I need more MGS icons
Jun. 22nd, 2008 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
croikSo instead of starting MGS4 over immediately after beating it, I decided to go back and play the rest of the series and THEN do it again. Everything really takes on a new feeling, playing it after playing 4.
Yesterday I finished MGS3 :D. I also went back to my old entries about MGS3 (spoilers) to see if my opinions had changed. So here are somethoughts.
Camera is still a pain. I hear they fixed that in Subsistance but I still don't have a copy of that. Not that it mattered much through this playthrough, because I cheated my way through using Stealth Camo and Infinity Face Paint (I shot all those goddamn Kerotan for a reason!) but I forgot how annoying the boss fight with Volgin is when you can't see if there's a gun turrent behind you or not.
Originally I said I didn't like EVA 'cause she was too much of a ho, but I actually realized not long after writing that entry that it wasn't EVA I had a problem with: it was Big Boss. I'm still not sold on Big Boss as a character at all. MGS3 had a great plot but BB himself was really a total bore for me. It was like they were making an effort to keep him from reacting to anything in a surprising or interesting way.
Especially as it concerns EVA. She spent the entire game coming on to him, but it seemed like every time she jumped him he failed to react at all. He didn't start to reach for her and then pull away, he didn't shove her off immediately - especially on the mountain top he just kind of stood there, as if just waiting for her to give up. Sure he was distracted with The Boss all those times, but in that case he should have at least told EVA "Hey, this isn't a good time, ho. BACK OFF." I just kept imagining what Solid Snake would do in his situation: now there is a spy who knows how to encourage/dispel sexual tension depending on what he feels like at the time.
I guess I'd say that Big Boss kind of came off as a dork to me, who had no idea how to handle a woman that wasn't The Boss. Maybe after being with The Boss he just wasn't used to seeing women as sexual creatures? That could actually be an interesting angle, if it had been played on, but... he had no trouble flirting shamelessly with Para-Medic over the radio, when she was far out of range. Maybe he's one of those guys that's all flirty online but face to face with boobs is just too much.
And despite how personal the plot should have been to Big Boss, he hardly seemed to engage in it on a personal level. Again, I can't help but compare him to Solid Snake. Both of them say in their games, "I've never been intereted in other people's lives." Big Boss proves that to a T in his game. In MGS1, Solid Snake tried to remain uninvolved but ended up taking many things personally. He looked after Meryl, tried to encourage and sometimes depended on Otacon, and even connected on a personal leve to Mantis. He made his fight with Sniper Wolf VERY personal. And unlike MGS3, everyone on the other end of his codec (except Nastasha I guess) played an active role in the plot - you were *required* to talk to all of them a few times.
But Big Boss didn't seem to give a shit about The Cobra unit, even knowing they were all comrades of his former master. I guess if you call Sigint or someone during the boss fight you learn a bit about their history, but that's very different from Mantis confessing to Snake how he killed his father, comparing the two of them, helping him... In the end, they had an impact on each other. But The Cobras didn't seem to leave any impact on Big Boss. They showed up, said a few lines, and died. I don't think Big Boss said 2 words to any of them. You'd think he would show at least some interest in the men The Boss chose over him.
Ocelot shot out Big Boss' eye, but he barely acted like he cared, and he didn't hold it against Ocelot later. Volgin beat the crap out of and raped EVA several times, and Big Boss knew it, but he didn't hold any kind of grudge against Volgin when they fought. Even when he finally faced The Boss in the end he had almost nothing to say. I made it through practically half the game before ever calling Sigint, and even then it was just to make him comment on my nakedness - not because he needed to talk to me. Big Boss had more chemistry with the gun EVA gave him than he did any living person in the game.
Except Ocelot, in the beginning at least. That teasing was the only time he seemed to have any personality at all.
I want to like Big Boss. He's such an important character in the whole series, and did so many important things. He influenced just about every other character directly or indirectly. But the most interesting part of his life, the most important, is arguably his creation of Outer Heaven in Metal Gear 1 and 2, but those games are so old they just don't have the chops for complicated character development. I haven't beaten Portable Ops yet but I've gotten the impression that it ends before Big Boss' change from soldier to dictator takes place. Big Boss' shining moment as a character happens at a point in which there are no games to show it, and that's a shame, because every account the games give of him is a little different, and the transition between those differences is where the real meat of his character lies.
Replaying MGS3 also made me wonder more about Ocelot. By the end of the game you learn that he was really ADAM, the operative that was meant to aid Big Boss in his mission. As a CIA agent (and above that, a member of the Philosophers) he must have known the entire time that Big Boss was on his side. It even seemed that he and EVA worked together to try and keep The Boss from having to disfigure her old pupil (whether or not EVA realized at the time that Ocelot was a good guy). In fact, the success of the whole mission (a mission Ocelot had to have been aware of) depended on Big Boss surviving long enough to take on and kill The Boss.
Does that mean that every time Ocelot fought BB and failed to kill him, it was on purpose? There were at least four times that Ocelot aimed his gun at BB's head and pulled the trigger, and every time either the gun jammed or he was out of ammo. Did he honestly know that every time, and was just trying to look like he was incompetant, to make sure Volgin and his men trusted him? Or was there ever a point in which he honestly intended to kill BB?
I think the most curious encounter was at the end, when Ocelot dove onto the Wig and tried to shoot BB when he was unarmed. Either he honestly wanted to kill BB because the mission was over anyway (The Boss was dead, Shagohod was destroyed, the Legacy was in his possession), and didn't realize that his gun was empty, or it was another act. But if he knew the gun was empty, he bet his life on Big Boss not having an extra weapon. If the gun EVA passed to BB had had a single bullet left in it (something Ocelot could not have known ahead of time) he would have been dead.
At that point there was no reason for Ocelot to need to show off as a loyal Russian anymore: the mission was over, and neither BB nor EVA suspected for a second that he was KGB *or* CIA. The only explanation is that he honestly wanted to face BB one more time. But did he face him knowing his gun was empty, and that he was giving BB the advantage? Or was that just a mistake? Where any of the times his gun was empty a mistake?
Oh Ocelot, you so complicated. I think I'm in love. <3
The question extends to the other games, too. in MGS1 all of FOXHOUND knew ahead of time that they were going to use Snake to activate Metal Gear for them. Does that mean all of those boss fights were staged? Liquid had to know that blowing Snake up with a helicopter missle would ruin the card key and prevent them from learning the secret of launching Metal Gear. He couldn't have honestly intended to kill Snake. Did he and the rest of the FOXHOUND throw every fight just to let Snake proceed? Did The Cobra unit throw all of their fights, knowing it was The Boss' mission to die by Big Boss' hands at the end?
When you think about it that way...there's hardly a fight in 1 and 3 that either Snake won on his own merits alone (except for the final bosses). Makes it all the more frustrating when you actually lose. Technically you shouldn't be able to get a Game Over in those fights >:I
Not that I died a lot or anything. Especially rapelling down the communication's tower with a helicoptor shooting at me. Not at all.
Yesterday I finished MGS3 :D. I also went back to my old entries about MGS3 (spoilers) to see if my opinions had changed. So here are somethoughts.
Camera is still a pain. I hear they fixed that in Subsistance but I still don't have a copy of that. Not that it mattered much through this playthrough, because I cheated my way through using Stealth Camo and Infinity Face Paint (I shot all those goddamn Kerotan for a reason!) but I forgot how annoying the boss fight with Volgin is when you can't see if there's a gun turrent behind you or not.
Originally I said I didn't like EVA 'cause she was too much of a ho, but I actually realized not long after writing that entry that it wasn't EVA I had a problem with: it was Big Boss. I'm still not sold on Big Boss as a character at all. MGS3 had a great plot but BB himself was really a total bore for me. It was like they were making an effort to keep him from reacting to anything in a surprising or interesting way.
Especially as it concerns EVA. She spent the entire game coming on to him, but it seemed like every time she jumped him he failed to react at all. He didn't start to reach for her and then pull away, he didn't shove her off immediately - especially on the mountain top he just kind of stood there, as if just waiting for her to give up. Sure he was distracted with The Boss all those times, but in that case he should have at least told EVA "Hey, this isn't a good time, ho. BACK OFF." I just kept imagining what Solid Snake would do in his situation: now there is a spy who knows how to encourage/dispel sexual tension depending on what he feels like at the time.
I guess I'd say that Big Boss kind of came off as a dork to me, who had no idea how to handle a woman that wasn't The Boss. Maybe after being with The Boss he just wasn't used to seeing women as sexual creatures? That could actually be an interesting angle, if it had been played on, but... he had no trouble flirting shamelessly with Para-Medic over the radio, when she was far out of range. Maybe he's one of those guys that's all flirty online but face to face with boobs is just too much.
And despite how personal the plot should have been to Big Boss, he hardly seemed to engage in it on a personal level. Again, I can't help but compare him to Solid Snake. Both of them say in their games, "I've never been intereted in other people's lives." Big Boss proves that to a T in his game. In MGS1, Solid Snake tried to remain uninvolved but ended up taking many things personally. He looked after Meryl, tried to encourage and sometimes depended on Otacon, and even connected on a personal leve to Mantis. He made his fight with Sniper Wolf VERY personal. And unlike MGS3, everyone on the other end of his codec (except Nastasha I guess) played an active role in the plot - you were *required* to talk to all of them a few times.
But Big Boss didn't seem to give a shit about The Cobra unit, even knowing they were all comrades of his former master. I guess if you call Sigint or someone during the boss fight you learn a bit about their history, but that's very different from Mantis confessing to Snake how he killed his father, comparing the two of them, helping him... In the end, they had an impact on each other. But The Cobras didn't seem to leave any impact on Big Boss. They showed up, said a few lines, and died. I don't think Big Boss said 2 words to any of them. You'd think he would show at least some interest in the men The Boss chose over him.
Ocelot shot out Big Boss' eye, but he barely acted like he cared, and he didn't hold it against Ocelot later. Volgin beat the crap out of and raped EVA several times, and Big Boss knew it, but he didn't hold any kind of grudge against Volgin when they fought. Even when he finally faced The Boss in the end he had almost nothing to say. I made it through practically half the game before ever calling Sigint, and even then it was just to make him comment on my nakedness - not because he needed to talk to me. Big Boss had more chemistry with the gun EVA gave him than he did any living person in the game.
Except Ocelot, in the beginning at least. That teasing was the only time he seemed to have any personality at all.
I want to like Big Boss. He's such an important character in the whole series, and did so many important things. He influenced just about every other character directly or indirectly. But the most interesting part of his life, the most important, is arguably his creation of Outer Heaven in Metal Gear 1 and 2, but those games are so old they just don't have the chops for complicated character development. I haven't beaten Portable Ops yet but I've gotten the impression that it ends before Big Boss' change from soldier to dictator takes place. Big Boss' shining moment as a character happens at a point in which there are no games to show it, and that's a shame, because every account the games give of him is a little different, and the transition between those differences is where the real meat of his character lies.
Replaying MGS3 also made me wonder more about Ocelot. By the end of the game you learn that he was really ADAM, the operative that was meant to aid Big Boss in his mission. As a CIA agent (and above that, a member of the Philosophers) he must have known the entire time that Big Boss was on his side. It even seemed that he and EVA worked together to try and keep The Boss from having to disfigure her old pupil (whether or not EVA realized at the time that Ocelot was a good guy). In fact, the success of the whole mission (a mission Ocelot had to have been aware of) depended on Big Boss surviving long enough to take on and kill The Boss.
Does that mean that every time Ocelot fought BB and failed to kill him, it was on purpose? There were at least four times that Ocelot aimed his gun at BB's head and pulled the trigger, and every time either the gun jammed or he was out of ammo. Did he honestly know that every time, and was just trying to look like he was incompetant, to make sure Volgin and his men trusted him? Or was there ever a point in which he honestly intended to kill BB?
I think the most curious encounter was at the end, when Ocelot dove onto the Wig and tried to shoot BB when he was unarmed. Either he honestly wanted to kill BB because the mission was over anyway (The Boss was dead, Shagohod was destroyed, the Legacy was in his possession), and didn't realize that his gun was empty, or it was another act. But if he knew the gun was empty, he bet his life on Big Boss not having an extra weapon. If the gun EVA passed to BB had had a single bullet left in it (something Ocelot could not have known ahead of time) he would have been dead.
At that point there was no reason for Ocelot to need to show off as a loyal Russian anymore: the mission was over, and neither BB nor EVA suspected for a second that he was KGB *or* CIA. The only explanation is that he honestly wanted to face BB one more time. But did he face him knowing his gun was empty, and that he was giving BB the advantage? Or was that just a mistake? Where any of the times his gun was empty a mistake?
Oh Ocelot, you so complicated. I think I'm in love. <3
The question extends to the other games, too. in MGS1 all of FOXHOUND knew ahead of time that they were going to use Snake to activate Metal Gear for them. Does that mean all of those boss fights were staged? Liquid had to know that blowing Snake up with a helicopter missle would ruin the card key and prevent them from learning the secret of launching Metal Gear. He couldn't have honestly intended to kill Snake. Did he and the rest of the FOXHOUND throw every fight just to let Snake proceed? Did The Cobra unit throw all of their fights, knowing it was The Boss' mission to die by Big Boss' hands at the end?
When you think about it that way...there's hardly a fight in 1 and 3 that either Snake won on his own merits alone (except for the final bosses). Makes it all the more frustrating when you actually lose. Technically you shouldn't be able to get a Game Over in those fights >:I
Not that I died a lot or anything. Especially rapelling down the communication's tower with a helicoptor shooting at me. Not at all.
