Some people think that Kojima puts story over gameplay too much which results in lenghty cutscenes

I like how a game that doesn't talk about "deep" issues isn't a well done story. The truth of the matter is content and delivery are both important parts. Imho I dont think Kojima does very well at the delivery part. The dialog at times ia quite corny even when talking about these serious topics. MGS4 may have a great idea for the story but I don't like the way its delievered. Its not just the long cutscenes but also the dialog that I dont find appealing. I still finished it but I dont think it was perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

Half life may not tackle those "issues" like MGS does but it delivers its story in a much better way imho. It always works with the strength of the medium by keeping the gamer "in character". In game dialog works wonders for immersion.

I think if Kojima did alot of the basic dialog and codec seens in game and trimmed the story down a bit. Then got rid of a bit of convoluted dialog and put a bit more gameplay in the latter sections of the game then MGS4 would have been pretty much perfect to me.

I think the keyword here is Storyteller. Kojima is an incredible story teller, he just sucks at creating a story. If someone else, who didn't suck completely, had written the story, and then Kojima was required to follow that dialog, he would tell it in a way that few can rival.

So yes, he is a great story teller. Just a horrible writer.

P.S. My favorite game of all time is MGS4. It however, doesn't even come close to my favorite story.

The fact that people here love the Metal Gear story/dialog is likely an indication of age and exposure to good books/movies.

If you are young and have not read alot of good books or watched really good movies you might think this is a well told story, the same way my daughter is impressed by Elmo. No poster in the world is going to convince my daughter that Elmo isn't great. Only time can do this.

I remember thinking Transformers the Movie (the animated one) was great when I was a kid but now it's just unbearable (how much butt rock can you fit in one movie).


Garcian Smith--
That is the funniest post I've read in a long time. I propose you speak in Metal Gear for an entire day for all of your posts. You might end up a little retarded by the end of the day but it would be fun for the rest of us so you should do it.

That's damned pretentious of you Ian. So liking MGS stories is a sign of immaturity and a lack of culture. Out of curiosity, what game stories do you like when you are so cultured as I'm sure you are?

Personally I enjoy MGS stories because I've always enjoyed Science Fiction. The conspiracy stuff is cool, but I more enjoy the talk of cloning, virus evolution, and nanotechnology, and I like that they put that kind of talk into a game. Also I enjoy Kojima's attempts to scientifically rationalize everything in the MGS world, even if he falls short at times it's still interesting.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but the completely absurd plots with twists that some from nowhere and make no sense and contain wild, ridiculous deus ex machinas--while also slowing down for 20 minutes at a time to explain to you what they're trying to get at while hitting you over the head with their ideas--is one of the worst things about the games. The storys might be cool--a synopsis of Metal Gear, MGS or MGS3 all are interesting ideas, while the same can be said for MGS2 and 4 if you can set aside some of the more "uh, what?" moments--but the plotting is awful. A good plot does not contain the absurd and insanely lengthy expoistion conversation between the Colonol and Raiden DTG quoted for us above.

Again, I'm not a Kojima hater, and think there's a lot of fun things about the games and that the twisty story can be fun to follow. But the idea that the games have any literary qualities is absurd. The story of the MGS games really isn't that much better than the story found in No More Heroes. But at least with NMH everyone involved, including Suda, know they're just fucking around and the plot twists are entirely tongue in cheek. Not so with MGS.

Well, he still got me--I look like an idiot mock the name Solidus while not knowing what it is either way. So my face is red. Chemistry isn't my strong suit. I'm much more of a literature/film/history/art kind of guy. Still, that's no excuse. Pleading ignorance just proves that, you know, you're ignorant.

Naked still makes no sense, though, right?

wow, that's sad. You'd get rid of the most intellectual passage ever told in entertainmet. Heck, it would stand it's own in a textbook. It doesn't surprise me since you probably only care for mindless fun without any deep meaning.

One of the most intellectual passages ever told in entertainment? You've got to be kidding me. I knew someone was goingto play the philosophical card, actually. And I can tell you, as an avid reader of philosohpy and literary theory, specifcally being a big believer in deconstrcution a la Jacques Derrida, the postmodern philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard (especially the latter's constrcution of the simulacrum) and the poststructural reading of history pioneared by Michelle Foucault, I can, I believe with good authority, say that the philosophy found in MGS is for the most part drivel. It is, as I've said before, philosophy for dummies, an oversimplified and crude look at simulacra and the forces that control our lives. It's good that it's trying to explore such things, but it does it fairly piss-poorly, with absurd dialogue, reams of exposition and a need to hammer it over the viewer's head. It may stand on it's own in a textbook, in that textbooks also oversimplify and don't do a great job with subtlety and nuance.

If you want real intellectualism in entertainment (which is a pursuit that I pretty much devote my life too--as a film student I strive as a goal for my own films to have a subtle intellectual aspect to all of my film), here's a list, off the otp of my head:

1. The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick - A ripping, spooky what if? tale that contains a deep exploration of the nature of reality and perception, years before poststructuralsim made such things basic to its philosophy.

2. Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson - Post-structural theory in novel form.

3. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004) - The nature of god and faith, and what it means to forgive, all without being dogmatic about religion at all.

4. The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn't There, directed by Joel Coen - Deep explorations of pastiche - the way filmic tropes from the past can communicate to a contemporary audience and to each other.

5. Shadow of the Colossus - A Shintoist parable in game form. The dual nature of good and evil in all actions, the way you can do horrible things without regard for consequence, and how sacrifice can redeem that selfishness.

I could go on, touching on Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie, the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Bunuel and David Cronenberg (Cronenberg wrote the script for Videodrome immediately after reading Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media), and others, but the point is there are many, many examples of intellectualism in entertainment that are done better than that conversation in MGS2.

I live Metal Gear games. I like them a lot, actually. But well plotted, full of good dialogue, or the pinacle of intellectualism in entertainment they are not.

What is with peoples obsession with subtlety and naunce?

Philosophy shouldn't be subtle, just like any teacher-student relationship Kojima should be allowed the ability to cram down his teachings to his fans.