Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain

  • Thread starter Ddrizle
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@prisonermonkeys as true as it may be that there's nothing left to explore as far as Big Boss and Snake are concerned - hence what I was saying about the Metal Gear Solid story arc being closed - there are still opportunities for making more games.

First of all, it wouldn't be the first Japanese franchise to be mercilessly rebooted or parallelised with individual canon - like Gundam, for example - if they did decide to do that rather than explore and fill in the various vague plot details.

Secondly, this is the series that makes you choose who to sacrifice to save someone else, yet in the next game they're both alive and well; if Kojima Productions or whoever picks up the IP next were to say "oh, yeah, Shagohod wasn't the first Metal Gear, there was one in the WWII era but it was destroyed/everyone involved was killed so thoroughly that no one knew" it wouldn't be the hardest thing to swallow. Likewise, the Philosophers started somewhere, they were introduced out of the blue as precursors to the Patriots, after all. Just as how Illuminati fiction suggests they've been around forever, or the Templars in Assassin's Creed or League of Shadows in Batman, I wouldn't be surprised if Metal Gear prequels did something similar.

Also, just because we know a character's back story, doesn't mean we just shouldn't play a game of that back story. I'm talking about The Boss here, really, a WWII game where you play as her and/or the Cobra Unit could easily work, or one where you're Frank Jaeger, Meryl post-GotP, Meryl and Rat Patrol Team 01 pre-GotP, EVA post-Snake Eater, Ocelot at basically any point, Liquid pre-MGS, Fortune... Even a Ground Zeroes-style short game that explores what happens at FOXHOUND HQ in MGS when they get shut down... There are so many opportunities because the story covers so many decades and has so many characters with vague histories.

But this is all just assuming that they'd carry on with that same story arc. There's nothing stopping them from introducing an entirely new storyline that intersects certain parts of Metal Gear Solid's but never tries to change or extend that canon, but uses the established universe to do it's own thing.
 
The Philosophers did start somewhere, but they were benign and benevolent. The Patriots were a malignant bastardisation of their ideology, so I think that trying to recast the Philosophers as a similar all-consuming evil would really undermine a lot of that. SE makes it pretty clear that the division between east and west was the catalyst for that corruption taking hold.

The only time period that I could see working is the time between SOL and GOTP. A lot happened in that six years for the Patriots to instigate their plan, and I think that there was a real deviation from the data control and manipulation in SOL through to an economy sustained by total war in GOTP.
 
prisonermonkeys
but they were benign and benevolent.
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From the Metal Gear Wiki:

"After World War I, the original Philosophers established an unseen union between the three nations that lasted for several decades. The Philosophers originally sought to use their incredible resources and powerful influence to steer world history away from brutal, needless warfare. However, with the death of the last founding member in the 1930s, the organization began to spiral out of control. The raison d'être of the organization was gradually corrupted; the Philosophers' philosophy was not passed on to posterity."

So there is still time for it to go bad, just not as bad as The Patriots. Apparently the Russian Philosophers attempted to sabotage the Manhattan Project, so I'm sure there's room for another conspiracy that'd involve sending The Boss over to Germany, North Africa, the Pacific arena or somewhere to clear something up. What if Russian or Chinese Philosophers assisted the Germans with Operation Sea Lion (the plot to invade England) by helping them construct some kind of Metal Gear that's just a big boat (like GW but smaller and without all the AI stuff)?
 
Actually, Kojima wanted to remake the first few Metal Gear games, but he also wanted to be hands off with them and turn them over to new developers. I can't see why Silicon Knights or Platinum Games being receptive to remaking a game or two using the FOX Engine.
 
The problem with near perfection part 2,3,4,5,6 or whatever; is that it has to improve on near perfection part 1.

All we really want is a game mechanic whereby the bad guy doesn't have to know we are there until we want him to, or we've slipped past him altogether.
This is the whole premise for metal gear that blew the games industry away when ps1 was around.
The fact that you could shoot, but it was probably the one thing you didn't want to do, was what sold the game in the first place.

Any scenario where this sort of thing is fundamental would work.
Even with a new cast, in a new setting, with new trix and gizmos.
These things take upwards of 4-5 years to produce, then there's the hype involved and the press and the touring to showcase etc etc.
I think if I was nearing 40 (which I am) and I'd made the money Hideo's got.
I'd think about spending it, and never working again.
But then, I am not a crazy Japanese manga inspired imaginary with a fetish for guns and big breasts.......

Some of that last statement does apply.

:irked:👍
 
I hope that you are aware right that Metal Gear, as a franchise, started on the MSX, and not on Playstation. As such, I was referring to Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and the original Metal Gear Solid as the ones that Kojima said needed the remake treatment.
 
neema_t
So there is still time for it to go bad, just not as bad as The Patriots. Apparently the Russian Philosophers attempted to sabotage the Manhattan Project, so I'm sure there's room for another conspiracy that'd involve sending The Boss over to Germany, North Africa, the Pacific arena or somewhere to clear something up. What if Russian or Chinese Philosophers assisted the Germans with Operation Sea Lion (the plot to invade England) by helping them construct some kind of Metal Gear that's just a big boat (like GW but smaller and without all the AI stuff)?
Click to expand...
But the question that needs to be answered is "what does this actually contribute to the franchise?". Is it necessary to enrich our understanding of the series, or is it just making a game for the sake of it?

Like I said, TPP covers a period of Naked Snake's life where he was disillusioned and feeling betrayed, but nevertheless driven by his idealism. There has to be something that will see him go from a pariah to an active part of the intelligence sphere of influence so that he can rebuild FOX and take on his role in the original MG. But there are no such unanswered questions in the pre-SE timeline. Certainly none that would enrich our understanding of the series.

Right now, the only real gap is between SOL and GOTP. There's no real explanation for why the AIs went from covertly manipulating information to overtly fuelling an economy based on perpetual war, and nor is there anything on what Liquid Ocelot did in the intervening period. But again, I don't think that is an area that could be covered.
 
I'm sorely tempted by the collector's edition, but I don't think it's available with the X360 version of the game. I'm especially interested in the Making Of DVD - I teach a unit called "Virtual Worlds", but there aren't many resources that look at the way these worlds are created, and so the DVD sounds like something that would be really good for that.
 
prisonermonkeys
is it just making a game for the sake of it?
Click to expand...

Of course it is, but since when has that ever stopped a publisher looking to cash in on a franchise? I mean, they could just reboot the franchise entirely (not just remake) or just go crazy and make Snake Tales-style retellings of events that put a different, non-canonical spin on stuff. Ignoring that, though, going by what Kojima has said about the Big Boss trilogy, Solid Snake trilogy and how Metal Gear Solid is contained within the Metal Gear universe rather than it being the universe, that story arc is completed by The Phantom Pain so whatever comes next - if it complies with what he's said over the years - will have to be pre-Snake Eater, post-GotP or parallel to everything with little or no focus on Big Boss or Solid Snake. I don't think anything particularly interesting or game-worthy happened to, around or because of Big Boss or Solid Snake between Snake Eater and GotP that hasn't already been featured in a game, but my memory is awful so I'm probably forgetting things.


Side note about your teaching, have you seen this? It might be relevant, I don't know. It's interesting tech, a team recently used the same thing to map the inside of a volcano using drones.
 
Just put down my pre-order on The Phantom Pain (which, for some reason, the predictive text on my phone believes is called The Phantom Paisley ...) at my local JB HI-FI. Traded in Ground Zeroes and Grid Autosport for store credit and got $30 off the price, which is about ten times more than I was expecting.

I can't get the Day One or Collector's Edition with the X360, but as much as I would be interested in the Making Of DVD, I have never liked pre-order bonuses. Special weapons tend to make the game over-powered from the start (and I like to use non-lethal means anyway), and I have no idea what I would do with a half-sized replica prosthetic arm. Customisation items - like outfits and ship decorations in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed Rogue - are nice because they allow for personalisation, but that's about it.
 
I believe that I will be able to pre-order in full the game by May at the earliest. Getting the Day One edition for the PS4, not out of want, but because that is the only console I own.
 


Highlights include the dirty mag > cute animal mag > real puppy > toy puppy evolution ("we didn't want players shooting puppies on the battlefield"), the bit about "something distinct" being printed on the shields (is it just a team emblem?) and the sort-of hint at E3 at the end there. I mean, of course they're going to show more at E3, so is that just saying that symbol is both an E (because it's the last letter in 'Online') and a 3 (because it's the third MGO - even though it's technically the fourth - MGS3 Subsistence, MGS4 and Peace Walker all had Metal Gear Online), or is it a deliberate hint to E3 for some reason?

Also, how are they going to make a good tactical game with a 3rd person camera? Surely that guy they choke near the start would be able to walk one way but look behind him... And why would he be walking? And why would be walking toward and facing the base so close to the round start? In other words, I don't think the game is going to play anything like this, but people have been saying that since the MGO trailer first launched so whatever.
 
neema_t
Highlights include the dirty mag > cute animal mag > real puppy > toy puppy evolution ("we didn't want players shooting puppies on the battlefield"), the bit about "something distinct" being printed on the shields (is it just a team emblem?) and the sort-of hint at E3 at the end there. I mean, of course they're going to show more at E3, so is that just saying that symbol is both an E (because it's the last letter in 'Online') and a 3 (because it's the third MGO - even though it's technically the fourth - MGS3 Subsistence, MGS4 and Peace Walker all had Metal Gear Online), or is it a deliberate hint to E3 for some reason?

Also, how are they going to make a good tactical game with a 3rd person camera? Surely that guy they choke near the start would be able to walk one way but look behind him... And why would he be walking? And why would be walking toward and facing the base so close to the round start? In other words, I don't think the game is going to play anything like this, but people have been saying that since the MGO trailer first launched so whatever.
Click to expand...

I will concede that all of the above have some form of online capability, Peace Walker did NOT have Metal Gear Online. At best you could swap out some mother base staff with another player online, and maybe assign some missions, but other than that, you don't participate in the battles like you saw in the other games that had MGO.

That said, no it is not a hint to E3.
 
Sanji Himura
I will concede that all of the above have some form of online capability, Peace Walker did NOT have Metal Gear Online. At best you could swap out some mother base staff with another player online, and maybe assign some missions, but other than that, you don't participate in the battles like you saw in the other games that had MGO.

That said, no it is not a hint to E3.
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My bad, it wasn't called Metal Gear Online but Peace Walker does have Versus Ops; up to six players in deathmatch, team deathmatch, base capture and Quetzal capture (basically capture the flag, I think) modes. That may not be as many modes or players and the maps were definitely smaller than I recall from MGO2 (MGS4's), but it's still adversarial online.
 
Looks like it's going to be a weekend-only game, then. There's no way that you could complete those missions on a weeknight after work. Not unless you want to lose sleep.
 
Sanji Himura
I don't know. You can smoke through MGS4 in under 5.5 hours. It is the only way that you could earn the Big Boss ranking.
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In doing so, you completely neglect the story, as well as just about anything else in the game. Many games can be beaten in just a few hours. If anything, MGS4 was actually quite long when doing a speed run, compared to other games.

I don't really see what any of this has to do with the Order 1886 though?
 
Jawehawk
In doing so, you completely neglect the story, as well as just about anything else in the game. Many games can be beaten in just a few hours. If anything, MGS4 was actually quite long when doing a speed run, compared to other games.

I don't really see what any of this has to do with the Order 1886 though?
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The internet was raging on a speedrun on a early release copy of 1886 that was done in 5 hours about a month ago. Though to be fair, the speedrunner only did the main story quests of the game and none of the extra stuff which would have pushed it an hour or two at best.

The developers later admitted that it was designed to be a short game, something that I find inexcusable today. At least Call of Duty expands the single player experience with an online multiplayer that lasts until the developer stops supporting it.
 
Sanji Himura
The developers later admitted that it was designed to be a short game, something that I find inexcusable today.
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There's nothing wrong with making intentionally short games as long as it's clear that they're short, not everything has to be Skyrim and I think many games would benefit from being shorter. The problem there is that publishers are pretty keen to get sales any way they can, so dressing up or omitting play time figures will come naturally to them. If only people would stop preordering stuff they know little about* we'd all be better off in that regard, but we live in a world where Gearbox can get away with Aliens: Colonial Marines so what hope do we really have?

But yeah, Metal Gear Solid games (apart from Peace Walker) have never been particularly long, I think each one of the numbered series has been beatable in around 6 hours but as with anything else the duration doesn't correlate with quality. I mean the quality of a film is independent of the running time, the same applies for games, and MGS is a really good series as far as gameplay goes (plot is subjective, I personally think it's all just awful nonsense) so it can be overlooked; why would it need to be longer, anyway? It sets out to tell a story and tells the story, make it longer and you'll just introduce pacing issues (like Alien: Isolation). 1886 was not a great game, it was heavily dependent on quick time events (from what I've heard) and the fact that it was short was for some reason then used as another reason to bash it - if it's not a good game, why on earth would you want it to take longer to finish? Saints Row IV was another, it was a great game but it dragged on too long at the end for my liking and I just really wanted it to be over because I couldn't be bothered to keep going.


*In direct contradiction to this, I'm totally preordering MGSV...
 
Far Cry 4 could be finished in under half an hour and without a single button pressed - and of the four endings on offer, it was the "best" ending, but that was the point.
 
neema_t
There's nothing wrong with making intentionally short games as long as it's clear that they're short, not everything has to be Skyrim and I think many games would benefit from being shorter. The problem there is that publishers are pretty keen to get sales any way they can, so dressing up or omitting play time figures will come naturally to them. If only people would stop preordering stuff they know little about* we'd all be better off in that regard, but we live in a world where Gearbox can get away with Aliens: Colonial Marines so what hope do we really have?

*In direct contradiction to this, I'm totally preordering MGSV...
Click to expand...

I think the CoD and BF franchises are a greater example of what devs can get away with. Colonial Marines was a one off, while BF and CoD releases crap on a yearly basis. Still sells well.

I also don't think quality can be judged by lenght.
 
Jawehawk
I also don't think quality can be judged by lenght.
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I think that it really comes down to personal taste. I like longer games, because they keep giving me the opportunity to engage with the game world. Looking at my collection, the games I play most frequently are all games that I have spent over forty hours in Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, Red Dead Redemption, and, in the case of Grand Theft Auto V, close to seventy-two hours.
 
neema_t
But yeah, Metal Gear Solid games (apart from Peace Walker) have never been particularly long, I think each one of the numbered series has been beatable in around 6 hours but as with anything else the duration doesn't correlate with quality. I mean the quality of a film is independent of the running time, the same applies for games, and MGS is a really good series as far as gameplay goes (plot is subjective, I personally think it's all just awful nonsense) so it can be overlooked; why would it need to be longer, anyway? It sets out to tell a story and tells the story, make it longer and you'll just introduce pacing issues (like Alien: Isolation). 1886 was not a great game, it was heavily dependent on quick time events (from what I've heard) and the fact that it was short was for some reason then used as another reason to bash it - if it's not a good game, why on earth would you want it to take longer to finish? Saints Row IV was another, it was a great game but it dragged on too long at the end for my liking and I just really wanted it to be over because I couldn't be bothered to keep going.
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Totally agreed. I had more fun with MGS4 than I would have had with 1886 on the sole charge that the story is more immersive in the former. In fact, the main turn off of 1886 at $60 to me was ultimately the game's length, and not other things like the story or the gameplay. That isn't to say that there is a crime in having a short game, on the contrary. The issue comes is when they are charging the premium price for the game for basically nothing.

That is one thing that Ground Zeroes got right, if you want my honest opinion. The game length was short, fair enough, but Konami wasn't jerking you around and charging you a premium price for that short experience either.
 
prisonermonkeys
I think that it really comes down to personal taste. I like longer games, because they keep giving me the opportunity to engage with the game world. Looking at my collection, the games I play most frequently are all games that I have spent over forty hours in Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, Red Dead Redemption, and, in the case of Grand Theft Auto V, close to seventy-two hours.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong. I like to have as much quality content for as little money as possible. However, to put it into context.
I've spend almost 350 hours playing Skyrim on PC, yet I really don't thing the game is a quality product. It lacks polish and just doesn't live up to the potential. I still have fun with it, but had the game been smaller, but with more attention to detail, I would've liked it better.

On another note. I pre-ordered the collectors edition of MGS V today. So excited.
 
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6 hours eh?

I'm speculating that a mission may take 6 hours, or it may take 6 minutes, depending on the players choice whether to implement the super clock watching time space continuum bending vapable E-cigar of snakiness or not.

Personally, I relish the thought of having to plan my mission down to fine detail, and then go in after a lot of reconnaissance and planning, only to find there is a small detail I missed that means my plan goes up in smoke and I improvise, but it still takes me hours to complete.

That's got to be closer to real life situations, hasn't it?

I mean, imagine you're lying on the sand in Afghanistan right now, using binoculars, looking at a dusty town in front of you, and your best mates in there, who needs rescuing, because you know for a fact he will not survive much longer without his sunglasses, and you're also holding those, so the situation is urgent.
There are armed guards wandering around, and they don't know you, but they can spot a westerner from a good distance because you vape, and they all still smoke cherry tobacco, so you need to stay hidden and get all the way into town.
How would you do it?
I mean, really think about that for a minute.
It's yours and sunglasses guys life at stake.
Immerse yourself in that situation for a moment.
It'd be pretty nerve wracking lying in the sand so close to the town in the first place.
You'd have gone through a fair ordeal just to get there.
How would you actually DARE walk into a town like that?
Think about it.......
I think I'd wait till dark, for starters.
Probably spend a long time looking around from a safe distance to work out where my mate was likely to be, and what the security was like around there.
Look at actual paths in to that point, obstacles, places to hide if it gets tricky, etc etc.
I'd take my time, if it was my life at stake, and the life of my mate.
6 hours?
I'd probably need longer......

Of course in MGS world, we can vape a cigar, and it'll be night immediately, and we can pause if it's bedtime and we have work tomorrow, so that we get some sleep, but come on prisoner, you know as well as I do, once we get this game, it'll be all we do, work night or not, until it's done.
These games come with some of the highest production values in the gaming industry, and few can put one down until it's completed when they are playing their first ever play through.
That's what so awesome about them, the obvious time, effort and quality of the finished product.

I don't care if missions take 6 hours, in fact I'm elated by that suggestion, but I'm quite sure that if a player wants to shorten that timespan, all he/she has to do is pull out the reality bending cigar of snakiness and all will be over in a jiffy.
Just in time to go to bed for work tomorrow......

:irked:👍
 
Big News: David Hayter may have leaked that Campbell may return for The Phantom Pain. However, Paul Eiding is not involved in the game.

And probably for good reason. In the MGS profile of Campbell, it showed his age to be around 60. Since MGS takes place in 2005, there is a respectable 20 year gap between The Phantom Pain and MGS, placing him at age 40. In other words they can cast a younger sounding Campbell without any worries, much like they casted Troy Baker as Ocelot in TPP.



And finally, there is more information about the data transfer process between Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain. Translation done by Claude Smith of Heavens-feel.com

 

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