the last decade, and far better than all 3 MGS games combined! Carnival Games is better than Uncharted, Folklore, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank and a host of other PS3 exclusives! Wii Play is better than every PS3 game in existence! Popularity != quality.

A bunch of people liking it does not make it good. It just makes it popular. There can be an arguement made for popularity pointing to quality, but that is the begining of an arguement, and not the end of it as I think I demonstrated. I could go on to list possibly thousands of examples of very popular games/books/movies that are actually god awful. Some of them I even love (hai2u Stargate SG-1!).

Wow, do you really have that much disdain for MGS' story, RocketPig?

In game industry run by games like Halo, Gears of War, God of War, Mario and Zelda I'd think you would at least acknowledge that MGS does delve into deeper issues and philosophies. In the other games you get stories as generic as Man (Usually possessing superhuman attributes) kills entire alien race almost by his own abilities alone. And with Gears/Mario, you don't even get a plot-line (Which works for Mario, Gears however...).

I totally agree that MGS doesn't have the best storyline out there. As you mentioned, it does suffer from drawn-out dialog and excessive explanation; I tend to ignore the almost sci-fi elements, as they're main purpose seems to be gameplay-related.
But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another series or title that matches both MGS' mixture of plot and gameplay. At the very least, it goes above and beyond what most videogames attempt to, and does so with a pretty good degree of success.

EDIT: Oh, and I like Kojima's attempts in grounding parts of his plot with what going on, currently, in the world. PMC's are actually pretty relevant, as is genetic engineering and digital distribution of information. He unfortunately tends to stray away from these at times, though (And that's where you're aforementioned "cheese" usually perks up).

ok, of course you've got a point like I also said, popularity doesn't by definition equal quality of course, but you must watch out with these kinds of comparison like with that flies comparison, 'cause this one is also a bit false; cause McDonalds is less good than a good restaurant of course, but that's comparing totally different genre's. You can say that in the fastfood genre, McDonalds actually is one of the best, and it isn't so popular for nothing. Just like you could say the plot of Metal Gear actually is quite good, but of course not when compared to great books and novels made by some of the great minds in the last centuries who have been writing stuff down and rpgs also have a context that gives much more space for greater story-lines.. also with the wii comparison.. the Wii actually IS great, but you must see it in a certain context and genre, what do they want with the Wii, who do they target with the games, if you know that then you'll see it actually is great from that point of view.. if you understand what I mean