This is a ramble post. I promise you won't hurt my feelings if you don't read it all.

Spoilers obviously.

So I started playing through the MGS series (skipped Metal Gear 1 and 2 because they're too old for me to get into) and so far I haven't been super blown away by anything but it's been good so far. MGS1 was a pain in the ass to play because the controls felt so bad. The craziness of the story and not wanting to be lost was enough for me to power through it.

I started MGS2 the next day, already a huge improvement in controls, although they're still not perfect, so playing through it was much easier although I suck ass at the game. I already knew about the whole Raiden thing thanks to Metal Gear Rising (my first actual Metal Gear game) and the plot was kinda just more MGS up until the last three hours. If you've played the game then you know what I'm talking about.

Now I'm starting to get hooked, but actually playing the games is still a bit of a slog because I'm bad at them and the controls feel really outdated. But next is MGS3, the one I've heard the most about, the one where half the memes come from, the ladder song, the one I see people say is their favorite. I gotta keep going.

I start MGS3 like a week after I beat MGS2 and I play up until the part where Snake meets Eva for the first time and you fight the GRU guys. I don't know why, but I'm just not feeling it. I thought Volgin is a really stupid villain (particularly his design), Ocelot is kinda dumb, no one has a Russian accent and it takes me out of it, and Snake always seems to be staring at Eva's titties in every scene. Now I know why people say Kojima can't write women. Maybe I'm just getting burnt out at this point but I'm not feeling this game so far.

Like four or fives months later, I just feel like playing again out of nowhere. I really don't knoq what's different this time but it finally just clicks. I blaze through the beginning and I'm actually playing really well and the story is just hitting right (Volgin and the titty pov are still dumb). Outside of the boss fights that require you to run and gun a little like Ocelot or the Pain, I'm having a lot of fun. Way more fun than I had in the last two games.

The story is a little dumber than 2 because Kojima read some Wikipedia articles about the Cold War or something so there's a lot of times where they'll say something about the Soviet Union and I can't help but think like "that makes no sense why would they do that." But I went in knowing there was gonna be dumb radlib stuff because Kojima is a radlib who read two or three books and wants to put it in his game. The Boss' motivations are also EXTREMELY unclear until the very last cutscene in the game so I ended up wondering if things were happening just to happen. But despite all that, I was still invested.

After finally beating at 19 hours, I can say this is one of my favorite games ever, and one of my favorite final bosses in any games ever. I admit I cried at the cemetery cutscene. Also I think the Boss is super hot.

So now I'm gonna take another month long break before I play MGS4. Can't wait to play what many people seem to consider the worst game in the series after the best one!

  • throwawaylemmy2 [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Weird ramble that you hated it until:

    After finally beating at 19 hours, I can say this is one of my favorite games ever, and one of my favorite final bosses in any games ever. I admit I cried at the cemetery cutscene. Also I think the Boss is super hot.

    Congrats on finding the best one in the series good. The 1960's Bond Spoof elevated it past 1 (which was THE BEST until 3). It's no where but down now in terms of story because after a lot of fans liked 3 enough, Kojima felt the need to tie EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) to the Boss, the Patriots, etc.

    4 is a slog, because Kojima (at that point) was depressed because he was chained to the series and Konami wanted a sequel. Peace Walker (which is canon "5", so play that after 4) is alright, but it's clear it was a PSP limited Monster Hunter co-op clone, so solo-wise, it'll be a slog (too many same-y missions) but story-wise it was ok but not great.

    Ground Zeroes is probably third on my series ranking, despite being a "demo" for The Phantom Pain simply because it was very tightly paced and edited (the opening is still great).

    The Phantom Pain is alright and if you hated the controls for the first 4 (well 5, with Peace Walker) you'll probably enjoy this one the most in terms of controls and gameplay, but the rushed/development hell and Konami-Kojima fiasco-drama ruins the story, especially right after the really good Ground Zeroes.

      • throwawaylemmy2 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        GZ should have set the tone for Phantom Pain.

        It sort of did. Then the Konami drama happened. :( The one regret I have from that is that Kojima didn't put the base in single-player (you can explore it in MGO, but given hackers/etc. in that, it's probably not worth playing that), because seeing it in Daytime was neat.

        I do wish Konami would release the engine to fans (especially since after this year, they're finally dropping the Fox Engine for PES, so I guess they finally made their money back from Kojima's investment in trying to make a middleware engine? He wanted to license it before Konami got pissed about the amount of money being dumped into making it) because seeing the terrain editor/etc. shown in previews was neat and having that to "fix" the game (mission 51 especially) would be nice to have.

      • throwawaylemmy2 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yes, yes it does. Kojima liked Monster Hunter (and Assassin's Creed) so they featured in. If you do a leap of faith from a certain point on one of the maps (or maybe this is Portable Ops) you'll get a new box stealth grab.