Ah, sorry I was unclear, that quoted part was in reference to Fury, I found out what you just said about Fear by accident, was a pretty awesome moment when it worked

i thought the cosmonaught with the jetpack flying around an underground bunker/sewer made less sense... flames looked cool though.

that said i dunno how else you'd fight bees without Oprah on your side...

cockbeard wrote:

Ah, sorry I was unclear, that quoted part was in reference to Fury, I found out what you just said about Fear by accident, was a pretty awesome moment when it worked

no worries
it's just to me, 3 has the best boss battles in the series - maybe in any game tbh. they feel somewhat linnear at first but there are so many little tricks you can do.

one of the reasons i dropped peace walker were the boring and dumb ass boss fights.

Started MGS2. Theme song kicks in, get the tinglies. So good.

HD looks so nice too.

the rain/water effects blew my mind back then. mgs2 and 3 still hold up well for 10 year old 3d games.

nothing will ever beat the croc hat.

the croc hat comes with better codec conversations... and some funny guard dialogue!

Just a pity that Raiden is such a complete fanny.

g.man wrote:

Just a pity that Raiden is such a complete fanny.

Isn't that the point of his character? I'm looking forwrd to Reg and Tempy explaining everything to me throughout this month.

mistercrayon wrote:

The genius is putting him in before any backlash occurred. Sooooo predictable.

I dunno what this bit means. How could they put him in after backlash had occurred, given that he's the point of the backlash?

I'm not sure if it was such huge gamble, more a heavily considered move. Stuff like slipping on bird shit, getting pissed on, being forced to run around naked, choosing Quinton Flynn with that sort of lispy feminine voice, the Skull Suit being far more bondage-esque than Snake's sneaking suit, the constant emasculation of him via other characters (President crotch grab etc) making him look like the typical Japanese Bishounen/pretty boy character etc It's all incredibly considered and manufactured. 

I'd say it was at most a minor gamble, because he's constructed to be such a simpering fuckwit. And as you say, there's the ZoE demo and the E3 footage, not a jot of the post Tanker game appearing anywhere before release, the fact that the cover of the game is Snake's face... that's all a huge part. 

But, importantly, he isn't a simpering fuckwit. Nor is he just a lampoon of people wanting to be Snake. He's his own character, he ends up going through a lot of the same 'what is a soldier' feelings that Snake goes through, but from a different angle. I think people forget that his back story is violent, involves him being indoctrinated and turned into a ruthlessly violent child soldier, and that a lot of the issues he has with Rose are down to PTSD. it's hard to watch them rub up against the goofball nature of other moments in MGS2, but the uneven nature of the tone in MGS games is a large part of the enjoyment of them for me.

Also even if players had reacted positively to Raiden, you could still make a read of the game as being a commentary on people who like to play make-believe soldiers. The constructed persona isn't just there to laugh at fans, but also as a functional Yin to Snake's Yang, to complete the whole 'virtual soldier' idea, the hero couldn't be a buff guy, it had to be someone who didn't fit. A pretty boy raised on a diet of sims and virtual reality run throughs of The Tanker and Shadow Moses. The twist that before that he was a violent killer means that he isn't just a cypher of the player.

There are just a hell of a lot of levels to the narrative of MGS2 that work very well together.

The fact is, it's impossible to introduce a character and ask an audience to react to them in a very specific way, because people have such broad tastes. People end up loving characters designed to be hated, and hating characters designed to be loved.

Plenty of people liked Raiden. I loved Raiden on release, I thought he was really interesting. That fact doesn't undermine what Kojima was trying to do at all, but the huge backlash and shock he induced certainly adds a good deal of qualification to it, not that it's needed. It's just a nice coincidence.

Even if you go back now, the fact that you play as Raiden in MGS2 is still a big deal from a story point of view. The impact might be lessened, but this happens to many things that enter the realm of culture texts.

Well Koj once went on record saying that he got a letter from a fan who said that they "didn't want to play as an old man" so they went and made a fey pretty boy. And you're right, they then go back to Boss for 3 and Old Snake for 4. 

I think he's always been pretty interested in who and what the player avatar is since MGS. The whole 'recessive gene' thing in MGS is a big point (even though it makes little scientific sense) and you spend a lot of time thinking you're trying to kill your superior, Aryan brother, when in fact he's the reject. 

It'll be interesting to see where MGSV goes, although it's already fairly interesting because as everyone knows, Big Boss is the bad guy. If this bridges the gap in the story to Metal Gear, then it should show BB become the villain at the player's hands. That could be an interesting move in his hands.

I rather like the fact Solid David and Big Jack are essentially the same person but go through far different events to shape them. To BB, The Boss is always a messianic obsession he doesn't understand and when he tries to be the same model for Solid he ends up turning into a reviled father/mentor.

Solidus feels like a perfect clone of Bb at the point he was created. Already bitter about governments and longing for a family of professional soldiers to do away with the politics that killed his soul mate. Solid was the true blank slate.

I really can't wait for this game.

See this is the kind of stuff I want. Although I didn't know BB was the bad guy for 5...

\hmm, \i think he was definitely designed to be lampooned. Each game needs a clown of sorts. It's no coincidence that after Raiden was fleshed out in 2 and partly in 3, that when 4 came around Johnny turns up and poops himself like normal, although he kinda finds some redemption at the end and we get top flesh him out. I know next to nothing about Nip culture but it seems like he likes to include an underdog and have them come good, or at least as good as they can