I'll kill you, Snake. Kill you before you spawn your accursed Snake children.
MGS4 COUNTDOWN - MPO, DAY 2

Sorry for the lateness - I played, last night, beat Gene, and started the final cutscene, but then my mother came in and OH GOD YOU HAVE EXAMS TOMORROW IT'S HALF PAST TEN. So I got up, did my exams, then watched the ending. And now I'm writing Day 2's blog.



I'm going to break tradition and start this post not by discussing symbolism or Big Boss's deep meaningful characterisation or even belts and zippers, but I'm just going to head right in.

- "Don't let yourself get distracted by all the pretty girls," says Sigint, over the radio. To Raikov. While this is a somewhat forgivable example since it is the Seventies and Raikov is still, well, male, and Sigint doesn't know why Raikov had Colonel privileges despite only being a Major, it does express how annoyed I am that there aren't specialised radio conversations for each special character. I mean, it'd be nice to have a bunch of conversations for each special character, and for each class of Generic Grunt Soldier. I mean, I'll even settle for only the special characters who join your party for in-story reasons (Sigint, Para-Medic, Python, Jonathan, EVA, etc.) and not the characters who are just plain-out bonuses (Teliko, Venus, Zero, etc.). As it is, it's divided into 'vaguely interesting stuff if you're Snake' and 'really boring stuff if you're not Snake'. With the exception of Para-Medic lecturing some unlucky soldier about what Big Boss looks like with his clothes off.

That's my biggest problem, I think - lack of full-on stupid over the radio, which is probably the series' biggest charm (fanservice excepted), really dulls down a lot of fun they could have had.

I also hate the constant 'no response' response. EITHER THEY ANSWER ALL THE TIME OR THEY DON'T ANSWER. Don't have them refuse to answer twenty-two times, answer the twenty-third, and then ignore you for another fifteen calls! My O button hand is a delicate girly hand, I don't want to have to hammer it like Snake's being tortured to death!

- I remember when I was first playing this game, I was in the back of a car when the soldiers saved Snake from the Guest House. Just as Cunningham slammed on his searchlight, the car did an emergency stop, and I threw back my head and SHRIEKED. It wasn't fun justifying it later, but it was probably the ultimate use of force-feedback in any game I've played.

- I don't find Elisa as irritating this time around; my main reason for skepticism was the fact that she's, well, really young, and seeing her running around being a love interest to a man in his forties is just plain creepy. But the more I play it, the more his affection for her looks paternal. And I have to admit the scene with her tricking the guard into thinking she was sleeping with Snake is hysterical and kind of her crowning moment. (It's also cute how she flushes when she stares at his crotch.) I feel so bad for that poor guard though.

"Sorry. Looks like I got a little too into it."

"...Into it."

...Yeah. That's a scarring. The poor man's life gradually fell apart after that moment.

I love Elisa's voice performance. Tara Strong is a goddess.

- "Sorry, but...I'll never be a father."

I like that. It's not something a lot of games go into - hell, it's not something a lot of fiction goes into. The idea of women badly wanting children but being infertile comes up a hell of a lot, but you never see a broody man. OH BIG BOSS. I WOULD LET YOU FATHER MY CHILDREN IF YOU WERE ABLE (AND, YOU KNOW, REAL)

- Notice how Elisa and Snake stand on top of the hill looking down at the fortress, just like Snake and EVA did in Groznyj Grad. Elisa's got the binoculars this time, though, rather than Snake.

- Ursula's line about children never fails to make me shudder. However, when one of your battle taunts is 'don't think I'm weak just because I'm a woman', there's only so cool you can look. Especially since she knows his mentor was, you know, THE MOST BADASS KICKASS AWESOME EXTREME AND REALLY SERIOUSLY WOMANLY WOMAN EVER TO LIVE.

- "I can see why you caught Ocelot's eye," says Gene, Big Boss's tremendous aura of sex starting to claw into his brain like a seductive bot fly with an eye patch.

- One thing this game does which is really smart is use the fact that the radio sequences aren't voiced to do a big reveal which wouldn't be possible otherwise - the identity of Ghost. Yes, yes, 'Ghost' was kneecapped, but I'm just happy there's another Scientist Buddy Who Nearly Dies But Doesn't Quite. Dubious plot twist aside, I like games which use the way they're presented to do things like that.

- Gene has an absolutely fantastic Rape The Dog moment at this point, when he tricks the soldiers into all killing one another using his voice and the fact that he's very good at using the oldest battle tactic ever. What he does next never fails to fill me with that awesome hideous anger you get when you're faced with a really good villain. I never knew a single message box could make me so damn sad. It's like he's killed your starter Pokemon!

- With this realisation, I flipped slightly. I renamed all my men after Pokemon. This was probably the first symptom of playing so many of these games so quickly, especially since I was on a tight deadline.

- Why can't Big Boss be removed from the Sneaking Unit? I mean, I can understand that, but they give him Tech, Spy and Med unit specific stats, and it just seems a complete - well, a total cocktease. MPO+ rectifies the situation by giving you Old Snake, who's basically an upgraded version of Big Boss with more Stamina and health and one better stat, and can be placed anywhere, but MPO+ also fails entirely by being a TOTALLY UNRELATED GAME.

- Null says, before he fights Big Boss, that he has thoughts and feelings and memories, and that when he was in the tank he had dreams. It makes me wonder why Elisa, his mindreader, didn't seem to know. Was she just protecting him from Big Boss? She did seem frightened that he was going to try to kill Null. I think she deeply cared about Null. And that leads me to another theory - did she implant those dreams, to give him some kind of hope? She did say, when Snake asks her how anyone could survive what Null's going through, that 'no-one can', suggesting that Null isn't going through what he's supposed to be enduring.

- Gene says he's going to start an organisation 'without shape or form'. The Boss uses almost exactly the same words to describe The Philosophers - 'my father was killed by that same shapeless, formless organisation'. And then when Gene goes on to talk about intervening underground in military conflicts, the parallels only get stronger. I never noticed that before. No wonder Snake's pissed.

- Oh, the ending. It's spoiled by two pieces of bad sound editing:
1) After Snake gets knocked unconscious by the Metal Gear blast (GREAT idea to have Metal Gear be just a nuke delivery system rather than a gigantic nuclear tank like we were expecting - it's ALMOST the subversion I badly want; a Metal Gear with no Metal Gear - but more on that later) there's this lovely piece of music which fades out to a single string playing a tense, rising minor scale (the one right at the start of the MGS2 version of the main theme, before the actual melody kicks in, incidentally). If it had ended there it would have been a lovely tense finish, but some idiot let the track run on for a fraction of a second when it comes down to a major chord (wut).

2) Snake talks: "I realised I'm not alive unless I'm in battle. So I have to find my own reason to fight-" Here, he was cut off a fraction of a minute second before he finished growling out the 't', and the cut is really clumsy and COME ON, I KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER.

Actually, pretty much this whole game is like that. It's not bad, exactly, it's just...sloppy. And the only reason I don't like it more is because I've seen the other entries in the series and know they could have done more.

- Why is Big Boss ringing someone up with his crotch? This is a VERY GOOD QUESTION. I hope to see this plot twist explained in MGS4.

- I don't like Calling To The Night. I love the melody and the chord structure, I'm just allergic to power ballads and electric pianos.

- I also hate Show Time, because it's basically a tremendous cocktease setting you up for the METAL GEAR THEME but then it just skips to a totally unrelated different melody. I HATE WHAT THEY'RE DOING TO THE METAL GEAR THEME. I WANT IT BACK. KOJIMA, YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON ALLOWED TO BLATANTLY PLAGIARISE PEOPLE.

- Ocelot mentions 'battle data from the Perfect Soldier' before he mentions 'genomes'. Does that mean that the Snakes were modelled after Null!? It would explain a lot about them, sadly. (Actually, while I'm thinking of it, I remember in the damned April Fool fake application, there was the question 'Is your character a happy character, or a sad character?' For some reason that one stuck with me, because, when I think about it, I compartmentalise characters into Happy Characters and Sad Characters, with a small side category for Angry Characters. And the big obvious difference between Snake and Big Boss is that Snake is a Sad Character and Big Boss is a Happy Character.)

- "I want him to join us." So does that mean Big Boss was in on Les Enfants Terribles?

STAT BLOCK OF AWESOME

8h 48m
26 saves
13 restarts
81 ALERTS WHAT THE FLYING WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT THIS IS ON EASY MODE WHAT THE HELL
5 kills
41 soldiers recruited
7 Pokemon fainted of my mens killed

RANK


Overall, I'd say the most awesome thing about this game is the script. The dialogue sounds like actual talking far more than it does in most Metal Gear games; while there's still some awkwardness it's justified by having one of the awkward characters being a drunkard and the other being a genius speaker who CAN pull that stuff out of his arse. (Incidentally, I love Gene's voice. It's Steve Blum BUT IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE STEVE BLUM. He must be so pleased he's getting to do a voice which isn't Spike Spiegel.)



Okay. Enough messing around in the Sixties and Seventies.

Let's timeskip to 1995, when Big Boss is old, when Engrish is the native language of America and when we WITNESS THE DAWN OF THE SERIES'S TRUE HERO*.

* dialogue that makes no sense whatsoever.

-

IN OTHER NEWS the MGS4 soundtrack came today. I'm not listening to it, because, really, it's 'do I listen now, or do I listen after I've played the game and cry profusely?' but I have to say it comes in the SEXIEST box I have ever seen. It's like a DVD case, it's made of perfectly clear, hard plastic, and the track listing book thing is printed on gorgeous translucent paper with metallic ink. Said my father, who I showed it to, "he [Snake on the cover] doesn't look like a Dave there'. He's never forgiven Snake for that. He considers it a moment of betrayal.