General gaming

General gaming

!: From Punctuation to Paramount

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 05:37 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 2 | METAL GEAR TURNS 25

!: From Punctuation to Paramount

Cover Story: The evolution of Metal Gear's most notable iconography.

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here are few things in the Metal Gear series more recognizable than the various types of iconography used to represent a character's thoughts and emotions. Within the opening minute of the original Metal Gear, Snake crosses paths with a guard whose status is revealed through the Z's that rise and fall from his body, signifying that Snake can safely pass so long as he treads lightly. While this may have been player's first foray into the world of Metal Gear's iconography, there's no denying that the series' most notable use symbology is the giant exclamation point that appears over the heads of guards when they're alerted to your presence.

Kojima's infatuation and admiration for all things pop culture is no big secret -- the Metal Gear series is absolutely drenched with references to film, music, and literature. With this in mind, the source of inspiration for the floating iconography in the series should quickly become clear. Anyone who's spent even the briefest amount of time reading manga should recognize how a character's inner thoughts are displayed using this bombastic method akin to a thought-bubble on steroids. When a guard is alerted to Snake's presence, you can almost sense the fabric of the game being merged with the pages of a comic book -- for a brief moment, Kojima's digital world melds with that of a paper page and becomes something wholly unique in the video game world.

OP-ED: Lost in Translation

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 04:40 PM PDT

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OP-ED: Lost in Translation

The recent Tomb Raider debacle indicates this is a time when we should shoot the messenger.

By: Neilie Johnson July 4, 2012

Two weeks ago, in a piece called "Heroes and Heroines, Apples and Oranges", Jeremy Parish addressed the media explosion sparked by a couple of careless comments made by Tomb Raider producer Ron Rosenberg. Parish's piece discusses whether or not male gamers can identify with heroine Lara Croft, and examines the potentially paternalistic attitude being taken by the Tomb Raider developers. It also suggests that the Crystal Dynamics team has woefully misread and underestimated its audience. While these issues are undoubtedly important, the core of the problem as I see it is Crystal Dynamics' epic messaging fail.

For anyone who hasn't heard the story, the shitstorm started after Rosenberg seemed to suggest two things: that surviving an attempted rape is key to Lara Croft's character development, and that "people" don't identify with Lara, and instead want to protect her. The internet erupted Vesuvius-like, with articles vilifying Rosenberg and accusing the entire Tomb Raider team of being sexist. Lara Croft's often been a catalyst for gender debate, and few gaming news outlets could resist the opportunity to boost traffic by leading with the word "rape." Within hours the whole thing was blown utterly out of proportion and was steadily undermining both the game's stellar E3 reception, and months of fan anticipation.

Years of Refusal: Metal Gear Solid's Denial of Standardized Controls

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 04:09 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 2 | METAL GEAR TURNS 25

Years of Refusal: Metal Gear Solid's Denial of Standardized Controls

Cover Story: Despite some small advances, the Metal Gear Solid series continues to struggle with its controls.

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apcom's upcoming Lost Planet 3 is a familiar game on a basic level. The game won't be out for months but you'll know it immediately. It's the controls. Move with the left stick, look with the right stick, hold the left trigger to aim, pull the right trigger to shoot. It's a whole lot like Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Gears of War. It isn't even too far a cry from first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Black Ops. Bungie's Halo made consoles a home for games about guns and its controls have become the mitochondrial eve for action gaming in the modern world, from blockbusters like Uncharted to all but forgotten curios like John Woo's Stranglehold.

Except for Metal Gear Solid. To this day, MGS controls like nothing else.

How Re-Releases Fail to Preserve Some of Metal Gear's Distinct Charms

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 02:05 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 2 | METAL GEAR TURNS 25

How Re-Releases Fail to Preserve Some of Metal Gear's Distinct Charms

Cover Story: Playing the older games on modern platforms can mean sacrificing certain moments.

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or a series as popular as Metal Gear, it sure is filled with things you don't expect to see in such a big franchise, whether it be a dramatic subversion of players' expectations or frequent breaking of the fourth wall. Rather than do the latter merely for the sake of winking at the camera, Kojima and company have made great use of the fourth wall to bring a unique charm to the series that is rarely, if ever, found elsewhere.

Unfortunately, much in the same way as Metal Gear Solid 2's con job will not be as effective for someone playing the game for the first time now or in the future as it was for those who played it in 2001, some of those charms may be lost or poorly transitioned as the older titles in the series are ported to more modern platforms. Whether as a result of digital distribution or playing the game on platforms other than the one they were originally designed for, the full Metal Gear experience may forever be restricted to those with access to the original version of the games and their respective platforms.

Spectacularly Broken Game Launches

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 11:39 AM PDT

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Spectacularly Broken Game Launches

Most games launch. Some stumble and fall on their heads.

By: Dennis Farrell July 4, 2012

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor has been a topic of discussion for all the wrong reasons, with most of the talk revolving around its technical issues. The game compounds the Kinect sensor's shortcomings by continually prompting players to make gestures that can't be interpreted with any degree of reliability. Many reviewers have been unable to complete the campaign, forming impromptu support groups to make sure they hadn't made any terrible mistakes - aside from becoming video game reviewers.

At this point it's safe to say that Steel Battalion has endured the most broken launch in recent memory. It would probably abort the mission and eject if the Kinect was able to read its frantic arm waving as anything other than an enthusiastic fist-bump. That said, this is certainly not the first time a game has stumbled out of the gate while on fire. Some releases have been so flat-out busted that their technical flaws became the stuff of legend.

Patriot Games: America Through the Lens of Metal Gear

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 07:56 AM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 2 | METAL GEAR TURNS 25

Patriot Games: America Through the Lens of Metal Gear

Cover Story: How Metal Gear's treatment of the U.S.A. has changed over the years.

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he original Metal Gear debuted in Japan on the MSX2 console three days after the United States of America's Independence Day celebration -- July 7, 1987. A coincidence, no doubt, but a wholly fitting one given the important role that America plays in the series' overarching narrative. Both America the political entity and America the paragon of individual freedom figure as characters of sorts in the Metal Gear mythos. It's important to make the distinction between the two, because rolled together they'd become a tragically bipolar figure in desperate need of therapy, medication, and possibly institutionalization to curtail the danger it represents to itself and others.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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