So I've been involved in so much Metal Gear talk as of late and it made me realize something. It has been eight years since MGS4 came out and I....I don't hate it anymore. Or rather, it's like my burning hatred has mellowed into dispassionate disdain. I still wish wholeheartedly that the series had ended with Snake Eater but I can now appreciate the IDEAS behind MGS4, even if I don't much care for the execution.

Like, the MGS3 support crew founding The Patriots? Sure, why not. Somebody had to have made the AI. The idea of this "background civil war" going back to the original Metal Gear games is pretty interesting. HOWEVER, the "human" Patriots are either vegetables or dead. The real villain of the MGS series, which obviously includes 4, are the Patriot AIs. We had a whole talk with them at the end of Sons of Liberty where it was made abundantly clear they are the real power here, not Solidus or Ocelot and certainly not Liquid Ocelot. YET WE DON'T HAVE A SINGLE LINE FROM THEM ALL THROUGHOUT MGS4. They're the real villains of the game, they're behind the war economy and SOP, but they never speak a damned word. They're just there, then Sunny kills them, the end.

Where was my awesomely creepy codec like in MGS2? Hell, you don't even need a codec! They could have done some awesome visual thing with them talking to Snake, trying to convince him of their necessity and power. But nope. In fact, and this touches on a point I will address in a minute, MGS4 really tries to downplay them. MGS2 was not in the least bit subtle that these were malevolent machines who viewed themselves as overlords over all humanity. IIRC, Big Boss' epic retcon monologue tries to brush this all away as a bug or glitch. As in, they weren't sentient or sapient, they were just coded wrongly or something.

And now to that point I just mentioned. So many people back when GOTP came out said that it "fixed" MGS2. Oh it tried to fix it, that is beyond doubt. It tried to retcon everything ever in MGS2 away. Vamp can run on water or pin shadows with knives? NANOMACHINES! Now, being positive, I like the idea of "the age of heroes" passing away. No longer is it badasses or people with natural superpowers ruling the world, it's people in robo-suits or with new technology. That's kind of neat. Some people I've seen have commented on how there's so much more "magic" in Big Boss' games compared to Snake's and how that's intentional on Kojima's part. Sure, I'm fine with that. But I think Kojima came up with this idea later on because obviously there was no Big Boss' games before 3 so Kojima had to establish this "theme" fairly late. As such, we got clumsy-as-hell retcons like Vamp being a result of nanomachines instead of just a magic-man.

Also, while this obviously didn't make it into the games, Kojima's original ending of just having Snake kill himself was good. Sadly, Hideo Kojima strikes me as a really nice guy that's easy to push around. So no more Snake dying and we have to turn Raiden into a cyborg to make him "cool." Even still, I get kind of teared up when Big Boss kills Zero. Maybe it's the music or the excellent voice-acting.

What else...there's a lot of things just plain bad about the game, both conceptually and in execution. Namely Meryl/Johnny. In fact, MGS4 really is the biggest case for "Kojima has issues with women." I detest the type of people who try to say a work of fiction is a look into an author's mind. Especially when it comes to saying that author is sexist or whatever. I defended Kojima's depiction of women before MGS4 because Meryl was okay, I liked Olga and everyone liked The Boss. But MGS4? Meryl has to marry someone because she's a woman, the B&B Corps are literally the most superficial and worthless villain group in the series, Naomi's character is ruined forever, and our last shot of Mei Ling is her desperately trying to catch a bouquet. None of these things would be damning on their own but THAT'S ALL THERE IS.

But I'm forgetting why I made this post. Nice things, good things, happy things.... Oh! Old Snake. Old Snake is a good idea and actually executed fairly well. I'm pretty happy with Snake's character in MGS4. Another thing that happened around the time of MGS4 and PW was there was a huge backlash against Snake and for Big Boss. Everyone I knew started saying Big Boss was a better character. Yeah, to hell with that. I love Solid Snake in all his games, even Guns of the Patriots.

I still respect Hideo Kojima immensely. Back before MGS4 came out, I defended Kojima against a lot of hate from my fellow..."super" MGS fans. The kind who thought MGS2 was a brilliant masterpiece and MGS3 was superficial garbage. (I've relaxed that view, too) They all said Kojima had sold out and they had no faith in MGS4 being good. I felt for a long time that they had been right and I had been wrong but these days, I choose to remember my love for Kojima rather than his failings. Because, as I said, a lot of it seems like the fault of others combined with Kojima just not having that forceful of personality. Perhaps years working in the soul-crushing machine that is Konami did it to him.

But here's to you, Mr. Kojima.



Learning that Gloria is a song in MGSV makes me realize that you and I are kindred spirits. Your love for the 80s extends to music as well as to movies and fashion. I love all those things, too! You are a nice and awesome dude. Now if only you could read this... Oh well.