āWalking simulatorā very accurately describes this game in the strict literal sense of the phrase, but doesnāt apply in the half (or whole) disparaging way it was originally intended. Where most āwalking simulatorsā have very few mechanics or systems and are are simply a vehicle for story, here the walking mechanics are dense and complex, and the story (even if Kojima intends it to be a focus) is sort of a side attraction.
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the game probably exists so that kojima could make a corny walking simulator joke
the problem with kojima as an object of criticism is that his deliberately cultivated idiosyncrasy grants him a free pass for everything. the answer to every criticism of kojima is āhaha i know, lol kojimaā or else tone deaf āgenius of our timeā nonsense. itās cynical, it hides some of his awful politics, masks his childish vanity, and subsumes almost any discussion of what his games actually do or do not accomplish as works beyond exercises in navel gazing.
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anyone could be the next kojima you just have to somehow obtain his CV and rightplace/righttime and read like 2 books a year and watch A24 movies. then people will call you a genius and godā¦ its that easy
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sb is probably the first place iāve posted in a long time where the merits of his work are being discussed and not just having it be a circlejerk about how heās gamingās only auteur or whatever
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I realized some months after I finished MGS V that I generally am more annoyed by post-Snake Eater MGS games than entertained by them and was glad to never have to actually play or even think about them ever again. It was freeing in a way like when in my young adulthood I realized that if I didnāt want to I never had to play a game with random battles again, that really made both me and my life more pleasant. I think I grew to care too much about MGS because of the first three games, and when it then went (at least partially) off the rails afterwards it slowly but definitely became a toxic relationship that I think was legitimately making me a worse human being to be around when engaging with it.
The thing is I never figured out if that meant I should be happy to be free of MGS and never having to look back, or Kojima himself. Perhaps we all should be granted a chance at a fresh start after all. That said everything around the game right now has made me so fucking glad that I am under no personal pressure to get to this game any time in the near future and can choose some years down the road whether or not to bother engaging with it.
ā¦Then I read stuff about how it is live and interactive with all the other people playing along with you building stuff and what have you andā¦ nope, I would still rather risk missing out on all of that 
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iām stranding the death
we got knot cities, knotholes, strands on your hip, ghosts from strands, strands you come back to life from, samantha america strand, fragile the delivery service and fragile the woman whoās name is fragile because her body is old
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a shot of the american flag behind a bunch of life support equipment, i get it
iām through the beginning and this game is great but always makes me wish every game had a āhave you played x similar game beforeā because i know how to navigate a menu and drop an item on the ground i do not need it explained to me zzz
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the āthank you for your continued serviceā message from president BRIDGET when you make a generic materials delivery gives me strong Starship Troopers vibes (āwould you like to know more?ā). the codec conversations with Die Hard Man also give off sinister undertones. I do hope this whole patriotic servitude situation suffers a MGS2-esque metaphysical breakdown at some point. but I am prepared to be disappointed in surprising ways
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I like that Iāve been finding those journals about a masked man who wants to rule the world and I really canāt tell if itās about Die Hardman or Higgs.
It also was intriguing reading all that stuff about drones destroying the fabric of society only to suddenly be told that they were bringing drones back. And you know, it was kinda interesting, because the first drone delivery I made was to the old man. The gruff old man who I built a bond with as I constantly brought him 0% damage deliveries, joyously reiterating he was still alive each time I would see him. And then itās just the drones doing crappy 30% damage deliveries and I donāt see him anymore. I am rather strongly touched by this
On the other hand Southerland (forget the main cast name-wise, I love all the secondary people who are named similarly to where they work or what they do. I should change my name to Computerguy) seems to think people will instead project empathy to the drones.
Iāve been shuffling resources around to build that highway in chapter 3 and itās been a wise investment, although an exercise in logistics. It sorta struck me yesterday that the whole gameplay loop is basically built on removing the balloon from MGSV and seeing where it leads.
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reading really bad articles about this game is going to be my hobby going into 2020
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I donāt even know how this game is a mess. It seems really tight to me. All the wacky narrative stuff is just there to serve the delivery mechanic and then expounded upon to the nth degree. It actually seems like a very smart way to write a video game.
I got to the bad scene, which was bad, and I still hate all the likes and all the player structures unironically popping up everywhere, but my feelings on this have improved a great deal. Yes, the secret was not taking it so seriously.
I also think Iām uncommonly good at this? I have, like, never delivered damaged goods and only once have gotten less than an S rank. Iām in chapter 4 now, which is different, so if it ranks me on this that may change.
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can youā¦elaborate?
iām curious, because iām in chapter 6 right now. i obviously came into the game expecting some usual Kojima problems, but so far i feel likeā¦i havenāt seen anything that gets anywhere near stuff in his previous games?
he still has no idea how to write women, like, even a little bit. everyone in a Kojima game talks like an alien/like an episode of The Young Pope, but the women especially. itās like heās never met one, or had a conversation with one long enough to gain any sense of their interiority, but he is apparently married and has kids, so likeā¦i know, that doesnāt mean anything, but itās still pretty weird!
spoiler-y thoughts - chapter 6 and before
so obviously one of the biggest contradictions in the game is how it frames aspects of technology and the havoc it wreaks while also making the player actively take on the role of reuniting everyone with the same technology, but based on what Deadman tells you in the shower, the interviews, and the general clues you get here and there that Bridges is not what it seems, iām wondering what the pay off is going to be, exactly.
Mamaās chapter felt weird to me. i mean, i think itās supposed to be a bit weird, but the way she justā¦dies? i feel like i wasnāt really following the logic there. so, they both died (baby and Mama), but the baby being stuck in the world of the living as a BT, tied umbilicaly to the world of the living, kept Mama alive because i guess the implication is that herā¦āKaā was tied to the babyās āKaā becauseā¦thatās how childbirth works? idk, i donāt follow.
i guess another part of it was that i felt like i barely knew this character. she spoke to me mostly in hologram form for 90% of the game up until that point, and itās not like there was some rapport between her and Sam that was made apparent. her death just sort of feels flat to me, i guess.
edit: the part about twins communicating telepathically in the womb, though, while supernatural as heck and kind of dumb, was touching.
I mean the Fragile stuff at the end of chapter 3. I donāt like when lasciviousness is attached to strong character moments as if to excuse itself. As if I wouldnāt notice. Still, no, not that bad, and not as bad as earlier stuff.
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This is why MGS4 rules so much, because it is all about how the MGS universe doesnāt give a shit about that either. Like really, Snake barely even gets to talk, everyone in his life is actually a part of something that barely concerns him, and even when he thinks he is most relevant, his clone-dad pops up to tell him he was just the pawniest pawn to ever pawn. Itās great.
I just got to Episode 3 and am enjoying it a lot. Even that boss fight was a good time if nightmarish as hell.
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yeah, i figured this was what you meant; it also rubbed me that way. i want to kind of work out some thoughts, here, though. if this is dumb, feel free to ignore lol
so while watching that scene, i was trying to parse why it felt weird. obviously the optics of āwoman in her undergarments being torturedā is never going to play out super well, but i feel like Kojimaās goal as a director was to try to capture what makes Fragile strong, right? but, i think he just doesnāt have the chops to pull it off. sure, Higgs can be a gross weirdo because heās the villain (as far as we know), but the camera doesnāt have to linger on Seydouxās body as much as it does, and the whole point of this being like, the ultimate punishment for her, because sheās beautiful, is fucking trite. why does this even have to be a factor for her? it hasnāt been brought up any other time in the story thus far.
i actually had wondered about this a lot when i heard Seydoux was cast, because i know she had a really bad time with the director of Blue is the Warmest Color and i wasnāt positive that working with Kojima would be a much better experience. but i guess it probably had to have been.
anyway, i guess at least it wasnāt a timebomb in her womb.
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Iāve already gotten 70k likes from other players and 15k from NPCs in this game
Every other form of social media is overā¦ You just canāt beat that likes / hour ratioā¦
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kojima come out of the closet already so you never have to front and put women in your games ever again. just let me revel in your obsession with muscles and mens relationships without getting whiplash from WHAT IS A WOMAN HOW DO THEY WORK all the freaking time
im not like being flippant Iām pretty sure kojima is queer, and in not presenting queer he has to emulate whatever straight men think about women, so its always out of touch and fucking disgusting because he thinks itās what men want to hear (and because of this thereās a certain type of METAL GEAR SOLID MAN i know to avoid like the plague)
i want twink stranding and bara gear solid. its okay kojima you donāt have to lie to kick it
i might actually play this game, any time something is THIS DIVISIVE in normie games circles its worth playing
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fwiw, i do think this is worth a play. iām finding it the most interesting KojiPro game since MGS 1 or 2.
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another thing i want to say that iāve definitely said somewhere on the internet before is that i enjoy how KojiPro games utilize NES/Famicom-style naming conventions. most games lost these arcane elements as photorealism became a priority in games, but KojiPro just keeps naming characters as if theyāre sprites on a screen that will say two lines and then be dead. that people are repelled by thisā¦well, guess theyāre not the true gamers they say they are, are they? 
iām jk (kind of)
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I beat it. Boy howdy what a long ending. I loved it though itās almost easier for me to pick it apart than it is to describe what I was so taken by (typical gamer in 2019). The journey feel of it all from coast to coast was just fantastic. I think it wallowed in too much self-seriousness for its own good and couldāve used a few more things like say, Heartmanās scenes but itās still hard for me not to really admire it. It will continue to crack me up imagining Hollywood actors reading some of these lines with a straight face.
Princess Beach
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