You know, there’s something that’s been on my mind recently.
If you’re reading this post, then you’re probably
aware of the current trends in the game industry. One of the biggies right now: open-world
games, for better or worse. It makes
sense for the subgenre to gain some traction, though; setting aside graphical
power, the best way to prove the evolution of the medium (technologically or
otherwise) is to increase the scale.
We’re thirty years out from the left-to-right stages of Super Mario Bros., so the assumption is
that a bigger world = a better game. And
I mean assumption.
By now, gamers have caught on to the issues. Sure, worlds are getting bigger and players
can explore more of them -- but so what?
On one hand, you’ve got the Assassin’s
Creed franchise, which puts out these massive, lavishly-rendered,
intensively-researched historical cities one year after another -- and instead
of being playgrounds that sate the mind and soul, they’ve long since devolved
into repetitive chore simulators and window dressing. Meanwhile, the recent Batman games went from the tightly-knit and
small-scale Arkham Asylum to the
bank-busting and bloated Arkham Knight;
it had a big world and sheer graphical horsepower, but at the cost of a good
story, good gameplay, and a game that didn’t
have to shoehorn
the Batmobile into every situation.
(Again, WHY do you have to drag the Batmobile up a building when you
have the Batplane?)
I guess what I’m getting at here is this: are
video games getting too big? And of
course, MGSV is here to provide one
possible answer.
All right, full disclosure: I haven’t beaten the
game yet. I know I should have by now,
but you know how it is -- plus, I’m slow and bad at MGS games, so my pace is even more glacial than usual. With that said, I HAVE played enough of it to
make some substantial points, especially on the gameplay front. Since I plan to get back to the game at some
point and finish it off, there’s a chance that I’ll do another post on it that
focuses on the story beats. But for now,
I can at least talk about MGSV as-is
-- before Konami decides to botch everything via cartoonish supervillainy. Because jeez, that company has done itself no
favors for, like, the past year.
I’d say that we shouldn’t dwell on the business
side of things, but it’s kind of hard to avoid in this situation. With a rumored $80 million price tag, Konami
had a lot of money riding on the game, and it’s not hard to imagine that they
got antsy spending so much to fulfill Hideo Kojima’s vision. Obviously there’s more to the struggle than
that -- maybe more than we’ll ever know -- but whatever the circumstances, we
all know the ending: Konami booted out its golden boy, harassed him without end
thanks to legal trickery, and publically turned its back on gamers so that it
could turn beloved franchises into slaves in the pachinko zone.
Considering how much traction #FucKonami has
gotten (with good reason), it’s only fitting that the theme of both the game
and this post revolves around one element: anger.
What would MGSV
be like if Kojima and crew got to fulfill every last aspect of their
creative vision? Again, we may never
know. (We’re probably better off not knowing, since even the mere teases
of what Silent Hills could have been
were heartbreaking.) But we can still
judge the game in its current state, because even if some stuff got left on the
cutting room floor, what’s still there is weighty enough to justify the game’s
existence. So in case you’re just now
waking up at the six hundred-word mark, let me be clear: I think Metal Gear Solid V is
a good game. I think it’s a great
game, even, and I expect to see it atop plenty of GOTY lists. Kojima and crew deserve every last bit of
praise they get, and that’s without them
earning sympathy points vis a vis Konami’s shenanigans.
But let’s say that after Konami smashed the
proverbial china vase (and stole some of the pieces), Kojima and crew took the
remains, some superglue, and sheer willpower, and still made a work of art. In
fact? Let’s drop that metaphor and
assume for a second that -- barring the excluded content -- MGSV in its current form IS KojiPro’s
creative vision. What does that
mean? Did they want to go open-world
with a franchise that’s traditionally had a strict structure? Did they want to scale back the story and
dialogue and even cutscenes by such a huge degree? Did they want to chase after modern trends on
their own terms? Did they really?
MGSV is
different. The amount of story beats
relative to my play time is extremely disproportionate. Off the top of my head, here are the most
relevant events that have happened as of writing:
1) Big Boss (or Punished “Venom” Snake, if you
prefer) wakes up from his nine-year coma.
2) Big Boss escapes from the hospital he’s holed
up in when it comes under attack, thanks to an assist from Revolver Ocelot.
3) Big Boss recuperates and returns to fighting
form via montage.
4) Big Boss goes on a mission to rescue his
comrade Kaz and meets the SKULLS Parasite Unit.
5) Big Boss starts taking on missions to bankroll
the Diamond Dogs mercenary army, build up his Mother Base, and get revenge on
the guys that wrecked him the first time.
6) Big Boss meets Skull Face and his Metal Gear.
7) Big Boss meets Quiet, and after a “boss fight”
he takes her hostage.
8) Big Boss meets not-Otacon, Huey Emmerich and
carts him back to Mother Base…after they both elude Skull Face’s Metal Gear.
Oh, and you save a dog somewhere along the line.
That sounds like quite a bit to digest, but it
really isn’t. The first four points are
basically compressed into the opening/tutorial missions. Number five is the overarching goal more than
a story beat. Six is tagged at almost
the end of one mission, while I stumbled onto seven randomly on a non-specific
mission. Eight is substantive…ish, since
the story takes some steps forward from the mission’s last phase to the
cutscenes that follow. But the problem
is that those eight events have happened over the course of…I don’t know. No fewer than ten hours of gameplay? Fifteen?
It can’t be more than twenty, hopefully, but between the frontloading
and the movement of all plot progression to roughly the ends of missions (and
downtime at the base, albeit briefly), it’s hard to get a grasp on the plot
thanks to its extreme stop-and-go nature.
As others have noted, codec conversations are
pretty much gone. You can still get
advice from Kaz and Ocelot, but on average they’re not as flippant as Sigint or
Para-Medic. Again, story events tend to not happen during missions, but more
pressing is the fact that a number of missions don’t have anything besides a
briefing from one of your comrades.
Luckily, you can listen to cassette tapes at your leisure; that’s
understandable given the nature of the game (i.e. you’re alone and away from
the home base), but it’s still no substitute for the face-to-face
conversations…which to be fair are still in the game. There just aren’t as many of them, or MGSV backloads its progression.
That brings me to my big question: does MGSV have a generic story?
I know I’m not in much of a position to say that,
but hear me out here. You wake up as a
guy with very little context about what’s happened or where you are. Suddenly there are a bunch of bad guys out to
get you, because reasons. You’re guided
through the area by a helpful companion, though given the circumstances it’s
likely that your “savior” was just Big Boss’ inherent soldier instincts -- but
then you’re actually saved by a
helpful companion who whisks you away to a magical world (of military operations,
sure, but the point remains). It’s not
long before you find out that you’re Big Boss, the greatest soldier in the
world -- and in the span of a montage, you go from an atrophied husk to
fighting fit. Why? So you can be the leader of the Diamond Dogs,
go on big whompin’ missions, and fund the organization that idolizes you by
continuing to be a badass. It’s all for
revenge, or something like that -- which would be more interesting if that
wasn’t, like, the default motivation
for video game protagonists nowadays.
Obviously, I haven’t written off the game just
yet. There are still a lot of questions
that need answering, and I want to see those answers for myself. But it’s obvious that whether Konami
interfered or not, MGSV is a much
leaner game. As a guy who puts a lot of
stock in straight narratives (for more reasons than one), I can’t overlook the
fact that this game’s narrative has been so downplayed, you’d be forgiven there
wasn’t one for hours at a time. For some
people, that’s a problem.
For me, though?
Remarkably, it isn’t a problem.
The reason for that is simple: you
make the story in every single mission.
It’s easy to think of MGSV as an open-world game, and for the most part it is. Even so, it still has some semblance of
structure; you go into your helicopter, choose your mission of choice, and then
head to it. You get your briefing, and
then get dropped off at a landing zone.
After that? Virtually everything
that happens next is up to you. Sure,
some missions have stricter requirements than others -- like an extensive
rescue mission that has you tailing guards to find a prisoner -- but even then
you can typically choose how things will play out. It’s as if the game says “All right, here’s
what you need to do. So do it. Good luck.”
And then it quite literally pushes you out of a helicopter.
I guess this is that “organic gameplay” thing
people talk about. It’s not about stringing
a player along from point A to point B; it’s about giving them a toolset to
use, and a playground to explore. Once
upon a time, that was the promise of open-world and sandbox games. The subgenre’s kind of lost its way recently,
but maybe a game like MGSV will bring
it back to the purest form. All things
considered, it probably couldn’t hurt.
But like I said, MGSV still has some level of structure. You’re plopped down in some massive
environments, though there’s no reason to worry about a million icons popping
up and telling you about your choice of chores.
There’s a specific mission you need to focus on (with optional
sub-objectives, granted), even if it’s at the other end of a canyon trek. Massive areas are given a sense of flow
thanks to the sort of mini-challenges on your way to the main objective --
outposts you may need to clear out, or buildings with all sorts of goodies you
can reap. In a sense, the game is still
pushing you from one encounter, scenario, and enemy layout to the next, just as
it did years ago. You just have a MUCH
bigger range of motion, whether it’s getting to the mission area or hiding like
a coward in the middle of it.
Maybe I’m in the minority on this, but I always
figured that in Metal Gears past,
getting into a firefight practically tripled your chance of failure. Whether it was from the camera perspective or
the finicky controls (sure, let’s use a nice enough word to describe them for
now), it felt like a conscious design choice to make shooting esoteric. If you could solve every problem with a
bullet to the head, then the “sneaking mission” would lose its oomph. In MGSV,
the devs managed to strike a good balance; sometimes it’s good to sneak around,
and sometimes it’s good to bust out the guns.
Admittedly I feel like you should start
with stealth to weed out enemy soldiers, but if for whatever reason you get
spotted, you can still make it out OK.
That really is the beauty of the game: no matter
what approach you choose, you can still carve out a win -- and have the
legendary stories to show for it. I’m
not saying that MGSV is easy, of course; it’s still more than
possible to die, especially if you screw around too much while bullets are
getting lodged in Big Boss’ picturesque ass.
The question, if it gets to a point where the bullets are flying and the
music is pumping, is how you resolve the situation. Do you bust out the machine gun and fight
back? Run at Mach speed to the other
side of Afghanistan? Fall back so you
can snipe from a distance? Find a safe
place to hide so you can outlast the heat and get back to sneaking?
MGSV’s gameplay
is a test for the player, and in more ways than one. For a game built on a bunch of guys furiously
campaigning for revenge, what’s important is that the player keeps a cool head
and doesn’t freak out when things go
wrong -- or, alternatively, they don’t snap to rage whenever their “perfect
run” gets botched. I’d imagine that even
the legendary soldier Big Boss has had to do some on-the-fly thinking when a
mission goes wrong, so it’s only natural that the game plays to that. While there’s merit in trying to score that
perfect run, it’s more about being able to complete the mission by any means
necessary. And yes, sometimes missions
can get messy; sometimes, they have to
get messy.
The degree of messiness is technically still
controllable, though. You don’t HAVE to
murder everyone in a base when things go south, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut the option is
there if you suddenly snap and decide to stop being Mr. Nice Greatest Soldier
in the World.
So here’s a question for you: what happens when
you create a game full of options and variables, and make everything that
happens the result of the player’s whims and skill (or lack thereof)? The answer: pretty much anything can happen,
with varying levels of hilarity. Here
are some highlights from my “illustrious” career, with varying levels of
triumph:
1) Blowing up four dudes simultaneously with one
grenade.
2) Using a sandstorm to try and sneakily dispatch
a bunch of soldiers -- only for the sandstorm to give out midway and reveal me
to a gunman standing five feet away.
3) Using an enemy base’s own mortar to blow up its
comms, and the tanks I had to destroy
to complete the mission
4) Trying to snipe the pilot out of a helicopter,
only to miss and draw it toward me -- wherein I hijacked a small mech and shot
it down with heavy machine gun fire
5) Hiding in a porta-john to ride out the heat --
only to have the most sincere “oh crap” moment in my life when a grenade landed
three feet in front of its door
6) Punching a sheep into unconsciousness
7) Waging a one-man assault against an entire air
base’s worth of soldiers, including infantry, snipers, gunmen manning turrets,
and mini-mech pilots…and winning in one try
Finally got a chance to use this GIF.
Helpful or harmful, glorious or groan-inducing,
there’s so much that can happen in one MGSV
mission. That really is one of its
greatest strengths; even if the story takes a backseat this time around -- as
aggravating as it might be that the last Kojima-made Metal Gear didn’t get the conclusion it deserves -- the gameplay
compensates by offering up a wealth of experiences. And since those experiences are almost
entirely the product of the player, it creates a sense of ownership. There’s a personal element, even without the
tale of Big Boss and the other Diamond Dogs demanding the player’s emotional
investment.
I can’t help but think back to Final Fantasy 10 -- how Tidus was
convinced for so long that the game was his story. That’s debatable, for sure, but I’d say that MGSV gets closer to that ideal than
most. You’re not just going on missions,
even if that’s the bulk of the game; there’s also a whole suite of upgrade and
customization options on tap. Choose
your outfit! Choose your guns! Choose your tools! Choose your items! Upgrade your guns, tools, and items! Upgrade your base! Customize your base! Go into battle with a horse, a dog, a mech,
or a scantily-clad woman! Upgrade that
horse, that dog, that mech, or that scantily-clad woman! Oh, and don’t forget to organize your
personnel! Can’t run a successful
independent country spearheaded by killer mercenaries without proper staffing!
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the
Fulton device. Basically, you steal
stuff from the field -- equipment, vehicles, containers, animals, and people --
by strapping a balloon to them so they can rocket into the sky. That opens up a lot of questions I suspect
not even Kojima himself could answer, so let’s move on.
A while back, I asked if video games need good
stories. The gist of my argument was
that ultimately, games don’t need good
stories to be good, as long as they have outstanding gameplay to fall back
on. (That’s not to excuse poor or
outright awful stories, of course, but that’s a discussion in itself.) MGSV is
proof of what games can do, and the elements the medium can take advantage of. Strong gameplay can make up for a lot of
things -- but despite what I said earlier, I’m not at a point where I can say MGSV has a bad story. Pieces of it are familiar, but it’s rendered
with a level of style and intimacy that makes for a surprisingly powerful
experience, even with something as passive as a cutscene. Not-Otacon nearly gets his leg snapped in
half -- bent backwards at the knee -- and I’ve never been made more uneasy by a
piece of fiction. (Which is weird,
because it’s usually damage to the eye that makes me tap out.)
So, where does that leave MGSV? In a really good
place, obviously. I’m not even close to
done with the game, and a part of me is thankful for that. It means that I can continue to make my own
legendary stories, however full of failure and silliness they may be. That’s cool…buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut there IS a
counterpoint to all of this. Or rather,
there’s a dark side that can’t be overlooked.
What is it?
Well, there’s only one way I can explain that. And it’ll be made possible with this.
See you next time.
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