The actual execution was a mess, but Skullface’s inspiration for his parasite weapon being the experience of linguistic imperialism as a child was a really novel premise. The idea that he would get his revenge by creating a weapon that killed anyone who spoke English is some cool super-villain shit I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before. “Race-selective” weapons, genetic-targetting weapons, religious indoctrination viruses, I’ve seen all those, but I think MGSV is the only time I’ve encountered a weapon that targets a language community.
imo Kojima was hitting his stride when he had a co-writer like on MGS 1-3, left to his own devices his stuff is kind of a mess. Do agree it’s a neat idea though.
I think he’s really good at evoking feeling through visual storytelling, and finding gameplay that mostly kinda reinforces those themes.
The underlying themes in his work often don’t hold up to fridge logic, but it’s still an engaging and memorable experience while you’re playing. Death Stranding was one of my favorite games I played last year (hashtag patientgamer…).
Death standing was really good, sure it was weird but it ultimately was an exploration of modern alienation and the breakdown of social structures with some decent side themes relating to mortality and social reproduction.
Maybe I’m just biased it managed to make walking an interesting mechanic.
Yeah, I enjoyed that concept a lot.
I think the not-quite-canon Portable Ops did the idea of “words that kill” much better with Gene.
I was really expecting with the whole theme there would be more disinformation, propaganda, narrative control, persuasion techniques type stuff - “words that kill” being the words that turn men into soldiers and killers or cause people to turn on each other in civil war (yes, it’s not a materialist understanding of how that works IRL but still). Skullface would be like Gene, a master of controlling words to control the world - if it then turned out his goal was to wipe out the English language: fantastic, that’s Metal Gear baby. But instead, the “words that kill” are just the sounds that activate a particular strain of vocal cord parasite to cause a lethal infection. And the same parasites explain all the crazy supernatural powers of the Cobras that didn’t need explaining. Combined with all the other unfinished storylines and missing content, it really left me feeling…
spoiler
the Phantom Pain
Bonus: Gene’s speech in Japanese, as voiced by the inimitable Norio Wakamoto
I was really expecting with the whole theme there would be more disinformation, propaganda, narrative control, persuasion techniques type stuff
I mean you run a private army made out of kidnapped-brainwashed conscripts
i love the other games but I think MGSV and Peace Walker are the only two that have a well-formed political outlook. The other games are more personal, or more about scifi themes like abuse of technology, or how disinformation spreads. Peace Walker and V hit different and are very concerned with themes like racism and imperialism. Maybe by that point Kojima had a more well-baked ideological basis to work with, but who knows.
V is unfinished though. A third of the game just doesn’t exist and it’s why you spend the last section of the game replaying earlier missions and the story doesn’t go anywhere. I’ve always like how clear it is that you’re part of the bad guys in V. Only a few of the missions involve anything heroic, most of them have you involving yourself in both sides of a conflict while also fighting the shadowy illuminati guys. I usually have more interesting thoughts about this game but I’m tired from work and my brain is fried. Phantom Pain is still one of the most interesting games ever made to me though. It’s so silly and exaggerated and yet it’s got a really compelling breakdown of what revenge entails, how conflict starts and how groups form to secure resources. It’s neat. Kojima is neat.
Are you including ground zeroes as part of V? If not it possibly deserves to be the third to MGSV and PW.
I remember being kind of in awe that Kojima released a “lets go to gitmo, kill marines, and rescue tortured child soldiers” game.
Ground Zeroes and the trailers for V made me think Kojima had gotten his shit back together after 4. I was sorely sorely mistaken. Having big boss be the protagonist in anything but 3 was a mistake and Aldo the series should have ended with 3. Story wise anything after does nothing but ruin it.
Honestly really wish Kojima had read Lenin in high school or something. Across the series, MGS so consistently almost hits the mark but just doesn’t quite get there. You get these flashes but it’s too often mired down by an underdeveloped understanding of politics
how do you know he didn’t but he’s constrained by the capital requirements necessary to finance his games into always toning things down into wacky lib shit
could a person so consistently nearly hit the mark if they didn’t really know what they were aiming for??
Kojima consistently hits near the mark but is given way more credit than due. He has a few cool concepts and accidently came up with post modernism a second time but he’s fucking stupid as hell in most ways. Pretty sure if he’d read Lennin he’d have a less cartoonist view of the cold war than he exemplified. A brief look at mgs3, peace walker and 5 shows he had a massively lib brained view of the world and complete and utter historical illiteracy. He is I Am 14 And This Is Deep embodied.
Kojima has definitely read Lenin. He lionises Che Guevara and there’s absolutely no way he hasn’t looked into Che’s influences. He also regularly recommends incredibly obscure Mao-era movies to people on twitter that I literally can not find anywhere, they are probably so rare that only an obsessive film person like him can possibly collect them.
The issue with Kojima is that he’s such a movie fan that he’s a fan of hollywood and what it produces. This love of hollywood aesthetic and style influences and americanises all of his work.
