Shawn Elliott calls out Shane, Ryan Payton, IGN, and some neogaf posters on MGS4

[Tieno]

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8772271&publicUserId=4551247
What I like least about MGS 4 isn't MGS 4
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS




Acid08, NeoGaf.com forums: "MGS's story raises the bar because of the themes it deals with. The whole military becoming a privatized corporation is completely believable and gives us a haunting look into what might be our future."



In one post, forum member X puts forward the chilling plausibility of MGS 4's plot and scenarios. In another, he lashes out at anyone with the audacity to hold him to it. 'Why should soft science fiction strive for realism?' he asks. And the answer is that it shouldn't. I'm challenging your claims, not MGS 4 producer Hideo Kojima and company's.



Part of a schizophrenic's paranoid soliloquy may contain cause for legitimate concern. But before he can consider the matter, he's carried away to larger, more sinister conspiracies, one on top of another until ultimately he arrives at something like the script for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In MGS 4, a world in which corporations alone wage war becomes one in which those corporations use the Thetans of nano-tech to control the minds and bodies of their contractors, which becomes one in which artificial intelligences command the corporations along with the world's economy and media. Non-voters in the audience take refuge in the assumption that an all-powerful and despotic Illuminati is pulling the strings that pull the strings in an arrangement that ascends to someplace between a Prime Mover and blind destiny. Responsibility absolved.





Shane Bettenhausen, 1UP Yours: "When I see MGS transcending the medium, pushing the envelope... When I hear [people complain that there are] 'too many cutscenes,' I think, 'you're a peasant.' MGS 4 made me think about PMCs -- which, in a way, I hadn't before. The fact that [Kojima] brings up these real issues and brings them to light for people who don't really think about them...."



What exactly is it encouraging us to think, though? We're certainly not asking ourselves who pays Metal Gear's private military companies or how this take on a total war economy sustains itself. In the world we live in, the U.S. State Department spends American money to pay for security contractors. If in MGS 4's world, failed states are the PMCs chief clients, we should ask why. Smart money says the answers would involve "nations, ideologies, or ethnicities" -- the very motivators that almost everyone of the game's characters continually says are moot in an age of "endless proxy battles."



Nor are we asking who these militias are or what they're fighting for. Not once does the game give these militia members a face or voice. When twenty die beside us in battle, we don't see corpses; we see guns and unredeemed Drebin points -- a missed opportunity, considering the sense it makes for a living relic (Snake) to sympathize with rebels who defeat nano-tech stormtroopers and their battle bots with nothing but old-fashioned human resources and bulldozers.



Regardless, I have a "real issue" for Shane: Since when does indifference to Saturday morning melodrama, and lines like "If you won't be a prisoner to fate, then go fulfill your destiny!" make someone a peasant? Isn't it more incriminating to look at MGS 4's good fun as though it were a window on our future? And what about needing its flimflam to awaken an interest in the world around us? I'll leave that to NeoGaf's Linkzg, who jokingly writes, "I didn't understand that Nazis were evil until I came face to face with Hitler in a mech suit in Wolfenstein 3D."



Implausible stories can and do spur serious thought on important topics. But Wolfenstein 3D is not Brave New World. And until someone bothers to make a case that MGS 4 has something more to say about PMCs than that a Cheshire Cat arms broker profits up to the point that a rogue agent grabs control of the computer that runs the planet, then Guns of the Patriots is not 1984. If anything, Universal Soldier is the appropriate analogy. Or Battlefield Earth.



IGN review: "Is it possible to give a game an 11? If so, this would be the game that would merit that score. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a title that exceeds all the hype that was attached to the title."



GamePro review: "Every once in a long while a game will come along and change all the rules. Final Fantasy VII transformed the RPG genre, Resident Evil helped create a new sub-category of gaming -- survival horror -- and GTA III single-handedly reshaped the gaming landscape. And now comes Metal Gear Solid 4, a game whose potential influence on the current state of gaming is nothing short of tectonic."



GamePlayers review: "Gamers should be eternally grateful that such a game exists."





I can't believe my ears when, on 1UP Yours, Ryan Payton of Kojima Productions comments that "with triple-A titles, it's almost like its inherent [for reviewers] to start tearing down [a game's] different aspects." He's complaining about Edge magazine's 8-out-of-10 review score which sticks out where over a dozen 10-out-of-10s from other outlets don't. He's ignoring the many, many critics who sound more like a paid audience offering infomercial testimonials. MGS 4, they preach, is a rule-rewriting, paradigm-shifting, earth-moving, bar-raising, wheel-reinventing tour de force that presumably relieves headaches when applied directly to the forehead. We've left our own world at this point and find ourselves in a parallel dimension where man has invented fire, Alf, and little else. Throw in the insight of message board visitors like ThePure -- who, on Gametrailers.com's forums, posts that "Solid Snake is by far one of the best heroes of our generation, though it takes wise people to see this" -- and we've entered an alternate time line where Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa never lived and the measure of humanity is a gun-toting Houdini.



I respectfully disagree that reviewers are overly critical of triple-A titles and believe that the evidence in reviews of MGS 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty 4, and BioShock backs me. All of these are excellent games with big budgets. Critics gushed and gushed over each, and practically apologized after pointing out any of their problems. If MGS 4 doesn't sell by the millions it won't be for scathing reviews. The trouble, if there is any, lies in leading readers to believe that a videogame is the Second Coming...even if it is a lower-case fourth.

[Grecco]

Hes 100 percent right.

Ryan Payton sounded sooo whiny complaing about negative reviews. How every AAA game wants to be torn by reviewers how Grid got better scores...

/Bow Shawn Elliot.

[CurseoftheGods]

Shawn Elliot

[Tucah]

I completely agree with him.

[WrikaWrek]

He's right, and honestly? For all my love of MGS4, i feel like chocking a bitch every time i hear Shane or Ryan or anyone of those "Gameoftheforever, read my post on how i tell you this game has the best story every, the best gameplay ever, etc etc" badge wielding motherfuckers.

[Eel O'Brian]

i guess shawn's gonna get turned on by the raving rabbids at gaf now

[Tieno]

i guess shawn's gonna get turned on by the raving rabbids at gaf now

Most of his blog isn't even directed at the game but he calls out other people

[demi]

Can I get tl;dr version? It just seems like he's saying "I disagree. This game isnt that good."

[Eel O'Brian]

i guess shawn's gonna get turned on by the raving rabbids at gaf now

Most of his blog isn't even directed at the game but he calls out other people

yes, but their word is gospel to that bunch, especially bettenhausen's preaching

[CurseoftheGods]

Is there a NeoGAF topic for this?

[Draft]

GFW guys come across as the only actual human beings in game journalism.

[cool breeze]

Is there a NeoGAF topic for this?

its in the 1up yours thread

GFW guys come across as the only actual human beings in game journalism.

its because GFW stands for Games For Windows.  PC Gaming, always 42 steps ahead.

[CurseoftheGods]

Calling out a corporate mouthpiece like Ryan Payton and forum posters isn't exactly bold journalism.  Shane and IGN deserve it.

It wasn't an attempt at bold journalism. It's a fucking blog post.

[Kestastrophe]

GFW guys come across as the only actual human beings in game journalism.

Except for Rion Scott.

Calling out a corporate mouthpiece like Ryan Payton and forum posters isn't exactly bold journalism.  Shane and IGN deserve it.

Tru dat. IGN always seems to cigarillo over games when they least deserve it. It's too bad that they are the most popular gaming site.

[Grecco]

I thought Gamespot gets more hits than IGN.

[Kestastrophe]

I thought Gamespot gets more hits than IGN.

I guess you're right. I must have been thinking of forum users.

[Van Cruncheon]

i'm enjoying mgs4, but the plot is nonsense cut straight out of the xenogears cloth. it's superficially deep, with detailed data exposition (military fetishism and conspiracy memes in mgs4; gnosticism/qabalah and arthur c clarke in in xenogears) endeavoring to replace depth of metaphor and narrative. mgs4 is ultimately nothing more than a gundam plot covered in said research and occasionally tapping at the fourth wall. it's only deep if you don't read books or watch movies in any regular form.

[Kestastrophe]

i'm enjoying mgs4, but the plot is nonsense cut straight out of the xenogears cloth. it's superficially deep, with detailed data exposition (military fetishism and conspiracy memes in mgs4; gnosticism/qabalah and arthur c clarke in in xenogears) endeavoring to replace depth of metaphor and narrative. mgs4 is ultimately nothing more than a gundam plot covered in said research and occasionally tapping at the fourth wall. it's only deep if you don't read books or watch movies in an y regular form.

You are awesome
drinky

[Brehvolution]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

[Van Cruncheon]

during snake's hilariously cliched monologue in the very beginning, i honestly expected him to murmur "history...is an endless waltz..." in that hokey gravelly voice of his

[Kestastrophe]

I would like to share some of my favorite quotes from the 1up thread on GAF:

all I ever see from him talk about or post when he talks about MGS4. Guess he really hates MGS cut scenes and topics.

Does Shawn make it his point to rip on MGS4 or something? Even when the first gameplay trailer was released, it wasn't long before he was complaining about the gun models, set-pieces, wonky animations, bland textures, and more.

And now he devotes an entire blog post to to why the game isn't as "deep" as anyone thinks? Is he unable to enjoy the game because he knows other people really, really like it? Just take the game for what it is, Shawn. If you don't like it, you don't have to let the entire world know, while at the same time act condescending towards those who DO enjoy the game.

I guess I can look forward to the next episode of GFW, which I'm sure will have the theme of "hate on MGS4."

[Brehvolution]

I would like to share some of my favorite quotes from the 1up thread on GAF:

all I ever see from him talk about or post when he talks about MGS4. Guess he really hates MGS cut scenes and topics.

Does Shawn make it his point to rip on MGS4 or something? Even when the first gameplay trailer was released, it wasn't long before he was complaining about the gun models, set-pieces, wonky animations, bland textures, and more.

And now he devotes an entire blog post to to why the game isn't as "deep" as anyone thinks? Is he unable to enjoy the game because he knows other people really, really like it? Just take the game for what it is, Shawn. If you don't like it, you don't have to let the entire world know, while at the same time act condescending towards those who DO enjoy the game.

I guess I can look forward to the next episode of GFW, which I'm sure will have the theme of "hate on MGS4."

Why are they you favorite? Because they disagree and that is humorous to you? To me it seams that this guy is going out of his way to say, apparently for the umpteenth time, that he doesn't thing MGS4 is that great. Why do we even care what he thinks anyway?

[Tieno]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

What's wrong with someone calling out reviewers as paid advertisers?
And he's not even touching on load times and that stuff but on the hyperbole, go read the OP again.

[Grecco]

I would like to share some of my favorite quotes from the 1up thread on GAF:

all I ever see from him talk about or post when he talks about MGS4. Guess he really hates MGS cut scenes and topics.

Does Shawn make it his point to rip on MGS4 or something? Even when the first gameplay trailer was released, it wasn't long before he was complaining about the gun models, set-pieces, wonky animations, bland textures, and more.

And now he devotes an entire blog post to to why the game isn't as "deep" as anyone thinks? Is he unable to enjoy the game because he knows other people really, really like it? Just take the game for what it is, Shawn. If you don't like it, you don't have to let the entire world know, while at the same time act condescending towards those who DO enjoy the game.

I guess I can look forward to the next episode of GFW, which I'm sure will have the theme of "hate on MGS4."

Why are they you favorite? Because they disagree and that is humorous to you? To me it seams that this guy is going out of his way to say, apparently for the umpteenth time, that he doesn't thing MGS4 is that great. Why do we even care what he thinks anyway?

More like whiny Kojimafags who learn about the world through the convoluted narrative that is metal gear solid, any critisism is seen as blasphemy.

Shawn Elliot isnt saying he doesnt like Metal Gear. Go read the blog.

[Brehvolution]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

What's wrong with someone calling out reviewers as paid advertisers?
And he's not even touching on load times and that stuff but on the hyperbole, go read the OP again.

I'm saying reviews in general, not this guy's BS. 1up is a pro 360 site and he should be struck by lightning for accusing of Sony moneyhats as if to say that 1up never received anything from MS.

[Draft]

The opening cutscene of MGS4 did in fact piss me off. Snake growls, "War has changed."

I'm sorry, Snake, but all true gamers know that war never changes.

[Grecco]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

What's wrong with someone calling out reviewers as paid advertisers?
And he's not even touching on load times and that stuff but on the hyperbole, go read the OP again.

I'm saying reviews in general, not this guy's BS. 1up is a pro 360 site and he should be struck by lightning for accusing of Sony moneyhats as if to say that 1up never received anything from MS.

1up is pro 360? 

[Van Cruncheon]

it's easy; just read about stuff that interests you. i've always been fascinated by kabalah/qabalah and medieval alchemy, and i've read a metric shit-tonne of classic sci-fi. for example, seeing how poorly xenogears utilized these ideas in its narrative really irked me -- it referenced the sefirot and the zohar without really understanding what they are and thus failed to effectively use them as a symbol, concept, allegory, or metaphor. really, in xenogears, the concepts are just used to give cool pseudo-religious names to stuff. same thing with mgs4; they can talk about proxy wars and reference a zillion military-industrial conspiracies, but when push comes to shove, those ideas are just a thin coat of pretentious shellack on yet another gundam animu "WHY CAN'T WE STOP FIGHTING LOOK WHAT WAR DOES TO US" plot.

[Grecco]

Does it have Metal Gear vs Metal Gear standoffs like a cheesy Gundam anime?

Because your last line reminded me of Gundam wing and the movie. Is Hiro Yui in this too?

[WrikaWrek]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

What's wrong with someone calling out reviewers as paid advertisers?
And he's not even touching on load times and that stuff but on the hyperbole, go read the OP again.

I'm saying reviews in general, not this guy's BS. 1up is a pro 360 site and he should be struck by lightning for accusing of Sony moneyhats as if to say that 1up never received anything from MS.

You are Zero Tolerance from gaf aren't you?

Because you sound like that tool.

[Van Cruncheon]

if there was a nerdlinger take on mcsweeny's, i'd recommend someone smarter than me pen a dialogue between old snake and heero yui as a humor piece for it

[Van Cruncheon]

(re: shane bettenhausen) wait, how fucking ill-informed do you hafta be to NOT know about PMCs these days? pick up a fucking newpaper! there was a good three months where every joke in an evening show comedian's monologue referenced fucking blackwater. FIRE THIS IDIOT POST-HASTE

[duckman2000]

"MGS 4 made me think about PMCs -- which, in a way, I hadn't before."

We are all ignorant to many, many things, but this is somewhat disturbing. Not only that this character has not really thought about PMCs, but that it took a video game that pushes the PMC concept to its most absurd length to make this guy actually think about the privatization of military resources and abilities.

[Van Cruncheon]

"if it ain't inna video-ma-game, it ain't worf thinkin' about" is something i'd expect to hear from a rape-eyed trucker in the midwest, not from a neckbearded nerd working in sf

[Tieno]

So now we have reviewers critiquing reviews? 
Load times, framerate drops, cut scene length, and length of single player campaign are only problems in PS3 exclusives.

What's wrong with someone calling out reviewers as paid advertisers?
And he's not even touching on load times and that stuff but on the hyperbole, go read the OP again.

I'm saying reviews in general, not this guy's BS. 1up is a pro 360 site and he should be struck by lightning for accusing of Sony moneyhats as if to say that 1up never received anything from MS.

I'm not saying he's saying they're literally taking money, just that they sound like paid advertisers. But you're one of those conspiracy mongers, so whatever

[Grecco]

(re: shane bettenhausen) wait, how fucking ill-informed do you hafta be to NOT know about PMCs these days? pick up a fucking newpaper! there was a good three months where every joke in an evening show comedian's monologue referenced fucking blackwater. FIRE THIS IDIOT POST-HASTE

Agreed. It bothered me when i heard it. This is the mangod.

[Van Cruncheon]

well, if i ever want to win the vociferous laudations (lol) of internet nerds, remind me to plot my game based on that heady melange of fringe wikipedia content and raw animu fanservice

i'm going to make a game based on the hermetic order of the golden dawn, starring alistair crowley as a gothic lolita

don't lie; you'd buy it

i'm looking at you, patel

[Kestastrophe]

I'm saying reviews in general, not this guy's BS. 1up is a pro 360 site and he should be struck by lightning for accusing of Sony moneyhats as if to say that 1up never received anything from MS.

Good God man. I expect that at GAF, but here?

[Van Cruncheon]

no, they really aren't worth the effort

[Great Rumbler]

I learned about PMCs from an episode of Law & Order.

Well, not really, but I did watch an episode about them a few months ago.

[Kestastrophe]

Just to clarify PMC is an acronym for those security companies like Blackwater that have been in the news since Iraq got occupied?

PMC = Private Military Corporation

[demi]

Army of Two did PMCs better

Pimp out zee AK

[duckman2000]

It does make you wonder what a discussion re: international politics and armed intervention with good old Shane here would be like. In a discussion revolving around the pending declassification of documents detailing covert operations in the eastern bloc, would Shane deliver a bombshell story of when one Jack Kellar tracked a possible traitor deep behind enemy lines, or would he slyly reference the brave actions of one elite military team known as the Ghosts?

[WrikaWrek]

Fucking mercenaries. That's the subject.

All this fancy naming "PMC" is just to confuse people.

[duckman2000]

I thought it must have been something from the future if people havent been thinking about them yet and that I missed some new development in military stuff, turns out its just non governmental security organizations, guns for hire. How the hell is that new, this shit has been around since the stone age only to dissapear shortly between 1792/1990.

It's the fuzziness of it that has gotten people talking, I think. Whereas EO or Sandline hardly beat around the bush regarding what they did, the new model is far less blatant in presentation. Whereas EO was pretty much a bona fide mercenary company (Barlow even admits as much), the private (military) contractors of today prefer to blend in with the larger umbrella Contractor designation. And then when these contractors are suddenly in the spotlight for questionable use of force, well... it gets people wondering.

[WrikaWrek]

I'm listening to the 1upyours, the part about Shane on cut scenes. Yuck, jesus fuck, "transcending the medium" etc.

Man this guy is a fucking tool, he almost makes me ashamed of being a MGS fan.

[Van Cruncheon]

i will say that the cutscene direction really is good, and the story is tolerable -- and i emphasize "tolerable" because to me, hideo kojima is like that goofy dungeon master who keeps retconning and making shit up as the game goes along, but who is amiable enough to encourage you to put up with his earnest shenanigans in the long pauses between dice rolls

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

"Oh Big Mamma!"

[Van Cruncheon]

then again, i'm only in act 2

[WrikaWrek]

But MGS really is Ninja Scroll.

Personally? That's highly entertaining. The human samurai that goes againts multiple demons and a villain that shares a past with him and also possesses some sort of greater ability.

IT IS ninja scroll. In the same way that Ninja Scroll is a Fantasy/Samurai flick, MGS is a SCi Fi/Military game. Crazy action, crazy characters, and it rocks.

But when these dudes like Shane start spitting the kind of bs they often do, it makes me embarrassed.  

[Van Cruncheon]

i do adore the wacky, imaginative boss encounters -- it's why i dug 3 so much. the sorrow fight made me lol so hard, and volgin

[WrikaWrek]

Precisely my point.  The problem is Kojima doesn't realize that the most of fun in the game comes from the wacky bosses and the absurd setup of the thing (or he doesn't want to admit it) so he dresses it up with serious overtones.  It's like Takashi Murakami if you removed all the tongue in cheek stuff.  Most people don't watch goofy anime for the deep stories, they watch it precisely for the goofy samurai/vampire hunters/robots.

Exactly. MGS1 imo was awesome in that regards. MGS2 just complicated. MGs3 was better than 2 but i hated the setting. MGs4 has moments of greatness, but unfortunately it makes me have to cut through the bullshit.

And then you have these little punks posting on the internet about how the BB corps don't add anything to the game and etc, are you kidding me? The BB corps were awesome, so they don't have this big contribution to the convoluted story, but they give you the "moments", crazy ass characters doing awesome shit.

Seriously, it's those characters that ease some of the BS found in the main story.

[CurseoftheGods]

prof. r. astley's musical piece "never gonna give you up" made me think about all these high-school dropouts i impregnated and abandoned without even paying for the abortion -- which, in a way, i hadn't before. the fact that astley brings up these real issues and brings them to light for people who don't really think about them... when i see "never gonna give you up" transcending the medium, pushing the envelope... when i hear people complain that there are 'too many repeats of the chorus' i think, 'you're a peasant.'

[TVC15]

Anyone that's impressed by MGS4's story is either distinguished mentally-challenged or a fanboy.  MGS4's story embarrassed me for enjoying the narrative of MGS2.  I thought Kojima was doing legitimately interesting things with the story of MGS2.  MGS4 just proves that he's a distinguished mentally-challenged fellow that got lucky once when it comes to stories.

[Eric P]

well, if i ever want to win the vociferous laudations (lol) of internet nerds, remind me to plot my game based on that heady melange of fringe wikipedia content and raw animu fanservice

i'm going to make a game based on the hermetic order of the golden dawn, starring alistair crowley as a gothic lolita

don't lie; you'd buy it

i'm looking at you, patel

name her Alley and her best friend is Maddie Blavatsky

[TVC15]

2 is worth playing for just the story, but the gameplay is bad.  4 is the exact opposite--best gameplay in the series, by far the worst story.

[duckman2000]

I'm also a bit surprised that people are so receptive of things that are damned near hammered in. I tend to find most thoughtful the things that are delivered on the side or on the sly, so to speak. Kojima has been pushing this damned PMC military economy angle like a three-breasted whore since it was unveiled, and if anything, this has made the apathetic to the whole thing. Not the PMC deal itself, but if my first real "experience" with the PMC industry came from MGS4, I doubt I'd be all that interested in finding out more. Of course, I've had this problem with all MGS games I've played; the excruciatingly complex storytelling and the tendency of Kojima to simply over-explain things has made it somewhat inapproachable.

[cool breeze]

Army of Two did PMCs better

Pimp out zee AK

Army of Two was embarrassing to play.  MGS4 just uses PMCs as a way to explain other forms of control and are not nearly the focus of the story.  Army of Two's story was basically cashing in on the rise of PMCs by having a story that says "Army sucks, PMCs RAWK! oh no! PMCs suck! wait, actually our PMC is cool, that one just sucked.  Oh, and this guy is The Joker for some reason."  I'm glad it has awesome segments involving two men and one parachute or else I would think that game was a total failure. Pound.

Did Ryan forget that Konami wasn't letting reviewers mention aspects of the game?

That was Konami.  I think Itagaki leaving Tecmo was reason enough to believe the the publishers don't always care about what the developers want.  Just watch the bonus blu-ray with the LE.  Kojima clearly would have "5 hours of cutscenes!" on the back of the box.

[pilonv1]

I like the defense for anyone criticising MGS4 or any MGS story is that "they don't get it" and can't appreciate it or it's some sort of high art that a normal fan wouldn't get. Much like the animu and japan worshippers claim they're the only ones who understand Japan.

I wonder how many of them actually enjoy MGS and only play it because if they don't it would be like admitting they're not as intune with Japan and other otaku as they thought.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I like the defense for anyone criticising MGS4 or any MGS story is that "they don't get it" and can't appreciate it or it's some sort of high art that a normal fan wouldn't get. Much like the animu and japan worshippers claim they're the only ones who understand Japan.

I wonder how many of them actually enjoy MGS and only play it because if they don't it would be like admitting they're not as intune with Japan and other otaku as they thought.

I swear they come from the same cess pool that spawned Shenmue fanboys.  Same shit, different game.