Zero Punctuation: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - $40 Demo

Luminous_Umbra

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Can someone please explain something to me? Not saying anyone on here necessarily does it, but why is it some people have a problem with villains in video games doing evil and sometimes horrifying things? I mean, why is it so shocking that a villain did something evil? Have we just been spoiled with too many "doing evil with good intentions" type of villains?

I ask because I've seen it happening in response to the questionable sequences mentioned in this video and thread.
 

Grach

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Luminous_Umbra said:
Can someone please explain something to me? Not saying anyone on here necessarily does it, but why is it some people have a problem with villains in video games doing evil and sometimes horrifying things? I mean, why is it so shocking that a villain did something evil? Have we just been spoiled with too many "doing evil with good intentions" type of villains?

I ask because I've seen it happening in response to the questionable sequences mentioned in this video and thread.
Probably has something to do with all that typical Hideo Kojima thing of having a schizophrenic tone for his games.
 

The Dead Singer

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the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
So...if a video game has a rape (not even visual) it's not okay, and if a film has a rape scene it's okay? These things fucking happen in real life. We as gamers can't live in a fucking world of sunshine and unicorns that shit rainbows. I wish more video games would do stuff like this. But only if it works in the context of the story.
Games aren't real life,some people play them just to avoid things that happen in real life.
I said only if it works in the context of the sorry and world the developers created.
And that hardly happens most of the time, rape scenes in games come off as just trying to be edgy or for that extra "shock factor".The only types of stories I've seen rape being handled correctly are those where people are already fucked up to begin with.

Storytelling in video games have a long way to go before they can handle things like rape and child abuse.Right now it's only used for the sake of it.
I think we're at a point to where stories in games can use those subjects. However, I don't believe that the majority of gamers are ready for it.
The industry as a whole aren't ready for it.They still think sex scenes can't be used for anything but fanservice,same thing with nudity.It's not just the gaming community that can't handle mature subjects, it's also the game developers and publishers as well.
I have a really severe problem with this thinking.

The thing is by these accounts, WHEN exactly is the industry going to be ready for it? You're never going to know because everytime someone introduces it you're just going to continue saying the industry isn't ready for it no matter how much time passes.

This thread makes it more or less clear that the industry needs to be forced into it for them to start understanding the gravity of the themes video games are scared of tackling. It's only until that happens that games will have a chance of being taken seriously as storytelling methods and art forms, and only then will they be hypothetically "Ready", though it would of course not matter by that point.
 

Lieju

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Luminous_Umbra said:
Can someone please explain something to me? Not saying anyone on here necessarily does it, but why is it some people have a problem with villains in video games doing evil and sometimes horrifying things? I mean, why is it so shocking that a villain did something evil? Have we just been spoiled with too many "doing evil with good intentions" type of villains?

I ask because I've seen it happening in response to the questionable sequences mentioned in this video and thread.
Well, should it be about the villain being evil? Especially something like rape, which is too often depicted as something where the actual victim and how it affects them is an afterthought?

And anyway, people aren't generally evil. A super-evil villain can work just fine, but being cartoonish like that doesn't then really fit well with trying to be serious and having a point and putting things like rape and torture in it.

The problem many people have is that they feel it's lazy writing.

Hey this guy is evil, thus torture and rape.
 

LenticularHomicide

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I'm actually surprised that Yahtzee thinks that "whoops, you missed the bomb in the girl's hoo-hoo, and she dies" is meant to be a surprise in a Metal Gear Solid game. Isn't the death of supposedly mission-critical hostages a mainstay of the series?

Here's a short list of the hostages or persons of interest you meet in the first few MG(S) games (that I have played):

Metal Gear 2: Kio Marv (dies, kicking off the trend)
MGS: Kenneth Baker (dies), Donald Anderson (dies), Hal Emmerich (he comes back, but in the original endings of MGS he just fucks off somewhere), Meryl Silverburgh (dies in one of the endings)
Metal Gear Ghost Babel (aka Metal Gear Solid, the Game Boy Color version): Jimmy Harks (dies), Chris Jenner (oddly, survives, possibly due to being a Meryl-surrogate)
MGS2: Richard Ames (dies), Emma Emmerich (dies)
MGS3: Granin (dies), Sokolov (survives, but the game initially fakes you out by implying that he was beaten to death)

After all that, I was under the impression that the main theme of MGS was "History repeats itself", "People never learn from history", and "One of the lessons not learnt is: Never send FOXHOUND in to rescue hostages; it's a kiss of death".
 

xqxm

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You mean they've thrown out mister "Got-Voice-Acting-Lessons-From-Skeletor"? I remember trying to play MGS3 on the PS2, hearing this tripe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTn9eQf2sQ and immediately being so weirded out that I couldn't continue playing it. The fact that I was tripping over cutscenes every two seconds helped, too.
 

Quellist

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anthony87 said:
ToastiestZombie said:
Quellist said:
Totally not suprised about any of this, i keep wondering when gamers at large will wake up to the fact that Kojima enjoys fucking over his fans.

$40 for a demo, gangrape scene, one map only.....its getting worse..

And as for the Two bombs thing, Kojima did exactly the same with Emma Emmerich in MGS2....protect her (or get a game over) all the way to her unavoidable death scene....again fucking over the fans.

As ive said before, Screw you Kojima, i wont buy your shit until you start taking fans seriously.
Gangrape scene? $40? Those just aren't true. There's a rape scene, but it isn't gangrape


Don't forget that it's more or less hidden and not "shoved in your face" as someone said in a recent thread complaining about it.

But hey, there's no time to consider things like context or correct information when there so much moral posturing to be done y'know?
Why? Kojima never let facts get in his way

Seriously though, you're nitpicking. Whatever the price its more akin to a demo than a full game and certainly not worth $40 wether they be US, Aussie or whatever and really, a rape scene as an Easter egg...are you going to defend that?

Also I assume you have no issue with my comparison of the two bombs nonsense to the Emma Emmerich death nonsense?
 

LenticularHomicide

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xqxm said:
You mean they've thrown out mister "Got-Voice-Acting-Lessons-From-Skeletor"? I remember trying to play MGS3 on the PS2, hearing this tripe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTn9eQf2sQ and immediately being so weirded out that I couldn't continue playing it. The fact that I was tripping over cutscenes every two seconds helped, too.
Huh, that sounds...worse than I remembered it (though video games, as a rule, aren't known for their stellar voice acting, and that particular conversation is basically a recitation of a gun magazine article). I don't get the 'Skeletor' bit of your comments, though; his voice is action-tough-guy-gravelly, not cartoon-villainish-nasal.
 

anthony87

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Quellist said:
Why? Kojima never let facts get in his way
What facts? I can't even tell what this sentence is supposed to mean.

Seriously though, you're nitpicking.
I'm really not. All I said was that people are jumping to conclusions without having the right context or information

Whatever the price its more akin to a demo than a full game and certainly not worth $40 wether they be US, Aussie or whatever
I agree that the pricing is bullshit. I was kinda lucky in that regard because I only paid 20 quid for it where I live but if it was anything more than that there's no way in hell I would've gotten it.

and really, a rape scene as an Easter egg...are you going to defend that?
See this proves what I said about context and information, the fact that you refer to it as an "Easter egg" doesn't really help your case either. It's not an Easter egg, it's backstory, exposition, information on what's been going on and just how badly Chico and Paz were tortured or are you going to try and tell me that every bit of additional info in a game is now an Easter egg? Hell, have you even listened to the scene yourself or are you just basing everything on hearsay? Personally I think that even calling it a "rape scene" is a stretch, it's an interrogation. Yeah Chico being forced to have sex with Paz is a given and all that but it's neither heard nor seen.

As for defending it...well there's not really much need to.

Also I assume you have no issue with my comparison of the two bombs nonsense to the Emma Emmerich death nonsense?
I've no issue with the comparison but I don't really see what you're getting at with it. They're both characters you have to protect and they both die due to story reasons, big deal. Metal Gear Solid is hardly the first game that fucks over the player character once plot kicks in. Or do you just not like bad things happening in video games period?
 

Luminous_Umbra

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Lieju said:
Luminous_Umbra said:
Can someone please explain something to me? Not saying anyone on here necessarily does it, but why is it some people have a problem with villains in video games doing evil and sometimes horrifying things? I mean, why is it so shocking that a villain did something evil? Have we just been spoiled with too many "doing evil with good intentions" type of villains?

I ask because I've seen it happening in response to the questionable sequences mentioned in this video and thread.
Well, should it be about the villain being evil? Especially something like rape, which is too often depicted as something where the actual victim and how it affects them is an afterthought?

And anyway, people aren't generally evil. A super-evil villain can work just fine, but being cartoonish like that doesn't then really fit well with trying to be serious and having a point and putting things like rape and torture in it.

The problem many people have is that they feel it's lazy writing.

Hey this guy is evil, thus torture and rape.
Oh, it definitely needs to be handled maturely. I wasn't so much speaking just about this game as much as it was an example, as I've seen this happen with other games and other media.

Also, yes, people aren't "generally evil", but I feel the exclusion of morally bankrupt antagonists in story writing is poor choice in general.
 

satsugaikaze

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When Stephen Fry himself likes the game, you know shit's legit. =P

Metal Gear Solid? I mean what? Unbelievable craftsmanship and storytelling. Too big an adrenalin rush for one my age... Phew!

? Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) March 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/stephenfry/statuses/447886994203770880]

In all seriousness, price tag is bullshit, obviously. I only got it for about $30 (ozgameshop.com is where it's at for us Aussies), but I think for most fans of MGS the game itself is awesome.

Also,

Grach said:
Having played Revengeance
The Last Melon said:
Ubisoft posts a trailer implying Laura Croft is about to be sexually assaulted
Remus said:
So glad I lost interest in MGS after the silly lazer mission in the first game.
xqxm said:
I remember trying to play MGS3 on the PS2, hearing this tripe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTn9eQf2sQ and immediately being so weirded out that I couldn't continue playing it.
I feel these posts represent a lot of the posts going on in this thread. A fair bit of (occasionally, uninformed) opinion formed from hearsay and research without any real understanding of context, or only a cursory understanding of the games.

That said, Kojima's schizophrenic style of writing/storytelling and tone is definitely an acquired taste, not for the majority of players, and it's perfectly understandable when people get turned off by that especially.
 

Arppis

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04whim said:
I would think that having an unlockable audiotape 'reward' of the villain
having a young girl gangraped
is more than "leaning on the fence of being weird a little too hard". That's more like bulldozing the fence and jumping on it with clodhoppers.
Young woman. She's a double agent and she pretended to be young student before she got captured.

Yeah, rape is horrible thing, but this is fiction and they "cut off" the parts where the actual rape starts and ends. It's there to show how bad things can get when people aren't restricted by rules and codes of conduct with prisoners.

I don't think it was handeled as badly as people make it out to be, or maybe folks are just more sensitive than I am about this. I however just saw it as way to show how cruel the torture they had to go trough was and how deep people without rules & regulations can go.

That said I think this game's price is highway robbery. It's a fun little demo, but that's about it. Good thing I borrowed this from my friend. Hehe.
 

Arppis

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the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
the hidden eagle said:
Kenbo Slice said:
So...if a video game has a rape (not even visual) it's not okay, and if a film has a rape scene it's okay? These things fucking happen in real life. We as gamers can't live in a fucking world of sunshine and unicorns that shit rainbows. I wish more video games would do stuff like this. But only if it works in the context of the story.
Games aren't real life,some people play them just to avoid things that happen in real life.
I said only if it works in the context of the sorry and world the developers created.
And that hardly happens most of the time, rape scenes in games come off as just trying to be edgy or for that extra "shock factor".The only types of stories I've seen rape being handled correctly are those where people are already fucked up to begin with.

Storytelling in video games have a long way to go before they can handle things like rape and child abuse.Right now it's only used for the sake of it.
I think we're at a point to where stories in games can use those subjects. However, I don't believe that the majority of gamers are ready for it.
The industry as a whole aren't ready for it.They still think sex scenes can't be used for anything but fanservice,same thing with nudity.It's not just the gaming community that can't handle mature subjects, it's also the game developers and publishers as well.
Well we can't get ready if we don't try to do these scenes. If we just say: "We are not ready" and don't try to do them, we never get ready. Practice makes perfect.

And there is a reason for the rape scenes, to show off how low people can sink when they are not regulated by rules. It's pretty much social commentary of current day events on the GITMO. Also it's there to show how ruthless the main villain is. It's not purely there for shock factor. :)
 

Quellist

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anthony87 said:
Quellist said:
Why? Kojima never let facts get in his way
What facts? I can't even tell what this sentence is supposed to mean.

Seriously though, you're nitpicking.
I'm really not. All I said was that people are jumping to conclusions without having the right context or information

Whatever the price its more akin to a demo than a full game and certainly not worth $40 wether they be US, Aussie or whatever
I agree that the pricing is bullshit. I was kinda lucky in that regard because I only paid 20 quid for it where I live but if it was anything more than that there's no way in hell I would've gotten it.

and really, a rape scene as an Easter egg...are you going to defend that?
See this proves what I said about context and information, the fact that you refer to it as an "Easter egg" doesn't really help your case either. It's not an Easter egg, it's backstory, exposition, information on what's been going on and just how badly Chico and Paz were tortured or are you going to try and tell me that every bit of additional info in a game is now an Easter egg? Hell, have you even listened to the scene yourself or are you just basing everything on hearsay? Personally I think that even calling it a "rape scene" is a stretch, it's an interrogation. Yeah Chico being forced to have sex with Paz is a given and all that but it's neither heard nor seen.

As for defending it...well there's not really much need to.

Also I assume you have no issue with my comparison of the two bombs nonsense to the Emma Emmerich death nonsense?
I've no issue with the comparison but I don't really see what you're getting at with it. They're both characters you have to protect and they both die due to story reasons, big deal. Metal Gear Solid is hardly the first game that fucks over the player character once plot kicks in. Or do you just not like bad things happening in video games period?
If you weren't so busy deconstructing my post one line at a time you would have realised the "seriously though" identifies the first line as a nonsense comment. Beyond that believe what you like. Kojima disgusts me with his utter contempt for his audience...
 

ShirowShirow

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Well.

If anything, this thread and review has convinced me never to touch another one of Kojima's games.

I'll play the Next Metal Gear Rising if Platinum makes it, but It looks like me and MGS are done for.

There's a step too far on screwing over customers and there's a step too far on how a game portrays women and this game has jumped well past both.
 

ToastiestZombie

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ShirowShirow said:
Well.

If anything, this thread and review has convinced me never to touch another one of Kojima's games.

I'll play the Next Metal Gear Rising if Platinum makes it, but It looks like me and MGS are done for.

There's a step too far on screwing over customers and there's a step too far on how a game portrays women and this game has jumped well past both.
Boycotting Kojima's work for rape is a bit late seeing as there's been rape in MGS since the first one.
 
Jan 22, 2011
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Scars Unseen said:
Taunta said:
04whim said:
I would think that having an unloackable audiotape 'reward' of the villain having a young girl gangraped is more than "leaning on the fence of being weird a little too hard". That's more like bulldozing the fence and jumping on it with clodhoppers.
erttheking said:
nima55 said:
The only way that bomb-gut thing sounds like it could be any worse is if they put it in her uterus.
Oh don't worry, they didn't. They just put the second one in her vagina...no I am not making this up, I wish to Christ that I was.
Jesus, that just..."makes me extremely uncomfortable" is an understatement.
Imagine how she felt.

.
..
...
....
probably not good.
I'm having a very strong hunch she had a blast, waka waka waka....
..
...
....
.....
ugghhh i'm off to take a shower now.
 

anthony87

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Quellist said:
anthony87 said:
Quellist said:
Why? Kojima never let facts get in his way
What facts? I can't even tell what this sentence is supposed to mean.

Seriously though, you're nitpicking.
I'm really not. All I said was that people are jumping to conclusions without having the right context or information

Whatever the price its more akin to a demo than a full game and certainly not worth $40 wether they be US, Aussie or whatever
I agree that the pricing is bullshit. I was kinda lucky in that regard because I only paid 20 quid for it where I live but if it was anything more than that there's no way in hell I would've gotten it.

and really, a rape scene as an Easter egg...are you going to defend that?
See this proves what I said about context and information, the fact that you refer to it as an "Easter egg" doesn't really help your case either. It's not an Easter egg, it's backstory, exposition, information on what's been going on and just how badly Chico and Paz were tortured or are you going to try and tell me that every bit of additional info in a game is now an Easter egg? Hell, have you even listened to the scene yourself or are you just basing everything on hearsay? Personally I think that even calling it a "rape scene" is a stretch, it's an interrogation. Yeah Chico being forced to have sex with Paz is a given and all that but it's neither heard nor seen.

As for defending it...well there's not really much need to.

Also I assume you have no issue with my comparison of the two bombs nonsense to the Emma Emmerich death nonsense?
I've no issue with the comparison but I don't really see what you're getting at with it. They're both characters you have to protect and they both die due to story reasons, big deal. Metal Gear Solid is hardly the first game that fucks over the player character once plot kicks in. Or do you just not like bad things happening in video games period?
If you weren't so busy deconstructing my post one line at a time you would have realised the "seriously though" identifies the first line as a nonsense comment. Beyond that believe what you like. Kojima disgusts me with his utter contempt for his audience...
So you're just going to ignore everything I said and not bother with any counter points? I'm not that surprised to be honest.
 

anthony87

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ShirowShirow said:
there's a step too far on how a game portrays women
And what's that step? Surely you're not trying to say that bad shit can't happen to women?