What is this picture from?

[happyninja42]

So I was looking at this article on the site

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/08/20/sony-considering-releasing-multiplayer-playstation-exclusives-for-pc/

And the picture of the woman in the glasses is a complete mystery to me. It doesn't seem to have any context to the article about Sony opening up their exclusive games, so I have no idea what it's from.

Anyone able to enlighten me on the source of this picture? What game it's from or whatever?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Death Stranding looks like

https://www.ign.com/wikis/death-stranding/Mama_(Margaret_Qualley)

 

[happyninja42]

Ah, ok thanks. That's a shame, oh well.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Ah, ok thanks. That's a shame, oh well.

Why so? Do you not think Death Stranding will be good? I don't, but that's because I don't think Kojima can write himself out of a paper bag

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That's Margaret Qualley, the hippie jailbait from Once Upon a Time un Hollywood.

 

[happyninja42]

Ah, ok thanks. That's a shame, oh well.

Why so? Do you not think Death Stranding will be good? I don't, but that's because I don't think Kojima can write himself out of a paper bag

No I don't think it looks good. I think it looks fucking insane, just like everything Kojima has ever written.

My experience with his work was the first Metal Gear Solid game that re-invigorated the franchise, and it was pretty fun, if sort of the typical "japanese weird" that I had come to expect from their gaming design.

And then I played Sons of Liberty....which was just so fucking stupidly insane, when I got done playing it, and was watching this final cutscene that was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. An American, Jingo-istic, Rah Rah 'Murica speech from Snake, written by a Japanese guy, with just a filter on the actual culture he was depicting, and lacing it with his own stamp of fucking crazy, on top of some lost in translation issues as well. Yeah I remember sitting there being like "What the FUCK was that?!" And just turned the game off in disgust. And since all I've heard from his followup games is that they just got fucking weirder and weirder, I have no desire to see anything else he has to make.

 

[happyninja42]

Ah, ok thanks. That's a shame, oh well.

Why so? Do you not think Death Stranding will be good? I don't, but that's because I don't think Kojima can write himself out of a paper bag

No I don't think it looks good. I think it looks fucking insane, just like everything Kojima has ever written.

My experience with his work was the first Metal Gear Solid game that re-invigorated the franchise, and it was pretty fun, if sort of the typical "japanese weird" that I had come to expect from their gaming design.

And then I played Sons of Liberty....which was just so fucking stupidly insane, when I got done playing it, and was watching this final cutscene that was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. An American, Jingo-istic, Rah Rah 'Murica speech from Snake, written by a Japanese guy, with just a filter on the actual culture he was depicting, and lacing it with his own stamp of fucking crazy, on top of some lost in translation issues as well. Yeah I remember sitting there being like "What the FUCK was that?!" And just turned the game off in disgust. And since all I've heard from his followup games is that they just got fucking weirder and weirder, I have no desire to see anything else he has to make.

Well um, this one little codec convo [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKPDaiJTX9M] speaks volumes about the state of contemporary American society; more than damn near any movie in existence let alone video game, and it did so nearly two decades ago. Dissected. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6DuQlAorpag]

The series as a whole is markedly observational; it?s just the delivery gets somewhat lost in translation and most people just end up shrugging their shoulders without a further thought.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Google reverse image search is your friend.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Ah, ok thanks. That's a shame, oh well.

Why so? Do you not think Death Stranding will be good? I don't, but that's because I don't think Kojima can write himself out of a paper bag

No I don't think it looks good. I think it looks fucking insane, just like everything Kojima has ever written.

My experience with his work was the first Metal Gear Solid game that re-invigorated the franchise, and it was pretty fun, if sort of the typical "japanese weird" that I had come to expect from their gaming design.

And then I played Sons of Liberty....which was just so fucking stupidly insane, when I got done playing it, and was watching this final cutscene that was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. An American, Jingo-istic, Rah Rah 'Murica speech from Snake, written by a Japanese guy, with just a filter on the actual culture he was depicting, and lacing it with his own stamp of fucking crazy, on top of some lost in translation issues as well. Yeah I remember sitting there being like "What the FUCK was that?!" And just turned the game off in disgust. And since all I've heard from his followup games is that they just got fucking weirder and weirder, I have no desire to see anything else he has to make.

Not quite, MGS 3 was arguably the most straight forward game in the series, if mostly on the virtue of referencing James Bond and Rambo for all they're worth. Everything that came afterwards was... well... you know. Take it or leave it. I'd defend his writing to some extent though I'm aware that in any medium other than video games he'd be laughed out of the room. With the possible exception of comic books. His plotting is objectively a mess, plot threads are picked up and dropped once he's bored of them without ever being meaningfully concluded, important events happen between games rather than in them (which is my core issue with the MGS series storytelling), characters who are dead are contrivedlg being brought back to life because Kojima felt like doing something with them. As much as people like to joke about how he should just be making movies, he'd never get away with that shit in any semi high budget production.

However, I will defend his work in some other regards. He has a genuinely strong grasp on theme, which is missing from most games, he's one of the best when it comes to directing cutscenes (which he better be, because most of his games tend to have a lot of them) and most importantly, he's full of creative ideas both when it comes to story and mechanics.

Just look at all we know about Death Stranding. An apocalypse that involves the boundary of life and afterlife breaking down. A character who dies and comes back to life every 20 minutes. People using babies in jars to detect extradimensional entities. A lady with a child that's stuck in another dimension. Rain that makes time speed up affecting the environment. That's more creative concepts in one single game than I've had in my entire life. That has gotta count for something.

 

[Dalisclock]

Just look at all we know about Death Stranding. An apocalypse that involves the boundary of life and afterlife breaking down. A character who dies and comes back to life every 20 minutes. People using babies in jars to detect extradimensional entities. A lady with a child that's stuck in another dimension. Rain that makes time speed up affecting the environment. That's more creative concepts in one single game than I've had in my entire life. That has gotta count for something.

Agreed that DS has a bunch of really cool ideas in it. I just hope he can actually parse them together in a semi-coherent fanshion rather then just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. MGSV had a bunch of really cool ideas too, most of which were implemented badly or completely neglected because Kojima got distracted watching Quiet lap dance in the Helicopter. That's where I'm worried.

Hell, even MGS2 and MGS4 have some very good bits about them, which get drowned out by parts that are obnoxious, distracting, creepy or just aren't properly fleshed out to the point they really should be to make an impact. MGS2 has some great gameplay upgrades over 1(it's much more satisfying to actually play then the first MGS1) but the cutscenes keep interrupting the gameplay...and then there's fucking Rosemary, who apparently is there just to drive Raiden(and the player) up the fucking wall.

MGS4,OTOH, has kind of this cool meta of how war is meaningless because it's omnipresent and the sides don't matter and the dangers of PMCs runnin amok, yet it also means there's very little reason to care about much of anything going on beyond Snake and Otocon. Hell, there's a bit in the middle of the game when Ocelot turns off all the guns on earth because he has control of system because of course he can and somehow this is a bad thing? "Villian creates WORLD PEACE!" Ozymandias, eat your goddamn heart out.

MGSV will have me here all day, so I'll basically summarize as "Basically Peace Walker, but worse in everything but gameplay and graphics."