caebl201
BACKER
The biggest video game mystery of the past decade. It's the most groundbreaking, medium-redefining experience of our generation - and nobody can explain why. I'm convinced this is all a conspiracy orchestrated by YouTube video essayists. The promise (yet unfulfilled) of The Great Open World Video Game blinds us to the fact that we've seen all of this many times before.
Fundamentally, Breath of the Wild is a pastiche of the safest, most focus-tested game design principles of the preceding decade. You could call it the 'Tower' type game. Climb a tower to unlock a new area on your map, which will reveal the repeatable skinner box activities you can complete there. Puzzles, dungeons, enemy camps, the usual. These activities give you something like XP, increased health, or a new item, which account for progression. Once you're done, you climb another tower and repeat the process until you're ready to fight the final boss (or more likely, until you're bored and ready to rush to the game's end).
That's the gameplay loop. And like every single other one of these games ever made, the loop eventually becomes a dull grind. Breath of the Wild does nothing to solve this problem endemic to open world games. Some have praised the game's traversal, which, other than shield surfing (which is cool to be fair), is really just climbing walls, riding a horse, using a glider, or fast travelling; the same traversal methods in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, released seven years earlier (Shadow of the Colossus is also a clear influence). Really I would challenge anyone to explain how Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece while Assassin's Creed is a soulless corporate product. You're playing the same game. What's the difference besides some nice vibes and a cell-shaded art style? Grass? At least Assassin's Creed has that cyberpunk meets ancient aliens meets secret societies meets historical fiction bullshit made up by French people. That's creativity.
Proponents of the game may praise the Shiekah slate physics abilities as an innovation, and that feels true at first. But eventually your enemies become too powerful for hitting them with rocks or whatever to do a thing; you'll need to use some bullshit level-scaled RPG weapon. And even if the Shiekah slate remained effective in combat, you would still end up doing this. Why? Because this game has so much dull, repeated content to wade through that it becomes easier to take the path of least resistance, the least thought required, and just hit them with your sword. 30 hours in, no player is using cool Shiekah slate tricks to clear those regenerating bokoblin camps.
Much discussion has already been had on the monotony of the 120 copy-pasted shrines, which make up the bulk of the game's content (its version of the side tasks from Assassin's Creed), and the 900 copy-pasted korok seed puzzles, which act as the collectibles obligatory of every Tower game. I won't rehash that too much here, copy-pasted content is already the most common criticism of open world games in general. But knowing that, I want to talk about something I've noticed with a lot of the praise for this game.
Some of the most common sentiments expressed toward Breath of the Wild are that it's "magical" and captures the "joy of discovery" and a sense of "childlike wonder". And I think if you play through the entire game and still feel this way, then that is a horror beyond comprehension. What was your childhood like? Did you spend it as a laboratory subject or something? Just completing mundane, repeated tasks and being awarded food pellets? Because that's what Breath of the Wild is: a world filled not with a sense of mystery or infinite possibility, but the exact opposite: A world where you know exactly what you will find under every rock, inside every strange ruin, over every next hill. A completely controlled, sterile environment of utilitarian systems for the player to exploit. Completely antithetical to anything "magical".
I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that video games fundamentally cannot represent anything magical, emotional, or spiritual. Depicting anything in interactive form drains it of all sacred meaning, makes it a joke; it's the "press f to pay respects" problem. The tenets of game design stipulate systems and mechanics that are rational and understandable to players. That might be the biggest sin of video games as an artistic medium: taking everything unquantifiable and beautiful in life and reducing it to man-made systems for a single individual to exploit (For more discussion of this issue, play the Metal Gear Solid series).
This is felt especially harshly in a Tower game like Breath of the Wild, where an entire open world is reduced to a few classes of interactive activities. Progressing through a game like this is a process of total disillusionment with the entire world; spiritual death. It accidentally replicates the central theme of Ocarina of Time: the transition from idyllic childhood to grim adulthood. But Ocarina ends with Link confronting the darkness of adulthood and returning to a childlike state of play with his adult wisdom integrated. Breath of the Wild, though, is a state of permanent adolescence - it never goes anywhere, and simply decays over time. Eventually, you exhaust all of this life's possibilities and choose to finally, mercifully end it. Deciding to face Ganon isn't about bringing the story to a climax; it's the gameplay equivalent of taking a plane to Switzerland to get euthanized. And the game practically spits in your face after you defeat him, simply reverting to an old save before the final fight. There is no salvation, no redemption for this world. Only the ceaseless march of content.
Early on I said this game's reputation is a mystery, and I actually lied; there's a pretty simple explanation, one that I briefly mentioned:grass vibes. The game has an incredible atmosphere when you're first starting out, and that's what people are talking about when they call it "a breath of fresh air" or whatever cliché they think of. It has nothing to do with any game design element found here. Because there is no common understanding of what that would even mean. There's no concept of the formal elements of game design, or the storytelling language of video games. We're all just making this shit up.
People only pay attention to, y'know, the actual art: music, animation, visuals. The game itself can be anything, nobody really cares. The discourse surrounding games as a medium of art in themselves is mostly bullshit. People appreciate the traditional artistic aspects of a game (music, animation, visuals, acting performances, writing) and then project that sense of artistry onto the game design itself, where there is none (and in fact, there is a profound dissonance between it and those elements). That's how people process games as an art form. And that's why games like Breath of the Wild are held up as the pinnacle of games as art.
(I'll also say that I have no respect for any open world game like this after the release of Metal Gear Solid V (2015). It correctly portrayed this breed of AAA open world game as something that cannot be revived or rejuvenated as Breath of the Wild attempts to do; this is all salted earth. If MGSV had been properly understood, we would have seen it as the just and merciful execution of games like this.)
Fundamentally, Breath of the Wild is a pastiche of the safest, most focus-tested game design principles of the preceding decade. You could call it the 'Tower' type game. Climb a tower to unlock a new area on your map, which will reveal the repeatable skinner box activities you can complete there. Puzzles, dungeons, enemy camps, the usual. These activities give you something like XP, increased health, or a new item, which account for progression. Once you're done, you climb another tower and repeat the process until you're ready to fight the final boss (or more likely, until you're bored and ready to rush to the game's end).
That's the gameplay loop. And like every single other one of these games ever made, the loop eventually becomes a dull grind. Breath of the Wild does nothing to solve this problem endemic to open world games. Some have praised the game's traversal, which, other than shield surfing (which is cool to be fair), is really just climbing walls, riding a horse, using a glider, or fast travelling; the same traversal methods in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, released seven years earlier (Shadow of the Colossus is also a clear influence). Really I would challenge anyone to explain how Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece while Assassin's Creed is a soulless corporate product. You're playing the same game. What's the difference besides some nice vibes and a cell-shaded art style? Grass? At least Assassin's Creed has that cyberpunk meets ancient aliens meets secret societies meets historical fiction bullshit made up by French people. That's creativity.
Proponents of the game may praise the Shiekah slate physics abilities as an innovation, and that feels true at first. But eventually your enemies become too powerful for hitting them with rocks or whatever to do a thing; you'll need to use some bullshit level-scaled RPG weapon. And even if the Shiekah slate remained effective in combat, you would still end up doing this. Why? Because this game has so much dull, repeated content to wade through that it becomes easier to take the path of least resistance, the least thought required, and just hit them with your sword. 30 hours in, no player is using cool Shiekah slate tricks to clear those regenerating bokoblin camps.
Much discussion has already been had on the monotony of the 120 copy-pasted shrines, which make up the bulk of the game's content (its version of the side tasks from Assassin's Creed), and the 900 copy-pasted korok seed puzzles, which act as the collectibles obligatory of every Tower game. I won't rehash that too much here, copy-pasted content is already the most common criticism of open world games in general. But knowing that, I want to talk about something I've noticed with a lot of the praise for this game.
Some of the most common sentiments expressed toward Breath of the Wild are that it's "magical" and captures the "joy of discovery" and a sense of "childlike wonder". And I think if you play through the entire game and still feel this way, then that is a horror beyond comprehension. What was your childhood like? Did you spend it as a laboratory subject or something? Just completing mundane, repeated tasks and being awarded food pellets? Because that's what Breath of the Wild is: a world filled not with a sense of mystery or infinite possibility, but the exact opposite: A world where you know exactly what you will find under every rock, inside every strange ruin, over every next hill. A completely controlled, sterile environment of utilitarian systems for the player to exploit. Completely antithetical to anything "magical".
I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that video games fundamentally cannot represent anything magical, emotional, or spiritual. Depicting anything in interactive form drains it of all sacred meaning, makes it a joke; it's the "press f to pay respects" problem. The tenets of game design stipulate systems and mechanics that are rational and understandable to players. That might be the biggest sin of video games as an artistic medium: taking everything unquantifiable and beautiful in life and reducing it to man-made systems for a single individual to exploit (For more discussion of this issue, play the Metal Gear Solid series).
This is felt especially harshly in a Tower game like Breath of the Wild, where an entire open world is reduced to a few classes of interactive activities. Progressing through a game like this is a process of total disillusionment with the entire world; spiritual death. It accidentally replicates the central theme of Ocarina of Time: the transition from idyllic childhood to grim adulthood. But Ocarina ends with Link confronting the darkness of adulthood and returning to a childlike state of play with his adult wisdom integrated. Breath of the Wild, though, is a state of permanent adolescence - it never goes anywhere, and simply decays over time. Eventually, you exhaust all of this life's possibilities and choose to finally, mercifully end it. Deciding to face Ganon isn't about bringing the story to a climax; it's the gameplay equivalent of taking a plane to Switzerland to get euthanized. And the game practically spits in your face after you defeat him, simply reverting to an old save before the final fight. There is no salvation, no redemption for this world. Only the ceaseless march of content.
Early on I said this game's reputation is a mystery, and I actually lied; there's a pretty simple explanation, one that I briefly mentioned:
People only pay attention to, y'know, the actual art: music, animation, visuals. The game itself can be anything, nobody really cares. The discourse surrounding games as a medium of art in themselves is mostly bullshit. People appreciate the traditional artistic aspects of a game (music, animation, visuals, acting performances, writing) and then project that sense of artistry onto the game design itself, where there is none (and in fact, there is a profound dissonance between it and those elements). That's how people process games as an art form. And that's why games like Breath of the Wild are held up as the pinnacle of games as art.
(I'll also say that I have no respect for any open world game like this after the release of Metal Gear Solid V (2015). It correctly portrayed this breed of AAA open world game as something that cannot be revived or rejuvenated as Breath of the Wild attempts to do; this is all salted earth. If MGSV had been properly understood, we would have seen it as the just and merciful execution of games like this.)
2001
As unmatched as Silent Hill 2's atmosphere is at times, with its incredible music and uncanny FMV cutscenes, I really dislike how it tackles the things it's "about". There are no real mysteries to the human unconscious here; it's all been categorized into clearly identifiable 'Themes' and 'Symbolism' based on a skim through the Wikipedia article for Sigmund Freud. There really isn't much room for interpretation or disagreement on what it all means.
The monsters represent James's repressed views toward his sick wife. The nurses represent James's sexual frustrations while visiting his wife at the hospital. Laura represents innocence and redemption. Maria represents an idealized version of his wife that he fails to hold on to. Pyramid Head represents James's endless self-flagellation. The appearance of the empty, decaying town of Silent Hill represents James's empty, decaying life. And I'm not a fan of media that can be boiled down to "this represents this", "x symbolizes y" so cleanly. It's so... sterile - like going through some kind of intro course for being able to identify themes and symbolism in art.
It's fitting then that the literal exploration of James's unconscious is similarly trivial. The game will present you with an initially daunting and unsettling place: an abandoned hospital, a labyrinthine prison - and then, right at the entrance, it hands you a map. As you explore, James marks down doors, dead ends, and puzzles, systematically demystifying anything uncertain about this place, revealing the artifice of all of this. It's just a crude process of elimination; walking door to door, checking each one off of a list. This is the problem with video games as a medium for horror: The tendency is to represent everything as a concrete, understandable 'system' or 'game mechanic' that sabotages any sense of confronting the unknown. These dilapidated ruins we explore throughout the game sure have an air of uncertainty, but in terms of our actual interaction with them, they're just video game levels, like any other.
The architecture of these spaces isn't very creative either. If you ignore all of the horror set dressing, they're mostly just regular buildings. That's unfortunate, because video games as a medium, while not entirely suited to horror, are uniquely suited to experimentation with architecture; they're the one form of media that asks the audience to personally inhabit and navigate a space. And considering Silent Hill is all essentially a dream projection, the developers could have gone in a very surreal direction. But other than a small labyrinth and one section of the hotel, you'll rarely find yourself in truly hostile or confusing geometry - the only real hostility you face is from the monsters.
And when James encounters these personifications of his most shameful repressed thoughts, how does he deal with them? Gun. The joke answer to "How would you make a video game about trauma?" After all, what did you think this was? A nuanced psychological horror/drama, the sort that you would find in an actual artistic medium? This is a video game, dude. Your actual engagement with these complex issues can only be in the most braindead ways imaginable.
Maybe this would be forgivable if the combat had more complexity than the story - but it doesn't. James is supposed to be a wimpy civilian, but thanks to auto-aim he shoots like a trained sniper. Even this would be excusable, though, if it weren't for the essentially limitless ammunition scattered thoughtlessly throughout the map. These two aspects come together to make combat a formality. The only way to really fail is to allow enemies to close distance with you and do melee damage. Then again, health potions are plentiful (and can be used while the game is paused), making even this threat moot. You can try to address these issues by turning the difficulty up, but this just turns the monsters into bullet sponges. That may fix the overabundance of ammo, but it also heightens the core absurdity of this game; you'll find yourself standing there, mashing square to unload shell after shell into a video game monster that represents depression. As you do that, ask yourself: is this really the height of "interactive art" or whatever people claim this game is?
Maybe my attitude toward SH2 is unfair; I will admit that the devs continuing to answer questions and debunk fan theories online 20 years later gives me a less favorable outlook. It could be my fault for letting content outside of the game ruin it for me. But I don't think that's completely it. The game itself seems to eschew any subtlety in its message, and the developers openly explaining the game's meaning online seems like a continuation of that lack of subtlety. I honestly think even the Metal Gear Solid series has infinitely more layers of hidden thematic meaning than anything you'll find here.
One thing I will give the game credit for though is how it assigns you an ending based on the psychology of how you play. If you fight recklessly and always seem to be an inch from death, the game is more likely to end with James taking his own life - reflecting the player's apparent death drive. And examining the knife (Angela's would-be suicide weapon) too many times can also result in James's own suicide; a great representation of suicide as a social contagion. Even if James retains the will to live, getting too attached to Maria will result in an ending where he loses all grip on reality. To achieve true redemption for James, the player must keep him in good health, avoid contemplating suicide, and keep Maria at arm's length while respecting the memory of his wife. This is a genuinely innovative way to implement psychological storytelling in a video game and I haven't seen anything else like it. And most importantly, this process is entirely mystified to the player; you don't see a tally of "depression points" or a scale between Mary and Maria telling you which ending you're leaning towards as you play. Unless you read the wiki, the game's process of assigning you an ending is a complete mystery - as it should be.
It's a shame the rest of the mechanics are so by-the-numbers, because this game's stellar art design deserved equally creative game design. And while it may have been a milestone for video game storytelling in 2001 (but then again, was it really?), I honestly think the medium has done a lot better, before and since.
The monsters represent James's repressed views toward his sick wife. The nurses represent James's sexual frustrations while visiting his wife at the hospital. Laura represents innocence and redemption. Maria represents an idealized version of his wife that he fails to hold on to. Pyramid Head represents James's endless self-flagellation. The appearance of the empty, decaying town of Silent Hill represents James's empty, decaying life. And I'm not a fan of media that can be boiled down to "this represents this", "x symbolizes y" so cleanly. It's so... sterile - like going through some kind of intro course for being able to identify themes and symbolism in art.
It's fitting then that the literal exploration of James's unconscious is similarly trivial. The game will present you with an initially daunting and unsettling place: an abandoned hospital, a labyrinthine prison - and then, right at the entrance, it hands you a map. As you explore, James marks down doors, dead ends, and puzzles, systematically demystifying anything uncertain about this place, revealing the artifice of all of this. It's just a crude process of elimination; walking door to door, checking each one off of a list. This is the problem with video games as a medium for horror: The tendency is to represent everything as a concrete, understandable 'system' or 'game mechanic' that sabotages any sense of confronting the unknown. These dilapidated ruins we explore throughout the game sure have an air of uncertainty, but in terms of our actual interaction with them, they're just video game levels, like any other.
The architecture of these spaces isn't very creative either. If you ignore all of the horror set dressing, they're mostly just regular buildings. That's unfortunate, because video games as a medium, while not entirely suited to horror, are uniquely suited to experimentation with architecture; they're the one form of media that asks the audience to personally inhabit and navigate a space. And considering Silent Hill is all essentially a dream projection, the developers could have gone in a very surreal direction. But other than a small labyrinth and one section of the hotel, you'll rarely find yourself in truly hostile or confusing geometry - the only real hostility you face is from the monsters.
And when James encounters these personifications of his most shameful repressed thoughts, how does he deal with them? Gun. The joke answer to "How would you make a video game about trauma?" After all, what did you think this was? A nuanced psychological horror/drama, the sort that you would find in an actual artistic medium? This is a video game, dude. Your actual engagement with these complex issues can only be in the most braindead ways imaginable.
Maybe this would be forgivable if the combat had more complexity than the story - but it doesn't. James is supposed to be a wimpy civilian, but thanks to auto-aim he shoots like a trained sniper. Even this would be excusable, though, if it weren't for the essentially limitless ammunition scattered thoughtlessly throughout the map. These two aspects come together to make combat a formality. The only way to really fail is to allow enemies to close distance with you and do melee damage. Then again, health potions are plentiful (and can be used while the game is paused), making even this threat moot. You can try to address these issues by turning the difficulty up, but this just turns the monsters into bullet sponges. That may fix the overabundance of ammo, but it also heightens the core absurdity of this game; you'll find yourself standing there, mashing square to unload shell after shell into a video game monster that represents depression. As you do that, ask yourself: is this really the height of "interactive art" or whatever people claim this game is?
Maybe my attitude toward SH2 is unfair; I will admit that the devs continuing to answer questions and debunk fan theories online 20 years later gives me a less favorable outlook. It could be my fault for letting content outside of the game ruin it for me. But I don't think that's completely it. The game itself seems to eschew any subtlety in its message, and the developers openly explaining the game's meaning online seems like a continuation of that lack of subtlety. I honestly think even the Metal Gear Solid series has infinitely more layers of hidden thematic meaning than anything you'll find here.
One thing I will give the game credit for though is how it assigns you an ending based on the psychology of how you play. If you fight recklessly and always seem to be an inch from death, the game is more likely to end with James taking his own life - reflecting the player's apparent death drive. And examining the knife (Angela's would-be suicide weapon) too many times can also result in James's own suicide; a great representation of suicide as a social contagion. Even if James retains the will to live, getting too attached to Maria will result in an ending where he loses all grip on reality. To achieve true redemption for James, the player must keep him in good health, avoid contemplating suicide, and keep Maria at arm's length while respecting the memory of his wife. This is a genuinely innovative way to implement psychological storytelling in a video game and I haven't seen anything else like it. And most importantly, this process is entirely mystified to the player; you don't see a tally of "depression points" or a scale between Mary and Maria telling you which ending you're leaning towards as you play. Unless you read the wiki, the game's process of assigning you an ending is a complete mystery - as it should be.
It's a shame the rest of the mechanics are so by-the-numbers, because this game's stellar art design deserved equally creative game design. And while it may have been a milestone for video game storytelling in 2001 (but then again, was it really?), I honestly think the medium has done a lot better, before and since.
2024
This review was written before the game released
We need a total and complete shutdown of all remakes until we can figure out what the hell is going on
The most anti-American game ever made.
Kojima charged Americans $30 to play through a guided tour of Guantanamo Bay that ends with a shot-for-shot recreation of 9/11 - except America is doing it. I mean look at this fucking shot. It's unmistakable.
Kojima charged Americans $30 to play through a guided tour of Guantanamo Bay that ends with a shot-for-shot recreation of 9/11 - except America is doing it. I mean look at this fucking shot. It's unmistakable.
1998
Trapped at the end of history, where humanity refuses to evolve. Not even total nuclear war really moved history forward. You could nuke the world five times over and still the survivors would huddle around a trash fire and drop Monty Python references.
Every character in this game is LARPing. LARPing as Vegas gangsters, knights of yore, 80's boxing champions, indigenous tribes, and whatever long dead culture they can scavenge from the rubble and haphazardly imitate. Humanity is recycling old ideas, systems, and aesthetics. It's a world of pastiche, everything a caricature of a caricature with no original. One of the enemies you can encounter is a malfunctioning pre-war robot that shouts references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie no living person remembers at this point. That feels like a good summation of Fallout 2.
I don't know if this was intentional or not; maybe it's a just a consequence of Fallout itself being a pastiche of other cultural influences, or maybe it's self-aware. But the inability to move on from the past and create something new is clearly a theme they aimed for with this game, which is why the Enclave are the antagonists. They're the zombified corpse of the United States, and all that remains behind its dead eyes is the drive to rape and pillage the world and eventually, the stars. Fallout 2's vision of America is one giant CIA death squad squatting on an oil rig in the Pacific that can do nothing but consume everything in its path. These are the people responsible for the end of the world; they're a rabid dog that can't be reasoned with, only put down. It's fitting then that the final boss, Frank Horrigan, can't be talked down like his counterpart in Fallout 1. You have to kill him. And when you do, you may view that thematically as a final banishment of the old world, so now something new, like the NCR, can move the world forward and let go of the past.
But what are the NCR? They're just the Enclave from 350 years prior. They're directly modeled after the US government, except with some vague idea that they've learned from America's mistakes and are the better, truer fulfillment of its lofty ideals. But the differences are only superficial, and they'll eventually repeat those same mistakes (which is exactly what happens in New Vegas). The NCR has no industrial capacity and is relegated to scavenging and repurposing knowledge and tech from the old US. They never even had a chance to be different when they're so dependent on recycling America's technological, cultural, and political innovations. These are the people who are supposed to usher in a new era? It really portrays the world of Fallout as one with no future, where the same cycle of apocalyptic destruction driven by conflict over limited resources will happen again and again, because we are all haunted by the same failed systems. Instead of wiping the slate clean, the destruction and collective trauma of the Great War has robbed humanity of its capacity to imagine a future. "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
This is all very conceptually interesting - too bad the gameplay itself kind of falls apart in Fallout 2. In a very thematically appropriate move, the developers reused the engine, music, and assets of Fallout 1 and stretched them beyond their limits for the sequel. As a result, the game feels pretty agonizing to play at times; fights can go on for excruciating lengths due to the higher number of enemies, and they get sadistically difficult. The map is bigger making travel impractical unless you get the Highwayman (which is actually really cool to be fair), cities are bigger and are painfully long and monotonous to traverse, and there are so many more characters, very few of which have the memorable talking heads of the original.
And in general, there are a lot of design changes that make this game feel not as well-crafted as the first, like the Temple of Trials replacing the quick and simple cave start in Fallout 1, or the removal of the time limit getting rid of the focusing sense of urgency the original had. The main quest is longer and more padded out too, taking about twice as long to complete without really justifying the length. Fallout 2 had to be bigger than the first so it could feel like a proper sequel (which, in the 90s, also meant making the game harder), and because of that I think it highlighted how archaic and simple the engine was - a fact that actually didn't feel as noticeable to me while playing Fallout 1. It probably didn't help that they also released this game only a year after the first, which is pretty apparent given how unfinished and stapled together the game can feel in places. San Francisco is probably the best example of how this game is barely functional at times.
What ultimately makes this game a good sequel to me though is that it adds so much depth to the story told by the original. Fallout 2 is the exact nightmarish outcome the Master wanted to avert. He was the only one who saw the world's stagnation clearly and had a true vision of another way, one that required humanity to essentially shed its old skin. Forcing us to Evolve, literally and figuratively, to end this inescapable stagnation and get history moving forward once more. By assimilating every single person into the Unity, there would be no more conflict - just peaceful redistribution of resources based on our shared goals. We could finally see ourselves as something new, unburdened by humanity's past.
But it doesn't matter whether you think he was right or wrong. The Master's plan was doomed from the start and would have lead to its own Children of Men style world, as we find out in Fallout 1. And you can't cling on to the disappointments of history and wish things could have been different. You have to keep living and have enough faith to try and build something new and different, like Marcus in Broken Hills - even if there's a slim chance it will work out.
Every character in this game is LARPing. LARPing as Vegas gangsters, knights of yore, 80's boxing champions, indigenous tribes, and whatever long dead culture they can scavenge from the rubble and haphazardly imitate. Humanity is recycling old ideas, systems, and aesthetics. It's a world of pastiche, everything a caricature of a caricature with no original. One of the enemies you can encounter is a malfunctioning pre-war robot that shouts references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie no living person remembers at this point. That feels like a good summation of Fallout 2.
I don't know if this was intentional or not; maybe it's a just a consequence of Fallout itself being a pastiche of other cultural influences, or maybe it's self-aware. But the inability to move on from the past and create something new is clearly a theme they aimed for with this game, which is why the Enclave are the antagonists. They're the zombified corpse of the United States, and all that remains behind its dead eyes is the drive to rape and pillage the world and eventually, the stars. Fallout 2's vision of America is one giant CIA death squad squatting on an oil rig in the Pacific that can do nothing but consume everything in its path. These are the people responsible for the end of the world; they're a rabid dog that can't be reasoned with, only put down. It's fitting then that the final boss, Frank Horrigan, can't be talked down like his counterpart in Fallout 1. You have to kill him. And when you do, you may view that thematically as a final banishment of the old world, so now something new, like the NCR, can move the world forward and let go of the past.
But what are the NCR? They're just the Enclave from 350 years prior. They're directly modeled after the US government, except with some vague idea that they've learned from America's mistakes and are the better, truer fulfillment of its lofty ideals. But the differences are only superficial, and they'll eventually repeat those same mistakes (which is exactly what happens in New Vegas). The NCR has no industrial capacity and is relegated to scavenging and repurposing knowledge and tech from the old US. They never even had a chance to be different when they're so dependent on recycling America's technological, cultural, and political innovations. These are the people who are supposed to usher in a new era? It really portrays the world of Fallout as one with no future, where the same cycle of apocalyptic destruction driven by conflict over limited resources will happen again and again, because we are all haunted by the same failed systems. Instead of wiping the slate clean, the destruction and collective trauma of the Great War has robbed humanity of its capacity to imagine a future. "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
This is all very conceptually interesting - too bad the gameplay itself kind of falls apart in Fallout 2. In a very thematically appropriate move, the developers reused the engine, music, and assets of Fallout 1 and stretched them beyond their limits for the sequel. As a result, the game feels pretty agonizing to play at times; fights can go on for excruciating lengths due to the higher number of enemies, and they get sadistically difficult. The map is bigger making travel impractical unless you get the Highwayman (which is actually really cool to be fair), cities are bigger and are painfully long and monotonous to traverse, and there are so many more characters, very few of which have the memorable talking heads of the original.
And in general, there are a lot of design changes that make this game feel not as well-crafted as the first, like the Temple of Trials replacing the quick and simple cave start in Fallout 1, or the removal of the time limit getting rid of the focusing sense of urgency the original had. The main quest is longer and more padded out too, taking about twice as long to complete without really justifying the length. Fallout 2 had to be bigger than the first so it could feel like a proper sequel (which, in the 90s, also meant making the game harder), and because of that I think it highlighted how archaic and simple the engine was - a fact that actually didn't feel as noticeable to me while playing Fallout 1. It probably didn't help that they also released this game only a year after the first, which is pretty apparent given how unfinished and stapled together the game can feel in places. San Francisco is probably the best example of how this game is barely functional at times.
What ultimately makes this game a good sequel to me though is that it adds so much depth to the story told by the original. Fallout 2 is the exact nightmarish outcome the Master wanted to avert. He was the only one who saw the world's stagnation clearly and had a true vision of another way, one that required humanity to essentially shed its old skin. Forcing us to Evolve, literally and figuratively, to end this inescapable stagnation and get history moving forward once more. By assimilating every single person into the Unity, there would be no more conflict - just peaceful redistribution of resources based on our shared goals. We could finally see ourselves as something new, unburdened by humanity's past.
But it doesn't matter whether you think he was right or wrong. The Master's plan was doomed from the start and would have lead to its own Children of Men style world, as we find out in Fallout 1. And you can't cling on to the disappointments of history and wish things could have been different. You have to keep living and have enough faith to try and build something new and different, like Marcus in Broken Hills - even if there's a slim chance it will work out.
The true reveal of Metal Gear Solid 2 is not that we play as Raiden instead of Solid Snake - it's that the antagonist of the game does not exist. It's pulling back the curtain to find that the man behind it died a century ago. The most powerful nation on Earth is essentially an algorithm with a mind of its own, akin to a runaway train that everyone "in charge" pretends they are responsible for. There is no individual you get to blame. Not the politicians, not the CEOs of major corporations. Not even the current or former presidents of the United States have any idea of what's really going on. The algorithm will replace these people the second they stop being useful. In my opinion it's a much better conception of "the system" than what you see in most conspiracy fiction: a small, shadowy cabal of people pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The reality is that all of the powerful people we blame are just the ones who managed to latch on to the algorithm of capitalism and milk it for all they can. There is no grand design, nobody is in control, everyone responsible for setting this system into motion is long dead. Which is why Otacon says the Patriots "have been dead for 100 years".
Every choice you (and Raiden) make perpetuates this status quo, and every radical political cause (like Snake and Otacon's 'Philanthropy') is effortlessly co-opted by it. MGS2 conveys this idea in a way that only a video game could: By playing as Raiden, you are forced to directly confront the futility of any resistance. You can approach MGS2 in a million different ways with an expansive arsenal of tools, getting no kills or alerts and discovering every secret in the Big Shell, or do the exact opposite. But the end result is always the same: You kill Solidus, the only threat to the Patriots, after they explicitly tell you it's exactly what they want. If you opt out entirely and "turn the game console off" you're still doing something you were ordered to do. Even if you choose not to play, you lose to the Patriots. MGS2 places you in the position of the post-information age, digital subject: Imbued with detailed knowledge of every single way you are being oppressed and exploited, you still choose to follow orders. You are so overwhelmed by information, some true, some false, that is causes a kind of exasperated compliance.
This is simultaneously a commentary on the nature of video game stories as an immutable, pre-programmed series of events not as different from film narratives as we like to think; Any "choice" is always an illusion, whether it's in Metal Gear Solid or a Telltale game. Any game that sets out to fulfill the concept of "player freedom" in its story will always fail. Video games stories are (at their best) about interactivity, not choice. They let you play out a pre-ordained role and do some improvisation, not write the story. Kojima understands this, and it's why he borrows so much from film. It's also why the criticism that his games are too much like movies is kind of pointless; he's just recognizing the inherent similarities of the two mediums.
On a less meta level, this lack of free will in MGS2 underscores the reality that capitalism, American empire, the very norms and values of American society, whatever the antagonist of the game is - cannot be destroyed from within. It is a system that has achieved self-awareness. Any possible attempt to destroy it has already been anticipated with an infinite number of contingencies. Emma Emmerich gave her life to destroy the GW AI and it was just replaced with a backup. The battle has already been lost, and it was decided by a microscopic processor in a fraction of a second. Solidus (a perfect stand-in for the kind of right-wing populist we wouldn't see for awhile in 2001) was the only person in power trying to oppose the Patriots, but his fatal mistake was believing that the Patriots were essentially a deep state globalist cabal, rather than the nigh omnipresent force they really are (they aren't really a "they", but an "it"). Like Snake said, "the Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction". But even the legendary Solid Snake, the archetypal hero who opposes the system with clear-eyed determination, is completely dumbfounded after the credits roll.
And that's because this enemy is simply beyond the abilities of one man, even if that man is a Snake. It can just create its own soldier to surpass Solid(us) Snake and even mass-produce them, and your actions throughout the game prove it. No tactical espionage action can defeat what is essentially an idea - one that has infiltrated the furthest depths of the human soul. The only hope lies on a society-wide level: An alternative has to be built by everyone from the ground up, through finding what is true and meaningful in life and passing it on to the next generation. Slowly, generation by generation, an alternative capable of opposing the great algorithm can be built. And it has to be one that people can have faith in, in a spiritual sense.
But the encroachment of the internet into our lives is making this less and less feasible. By replacing the traditional nuclear-armed metal gear with Arsenal Gear, an AI that controls the internet, Kojima is essentially framing the internet itself as a threat equal to or greater than that of nuclear weapons. It is an instrument of human separation much more powerful than the splitting of an atom. The quote at the beginning of Raiden's chapter tying computers and nuclear weapons together bolsters this interpretation.
The digital age has turned human life into a scrambled mess that is impossible to parse. We create entirely idiosyncratic, patchwork realities for ourselves by finding various "truths" through our own individual exploration of the internet and jury-rigging them together. We relate to each other less and less, and mental illness is widespread. This overload of information makes us increasingly neurotic, isolated, and unable to determine truth from fiction. The collective human mind is being broken (or at least pounded into a new shape) against the collective neuroses of the internet, and nobody knows what to do about it. We're all alone right now, each of us left with the isolating task of finding our own truth amidst the cacophony. Even the algorithm fears for our future, yet it's still the only entity with a solution: Censorship. Make the noise stop. Honestly, has anyone thought of a better idea?
Every choice you (and Raiden) make perpetuates this status quo, and every radical political cause (like Snake and Otacon's 'Philanthropy') is effortlessly co-opted by it. MGS2 conveys this idea in a way that only a video game could: By playing as Raiden, you are forced to directly confront the futility of any resistance. You can approach MGS2 in a million different ways with an expansive arsenal of tools, getting no kills or alerts and discovering every secret in the Big Shell, or do the exact opposite. But the end result is always the same: You kill Solidus, the only threat to the Patriots, after they explicitly tell you it's exactly what they want. If you opt out entirely and "turn the game console off" you're still doing something you were ordered to do. Even if you choose not to play, you lose to the Patriots. MGS2 places you in the position of the post-information age, digital subject: Imbued with detailed knowledge of every single way you are being oppressed and exploited, you still choose to follow orders. You are so overwhelmed by information, some true, some false, that is causes a kind of exasperated compliance.
This is simultaneously a commentary on the nature of video game stories as an immutable, pre-programmed series of events not as different from film narratives as we like to think; Any "choice" is always an illusion, whether it's in Metal Gear Solid or a Telltale game. Any game that sets out to fulfill the concept of "player freedom" in its story will always fail. Video games stories are (at their best) about interactivity, not choice. They let you play out a pre-ordained role and do some improvisation, not write the story. Kojima understands this, and it's why he borrows so much from film. It's also why the criticism that his games are too much like movies is kind of pointless; he's just recognizing the inherent similarities of the two mediums.
On a less meta level, this lack of free will in MGS2 underscores the reality that capitalism, American empire, the very norms and values of American society, whatever the antagonist of the game is - cannot be destroyed from within. It is a system that has achieved self-awareness. Any possible attempt to destroy it has already been anticipated with an infinite number of contingencies. Emma Emmerich gave her life to destroy the GW AI and it was just replaced with a backup. The battle has already been lost, and it was decided by a microscopic processor in a fraction of a second. Solidus (a perfect stand-in for the kind of right-wing populist we wouldn't see for awhile in 2001) was the only person in power trying to oppose the Patriots, but his fatal mistake was believing that the Patriots were essentially a deep state globalist cabal, rather than the nigh omnipresent force they really are (they aren't really a "they", but an "it"). Like Snake said, "the Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction". But even the legendary Solid Snake, the archetypal hero who opposes the system with clear-eyed determination, is completely dumbfounded after the credits roll.
And that's because this enemy is simply beyond the abilities of one man, even if that man is a Snake. It can just create its own soldier to surpass Solid(us) Snake and even mass-produce them, and your actions throughout the game prove it. No tactical espionage action can defeat what is essentially an idea - one that has infiltrated the furthest depths of the human soul. The only hope lies on a society-wide level: An alternative has to be built by everyone from the ground up, through finding what is true and meaningful in life and passing it on to the next generation. Slowly, generation by generation, an alternative capable of opposing the great algorithm can be built. And it has to be one that people can have faith in, in a spiritual sense.
But the encroachment of the internet into our lives is making this less and less feasible. By replacing the traditional nuclear-armed metal gear with Arsenal Gear, an AI that controls the internet, Kojima is essentially framing the internet itself as a threat equal to or greater than that of nuclear weapons. It is an instrument of human separation much more powerful than the splitting of an atom. The quote at the beginning of Raiden's chapter tying computers and nuclear weapons together bolsters this interpretation.
The digital age has turned human life into a scrambled mess that is impossible to parse. We create entirely idiosyncratic, patchwork realities for ourselves by finding various "truths" through our own individual exploration of the internet and jury-rigging them together. We relate to each other less and less, and mental illness is widespread. This overload of information makes us increasingly neurotic, isolated, and unable to determine truth from fiction. The collective human mind is being broken (or at least pounded into a new shape) against the collective neuroses of the internet, and nobody knows what to do about it. We're all alone right now, each of us left with the isolating task of finding our own truth amidst the cacophony. Even the algorithm fears for our future, yet it's still the only entity with a solution: Censorship. Make the noise stop. Honestly, has anyone thought of a better idea?
With the Phantom Pain, Kojima avoids the kind of spectacular descent into villainy that the fans wanted and the trailers promised. Instead he gives us the Sopranos season 6 of Metal Gear (but instead of a depressed mobster, we play as a depressed war criminal). Maybe that sounds like one of those hack game journalist "the dark souls of x" comparisons but it's true. The best case scenario for all of our favorite characters at this point is a swift death.
Spoilers below.
After losing everything in9/11 Ground Zeroes, having his mind and body shattered, Snake just... gets what's left of the gang back together, rebuilds his army, and tries the exact same shit again. Only now, it is completely devoid of purpose; The revolutionary anti-imperialist cause of the 70's is all but forgotten. There's a sinking feeling of dread as the camera pans to "our new Mother Base" in the helicopter after rescuing Kaz; an undeniable sense of this being a pointless, doomed effort. But since being a soldier is the only thing these people know how to do, they are stuck repeating the cycle. They're just going through the motions at this point; You really get a sense of that as the once charismatic and driven Big Boss is rendered a mute with a permanent thousand-yard stare who just does whatever Kaz and Ocelot tell him. When he's at the base between these missions he just stares at nothing and vapes for five hours straight. Far from the badass antihero that people expected from trailers. Venom Snake is actually kind of a directionless loser, which makes him just as good of a player stand-in as Raiden.
And the missions in this game, while incredibly fun and well-made, really beg the age-old American question "What are we even doing in Afghanistan?". The plot feels totally incomprehensible at times; you spend the whole game going after random acronym organizations, shell companies, and mercenary groups with some vague connection toBin Laden Skullface and al-Qaeda the American deep-state/Cipher. But every single character is lying and basically, everyone is Cipher. I had to repeat mission briefings multiple times at certain points to figure out what the hell was going on, and I still really don't. You could say that's just bad writing, but it works for what the game is trying to do, which is to make you feel like someone with a severe head injury. You're not supposed to understand this convoluted imperial entanglement - no one can. Especially not someone as fucked up as Snake.
And like Snake, the returning characters from Peace Walker are reduced to these broken versions of themselves. The only person who seems to be doing well is Ocelot, who has really come into his own as the sort dead-eyed psychopath that thrives in this kind of environment. Honestly? Good for him. Kaz on the other hand is a crippled, traumatized husk driven by revenge which is in turn driven by his own guilty conscience, and Huey has become a delusional, pathological liar focused solely on self-preservation. The few unnamed soldiers who survived9/11 Ground Zeroes are literally running around as raving lunatics in the wilderness. All of these people were supposed to die a decade ago, and instead they linger on as hollow men. Even the metal gear Snake fights is broken - it literally doesn't work without someone's magical powers. It's just this technological abomination created by a madman. When it tries to chase Snake it gets stuck in rocks because its sheer size is self-defeating, and Snake easily sneaks away. Probably the most obvious meta joke in the game (watch the last couple minutes of the launch trailer and tell me the game isn't making fun of itself). These Metal Gear (Solid)s aren't what they used to be. I mean come on, Metal Gear Rex roared like a T-Rex; Metal Gear Sahelanthropus... makes monkey noises.
Even Skullface, who was built up in trailers and in Ground Zeroes as this terrifying villain, turns out to be just a sad joke like everyone else. His plan is the most nonsensical, harebrained shit ever explained by a villain in any Metal Gear game. He spent a decade practicing a 10 minute theatrical monologue about why he has to eradicate the English language and give everybody nuclear weapons to unite the world. It makes absolutely no sense, it's a parody of Metal Gear villains, which were already parodies of 80's movie villains. While Skullface is performing his monologue in the jeep (to the wrong person), Venom just hits him with that fluoride stare and loops through a 20 second idle animation. Then Sins of the Father just... starts playing as they sit across from each other in complete silence and avoid eye contact. It's one of the funniest scenes in the entire series, mistaken by many fans as simply botched and awkward on accident (rather than on purpose, which it was). And if that wasn't obvious enough, Skullface's defeat is just straight up slapstick comedy; he gets crushed by his own non-functional Metal Gear in the middle of another absurd speech. Genuine comedy gold.
I think a lot of people overlook the humor in this game. It's a lot more muted and sad than in the rest of the series, but it's smarter here than in any other entry. Miller's "why are we still here" speech is MEANT TO BE FUNNY AND OVERLY MELODRAMATIC, as well as depressing and hard to watch. The way it ends, with that uncomfortable silence before he just... awkwardly sits back down? That was on purpose. The tone is that this has all become a very pathetic (and funny) spectacle at this point. Kojima's famously asinine dialogue becomes something really transcendent here; each hollow, ham-fisted statement really drives home the fact that everyone is just making this shit up as they go along now, trying to weave some bullshit heroic narrative out of a long series of L's. Kojima is telling us: "This is you dude. This is the American Empire. Your War on Terror is as darkly funny as it is monstrous." MGSV isn't the self-serious death march the trailers painted it as.
The way V's cutscenes are shot adds to these moments too. The shaky, handheld camera builds documentarian realism and a sense of witnessing real atrocities in more high-stakes scenes, but can also lend a comedic awkwardness to these exchanges between characters. I've seen someone compare it to The Office as a criticism but I think that's a feature and not a bug, as strange as it sounds. Somehow, it just works so well for the tonal balancing act this game maintains. But what really elevates V's cinematography thematically is its use of continuous shots. One-takes are often criticized as being essentially a gimmick, style over substance. But in Metal Gear Solid, a series defined by the juxtaposition between hard military realism and over the top fantasy? It's pure genius. Having all of this insane Kojima bullshit captured in documentary style is so fitting for this series. Perfectly hyperreal.
Speaking of hyperreal, let's talk about Quiet. I've thought a lot about whether her portrayal plays into Kojima's contempt for the audience (and the Metal Gear series itself for that matter) or if it's just a part of the game that didn't land. I was inspired by this article to conclude the former. In classic Metal Gear fashion, Quiet's characterization is ridiculous and offensive, but ends up transcending its low-brow trappings and having an emotional payoff - all while playing into a greater meta-narrative. And if you don't like that method of storytelling, then you sure picked the wrong media franchise. That scene of her speaking for the first time to guide the helicopter through the sandstorm is genuinely great. It perfectly encapsulates Kojima's ability to make something ridiculous, cheesy, and melodramatic - but still deeply affecting and with a lot of heart.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves; Quiet is absolutely a biting self-parody of Kojima's own portrayal of women throughout his series and in the wider industry. It's Kojima saying "Is this what you like, you sick fucks?" or possibly a case of introspection on his part ("Oh God, is this what I like?"). She has some hastily made up bullshit explaining why she wears no clothes, she is literally incapable of speaking for herself, and she undergoes gratuitous violence and imprisonment. Kojima obviously knows how ridiculous this is; he's seen basically every American movie, he knows this isn't how you're supposed to respectfully portray women. No, Quiet's portrayal is purposefully exploitative. Her objectification starts out fairly straightforward, but it becomes more and more disturbing for the player to partake in as the game goes on, in order to heighten the dark absurdity of all of this (particularly in Chapter 2, which is where everything in the game falls apart, on purpose). The point of Quiet's character, and the whole game really, is to give players exactly what they want in the most contemptuous way possible. To make you "feel ashamed of your words and deeds", you could even say. MGSV is about getting exactly what you want (another MGS game, endless content, revenge on Skullface, a sniper gf) and resenting it.
To build on MGSV's portrayal of women though, I think it's important that Paz takes on the role that she does in this game. She makes an initially very confusing reappearance - that first moment when you see her is genuinely unnerving, as if even the strange, fucked up Metal Gear reality we have become accustomed to can't explain what we're seeing. Out of all the unrealistic fantasy bullshit we've seen in this series, a series where it feels like anything goes and there are no rules or laws of physics, this is the first moment where I went "Wait, what? How?" But as we find at the end of "Paz's" side story, this is all just a projection of Snake's fragmented psyche. It's incredible in the way it makes you question what's real and what isn't, while simultaneously using Paz as a proxy to just straight up diagnose Snake's own mental disorders. But it's tucked away where most probably never saw it - like a hidden repressed memory somewhere in Snake's mind.
It perfectly conveys his nostalgia for a time that was never even good, as well as his crushing guilt and helplessness over the death of Paz. It's genuinely moving. That last tape of hers is something right out of Silent Hill 2, and it adds such depth to Snake as this miserable person that you should absolutely not want to be. For Snake, women really are just these fixtures of loss, shame, and regret - feelings that no doubt originate from the killing of his mother figure, The Boss. And despite all of the talk about getting revenge and taking down Cipher, the only time we ever see Snake get animated in this game is in his scenes with Paz. Snake's desire for redemption, his insistence on nuclear disarmament that feels strangely out of place, and his statement at the start of the game that he's "already a demon"? It's all about Paz, man.
One thing fans really disliked about Snake's portrayal though is that he never really seems to become the demon we knew him as in the early games. We never get to see The Exact Moment Walt Became Heisenberg. Quite the opposite; his intentions appear to remain heroic all the way to the end. The only scene where Snake approaches the kind of evil fans wanted to see is when Snake appears to murder the children in the mines but ends up saving them instead. In trailers this was depicted as if Snake actually goes through with the murder; to me, this is the smoking gun of another Kojima bait-and-switch. Fans wanted a game full of shocking, flashy acts of villainy on the part of Snake, and Kojima deliberately lead them on in trailers (just like in MGS2) but denied them of it in the final game. What did fans get instead? Spreadsheets.
Don't miss the forest for the trees; Snake is absolutely responsible for unimaginable atrocities during the events of MGSV. But instead of sensationalist images of man's inhumanity to man, Kojima shows us the banal cruelty of what it really means to be at the top of the war machine: You're just... on the computer, like everyone else. And everything you're doing is represented through so many layers of abstraction that it is impossible to understand the consequences. This ties directly into the themes of Metal Gear Solid 2 as well; by issuing your orders via this computer interface, you are even further removed from what is happening in reality. You just do a cursory cost-benefit analysis before sending the next death squad to do god knows what in some African or South American country you don't even know the name of.
And when a disease outbreak hits Mother Base, Snake's iDroid computer makes it easy for him to commit ethnic cleansing, sentencing scores of people to imprisonment and death for the language they speak. It isn't until all of the digital artifice is stripped away, and Venom is forced to enter the quarantine zone and personally slaughter his own men, that he has any crisis of conscience (and you actually lose some of your best men, because Kojima never fails to give the story actual weight via game mechanics). And you can say "Venom didn't want to do it, he had no choice." But that's exactly the point. If the Metal Gear Solid series is about one thing, it's about individual will being crushed under the weight of systems and institutions that have become organisms in and of themselves.
It doesn't matter how much Venom yearns for redemption. It doesn't even matter if he's in charge of Diamond Dogs. The system of global private warfare that Big Boss and friends established has taken on a life of its own, just like the Patriots of MGS2. His own intentions are irrelevant. If this system demands he kill his own men, he will do it. If this system demands that Raiden later kill Solidus, he too will do it. All actions within the system, regardless of intent, perpetuate the cycle of violence, war, and profit. Even if Venom disarms all of the nukes and brings about the Peace Day that never came for Paz, it just sets up the nuke free world that we hear about Big Boss exploiting in the intro to Metal Gear 2.
That's why everything in MGSV takes on such a hilariously pathetic flavor. Nobody, not Big Boss, not Zero, not Skullface, not Venom, has any agency in any of this. They're just flailing, looking for anything they can do to enact their will in a system that now imprisons its own creators. The only person who manages to achieve victory over the system by the (chronological) end of the series is, once again, Revolver Ocelot. And he only does so by shedding all individuality, tearing his mind into a thousand schizophrenic pieces to always be one step ahead of the algorithm. And it's all because he wants to fuck Big Boss. In the end love wins, and I think that's beautiful. But for everyone else, they are doomed to perpetuate the system they so desperately want to be free of.
And to what end? The truth is that there is no point to this system beyond its own self-perpetuation - it's a Snake eating its own tail (pretty good, huh?). The soldiers of Diamond Dogs, and every other PMC, kill so that they can keep killing. It's all for the love of the game at this point. Sure, they did the same thing back in Peace Walker, but at least back then it felt like you were blazing a new trail, sending a ragtag band of freedom fighters to oppose imperialism - that's long gone now. Any lofty goals this organization may have had are now lying somewhere at the bottom of the Caribbean. All of the bullshit Snake and Kaz spout about "fighting for the future" and "standing tall on missing legs" are just words to talk the gun out of their own mouths, to convince themselves that they are still moving toward something.
But they aren't. In the end, after killing Skullface (which was made purposefully unsatisfying according to Kojima) as revenge for the events that destroyed his life a decade ago, Snake is left to rot in a hell of his own creation. There are no holiday celebrations or fun outings like on the Mother Base of Peace Walker, and it's far lonelier; Quiet is gone, Huey is gone, Paz is long dead but still haunts him, and some of his best men are dead by his own hand. His only friends, Kaz and Ocelot, are just using him in some schizo game of global 4D chess. Even Eli and the child soldiers are just suddenly gone, and your metal gear with them - much more simple and poignant than the infamously cut Episode 51 would have been.
The effort to rehabilitate these kids, and maybe figure out Eli's origins? Track him down after his escape? Nope, you never see them again; they're just another of Diamond Dogs' many failures, another part of yourself that will be missing forever. All you can do is take the same helicopter ride to do the same (flawlessly crafted) stealth infiltration missions again and again and again, because senseless murder is the only thing that makes you feel anything anymore. And with the battlefield always shifting to adapt to your tactics in-game, you'll never make any real progress. Oh yeah, and none of this is actually real and Snake's entire life is fake. And deep down, he knows it.
So what about the real Big Boss? Well, he's basically stuck in the same cycle, only he has shed even more of his humanity than Venom. By using Venom's life as a tool in his own geopolitical game, Big Boss has committed the very same crime that was done to him and The Boss back in Operation Snake Eater. And all you can do about it is watch him ride off into the sunset to pursue yet another stupid evil scheme (that we already know will be a total failure), before getting right back to work like the epic gamer you are. Because you the player, like Venom, love LARPing as Big Boss no matter how pointless and repetitive it becomes. You'll complain about how Chapter 2 is "unfinished" and repeats the same missions from Chapter 1 (those were optional just fyi), but guess what? You're still gonna play those missions.
The Phantom Pain left players with such a profound feeling of emptiness and loss, and that's the real reason they felt it was unfinished. It's not because of any actual missing content - MGS2 had far more cut content, backed up by documented evidence, not just internet memes. But the difference with that game was that there was no falling out between Kojima and Konami - a convenient scapegoat for any aspect of the game that wasn't what fans expected, anything that hit players the wrong way. But that gnawing void you feel playing this game, the feeling that something is missing? That was intended, and it's honestly pretty heavy-handed and obvious when you approach the game on its own terms. I mean do I even need to say it? The pain from something that's missing? It's barely subtext.
Kojima purposefully denied us almost all of the campy, goofy nonsense we love about the Metal Gear Solid series to force us to confront how fake and hollow the legend of "the world's greatest soldier" really is. The level to which this game irrevocably shattered the minds of Metal Gear fans, leaving them eternally chasing their White Whale (the Moby Dick references weren't for nothing), is a testament to how the whole experiment was a resounding success. It snuck past gamers' emotional defenses, subverted their media illiteracy, and made them actually fucking feel something for once. Something real, something about their actual lives even.
There's a reason the game ends on a mirror - it's because the game is trying to hold one up to its players. And they could never forgive it for that. For turning their shallow, campy video game funtime, where I get to be a cool secret agent and Solid Snake is my dad, into a challenging work of art that interrogates their life. Because it's true: you are Venom Snake. You're a slave to the whims of others, your own desire for satisfaction. You do not know why you do the things that you do. And everything you're doing here - in this video game, in the digital realm - is ultimately fruitless. Fans complain about how there's no real resolution or ending to the story in MGSV, but it seems to me like that's the point: There is no resolution to be found here - not for Snake, and not for you. None of this is moving toward any conclusion or moment of truth. If you spend your life playing video games, you certainly won't ever see one. Like Venom, you'll never understand yourself, never have a real identity. The only way out, to freedom, is to stop fighting - to stop gaming. You can't save MSF, or Paz, or the Boss, or even Snake - you can only save yourself. Get out while you can. In the words of Naomi at the end of MGS1: "You have to live, Snake."
And that's the way this story ends. No Mission 51 "Kingdom of the Flies", no unwinnable boss fight against Solid Snake like fans wanted. Not even a sudden cut to black à la the Sopranos. Just the same meaningless thing over and over again, but somehow getting worse, until it's just... over. Not with a bang, but a whimper. If Metal Gear Solid 4 was about accepting the death of something that has clung on to life far longer than it should (the Metal Gear Solid series), MGSV is about being denied that noble death, brought back to life in some profane necromantic ritual, forced to live a tortured, half existence for all of eternity.
MGSV is best summed up as Kojima's way of saying "You guys wanted to keep playing Metal Gear Solid forever? Fine, here you go. Enjoy yourselves." He knows that he'll never be able to give this series a conclusive ending - he already tried that with MGS4. Instead, Kojima hands it off to the player, letting each of us come to it on our own, privately. One day, each player will get tired of the same missions and the same fucking helicopter ride and quietly decide for themselves, once and for all "Alright... I guess Metal Gear Solid is over. I'm done." and turn the game console off.
Spoilers below.
After losing everything in
And the missions in this game, while incredibly fun and well-made, really beg the age-old American question "What are we even doing in Afghanistan?". The plot feels totally incomprehensible at times; you spend the whole game going after random acronym organizations, shell companies, and mercenary groups with some vague connection to
And like Snake, the returning characters from Peace Walker are reduced to these broken versions of themselves. The only person who seems to be doing well is Ocelot, who has really come into his own as the sort dead-eyed psychopath that thrives in this kind of environment. Honestly? Good for him. Kaz on the other hand is a crippled, traumatized husk driven by revenge which is in turn driven by his own guilty conscience, and Huey has become a delusional, pathological liar focused solely on self-preservation. The few unnamed soldiers who survived
Even Skullface, who was built up in trailers and in Ground Zeroes as this terrifying villain, turns out to be just a sad joke like everyone else. His plan is the most nonsensical, harebrained shit ever explained by a villain in any Metal Gear game. He spent a decade practicing a 10 minute theatrical monologue about why he has to eradicate the English language and give everybody nuclear weapons to unite the world. It makes absolutely no sense, it's a parody of Metal Gear villains, which were already parodies of 80's movie villains. While Skullface is performing his monologue in the jeep (to the wrong person), Venom just hits him with that fluoride stare and loops through a 20 second idle animation. Then Sins of the Father just... starts playing as they sit across from each other in complete silence and avoid eye contact. It's one of the funniest scenes in the entire series, mistaken by many fans as simply botched and awkward on accident (rather than on purpose, which it was). And if that wasn't obvious enough, Skullface's defeat is just straight up slapstick comedy; he gets crushed by his own non-functional Metal Gear in the middle of another absurd speech. Genuine comedy gold.
I think a lot of people overlook the humor in this game. It's a lot more muted and sad than in the rest of the series, but it's smarter here than in any other entry. Miller's "why are we still here" speech is MEANT TO BE FUNNY AND OVERLY MELODRAMATIC, as well as depressing and hard to watch. The way it ends, with that uncomfortable silence before he just... awkwardly sits back down? That was on purpose. The tone is that this has all become a very pathetic (and funny) spectacle at this point. Kojima's famously asinine dialogue becomes something really transcendent here; each hollow, ham-fisted statement really drives home the fact that everyone is just making this shit up as they go along now, trying to weave some bullshit heroic narrative out of a long series of L's. Kojima is telling us: "This is you dude. This is the American Empire. Your War on Terror is as darkly funny as it is monstrous." MGSV isn't the self-serious death march the trailers painted it as.
The way V's cutscenes are shot adds to these moments too. The shaky, handheld camera builds documentarian realism and a sense of witnessing real atrocities in more high-stakes scenes, but can also lend a comedic awkwardness to these exchanges between characters. I've seen someone compare it to The Office as a criticism but I think that's a feature and not a bug, as strange as it sounds. Somehow, it just works so well for the tonal balancing act this game maintains. But what really elevates V's cinematography thematically is its use of continuous shots. One-takes are often criticized as being essentially a gimmick, style over substance. But in Metal Gear Solid, a series defined by the juxtaposition between hard military realism and over the top fantasy? It's pure genius. Having all of this insane Kojima bullshit captured in documentary style is so fitting for this series. Perfectly hyperreal.
Speaking of hyperreal, let's talk about Quiet. I've thought a lot about whether her portrayal plays into Kojima's contempt for the audience (and the Metal Gear series itself for that matter) or if it's just a part of the game that didn't land. I was inspired by this article to conclude the former. In classic Metal Gear fashion, Quiet's characterization is ridiculous and offensive, but ends up transcending its low-brow trappings and having an emotional payoff - all while playing into a greater meta-narrative. And if you don't like that method of storytelling, then you sure picked the wrong media franchise. That scene of her speaking for the first time to guide the helicopter through the sandstorm is genuinely great. It perfectly encapsulates Kojima's ability to make something ridiculous, cheesy, and melodramatic - but still deeply affecting and with a lot of heart.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves; Quiet is absolutely a biting self-parody of Kojima's own portrayal of women throughout his series and in the wider industry. It's Kojima saying "Is this what you like, you sick fucks?" or possibly a case of introspection on his part ("Oh God, is this what I like?"). She has some hastily made up bullshit explaining why she wears no clothes, she is literally incapable of speaking for herself, and she undergoes gratuitous violence and imprisonment. Kojima obviously knows how ridiculous this is; he's seen basically every American movie, he knows this isn't how you're supposed to respectfully portray women. No, Quiet's portrayal is purposefully exploitative. Her objectification starts out fairly straightforward, but it becomes more and more disturbing for the player to partake in as the game goes on, in order to heighten the dark absurdity of all of this (particularly in Chapter 2, which is where everything in the game falls apart, on purpose). The point of Quiet's character, and the whole game really, is to give players exactly what they want in the most contemptuous way possible. To make you "feel ashamed of your words and deeds", you could even say. MGSV is about getting exactly what you want (another MGS game, endless content, revenge on Skullface, a sniper gf) and resenting it.
To build on MGSV's portrayal of women though, I think it's important that Paz takes on the role that she does in this game. She makes an initially very confusing reappearance - that first moment when you see her is genuinely unnerving, as if even the strange, fucked up Metal Gear reality we have become accustomed to can't explain what we're seeing. Out of all the unrealistic fantasy bullshit we've seen in this series, a series where it feels like anything goes and there are no rules or laws of physics, this is the first moment where I went "Wait, what? How?" But as we find at the end of "Paz's" side story, this is all just a projection of Snake's fragmented psyche. It's incredible in the way it makes you question what's real and what isn't, while simultaneously using Paz as a proxy to just straight up diagnose Snake's own mental disorders. But it's tucked away where most probably never saw it - like a hidden repressed memory somewhere in Snake's mind.
It perfectly conveys his nostalgia for a time that was never even good, as well as his crushing guilt and helplessness over the death of Paz. It's genuinely moving. That last tape of hers is something right out of Silent Hill 2, and it adds such depth to Snake as this miserable person that you should absolutely not want to be. For Snake, women really are just these fixtures of loss, shame, and regret - feelings that no doubt originate from the killing of his mother figure, The Boss. And despite all of the talk about getting revenge and taking down Cipher, the only time we ever see Snake get animated in this game is in his scenes with Paz. Snake's desire for redemption, his insistence on nuclear disarmament that feels strangely out of place, and his statement at the start of the game that he's "already a demon"? It's all about Paz, man.
One thing fans really disliked about Snake's portrayal though is that he never really seems to become the demon we knew him as in the early games. We never get to see The Exact Moment Walt Became Heisenberg. Quite the opposite; his intentions appear to remain heroic all the way to the end. The only scene where Snake approaches the kind of evil fans wanted to see is when Snake appears to murder the children in the mines but ends up saving them instead. In trailers this was depicted as if Snake actually goes through with the murder; to me, this is the smoking gun of another Kojima bait-and-switch. Fans wanted a game full of shocking, flashy acts of villainy on the part of Snake, and Kojima deliberately lead them on in trailers (just like in MGS2) but denied them of it in the final game. What did fans get instead? Spreadsheets.
Don't miss the forest for the trees; Snake is absolutely responsible for unimaginable atrocities during the events of MGSV. But instead of sensationalist images of man's inhumanity to man, Kojima shows us the banal cruelty of what it really means to be at the top of the war machine: You're just... on the computer, like everyone else. And everything you're doing is represented through so many layers of abstraction that it is impossible to understand the consequences. This ties directly into the themes of Metal Gear Solid 2 as well; by issuing your orders via this computer interface, you are even further removed from what is happening in reality. You just do a cursory cost-benefit analysis before sending the next death squad to do god knows what in some African or South American country you don't even know the name of.
And when a disease outbreak hits Mother Base, Snake's iDroid computer makes it easy for him to commit ethnic cleansing, sentencing scores of people to imprisonment and death for the language they speak. It isn't until all of the digital artifice is stripped away, and Venom is forced to enter the quarantine zone and personally slaughter his own men, that he has any crisis of conscience (and you actually lose some of your best men, because Kojima never fails to give the story actual weight via game mechanics). And you can say "Venom didn't want to do it, he had no choice." But that's exactly the point. If the Metal Gear Solid series is about one thing, it's about individual will being crushed under the weight of systems and institutions that have become organisms in and of themselves.
It doesn't matter how much Venom yearns for redemption. It doesn't even matter if he's in charge of Diamond Dogs. The system of global private warfare that Big Boss and friends established has taken on a life of its own, just like the Patriots of MGS2. His own intentions are irrelevant. If this system demands he kill his own men, he will do it. If this system demands that Raiden later kill Solidus, he too will do it. All actions within the system, regardless of intent, perpetuate the cycle of violence, war, and profit. Even if Venom disarms all of the nukes and brings about the Peace Day that never came for Paz, it just sets up the nuke free world that we hear about Big Boss exploiting in the intro to Metal Gear 2.
That's why everything in MGSV takes on such a hilariously pathetic flavor. Nobody, not Big Boss, not Zero, not Skullface, not Venom, has any agency in any of this. They're just flailing, looking for anything they can do to enact their will in a system that now imprisons its own creators. The only person who manages to achieve victory over the system by the (chronological) end of the series is, once again, Revolver Ocelot. And he only does so by shedding all individuality, tearing his mind into a thousand schizophrenic pieces to always be one step ahead of the algorithm. And it's all because he wants to fuck Big Boss. In the end love wins, and I think that's beautiful. But for everyone else, they are doomed to perpetuate the system they so desperately want to be free of.
And to what end? The truth is that there is no point to this system beyond its own self-perpetuation - it's a Snake eating its own tail (pretty good, huh?). The soldiers of Diamond Dogs, and every other PMC, kill so that they can keep killing. It's all for the love of the game at this point. Sure, they did the same thing back in Peace Walker, but at least back then it felt like you were blazing a new trail, sending a ragtag band of freedom fighters to oppose imperialism - that's long gone now. Any lofty goals this organization may have had are now lying somewhere at the bottom of the Caribbean. All of the bullshit Snake and Kaz spout about "fighting for the future" and "standing tall on missing legs" are just words to talk the gun out of their own mouths, to convince themselves that they are still moving toward something.
But they aren't. In the end, after killing Skullface (which was made purposefully unsatisfying according to Kojima) as revenge for the events that destroyed his life a decade ago, Snake is left to rot in a hell of his own creation. There are no holiday celebrations or fun outings like on the Mother Base of Peace Walker, and it's far lonelier; Quiet is gone, Huey is gone, Paz is long dead but still haunts him, and some of his best men are dead by his own hand. His only friends, Kaz and Ocelot, are just using him in some schizo game of global 4D chess. Even Eli and the child soldiers are just suddenly gone, and your metal gear with them - much more simple and poignant than the infamously cut Episode 51 would have been.
The effort to rehabilitate these kids, and maybe figure out Eli's origins? Track him down after his escape? Nope, you never see them again; they're just another of Diamond Dogs' many failures, another part of yourself that will be missing forever. All you can do is take the same helicopter ride to do the same (flawlessly crafted) stealth infiltration missions again and again and again, because senseless murder is the only thing that makes you feel anything anymore. And with the battlefield always shifting to adapt to your tactics in-game, you'll never make any real progress. Oh yeah, and none of this is actually real and Snake's entire life is fake. And deep down, he knows it.
So what about the real Big Boss? Well, he's basically stuck in the same cycle, only he has shed even more of his humanity than Venom. By using Venom's life as a tool in his own geopolitical game, Big Boss has committed the very same crime that was done to him and The Boss back in Operation Snake Eater. And all you can do about it is watch him ride off into the sunset to pursue yet another stupid evil scheme (that we already know will be a total failure), before getting right back to work like the epic gamer you are. Because you the player, like Venom, love LARPing as Big Boss no matter how pointless and repetitive it becomes. You'll complain about how Chapter 2 is "unfinished" and repeats the same missions from Chapter 1 (those were optional just fyi), but guess what? You're still gonna play those missions.
The Phantom Pain left players with such a profound feeling of emptiness and loss, and that's the real reason they felt it was unfinished. It's not because of any actual missing content - MGS2 had far more cut content, backed up by documented evidence, not just internet memes. But the difference with that game was that there was no falling out between Kojima and Konami - a convenient scapegoat for any aspect of the game that wasn't what fans expected, anything that hit players the wrong way. But that gnawing void you feel playing this game, the feeling that something is missing? That was intended, and it's honestly pretty heavy-handed and obvious when you approach the game on its own terms. I mean do I even need to say it? The pain from something that's missing? It's barely subtext.
Kojima purposefully denied us almost all of the campy, goofy nonsense we love about the Metal Gear Solid series to force us to confront how fake and hollow the legend of "the world's greatest soldier" really is. The level to which this game irrevocably shattered the minds of Metal Gear fans, leaving them eternally chasing their White Whale (the Moby Dick references weren't for nothing), is a testament to how the whole experiment was a resounding success. It snuck past gamers' emotional defenses, subverted their media illiteracy, and made them actually fucking feel something for once. Something real, something about their actual lives even.
There's a reason the game ends on a mirror - it's because the game is trying to hold one up to its players. And they could never forgive it for that. For turning their shallow, campy video game funtime, where I get to be a cool secret agent and Solid Snake is my dad, into a challenging work of art that interrogates their life. Because it's true: you are Venom Snake. You're a slave to the whims of others, your own desire for satisfaction. You do not know why you do the things that you do. And everything you're doing here - in this video game, in the digital realm - is ultimately fruitless. Fans complain about how there's no real resolution or ending to the story in MGSV, but it seems to me like that's the point: There is no resolution to be found here - not for Snake, and not for you. None of this is moving toward any conclusion or moment of truth. If you spend your life playing video games, you certainly won't ever see one. Like Venom, you'll never understand yourself, never have a real identity. The only way out, to freedom, is to stop fighting - to stop gaming. You can't save MSF, or Paz, or the Boss, or even Snake - you can only save yourself. Get out while you can. In the words of Naomi at the end of MGS1: "You have to live, Snake."
And that's the way this story ends. No Mission 51 "Kingdom of the Flies", no unwinnable boss fight against Solid Snake like fans wanted. Not even a sudden cut to black à la the Sopranos. Just the same meaningless thing over and over again, but somehow getting worse, until it's just... over. Not with a bang, but a whimper. If Metal Gear Solid 4 was about accepting the death of something that has clung on to life far longer than it should (the Metal Gear Solid series), MGSV is about being denied that noble death, brought back to life in some profane necromantic ritual, forced to live a tortured, half existence for all of eternity.
MGSV is best summed up as Kojima's way of saying "You guys wanted to keep playing Metal Gear Solid forever? Fine, here you go. Enjoy yourselves." He knows that he'll never be able to give this series a conclusive ending - he already tried that with MGS4. Instead, Kojima hands it off to the player, letting each of us come to it on our own, privately. One day, each player will get tired of the same missions and the same fucking helicopter ride and quietly decide for themselves, once and for all "Alright... I guess Metal Gear Solid is over. I'm done." and turn the game console off.
One of my favorite aspects of Disco Elysium is that despite the marketing and internet conversation around it being the based leftist meme game, it totally refuses to go down that obnoxious, pandering route. I see people (online politics nerds) talk about the game this way and feel like I played something completely different.
Whenever Harry says some embarrassing shit like "Communism is actually extremely good ya'll" the person he's talking to seems completely bewildered or just flat out ignores him. To me this reads as the game making fun of you, saying that no, if you say this shit to people in real life it is not based but in fact, cringe. Nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about, you weird internet creature. If you choose the option to internalize Mazovian Socio-Economics (Marxist-Leninism) the game openly ridicules you as borderline delusional for thinking you're the "communism builder" just because you're a very smart boy with the right opinions. Its only effects besides obnoxious new dialogue options for you to lecture people with are just stat penalties.
The truth is that you, the player (likely an online leftist), are probably kind of a loser dork who can barely keep your own life together, just like Harry. You aren't doing le epic praxis or owning the chuds. You might be a good person with the best of intentions, but you're still just a cog in the machine and, like Harry at the end of the game, you continue that role despite being Literally a Communist. This isn't a game about choosing your political alignment; That part of the game is basically a side show (most of which was added after release). Like its creator said, it's really a game about "reapplying for your job as a human being", with a spiritually hollowed out society haunted by the past serving as the context for this story.
But while the game perfectly portrays the seemingly hopeless and socially sterile time we live in, it also asserts that unexpected, beautiful things are still possible with moments like the Phasmid scene and the brief glimmers of genuine solidarity among its characters. The dice-rolling nature of the game itself asserts that while we have very little control over our lives, there is always possibility. The innate need for freedom and dignity among human beings can never be stamped out. As long as that remains, a better world is possible - even if we will never see it ourselves.
Whenever Harry says some embarrassing shit like "Communism is actually extremely good ya'll" the person he's talking to seems completely bewildered or just flat out ignores him. To me this reads as the game making fun of you, saying that no, if you say this shit to people in real life it is not based but in fact, cringe. Nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about, you weird internet creature. If you choose the option to internalize Mazovian Socio-Economics (Marxist-Leninism) the game openly ridicules you as borderline delusional for thinking you're the "communism builder" just because you're a very smart boy with the right opinions. Its only effects besides obnoxious new dialogue options for you to lecture people with are just stat penalties.
The truth is that you, the player (likely an online leftist), are probably kind of a loser dork who can barely keep your own life together, just like Harry. You aren't doing le epic praxis or owning the chuds. You might be a good person with the best of intentions, but you're still just a cog in the machine and, like Harry at the end of the game, you continue that role despite being Literally a Communist. This isn't a game about choosing your political alignment; That part of the game is basically a side show (most of which was added after release). Like its creator said, it's really a game about "reapplying for your job as a human being", with a spiritually hollowed out society haunted by the past serving as the context for this story.
But while the game perfectly portrays the seemingly hopeless and socially sterile time we live in, it also asserts that unexpected, beautiful things are still possible with moments like the Phasmid scene and the brief glimmers of genuine solidarity among its characters. The dice-rolling nature of the game itself asserts that while we have very little control over our lives, there is always possibility. The innate need for freedom and dignity among human beings can never be stamped out. As long as that remains, a better world is possible - even if we will never see it ourselves.
This has single-handedly made me oppose all video game remakes on principle.
The original PS2 version, to this day, is stunning. The strengths and limitations of that console were utilized to create something completely unique and impossible to truly replicate (even pc emulation fails at this). The blinding bloom lighting, washed out colors, and low resolution gave the game this otherworldly sheen that I was mesmerized by. It gives the impression of a beautiful but god-forsaken no man's land enveloped by Dormin's light, a light without warmth.
The PS4 version just... Looks like a typical AAA PS4 game. It's technologically impressive, but that's the only thing there is to say about such boring, soulless visuals. And in a few years, you won't even be able to say that. The remake further disrupts the style of the original with meaningless new features for a purposefully minimalist game, like frivolous collectibles, a photo mode, and a stats page. All just to pad the game out with more time-wasting distractions, as if we didn't already have enough games packed with that.
Worse though are the subtle changes that most probably missed. The gut-wrenching wails of collosi have been replaced with generic monstrous roars (seriously, go to youtube and watch the 4th colossus fight in the original and then in the remake, it's a disgrace), and the enigmatic color changes of their eyes during battle have been removed altogether in favor of always-orange eyes to signify aggression without nuance.
The fact that this is seen by the vast majority of gamers as a faithful remake baffles me. Maybe because it lives up to how most remember it: The pretty looking game where you fight big monsters and it turns out you were the bad guy the whole time! That's pretty much what it is when you boil it down, but I always thought it had a bit more of a mystique that made it stand above most games.
There is no real appreciation in the industry for old games beyond surface level nostalgia, and I think that's one reason why video games are such a wasteland artistically.
The original PS2 version, to this day, is stunning. The strengths and limitations of that console were utilized to create something completely unique and impossible to truly replicate (even pc emulation fails at this). The blinding bloom lighting, washed out colors, and low resolution gave the game this otherworldly sheen that I was mesmerized by. It gives the impression of a beautiful but god-forsaken no man's land enveloped by Dormin's light, a light without warmth.
The PS4 version just... Looks like a typical AAA PS4 game. It's technologically impressive, but that's the only thing there is to say about such boring, soulless visuals. And in a few years, you won't even be able to say that. The remake further disrupts the style of the original with meaningless new features for a purposefully minimalist game, like frivolous collectibles, a photo mode, and a stats page. All just to pad the game out with more time-wasting distractions, as if we didn't already have enough games packed with that.
Worse though are the subtle changes that most probably missed. The gut-wrenching wails of collosi have been replaced with generic monstrous roars (seriously, go to youtube and watch the 4th colossus fight in the original and then in the remake, it's a disgrace), and the enigmatic color changes of their eyes during battle have been removed altogether in favor of always-orange eyes to signify aggression without nuance.
The fact that this is seen by the vast majority of gamers as a faithful remake baffles me. Maybe because it lives up to how most remember it: The pretty looking game where you fight big monsters and it turns out you were the bad guy the whole time! That's pretty much what it is when you boil it down, but I always thought it had a bit more of a mystique that made it stand above most games.
There is no real appreciation in the industry for old games beyond surface level nostalgia, and I think that's one reason why video games are such a wasteland artistically.
2001
You are never once told what to do. There are no directions, no tutorials. You figure it all out in an organic way, using the architectural design of your environment and the framing of the camera to navigate the castle.
And the castle... There has never been a more elegantly designed level in a video game. The fixed camera angles that allow you to pan around and look at your surroundings give it a genuine sense of presence and scale. It feels like a real place that was once lived in due to its interconnected and functional design. The feeling of just being there is, in terms of sheer atmospheric power, unmatched in any game. All of this despite the environment being so austere and existing purely for Ico to lead Yorda through.
I've seen it pointed out before that Yorda is simply the typical video game damsel in distress, as she is saved by the player and literally dragged around and protected for the entirety of the game. This is true, but simply identifying tropes isn't substantive criticism; in this case, it's a shallow observation that misses the point entirely.
Yorda grew up in a cage. The entire purpose of her existence is to be an eventual vessel for her mother. She never expresses agency because she has never known it. But after making her first real human connection with someone, a person who knows freedom and only now has had it taken away, she learns how to be her own person. In the end, when Ico is unable to go on (and control is thus taken from the player), she takes the initiative to save him herself and assert her right to be free. There has never been a more thematically powerful use of a cutscene in any game, before or since.
It's an empowering story about becoming a human being, all told with almost no dialogue and through the language of video games. It is possibly the purest example of using this medium to tell a good story. Ueda really is one of the very few real artists in the industry and this game will stand forever as one of the most important milestones for video games.
Probably the worst cover art of all time in the NA version though.
And the castle... There has never been a more elegantly designed level in a video game. The fixed camera angles that allow you to pan around and look at your surroundings give it a genuine sense of presence and scale. It feels like a real place that was once lived in due to its interconnected and functional design. The feeling of just being there is, in terms of sheer atmospheric power, unmatched in any game. All of this despite the environment being so austere and existing purely for Ico to lead Yorda through.
I've seen it pointed out before that Yorda is simply the typical video game damsel in distress, as she is saved by the player and literally dragged around and protected for the entirety of the game. This is true, but simply identifying tropes isn't substantive criticism; in this case, it's a shallow observation that misses the point entirely.
Yorda grew up in a cage. The entire purpose of her existence is to be an eventual vessel for her mother. She never expresses agency because she has never known it. But after making her first real human connection with someone, a person who knows freedom and only now has had it taken away, she learns how to be her own person. In the end, when Ico is unable to go on (and control is thus taken from the player), she takes the initiative to save him herself and assert her right to be free. There has never been a more thematically powerful use of a cutscene in any game, before or since.
It's an empowering story about becoming a human being, all told with almost no dialogue and through the language of video games. It is possibly the purest example of using this medium to tell a good story. Ueda really is one of the very few real artists in the industry and this game will stand forever as one of the most important milestones for video games.
Probably the worst cover art of all time in the NA version though.
The first 15 or so hours are magical. Then there's 30 more.
Breath of the Wild has a perfect opening couple of hours that give you these great physics tools and quickly set you loose in the open world. All of its intuitive physics and weather systems, as well as the controversial weapon durability system provide you with these great moments of thinking on your feet and out-of-the-box problem solving. Exploring the landscape and the flora and fauna that reside there is fun for its own sake, and the music and general atmosphere is enchanting enough to make simply being in the world enjoyable. I really think the vibe and beautiful art style of this game alone are what give it such a legendary reputation, rather than any kind of revolutionary game design. Nintendo knows how to nail the presentation of their games better than anyone, and it gives them the illusion of being groundbreaking and artfully designed. I really felt that way at the start of this one.
But after building a near-perfect open world experience in the first act, Breath of the Wild spends the rest of the game tearing it down through sheer tedium and repetition. Fighting the same three enemy types with the limited combat system (and being interrupted by the same combat music track), constantly breaking your weapons (which serves as no more than an annoyance once you build up an armory of weapons), doing dozens of nearly identical shrines and korok seed puzzles that just feel like chores... All of this is fun and fresh at the start, but the novelty wears off fast, and then the game just keeps going. Eventually you realize there is nothing mysterious or novel to be found in this world, really; Every cool place you find is just a container for a shrine or a korok seed. The first labyrinth you find is exciting. Then you realize there are three of them and they're all just shrine puzzles. Breath of the Wild is the joy of discovery turned into a formulaic, easily digestible skinner box.
The memorable moments that the game does manage to nail, like reaching Kakariko Village or Zora's Domain, fighting the first Divine Beast, finding the Master Sword, and fighting through Hyrule Castle are all spread too thin across so many hours of the same skinner box slop endemic to open world games. And soon, most of the systems that make the moment-to-moment gameplay interesting early on become irrelevant. Eventually you'll just be teleporting across the map, using abilities like Revali's Gale to skip the climbing, wearing clothes to ignore the weather, using food to ignore the stamina system, and using regular weapons to ignore the shiekah slate and physics system in combat. The gameplay can literally only lose depth as you go; your reward for progression is that you get to engage with the game less.
Getting a non-linear, open world game right is hard; I think very few games have managed to live up to such massive scope and breadth of possibility. Breath of the Wild has been hailed as the solution to this problem, but far from being a revolution in open world design, it falls into the same trap of wearing you down with hours and hours of the same copy-pasted activities. It has some ideas that show amazing potential early on, but in the end the experience reverts to the player turning their brain off to wade through a sea of filler content along the path of least resistance. Just like every shitty Ubisoft open world game that Breath of the Wild is supposed to be the answer to.
Breath of the Wild has a perfect opening couple of hours that give you these great physics tools and quickly set you loose in the open world. All of its intuitive physics and weather systems, as well as the controversial weapon durability system provide you with these great moments of thinking on your feet and out-of-the-box problem solving. Exploring the landscape and the flora and fauna that reside there is fun for its own sake, and the music and general atmosphere is enchanting enough to make simply being in the world enjoyable. I really think the vibe and beautiful art style of this game alone are what give it such a legendary reputation, rather than any kind of revolutionary game design. Nintendo knows how to nail the presentation of their games better than anyone, and it gives them the illusion of being groundbreaking and artfully designed. I really felt that way at the start of this one.
But after building a near-perfect open world experience in the first act, Breath of the Wild spends the rest of the game tearing it down through sheer tedium and repetition. Fighting the same three enemy types with the limited combat system (and being interrupted by the same combat music track), constantly breaking your weapons (which serves as no more than an annoyance once you build up an armory of weapons), doing dozens of nearly identical shrines and korok seed puzzles that just feel like chores... All of this is fun and fresh at the start, but the novelty wears off fast, and then the game just keeps going. Eventually you realize there is nothing mysterious or novel to be found in this world, really; Every cool place you find is just a container for a shrine or a korok seed. The first labyrinth you find is exciting. Then you realize there are three of them and they're all just shrine puzzles. Breath of the Wild is the joy of discovery turned into a formulaic, easily digestible skinner box.
The memorable moments that the game does manage to nail, like reaching Kakariko Village or Zora's Domain, fighting the first Divine Beast, finding the Master Sword, and fighting through Hyrule Castle are all spread too thin across so many hours of the same skinner box slop endemic to open world games. And soon, most of the systems that make the moment-to-moment gameplay interesting early on become irrelevant. Eventually you'll just be teleporting across the map, using abilities like Revali's Gale to skip the climbing, wearing clothes to ignore the weather, using food to ignore the stamina system, and using regular weapons to ignore the shiekah slate and physics system in combat. The gameplay can literally only lose depth as you go; your reward for progression is that you get to engage with the game less.
Getting a non-linear, open world game right is hard; I think very few games have managed to live up to such massive scope and breadth of possibility. Breath of the Wild has been hailed as the solution to this problem, but far from being a revolution in open world design, it falls into the same trap of wearing you down with hours and hours of the same copy-pasted activities. It has some ideas that show amazing potential early on, but in the end the experience reverts to the player turning their brain off to wade through a sea of filler content along the path of least resistance. Just like every shitty Ubisoft open world game that Breath of the Wild is supposed to be the answer to.