Gaming Metal Gear Solid

esmufc07

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I like this theory

1998 was a year many of us “older” gamers hold in immediate memory. That glorious year marked the release of the original Metal Gear Solid, which was one revolution of a title in and of itself. Freshly-announced Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is set to recreate what fans know about the Metal Gear franchise and re-establish how gamers experience video games, much like how MGS did fourteen years ago. Psychology concepts have leaked into gaming for a long time now, but one thing that hasn’t been prominently touched upon is the extensive effects of psychological trauma. Characters in the Metal Gear series have always demonstrated the mental fallout of said trauma, but I believe Hideo Kojima is preparing to deliver a novel experience in a series that’s seen almost everything.

Metal Gear Solid V will portray the mental breakdown and corruption of Big Boss himself, which ultimately creates FOXHOUND.

Before my predictions, a definition: A "phantom pain" is a false sensation of pain that an amputee experiences where an appendage no longer exists. After watching the gameplay and announcement trailers over and over, my conclusions lean toward a plot that’s interlaced with the conscious and subconscious. For Metal Gear Solid, a series that has never erred toward the truly supernatural, doing so seems counterproductive. After all, Guns of the Patriots spent a great deal of time explaining how so many strange things could reasonably occur--even the seemingly immortal Vamp was given a logical conclusion to his death defiance. The only remaining supernatural element that hasn’t been validated or analyzed is the psychic abilities of Psycho Mantis.



It's fitting, then, that our old friend Mantis shows up in the GDC gameplay demo. The mask similarity is uncanny—Hideo never does anything accidentally—and his long sleeves, which portray him as a younger Mantis in a larger jacket, give an eerie illusion that Mantis escaped from a straight jacket. These jackets that are dedicated to keeping individuals “from hurting themselves” are usually white, but his is black. This is where my theory gets interesting: Psycho Mantis is manipulating Big Boss' mind while Big Boss is unconscious. In his storyline, Big Boss doesn’t have any strong feelings against America, even after he was ousted in Peace Walker. Ultimately, something had to spark his motivation to move against America, and Psycho Mantis’ mind probing could certainly instill said hatred.

In this context, it's easy to grasp what's going on in the trailers. A man that looks and dresses like Revolver Ocelot, a fiery rendition of Colonel Volgin, and The Boss' white horse all make appearances, and all three are subconscious cues from events in Big Boss' past that Mantis will use to begin rewiring Big Boss' memories. Mantis likely appears to Big Boss in his subconscious, because Mantis wishes to show Big Boss that Mantis is in control. Mantis might not necessarily claim he's handling the subconscious takeover, but he'll fit right in with all the other things coming out of the woodwork; his black straight jacket could be part of his own history that he's using to corrupt Big Boss.

Bringing this all together substantiates the game's title: Big Boss is forced to live through the pain that he inflicted on others, such as Volgin and The Boss, and that "phantom pain" will be what breaks him during his 9-year coma.

Some sense can be made of these apparitions, but the craziness soon falls into one modern plotline that could only be orchestrated by Kojima himself--all of a sudden, Big Boss has a horn on his head and a metallic arm! Considering the deep-seeded mental corruption going on, it's sensible to think that this is how Big Boss internally perceives himself after Mantis finishes wracking his mind. Upon release from Mantis' grasp, Big Boss begins forming FOXHOUND, with Ocelot and Mantis as his first recruits. And if you look closely at a few revealing angles, you can see his horn bulging under his eye bandage when he's in the hospital and escaping on horseback, which insinuates that this entire sequence is in his subconscious.



The final pieces to this theory finally hit home when I returned to the beginning of the reveal trailer: Big Boss is being resuscitated on a gurney next to Kaz Miller as, opposite to Kaz, ... (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ...opposite to Kaz, a mysterious person watches the whole thing transpire. So, who is this mystery man? Considering that Kojima has already dabbled extensively in clones, it's hard to believe that he'll do it again. What might be happening instead is that Big Boss' memories are being rewritten to accommodate an end that Mantis seeks to orchestrate, thus sculpting Big Boss into the supervillain that he becomes in the Outer Heaven Incident from the original Nintendo title, Metal Gear. This might also answer why David Hayter isn't voicing Big Boss either: vocal patterns could also be retrained to further strengthen the integrity of his mental overhaul, so relapses of actual memories are less likely to occur.

The one part of the reveal trailer that really drove this subconscious point home with me comes at 3:38, when Big Boss turns his back to the camera and looks off to the right. A widely studied topic in psychology circles posits that people look to the right to recall visual memories. Big Boss' symbolic turn may represent his recalling what Mantis installed in Big Boss' mind--the trailer had a hearty length of content when he appears to have been escaping from the hospital on horseback.

Both Ismael and the fiery whale may be plays on the well-known novel Moby Dick written by Herman Melville. In the gameplay trailer, Ismael guides Big Boss through the hospital, where Ismael in the novel is the narrator. The fiery pegasus-unicorn is, at this point, anyone's guess, but extremes are par for the course where Psycho Mantis is concerned. In the GameCube remake Twin Snakes, Mantis tries to trick Solid Snake into believing that Snake is on fire during the legendary boss fight, so the use of something chaotic like fire fits Mantis’ bill perfectly.

As far-fetched as all this might sound, I believe there's a strong chance Kojima could still use all of these video clips for different means entirely. Surely, Kojima has the creative integrity to misdirect our judgment until the next round of teases and trailers. Until then, my best bet is as good as yours. Let us know in the comments below how you feel about my theory and the content revealed at GDC 2013. What thoughts and theories do have on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain?
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Leg-End

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Kojima sure does now how to make a trailer a complete mindfeck, it looks absolutely superb.
 

Hal9000

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Kojima says that they have changed the voice actor to "freshen" things up, because it's a different type of game now.

Does not explain why they've kept the Japanese voice actor the same though.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Love this series but the trailer doesn't look that great graphically. Not enough of a jump fom current gen graphics.
 

Hal9000

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amolbhatia100 said:
Love this series but the trailer doesn't look that great graphically. Not enough of a jump fom current gen graphics.
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It's a current gen game. And it looks fantastic. Just watch the original ground zeros trailer.
 

JmRssll555

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I'm another who's never played any of the MGS series.

Is the whole collection on the PSN store? Are they worth playing through?
 

esmufc07

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JmRssll555 said:
I'm another who's never played any of the MGS series.

Is the whole collection on the PSN store? Are they worth playing through?
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They're all on there yes except 4, not sure how much the HD collection is (this includes 2,3 and Peace Walker), but the original Metal Gear Solid is £7.99.

They are definitely worth playing through.
 

Leg-End

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It looks just incredible, Kojima always delivers and I can't wait to give him more of my money.
 

esmufc07

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During a visit to Kojima Productions' new Los Angeles-based studio, Kojima Productions West Coast, we got a peek at a new gameplay demonstration of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, the so-called prologue to The Phantom Pain. Fortunately for us, that gameplay demo didn't quite go as planned and the results, as they relate to how the Metal Gear franchise might be evolving, are certainly interesting.


Based on what we saw of Metal Gear Solid 5 today, there's a renewed emphasis on updating Metal Gear's gameplay mechanics — with slowed-down executions, interrogation techniques, speedier traversal — and a leaner story told through fewer cutscenes.


The slice of Ground Zeroes we saw was the same section Kojima Productionsshowed for the first time last year at PAX Prime — only this time, the game's spoken dialogue was in English. That meant we got to hear the new voice of Snake/Big Boss, Keifer Sutherland, delivering signature lines like "Kept you waiting, huh?" (It was weird.)
The demo began with the camera following the character Skull Face into a military prison compound during a moonlit, rainy night. After some story set up that offers more questions than answers, the player is given control of Big Boss, who's tasked with infiltrating the compound in search of a piece of intelligence.
Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima explained that Ground Zeroes is not quite an open world. Since Ground Zeroes is a prologue to the larger game, The Phantom Pain, Kojima said Snake will play in a more limited space.
Snake's gear consisted of a few items, including a pair of binoculars and a holographic tablet dubbed the iDroid. Using the binoculars, Snake could scope out the compound to survey how heavily guarded it was. He could also mark the location of enemy soldiers, which pops a little triangle icon over their heads. Snake can track marked soldiers and, in some cases, see them through walls, tarps and whatever else might obscure his view. And when looking at an item of interest through the binoculars, he'll receive helpful intel from headquarters.
In the demo, which was being played on a laptop computer by Metal Gear Solid 5creative producer Yuji Korekado, there was little in the way of visible HUD or interface. There are contextual button prompts when Snake approaches ladders and locked doors, but little else to clutter the screen during gameplay.
Apparently, Kojima Productions will communicate some HUD information through the environment to help Snake stay stealthy. For example, while the pathway of searchlights that can expose Snake's position can be seen pretty clearly, when lens flares from those lights slash across the screen, it's an indicator that Snake's in danger.
Snake can turn those bright lights on enemies to his advantage. If he takes control of a searchlight, he can shine the beam on enemy soldiers, distracting them. When engaged in combat, he can flick on a flashlight attached to a gun to momentarily blind his target.
As Snake worked his way into the compound, Korekado had him stealthily take down a few soldiers. He performed a silent CQC takedown and was then given the option to knock out, kill or interrogate his prey. Korekado chose to interrogate, revealing the location of the item Snake was looking for — which, by the way, turned out to be a red-colored "XOF" patch dropped by Skull Face during the opening cutscene. Snake pulled out his iDroid device and marked the location, a transport truck, on a holographically projected map.
In his next enemy encounter, Snake performed a CQC against an armed guard, snatching away his target's rifle then knocking him out. Shortly after, he encountered a group of soldiers that made his current path to the truck impossible. Korekado chose another route, the roof of a small nearby building.
Here's where things get more interesting: Snake attempted to distract a patrolmen by tossing an empty gun magazine close to his position, then leaped down from the roof. To his surprise, another soldier previously out of sight was waiting for him. When Snake was spotted, the "!" alert alarm sounded and Ground Zeroes kicked into slow motion, giving Korekado an extra second or two to line up a shot and fire a silenced round into the head of the man who spotted him. Despite being spotted, Korekado was able to diffuse the situation before the alert spread.
Korekado wasn't so lucky just moments later, when Snake was spotted by another pair of guards. At this point, Ground Zeroes turned into an all-out firefight, looking more like a third-person shooter than your typical Metal Gear sneak-fest.
Snake was under heavy fire and taking life-threatening damage, which Ground Zeroes visualized with blood spatters hitting the camera lens. Snake managed to make it to cover, where he restored himself to full health. Not through the consumption of rations, mind you. Snake's health appeared to regenerate automatically. Whether that signals the use of regenerating health in a core Metal Gear Solid game, we don't yet know. But it sure looks that way.
That run-and-gun escape wasn't the original plan, according to Hideo Kojima. He explained that Snake was supposed to sneak out of the base using a jeep and call for an extraction by helicopter. Korekado did manage to make it out alive, though Kojima gave him a ribbing for his performance.
Kojima Productions didn't elaborate on some of the gameplay elements that may be working their way into Metal Gear Solid 5, like "bullet time" style mechanics and regenerating health. It does appear that the developer is continuing to expand the tactical espionage tools that players have at their disposal, some of which may drastically change the way Metal Gear Solid plays.
The developer is also changing how we're served MGS 5's story. Kojima said his next game will have fewer cutscenes, and smoother transitions between gameplay and cinematics. The game's open-world nature, he said, would make those traditional cutscenes "kind of a distraction."
Gameplay changes aside, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is a gorgeous game. Kojima Productions said the version on display was of "current generation equivalent quality" and ran at 30 frames per second. The next-gen version, Kojima said, will run at 60 frames per second, and with greater visual detail.
Kojima said they'll show that version at Tokyo Game Show later this month, where we may see what other changes are in store for Snake.
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http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/6/4700424/metal-gear-solid-5-ground-zeroes-eyes-on-snake-has-changed
Some images if you follow that link. Two things concern me with that article though, the regenerating health and the game kicking into slow motion when you're spotted before the alert signals. I'm hoping this is being played on very easy mode or something, can't imagine them being incorporated into Hard difficulty (Which is what I like to play).





Other than that I now have a boner for the second time this morning.
 

Big-Red

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The slow mo is interesting, on one hand it probably makes it less essential to be ultra sneaky, but on the rare occasion I've been caught I'd have loved that option. It seems realistic enough, in that if you get seen you would have a moment to react and prevent an alert going to everyone.
 

amolbhatia50k

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I'm worried about the next metal gear solid. From what I've read, it's heading into a splinter cell conviction direction which would just be pathetic.
 

Hal9000

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The slow motion is OK, can just about let them have that one. Health regeneration? Get to feck.
 

Leg-End

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Still a lot of money for a glorified demo, I'll wait for the £10 version.
 

Ish

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Silly question but...

Can someone give me the run down of the all the MGS titles on Playstation?

I've played and finished: MGS, MGS 2, Snake eater and 4.

But in between I know there were quite a few titles which I missed/never played.

And now I see that 5 is split between Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain.
 

amolbhatia50k

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From what I've read, Phantom Pain is the main game whereas Ground Zeroes is sort of a teaser. I'm a right?
 

Leg-End

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Ground Zeroes is the one Konami want to milk fans with and Phantom Pain is the one that is an actual game and probably won't be around until 2015.
 

vanthaman

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Ish84045 said:
Silly question but...

Can someone give me the run down of the all the MGS titles on Playstation?

I've played and finished: MGS, MGS 2, Snake eater and 4.

But in between I know there were quite a few titles which I missed/never played.

And now I see that 5 is split between Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain.
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There's Peacewalker which is cannon and metal gear rising which is a spin off featuring raiden
 

Ish

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amolbhatia100 said:
I'm a sucker for MGS. Despite the cheese and the ham, I've found every iteration (I've played) great fun.
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:lol: Yeah they're great, great games.

Leg-End said:
Ground Zeroes is the one Konami want to milk fans with and Phantom Pain is the one that is an actual game and probably won't be around until 2015.
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Thanks bro. 2015 is a long wait, but there's no way I'll be willing to pay full price for GZ, if it's only a bit of a teaser. You're familiar with the pricing?

vanthaman said:
There's Peacewalker which is cannon and metal gear rising which is a spin off featuring raiden
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Arrgh, thanks VTM. I thought Peacewalker, for some reason, was only on the PSP.
 
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