Caltrops - Gamerasutra - Explanation (OMGSPOILERS! OMGLONG!)

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by Damocles 05/09/2003, 3:49am PDT

ydrt wrote:

Damocles wrote:

FABIO wrote:

and this is coming from someone who sat through Xenogears for the plot. I would have enjoyed MGS2 a lot more if I had skipped every single cutscene and codec conversation.

But then I'd remember the entire plant level.

Even the plot wasn't that annoying until Kojima started to go "whee! Subjectivity!" The whole "we're all puppets for a shadowy organization" (OMGSPOILERS!) bit was interesting enough, it's just where he took that that got, well, insane.
I still can't figure out how much of Raiden and the plant level was real and how much was just "K-RAZY japaenese stuff I just don't get."

The vast majority was, yes, quite real. What it *was* was a setup from beginning to end by three factions: Ocelot, the Sons of Liberty, and those weird-ass digital beings.

Ocelot was setting Raiden up to be what amounted to another Solid Snake- he wanted to be able to create Snake-level soldiers at will, and while they had the genetic ability to do so thanks to Snake and Big Boss, they didn't have the *training*... witness the sad-ass genetically engineered soldiers from the first game, who were dumb as shit due to half-assed VR training. Raiden was also VR trained, but his was much better... and all the stuff he went through in the game was going to be the core of the next training program, which would create perfect soldiers. (Theoretically, this would actually be the game MGS2.)

The Sons of Liberty (and those weird digital beings, who either were them or were behind them) were using both because they wanted not just the ability to create Snakes on demand, but understand EVERYTHING about how human beings think, are educated, and are informationally constituted. They wanted to be able to not just create Solid Snake, but anybody at all. They also used two other sentient programs: one playing as the Colonel, and one playing as Raiden's girlfriend. Both pulled it off (although the GF analog was a bitch), but the whole thing broke down when the virus started screwing up Arsenal's computer... the computer they were being hosted on.

(That's why all that utterly bizarre stuff in Arsenal's guts happened... the program was screwing up, and the interface between the Colonel, Raiden, and the player was breaking down. That latter part was the screwup, BTW... while that "the player is a character" stuff isn't necessarily stupid, it was poorly done, especially with that "end screen" stuff during that one big fight alongside Snake.)

MGS was about genetics, and whether genetics was destiny. MGS2 is about information- how we are made up of information (including the aforementioned genes), how this information can be manipulated, and whether or not a combination of genetics and proper training ('nature' and 'nurture') can entirely describe human beings, without any other element (like the soul, core personality, random chance or whatever) playing a role. Are we just a sum of the information that was our lives and the information that is our genes?

The problem, of course, was the execution. That "gotcha" thing with Raiden was stupid and brilliant. Brilliant because it really was one of the biggest shockers in modern gaming history, but stupid because it just happened to piss everybody off. The gameplay was fine, but the bosses were pretty weak compared to the first game. And since it was supposed to be analogous to the first game, it felt like a weaker repetition of the same concepts, which not only set it up as a copy but confused players when it broke off to tell its own story. And finally, like a LOT of anime, too much was backloaded- elements that were introduced during the Arsenal's Guts sequence should have been present hours beforehand, so that they wouldn't leave the game exposition-heavy when it's supposed to be fast and furious... and deeply confusing to most players, because they're hit with too much, too soon.

Plus, the stupid relationship stuff between Raiden and the GF needed to go.

Sucks, actually. The basic idea of man-as-information is solid, and the gaming medium is uniquely suited to exploring that sort of thing. It was done in a hamfisted fashion, though, and that gotcha was a transcendentally poor decision.

(That about sum it up?)