Category: rants

>Sony: I bitch, I praise

>This post was originally intended to be a mini-rant about Sony’s ass-backwards approach to online interactivity, but then I glanced at my RSS feed and they came out with a press release that suddenly makes the PSP instantly relevant again. So: toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh. I say: why not write about both?

When I bought my Blackberry Storm, it came with a bluetooth headset that I never use – until I realized that I could use it as a headset for the PS3. I don’t really do a lot of online gaming on the PS3, but I do like communicating with the few PS3-owning friends I have, and chatting is easier through speech than with the clunky text interface, and I wasn’t about to spend $50 on a Sony headset or the official chat-pad thing which, speaking of being ass-backwards, look at that thing. So a free solution to the problem seemed awfully appealing…

… except that the process of getting a headset hooked up to the PS3 is not at all intuitive and there was a key thing that I apparently wasn’t doing, and I only figured out what I missed through extensive google searches. (It’s not just enough that you pair your device; you then must dig into another sub-menu on the dashboard and flip a few switches, and I’d never have figured that out on my own.) A lot of fanboys like to point out that PSN is free while XBL is a paid service, but I say you get what you pay for; if you want to use a 360 headset, you put the plug into the controller and that’s it. In any event, I was eventually able to get my headset to work, and so I was finally able to talk with my friend as she kicked my ass in Street Fighter 4 yet again, and I was able to send the game back to Gamefly with a clear conscience, knowing I had tried my best.

As for the PSP news, peep this MTV Multiplayer article for the full press release; the important PSP releases are as follows:

  • LittleBigPlanet (sounds like a port, with added levels and features)
  • Assassin’s Creed (and a themed bundle)
  • Rock Band Unplugged (I’m actually pretty curious about this – it’ll have its own wi-fi store)
  • Madden 10 and Tiger Woods 10 (meh)
  • MotorStorm Arctic Edge
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy

It’s maybe not as jaw-dropping when you look at it like that, but this is a hell of a lot better than the nothing that’s been the PSP’s status quo for the last year or so. I’d certainly like to see a new GTA title on the PSP (as would lots of people, it would seem).

>Things That Make No Sense: The Killzone 2 Demo

>This article from MTV Multiplayer explains Sony’s justification of its bizarre and counter-intuitive Killzone 2 promotion, wherein the Killzone 2 demo is being offered 24 days before the game’s release only for people who pre-order the game from Gamestop.

MTV’s Stephen Totillo asks the relevant question:

Why would Sony do this? Isn’t the practice of selling a demo to people who have already committed to order the game contrary to the logic of why one would release a demo?

And Sony gives the following answer:

“Offering a playable demo to motivate preorders speaks to our confidence in the appeal of a game such as Killzone 2. We take this approach when we are convinced that the experience will cement a consumer’s interest in purchasing. Retailers will then merchandise those demos within their stores and online to maximize their visibility. Through this process, consumers are often times able to reserve their copy of the final game, which provides an incentive to purchase and helps seal the deal. We also offer demos on the PSN, which we have done in the past with great success, and will continue to make that available. Killzone 2, for example, will have a downloadable demo launch in North America the week that the game is launching, for consumers who prefer that option.”

Read the first sentence again. Here, I’ll isolate it and bold it for you:

“Offering a playable demo to motivate preorders speaks to our confidence in the appeal of a game such as Killzone 2. ”

No, no it doesn’t. To the extent that sentence makes any coherent sense at all, it does precisely the opposite. Killzone 2 is one of the most anticipated titles for the PS3 this year – it’s also one of the only exclusive titels for the PS3 this year, but that’s besides the point – and yet Sony’s marketing blitz for it has been, for lack of a better word, non-existent. Which is to say, if you didn’t already know about it, you wouldn’t know anything about it.

Releasing a demo for a highly anticipated game ONLY for people who have already spent money on it tells me that they don’t have a lot of faith in the game; it tells me that if the uneducated and unwashed masses were to get their hands on the demo a few weeks before the game was released, they’d be disappointed and thus less inclined to pre-order.

And really, while we’re at it, what is it about Killzone 2 that makes it so highly anticipated, anyway? The first game supposedly boasted fantastic production values, especially for an aging PS2 system, but didn’t really get great review scores (Metacritic average is 7.0); and if I remember correctly, the first trailer for it – the one that dropped every jaw at E3 a few years ago – turned out to be a “target render” and not actual gameplay.

Sony has been languishing in 3rd place ever since it launched, and doing arrogant, nonsensical, stupid shit like this only reinforces the idea that they truly have no idea what they’re doing. And I say this as a PS3 owner, as someone who really wants the PS3 to succeed and be great and not simply exist as an overpriced Blu-Ray player.

>Oh, Eidos, what the hell is wrong with you?

>The general sense of bummer-dom that I am feeling towards Tomb Raider: Underworld is only getting worse.

1. Gamefly keeps backing up the release date. When I checked on Monday, it indicated that I would already have the game in my hands; as of 12:18pm today, however, they’re not even sending it out until tomorrow, which means I won’t get it until probably next Tuesday at the earliest.

2. And I should probably be glad I’m not playing it, if the reviews are to be believed. There aren’t very many reviews out there, though; I’ve only seen scores from IGN (7.5) and 1UP (B), and one other review from action button dot net. I’ve been a little surprised that there haven’t been more reviews thus far, but then I came across…

3. …this morning’s Joystiq article about Eidos UK blocking TR:U reviews under 8/10 from publication, which is just mind-boggling.

From the Joystiq piece:

Really Eidos? Really? You didn’t lose enough goodwill being blamed for getting the world’s most popular video games journalist fired and bringing a respected games portal to its knees? (Yes, we know you denied any involvement. This sort of thing certainly makes that seem credible.) You thought maybe journalists would keep this quiet because you were buds? Because they were worried about not getting advance copies of Just Cause 2?

It’s funny; after the Kane&Lynch fiasco, I rescinded my membership from Gamespot in protest and solidarity with Gerstmann and started up this blog. I felt so hurt and betrayed – startlingly so, to be honest, because I certainly wasn’t prepared to have such an emotional investment in a fucking videogame website – and it took a rather long time for those feelings to subside.

In the process, though, I was forced to open my eyes a bit and really see what was happening to the industry as a whole. The fallout from Gerstmann-gate revealed a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes goings-on, not just with the press but with the publishers; suddenly it was revealed just how important things like Metacritic were to the perceived success of a particular title.

I was going to put something in here about how the movie industry does something similar to this, but the more I think about it, the comparison isn’t totally fair. If a movie studio is releasing a movie that they know is going to be savaged in the press, they simply elect not to show it to the press so it can’t be reviewed, hoping to get as much as they can on the opening weekend before word of mouth can trickle out. What Eidos is doing here, though, is a bit more slimy and evil; they thought they had an AAA title, and they shuttled it off to get reviewed, and now that the first reviews are starting to trickle in with less-than-hoped-for scores, they’re trying to suppress the rest of the reviews unless those reviews are favorable.

I read something the other day about how one of the CEOs of a major publisher was saying that “the videogame market is recession-proof.” With the economy falling apart and any number of developers closing up shop, though, I’m not entirely sure that it’s fair for the market to be taken for granted. And shit like this only makes “the market” that much more skeptical. Until I read this article, I was pretty sure I was going to forgo Gamefly and spend my lunch hour buying TR:U at the Best Buy near my office; now I’m somewhat tempted to take it off my queue altogether.

In the words of The Dude, “this aggression will not stand, man.”

>Game Design by Committee: You’re Doing It Wrong, Especially If You’re Not Doing It At All

>I played the shit out of Portal; I bought it as part of the Orange Box on the 360 and, because my wife was in the TV room with friends when it came out, I ended up downloading it through Steam as well. I’m not necessarily a genius with it; I’ve gotten through a few of the challenge maps, but I my main pleasure in playing Portal is simply playing through the single-player campaign and absorbing the storytelling, atmosphere, and humor.

Portal’s single-player campaign could arguably be the best single-player campaign ever, and one of the reasons why is because it’s incredibly well designed. Its focus is razor-sharp; it does a fantastic job of teaching you how to play, so much so that you’re not necessarily aware of it; the puzzles are challenging but never unfair; and the payoff – the final level – is absolutely brilliant. Up until the final level, you’ve been in very clinical environments, being hand-held throughout the game, and then – suddenly – you are seeing things you’ve never seen before and you now have to improvise your way out of your situation, because the stakes have been raised.

The commentary tracks in the game do a great job of explaining how all this came to be, and I recall being somewhat shocked about how much playtesting Valve does; they do playtesting pretty much on every single day in development, to make sure that everything makes sense and – most importantly – that everything is fun. I was shocked because I generally hate that sort of approach. You can spot it immediately in other art forms – movies, in particular, suffer rather horribly when they are influenced by too many cooks who don’t know what they’re doing. I felt that the amount of playtesting Valve was doing was somehow wrong, that at some point you need to have the original vision of the game come through without being diluted by so many opinions on such a moment-to-moment basis. That Portal turned out to be one of the best games I’ve ever played specifically because of this incessant testing seemed irrelevant; I felt like the creative vision of the game was being diluted.

I bring this up because I had been eagerly antipating the recently released Portal: Prelude single player mod, and the first thing that became clear to me – indeed, in the very first level – is that the reason why playtesting is so important is because it works, and I am unsure if anyone tested Prelude besides the actual people who built the game, if at all. Prelude is everything that Portal is not – it’s not funny, it’s unfair, and it’s not fun.

Case in point. In order to solve Level 2 (!), you need to crouch as you fall through a portal, which grants you better momentum. Keeping in mind that crouching is something you NEVER do in Portal – indeed, I was unaware that there was even a crouch button in the original Portal – I would never have gotten past the level had I not looked online for a walkthrough. The ONLY way to solve Level 2 is by crouching, which is information that I didn’t know I needed.

And what makes this incredibly unfair is that Prelude doesn’t even tell you that crouching is beneficial, or that it even exists, until Level 3. That I had to cheat in order to figure this out, this early in the game, was incredibly disappointing. I’m currently stuck in Level 4 and even after watching a video of the puzzle getting solved, I don’t really give a shit about finishing it – the solution is totally counter-intuitive and requires a degree of specificity that could only have come about from someone who already knew the answer.

I don’t hate challenging games; I hate games that are challenging only because they’re unfair. If the developers of Prelude had simply gotten 5 volunteers to play the game, at least 3 of them would have gotten stuck where I got stuck in Level 2 – indeed, they probably would’ve gotten stuck in Level 1, which I’m still not sure how I survived. They would see that the player didn’t understand what to do, and then – if they were smart – they would have tweaked the puzzle to make it a little more intuitive, without necessarily making it less difficult.

Prelude is a free download, so the only thing you’re losing is hard drive space. But you may also experience the crushing sadness of false hopes being destroyed.

A discussion of MGS4, Act 3

I am ready to write about MGS4 today, being that I finished Act III last night, but first I want to quote something I just read.

This comes from PS3Fanboy, which links to Zero Punctuation’s pretty good MGS4 video:

Sometimes you have to wonder whether Yahtzee enjoys playing any games. This week he predictably lays into Metal Gear Solid 4 for exactly the reasons we expected. He dislikes the amount and length of the cutscenes , which are fair points. We know a lot of people can’t get passed (sic) the heavy story. He goes on to label the gameplay cluttered and says that the entire series is badly written. Strong words.

Obviously we don’t agree with what Yahtzee says, but the video is still hilarious — and in the end, that’s what Zero Punctuation is all about. Ignore the complaints for what they are, vehicles for his unique brand of humor. Our favorite part of this week’s episode has to be the insinuation that Snake and Otacon are more than just good friends. We must say, it crossed our mind at times while we were playing through the game, too.

What I love about this quote are the qualifiers. “Obviously we don’t agree… Ignore the complaints for what they are.” As if they have to quell the fanboy rage before it starts, as if by linking to anything somewhat derogatory about the sacred franchise, they themselves are now implicated and responsible. The “Obviously” part is the thing that kills me the most. Why is it obvious? Is it obvious because the site is called “PS3Fanboy”? Does that mean that anybody who says that MGS4 is nothing less than a gift from the heavens is somehow blaspheming? More to the point, is there any middle ground that MGS4 can fall into? Or can it only be a “love it / hate it unconditionally” sort of discussion?

I digress. (How apropos!) I’m not here to talk about the press; I’m here to talk about MGS4. Specifically, Act III.*

[Here there be spoilers, insofar as I mention a key character who first appears at this point in the game. I couldn’t possibly spoil the story, because that would imply that I know what the fuck is going on with any degree of specificity.]

As I said before, Act III is, so far, the perfect example of all there is to love and hate about the franchise. The actual gameplay in Act III is pretty exciting stuff – for starters, you’re no longer on a battlefield but rather in a very noir-ish urban environment, with lush sepia tones, and you’re tailing a member of a resistance organization to his hideout. Then, later, you’re on the back of a motorcycle, speeding through rain-slicked streets, shooting out soldiers and flying monster-things, and I should come right out and say that this was one of the coolest sections of any game I’ve ever played. And then, finally, you’re engaged in a pretty satisfying boss fight, who gradually destroys the building you’re using for cover.

That all sounds great, right? Except here’s the thing – those gameplay moments maybe add up to about 30 minutes, tops. The entire whole of Act III – not including the mission briefing – took up almost 2 and a half hours. Before you even start playing, there’s a cutscene which is (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) at least twice as long as it needs to be, especially considering that the information it’s imparting isn’t necessarily all that complicated. And then, sandwiched between the tailing section and the motorcycle section is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The person you’re trying to meet is a 50-60ish Caucasian woman who goes by the name “Big Mama.” The only things big about her are her breasts, which I suppose is apt because she, as with every other female in this game, doesn’t believe in buttoning up the front of her shirt, so her boobs are just hanging out.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been more said about just how ridiculous and gratuitous the boobs are in this game. It’s been remarked upon in lots of other games – the Prince of Persia sequels come to mind, and the Ninja Gaiden and DOA games are known for their physically impossible boob physics – but as far as I know, nobody’s made any mention of the non-stop cleavage that abounds in MGS4.

Anyway. Big Mama shows up and suddenly the game just grinds to a halt as she spends at least 30 minutes droning about the backstory, speaking in an unending monotone – as if the voice actress simply gave up trying to figure out how to put any emotional weight behind what she was saying, partly because her dialog is so stilted and forced and no human being would ever talk like that, especially when Big Mama is revealing herself as Solid Snake’s mother. IIRC, there’s almost no physical interaction between the two of them in this scene – she simply walks through this church, zombie-like, intoning about Zero and Big Boss and The Boss (two different people?) and cloning and AI and the nature of warfare and the tragedy of what they’ve been through. I seem to recall one particular sequence where she explains how she came to be Snake’s mother, and Snake says something like “So you were a surrogate,” and she says “That’s an awfully cold way to put it”, and then 10 minutes later she says “I asked to serve as a surrogate”, as if the previous conversation specifically referencing that exact word hadn’t even happened.

I would go on, but that would imply that I could retain any of it. Luckily, we have the internet, so let’s just cut and paste some dialog from the script. But before I do, let me be clear: I don’t necessarily have a problem with the story, and I don’t have a problem with long cut scenes. My problem is that the story is told so poorly. Snake in particular seems to suffer from a particularly bad case of what my wife and I call “Legolas-itis”, except it’s somehow worse; Legolas (in the LOTR films, in case you weren’t following) often simply blurts out the obvious, with such pithy observations as “The horses are getting restless.” Snake can’t even blurt out the obvious – he is mostly reduced to repeating nouns of sentences he’s just heard.

I digress. Again. (How apropos!) Here’s some snippets from Act III.

Snake : I need to talk to you. Raiden sent me.

Big Mama : My, how you’ve grown… David. It was you, not I, who was
created from the rib of man.

[Big Mama places her hand on her stomach.]

Big Mama : But I gave you life. I am your mother.

[Snake stares at Big Mama in utter shocked.] (sic)

Snake : What?

Big Mama : Les Enfants Terribles. You can’t grow a human being in a
test tube… Not even a clone. You need a woman’s body to
give it life.

Snake : You mean… A surrogate mother?

Big Mama : That’s an awfully cold way to put it. I am your mother. I
gave birth… For the Patriots.

Snake : Gave… Birth?

…………………………………………………………..

Big Mama : The man who wants me dead… Is Liquid. Your twin. You think you know him, but I know him better. He was once Ocelot… But Liquid has taken control of his soul. And now he’s locked in a bitter struggle with Zero.

[Snake walks over to the front of Big Mama.]

Snake : “Zero?”

Big Mama : The founder of the Patriots.

Snake : Founder? When did this happen?

………………………………………………..

Big Mama : They’ve found us. We’re moving out.

[As Big Mama and the resistance members begin heading out the door, Snake receives another Codec transmission from Otacon.]

Otacon : Snake, the PMCs are converging on your location. Damn it! They’re sending in Gekko! They’ll be on you in less than five minutes!

[Snake hurries out the door after Big Mama.]

Big Mama : Are they ready?

Resistance : Yes, ma’am.

Big Mama : We’ll escape through the canal route using the real van. Get it ready. Hurry!

Resistance : Yes, ma’am.

Big Mama : Snake, over here. We’ve got decoy vans set to draw some of our pursuers away.

[Big Mama walks over to a sheet-covered object near the side of the church. She removes the sheet to reveal a Triumph motorcycle. Snake and Big Mama look on in the courtyard, watching the resistance members preparing for their escape.]

Big Mama : All of these children were orphans. They work in arms factories, and when they grow up, they want to join a PMC. They seek revenge on other companies… PMCs that killed their parents and use their earnings to support their younger siblings. There are countless child soldiers like these in the PMCs. Nowadays, anyone with a computer can get combat training. The FPS games these children love are distributed for free by these companies. Of course, it’s all just virtual training. It’s so easy for them to get absorbed by these war games. And before they know it, they’re in the PMCs holding real guns. These kids end up fighting in proxy wars that have nothing to do with their own lives. They think it’s cool to fight like this. They think that combat is life. They don’t need a reason to fight. After all, for them it’s only a game.

[Big Mama hands Snake a Vz. 83 submachine gun.]

Big Mama : Zero is the cause of all this. Defeating Liquid won’t change things. Unless we stop the Patriots’ System, the cycle will go unbroken.

[Big Mama gets on her motorcycle and starts the engine.]

Big Mama : Hop on. Hold on to me.

[Snake gets on the back of the motorcycle and hangs on to Big Mama’s waist. Allowing the engine to run for a few seconds, Big Mama calmly enhales the air around her.]

Big Mama : With so many wars being waged, oil and biofuel have become as precious as diamonds. It’s been a while since I went out for a ride.

Snake : You sure about this?

Big Mama : I only get off my bike when I fall in love… Or fall dead.

Snake : Big Mama….

Big Mama : Call me EVA.

I don’t get it. I don’t know how to get that. Again – I don’t care that Kojima has such lofty cinematic ambitions, but bad dialog is bad dialog and this, my friends, is among the worst. It lacks any semblance of humanity – it utterly lacks the rhythm of natural speech. I’m not saying that this game needs to be like a Mamet script, with people stepping all over each other – I’m just saying that people don’t talk like this, ever, not even when they’re high. People only talk like this in shitty sci-fi stories written by hyperactive 12-year-0lds, and I haven’t even talked about the character’s names. And when the gaming press refuses to acknowledge shit like this, it becomes very easy to understand why gaming still has a hard time getting taken seriously. If there was ANY indication from Kojima that this game’s story was meant to be looked at with an eye towards camp, then that would at least be something, but even then the scene could be twice as short and still be effective.

I’ve got 2 acts to ago, and it’s only because the gameplay itself is so refined that I’m staying with it until the end. But my bullshit quota is pretty much full up at this point.

* It should be noted right up front that I’m playing MGS4 on the “Naked Normal” difficulty, which is one step up from Super Easy. This is because I am trying to not hate the game, and so I’d rather be able to see everything there is to see first. I’m not sure if higher difficulties make the enemy AI smarter, or simply less easy to take down with a headshot; in any event, the enemy AI is pretty fucking stupid. At one point in Act III, there’s a helicopter hovering over a city square, with a search light that points all over the ground. I had inadvertently set off an alarm (I’m still not sure how), and ended up taking out the helicopter with an RPG. Literally within 20 seconds of the helicopter exploding, I intercepted a message from an enemy patrolman saying that the sector was now “all clear.” This is preposterous.

MGS4; second impressions

I didn’t get a chance to play MGS4 until this past Sunday, and only for 20-30 minutes at most. That was enough time, however, for me to get pretty bent out of shape about it.

I wrote this at the time, in a forum thread that somehow is still alive and kicking 3 days later:

I’ve only played about 20 minutes of MGS4, but I defy anybody to explain to me how a game franchise that is so deliberately obtuse, pretentious and self-indulgent can get such consistently high scores – especially when the actual game part of the game isn’t necessarily that ground-breaking. It’s true that the game is a bit easier to get into – the controls are still somewhat non-intuitive (especially compared to every other 3rd person action game) but at least they do all the things you need to do… But it’s also true that after 8 minutes of installation, and then another 5 minutes of completely bizarre and unexplained television footage, and then another 5 minutes of in-engine cutscenes that explain what you’re doing (as much as such a thing is possible), you spend exactly 20 seconds moving Snake around before you figure out you need to crawl under a truck and then there’s another 3 minutes of cutscene.

…So, then. Why am I still playing it? This game has its head shoved so far up its own ass that it’s almost painful to watch, and yet there’s something oddly compelling about it. I don’t get it. How does a game that’s so incredibly divisive get such good scores? Every positive review out there – and there are tons – all make some sort of mention about how if you don’t like the MGS series, you won’t like MGS4, and that there are perfectly valid reasons for people to NOT like these games (the incredibly convoluted story, the uneven pacing between gameplay and cutscenes, the unintuitive controls, the just-plain-WEIRDNESS), and then they give out a 10 in spite of all of it.
…

I’ve got nothing wrong with cutscenes. If that’s how your story has to be told, then I hope you make good use of it. My problem with the MGS4 cutscenes is that they’re used self-indulgently and without any thought given to pacing or rhythm. The beginning of MGS4 – there’s no reason to have that many breaks in the action, especially when you’re still trying to get used to the controls, and ESPECIALLY when most of the stuff that Snake is doing in those first few cutscenes are things that you could very easily be doing yourself.

…

I wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place if I was determined to hate it. What I was hoping for was someone to tell me why MGS4 is so awesome, and to explain what it is that I’m not getting, instead of someone telling me my opinion is for shit. It’s true that I think that the MGS franchise is the most overrated franchise in the entire history of gaming, and that could maybe even extend to cover movies, art, books, and any other works of art with multiple sequels out there. But I was still ready to give MGS4 a chance – hell, I still am. I own a PS3, this is arguably the biggest exclusive title the PS3 is going to get this year, I want to enjoy it. I’m not giving up on it. I just want to know what it is that I’m not getting. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent and informed person, and yet I remain totally in the dark as to why people love this series so much, especially since the first 20 minutes of the game do as much to alienate a newcomer to the series as they do to give fanboys multiple orgasms.

I think that’s my biggest question. I understand why GTA4 got 10s. I can respect why a great RTS game will get great reviews, even if I don’t know how to play RTSs and haven’t ever really cared about them. What I don’t understand is that pretty much every review that’s come out for MGS4 has had at least one clause where they say that if you hate the series already, you’ll continue to hate MGS4. Shouldn’t a great work of art be something that doesn’t alienate a large percentage of the people who experience it? How does something so divisive get such universal praise? I know I’m stepping into dangerous waters here, which is why I specifically used the word “alienate”. Lots of great works of art have been controversial; lots of great works of art have been hated. MGS4, on the other hand… is it really something that is only accessible to fans of the franchise? And if so, how does that make it great?

…

The fact that this game has very clearly defined areas where one could find fault (and [Caro‘s term] “Kojima–ness” is as close as any other term there is to describe what I’m referring to) is something that raises a red flag, as far as I’m concerned, in terms of any sort of discussion about how awesome this game is. If any other game, made by any other developer, had this much Kojima–ness, I’m not sure it would get the same sort of fawning treatment in the gaming press. The fact that this game has SO MUCH Kojima–ness is being labeled a benefit. This is also what I mean when I said earlier that this franchise has its head stuck as far up its own ass as it possibly can go.

If people like it, that’s awesome, and good for them. I remain not only unconvinced, but dumbfounded.

Again, this was written on Monday, when I was still a neophyte, when I had barely dipped my toes in the vast pool of insanity that is MGS4.

I put in about 90 minutes tonight. Well, it’s hard to say for sure – my PS3 was on for 90 minutes or so, and MGS4 was spinning in the drive, but I was really only in control of Snake for about half of that. But I think I’m starting to get it.

I won’t be spoiling anything by revealing where I am – I’m barely in Act 1. I just got to the first new area after you get the barrel, which occurs right after you meet the soda-swilling arms dealer and his soda-swilling monkey, who happen to be in a room directly next to a room that, moments before, had been swarming with bad guys, who I happened to kill.

The cutscene with the arms dealer very much epitomizes this “Kojima–ness” that is so problematic. The scene itself serves several specific and necessary functions:

  • it occurs right after a somewhat lengthy sequence where you are sneaking around in some underground bunkers, and so it offers the player a break and a reward;
  • it introduces you to a key character (the unfortunately named “Drebin“, because every time I hear that name I can only think of Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun movies, but every time I actually see him I can’t help but think of Zach, the flamboyant black man from the Dead or Alive games);
  • it introduces a crucial gameplay mechanic (i.e., how you acquire new guns and modifications); and
  • it fleshes out some of the backstory (something about the “war economy”, nanotechnology and the arms trade).

Relatively straightforward, right? Except this scene is at least twice as long as it needs to be, with a script so hokey it would make a 10th grade English teacher blush, and, as said above, it prominently features a monkey who drinks soda. This is also leaving aside the quality of the voice-acting, which is obviously a subjective point of discussion but I have to say that for the most part, the voice-acting in this game is beyond stupid. The guy doing Snake is trying so hard to be an old, grizzled badass but instead he sounds like a very constipated man who is constantly being annoyed. The entire scene is a series of non-sequiturs. The scene is so ridiculous in its conception that it ends up distracting the player from what its actual purpose is.

Any other game would have gotten killed for this kind of storytelling, but somehow this game gets away with it. And the truth of it is, once I stopped being a critical observer and instead let the silliness wash over me like a wave, I kinda got sucked into it. I don’t quite understand how that happened. It’s like Kojima is a goddamned magician.

I was trying to explain this “Kojima-ness” to my wife, who didn’t quite understand. But then I asked her to imagine if Star Wars: A New Hope was released for the very first time right now, in its exact same form, with the same silly dialog and hammy acting and melodramatic story, and how stupid it would seem. She said, “But hold on, Star Wars is a great movie.” And I said, “Now you understand what I’ve been going through, explaining why I think the Metal Gear series is so overrated to a bunch of Metal Gear fans.”

I have to admit – I’m ready to keep playing. I still don’t understand how I got sucked in, but it’s starting to happen, and it’s weird.

>What to look out for in GTA5, if EA successfully acquires Take Two

>*shudder*

For starters, the radio stations would be replaced by the all-seeing, all-knowing DJ Atomica, the music would be considerably less eclectic, and the ZiT in-game feature that lets you know what song you’re listening to would simply be replaced with actual text pop-ins, the way every other EA game does.

After all, your cellphone would actually be an iPhone, or a Verizon LG8600, or a RAZR.

The GTA games are known for, among other things, their incredible attention to detail when it comes to satire, and this goes all the way down to the fake commercials on their radio stations, not to mention the tons of signage and branding for their fictional properties – BurgerShot, Sprunk, Cluckin’ Bell, etc. EA, on the other hand, is known for their incredible devotion for gratuitous in-game advertising; it would surprise absolutely no-one to see an EA-published GTA take place in a world with real commercials and real billboards for real products, which you could then buy in-game. Imagine getting a health power-up from eating a Big Mac!

Let’s see… we’ve got the EA Trax soundtrack, we’ve got the gratuitous in-game advertising… well, I suppose we can extend that to Branded Achievements. Drive for 1000 miles and get the GoodYear Tires Achievement; crash into 200 cars for the AllState Insurance Achievement; snipe 100 headshots and get the Johnson & Johnson “No More Tears” Achievement.

Of course, it would be hard to imagine any wholesome product that wouldn’t be attacked from the Jack Thompson side of the fence if it allowed itself to be placed in a game this subversive, notorious and controversial. (It hasn’t stopped UbiSoft from putting car commercials in Rainbow Six games or Nextel devices in Splinter Cell games – or car commercials in Crackdown, for that matter, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) This is a long way of saying that GTA5 can’t feature any more killing of hookers for points. (Which doesn’t happen in the actual GTA, but I digress, again.)

So the storyline and cast of characters would have to be switched up. Which would mean that instead of featuring a compelling and epic narrative about the troubles of a European immigrant fresh from the horrors of war, we’d get a 10-15 hour story about Bobby Flash, a streetwise white kid from the suburbs who hopes to be a skateboard champion but who runs into a gang from the other side of the tracks, probably featuring tons of ridiculously over-the-top FMV cutscenes that likewise fill up the Need For Speed franchise – hey, maybe they can throw in a Need For Speed billboard or two, while they’re at it!

>A quick and dirty defense

>I saw a movie recently; it started out with 2 thugs slicing up a prostitute, featured multiple brutal beatings, and ended with a massive bloodbath, including the murder of the town sheriff. Was this movie considered pornographic? Was there a massive outcry? Were pundits up in arms, talking about how sick and depraved Hollywood was?

Actually, the movie was “Unforgiven”, and won 4 Oscars.

When I’ve surfaced every few hours from GTA4 to check my real-life RSS feeds, I’ve noticed that my “Games” folder has been filled – and not just from Gamepolitics.com – with story after story about people getting all bent out of shape about GTA4 – it’s a murder simulator, it glorifies violence, it – well, let them say it:

The glorification of killing of any police officer is just wrong. I mean, it desensitizes people to the real mayhem that’s going on out on the streets, and we already have a real problem with people not valuing human life.

People don’t seem to have a problem turning guns on cops, and this game — I know it’s just a game, but people sometimes have trouble separating reality from fantasy.

* * *

There’s a new world of entertainment here… But what does it contain? In this case, [protagonist Niko Bellic] kills, maims, has sex, then kills and maims some more, while also stealing various forms of transportation…

What “Grand Theft Auto IV” affirms is the pleasure of eschewing decency for obnoxious violence…

And, of course, there’s always the “you can have sex with prostitutes and then kill them to get your money back” line… These kinds of arguments are infuriating, because they fail to address what the game is actually about. It’s an easy thing to say; it’s similar to how the mainstream media always gets annoyed with bloggers and immediately invalidates anything a blogger says because “they’re unwashed and live in their parents’ basement.”