@Drake Lake: Apologies to your lost battalion.: Well, the real problem is that editing sort of goes out the window when you can take all the time you want to choose your next line of dialogue while the other characters in the scene stare at you with infinite patience. This is something that would ruin the preset pace of Metal Gear's pacing.

Guild_Navigator

@wicko: He means they didn't make all the cutscenes, facial animation, and lip-syncing by hand, but rather the engine automatically detects the words to make the lip-syncing and facial animation and analyzes the scene to decide the camera angles for the dialog, while in Metal Gear each cinematic is carefully designed with camera angles and everything else happening in mind.

For being made by an AI path instead of an actual director, Mass Effect has really impressive cinematography, it's just that it pales in comparison to Metal Gear because all of that was actually made by hand and redone several times.

Nirolak

@Spartan1308™:

It is polite to refer to another Japanese person by their second name first, followed by their first name.

StormTec

I'm hugely confused here, because Hideo Kojima, as a visual filmmaker, is only barely touching on the footsteps of people like Ryuhei Kitamura, and that kind of film is largely.. Well.. B-movie crap.

That MGS4 is even mentioned in the same context as Citizen Kane is an enormous insult to that utterly mold-shattering film, as well as film as a medium.

It takes a pretty spectacularly narrow mind to see MGS4 as "fine filmmaking". Entertaining? Sure, when it doesn't head off on rambling lines of poorly translated exposition. But "fine" as though it were a good example of film as a medium? If the game is to be held up and compared to film, it needs to be subjected to the same form of criticism, and MGS4, in its translated form at least, doesn't hold up even compared to kids movies like Spiderwick Chronicles or, shudder, Horton hears a who.

Kojima has the pacing almost completely wrong, and falls into a talking head pattern far, far too often. It's as though he wants to tell a story, but isn't able to convey the complexity of it visually, instead falling back on characters looking at eachother seriously explaining things. I wish he would take a few pages from games like Thief where the story is told in broad strokes but more detail can be found by the player if he or she wishes to look for it. Instead he insists that we need to be told everything in one go, and when he DOESN'T tell everything in one go, the buildup to that revelation can be seen hours in the coming. It's just.. Drab. I almost wish he had the same engine of merchandising behind him Halo had, where the story in-game is a vehicle for gameplay, and the extra stuff is told through comics and novels. It lets those who want more get more, and doesn't stuff it down the throat of those who like the gameplay but find it hard to care about the self-important animè (because it is, and nobody can convince me a few breast ogling shots and a few absurdist jokes changes the hilariously heavy handed pathos you're subjected to the rest of the time).

I'm not saying i could do better, christ, but as a big big fan of film and video games, seeing Citizen Kane brought into the context of an overblown b-movie with a shit translation is heartbreaking.

It's doubly heartbreaking when you look back and see how bloody good his games have been in the past. More recently his GBA and DS games have been really entertaining experiences.

Good game designer? He sure is a creative one. Fine film maker? Give me an effing break.

Sunjammer

@beat89 and wicko: : The problem comes that you'd have to animate every cutscene for every choice you make. It's kind of time and money consuming, unfortunately.

Drake Lake: Apologies to your lost battalion.

/yawn

EnigmaNemesis

Although his filmmaking was groundbreaking, too bad DW Griffith chooses to glorify the KKK's activities in his films.

slackjawed

The thing about mass effect is that I don't get the impression of the dialog portions and the game play portions being as much two separate entities as they are in Metal Gear with a few exceptions sparsely placed in the game. That's one of the reasons that Metal Gear can afford to add the extra artistic touches to the cinematography, lighting ect ect.

Guild_Navigator

@Katorok: He's claiming that most game cutscenes, including Mass Effect's, are not up to the creative standards of cinema.

Is that supposed to be controversial?

(I haven't played Mass Effect, so maybe the cutscenes are awe-inspiringly fantastic, I wouldn't know.)

quen

@beat89: Agreed. Thats the one thing that bothered me, the ME characters rarely moved around and when they did it was just arm waves or gestures.

wicko

@dowingba: What do you mean by "scripted"? If by scripted you mean multiple paths (ME) vs. linear story progression (MGS), then scripted is the wrong term. I think you mean to say non-linear.

Non-scripted would mean that the AI acts on its own rather than having action-reaction functions. Stalker would be an example of non-scripted AI (supposedly) as the world will move on its own without you interfering (important NPC's can die from wars with other factions or other enemies).

What makes ME impressive to me is the character models and the lip syncing. I don't know about MGS4, but the earlier versions, they just dubbed over the japanese language. I hope in 4 they made it a bit better.

wicko

"...and Kojima Hideo of Metal Gear fame."

*Hideo Kojima

Spartan1308™

@Evil Tortie's Mom: hurr are you saying the cinematics were randomly generated? sure the player gets to choose dialogue tree but of course they're still scripted and animated by, oh you know...animators

robotomasher

@dowingba: What isn't impressive though, is two characters standing around dead-faced, talking back and forth. I certainly appreciate that type of gameplay (I have 1020/1050 points for Mass Effect, and anyone who's played it knows that takes a lot of time), but it's not terribly cinematic, at least not in the way Metal Gear is. Metal Gear tells it's story in a much more flashy and cinematic method than Mass Effect does, which was thhe authors point

beat89

aggggh... brain... stretch... on Sunday.

But seriously, good article, good comparison. Be interesting if someday MGS is considered as old-fashioned as Griffith's work, and how soon that might be.

I'm just happy to live in Calif. where my History of Film 101 class counted towards my college history requirement. :)

Evil Tortie's Mom

Thing is, Mass Effect's cinematography is unscripted. That's what's so impressive about that game.

dowingba

Wait, is he dissing Mass Effect right there?! =(..

Katorok

@cowondinosaur:
I didn't consider the cutscenes and cinematics in ME to be bland, because I didn't consider the conversations you have with other characters in the game to be cutscenes or cinematics, which is the area of the game most people seem to be complaining about. The game's into, the attack on Eden Prime, scenes with Saren, the Alliance's arrival at the Citadel during the final battle, and the game's finale are examples of cutscenes, not conversations.

notoriousEIC

@StormTec: Well, no; a very good Japanese film maker would be someone like Kurosawa, and I think that everyone can agree that Kojima is no Kurosawa. If we must use film comparisons, he's does a fine job of emulating popular Japanese b-movie tropes, but I doubt that he'd be equally handy on a film set as he is in a game studio.

JustThisGuy

@Sunjammer: The article refers to Kojimas work as being 'visually' creative in that it's character design and camera work is interesting and pleasing to the eye. I don't see the article comparing MGS4 to Citizen Kane script wise, and a visual comparison would be pointless since as passive entertainment they are completely different experiences. It doesn't surprise me one bit that Kojima is a huge fan of George Lucas. His cheddar filled scripts are a testament to that, but the themes while convoluted and confusing at times are at least more interesting and thought provoking than most games if not a fair few films. But for me it's during the gameplay that his talent shines brightest, the eye for detail, those little moments of brilliance and creativity that most game designers never seem to come close to. But even the most ardent MGS fan knows there is much to improve. So will he go on to make movies or will he stay with the games? I for one hope its the latter.

Major0celot

@quen: The cutscenes and cinematics of ME are bland, hence why everyone's fapping off to lip syncing and multiple dialogue branches and other intricacies like that instead of the actual overall scene direction and story.

ME gets the trees right but misses the forest. MGS4 makes a fantastic forest but misses some trees.

@Spartan1308™: If you were in Japan would you introduce yourself with your surname first or last? These things when going from country to country can go either way, depending on how local you want your localization to be.

cowondinosaur

@StormTec:

Uh, to a Japanese person, that should have been, as I'm sure Michael Abbott isn't Japanese himself XD

As an aside, this article seems to stem from a shorter one posted earlier about why we probably shouldn't be comparing games to films like Citizen Kane.

On the apparent debate appearing about Kojima being a good/bad film-maker, I feel he's a very good Japanese film maker. A lot of Japanese films, I've found (especially the famous horror stuff like Grudge and Ring) have a whiff of the B-movie about them. If you look at Battle Royale through a Western-standards film lens, you'd realise that it's rather hammy and over-acted. I've always thought that's how Japanese cinema tends to be, and thus always thought that judging processes springing from an entirely different culture by your own culture's standards was always rather...pointless, and a bit dumb. Yes, the techniques used in MGS4 may well be anime, but that is a big influence on Japanese pop culture so it's only natural it would make it's way into the way Japanese do films.

To judge Japanese films by Western standards, I think, is like judging videogames by measuring to cinema. Or, to use a more common analogy, apples to oranges. Indeed, they are both fruits and are both (sorta) round, but they're still different things.

Saying that though, I'm hardly an avid follower of Japanese cinema. This is just an opinion of mine I've formed from what I've seen so far.

StormTec

@Sunjammer:
Agree entirely. Kojima hasn't learned that exposition is usually a huge mood killer. The best movies manage to do it without you even realizing it, and the really good game developers are learning to tell stories without stopping the action.

notoriousEIC

@Sunjammer: Are you referring to the same article we are? The post's author is comparing Kojima to D.W. Griffith, not Orson Welles. I don't personally agree, but it's easy to see why someone would posit that Kojima might be similar to Griffith, in the grand scale of completely useless historical analogies; they are both known for their relatively absurd lengths (Birth of a Nation being the first full-length motion picture), and they both have proven that a long, complex narrative can be commercially successful.

This is, I think, damning praise. Games shouldn't be aping the tropes of cinema, and I think that all such comparisons are ultimately futile. Critics really need to stop comparing them to films; while the analogy is easy, it's also lazy. There's an argument to be made that games are not yet a mature form of expression, since it has not yet defined its own uniquely particular rules and paradigms for critical analysis.

JustThisGuy

@Nirolak: LOL I must see this magical AI that generates movie for myself. Of course they hired REAL people to do all the cutscenes. Why do you think every cut scene has exact same animation and camera angle?

robotomasher

@Sunjammer: I've gotta agree with you that Metal Gear's cinematic quality is highly overrated, though I think you may be exaggerating it a bit by saying it doesn't compare to kid's movies (or at least most ones).
Yeah, the plot is basically a glorified anime, but the real draw of the game is that, even though it's not as good as a good film, the story is better than the vast majority of other games and, at the very least is entertaining. He also does a really good job at mimicking films, with interesting camera angles and detailed effects (the tanker in MGS2 is especially impressive), which kind of makes you feel like you're playing a movie- even though you know that this movie would be critically panned if it really was one.

Zerbrechen

@Guild_Navigator: Unfortunately, it's a problem that we have to deal with. Otherwise, it'd be something more annoying like the universe pausing while I decide if I want to say I'll do it *happily* or I'll do it *grouchy*

Drake Lake: Apologies to your lost battalion.

I think that we as gamers have forgotten some of the key elements to gaming. Story telling has really gone out the window sure there are a lot of cut scenes in MGS4 but I found myself getting more and more drawn into the story. Normally I get some cut scenes that don't seem fully attached to the events other then you made it A to B. I think the trend of how many online co-op/versus matchs have ruined it too. Gametrailers for instance crucifies games on all the systems if there is no online play even if the game was noted for being single player.

TheNexusRebound

Well Mass Effect's weakest quality is the cinematics. Awkward animations overall. But still, the story and beautiful graphics made up for it.

I think it will be years before anything compares overall to MGS4 (if ever)in terms of visuals and storytelling.

sascha23

For everyone about to reach for their dictionary:

per·ni·cious

-adjective

1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.
2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.
3. Obsolete. evil; wicked.

I learned something.

iLov3

I wonder why he chose Griffith - despite the similarities, it seems like an odd choice; as if he had just finished reading a book about him and, true to Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, started seeing parallels with the game he's currently playing.

Either way, it's a fairly interesting phenomenon to look at - being restricted by your medium of choice, operating under the praxis of established forms, which ultimately veils your attempt at a new discourse. I'm most reminded of Hegel's equation of Synthesis - and while it's not the most original way of creating new signifiers within the medium, it's necessary for its evolution.

If anything, this blind spot isn't indicative of the artist, though - it's in the form itself. While you'll find variations in different artists of the same movement, it's fundamental to the process that no attempt be all-encompassing.

zovietsquid

@notoriousEIC:
The game's intro*

notoriousEIC

I don't know why people thought Citizen Kane is a great movie. I really don't get it. What's so great about telling a story about a single character from different perspectives? I haven't played MGS4 but I loved the story telling in the older ones.

VampireHunterZ

@Sunjammer: The greatest strength of the entire Metal Gear Saga's cinematic story, is the plot, which is quite spanning and twisty. I don't see how Horton Hears a Who or Chronicles of Spiderwick might have ANY comparison whatsoever to a military "save the world" drama filled with private jokes and complex plot. And yes, the plot is complex, and it does have quality. The camera angles and action scenes show quite a bit of quality, and I think there was even a movie critic who said that it was preferable to anything on cinemas out there.

Nobody's comparing it to Citizen Kane, which is a masterpiece. But then again, the videogame industry isn't very old, and it needs to mature. MGS4 was a game made for fans, filled with references, and plucky heroes getting to save the human race from total domination by computerized AIs by storming the place ninja style. But it works. It's fun.

Why do you think Firefly is considered one of the best sci-fi series of all time? Because it's serious, or because it's got a deep plot? No, it's because someone can have fun watching it. Same with MGS. And I'm betting nobody would play a game which would be a "masterpiece", if that game didn't have a single shred of fun. MGS is over the top, it's got mechs, ninjas, android soldiers, poop jokes... And a good story to go with it.

So I understand your anger. Same as me and thinking why mose weeaboos around the net think Final Fantasy VII has a plot that's worth a damn instead of being a glorified shitfest with characters dressed in various fetishes. But guess what, I can't do anything about it, and most people, including experts, think that it's good.

It's kind of a lesson we learn. I've been a fan of the MG saga since the very first MSX game, and right now, I'm pondering over which story to needlessly obcess now. But I admit, I cringed when I saw Mount Rushmore springing out of the sea.

Ashurahori

@Sunjammer: It is strange to think of Citizen Kane as "mold-shattering." Nearly all of the key members of the cast and production have been cited saying something to the effect of the film being a machine for creating a spectacle. While the text did create quite a splash, in arguable the biggest year of film, it did not do anything entirely unique (despite the tall tales of otherworldly camera lenses). So why should it be so offensive to you to think of a game so interested in making a spectacle, as it relates to that film?

Also, video games cannot be assessed in terms of cinematic language or qualities. The power of film is in its ability to manipulate an illusory space. The participation of the audience is always at the heart of the director's concerns. Whereas a video game director has an assumed participation. The limitation for the video game designer is in the ability to control the viewership. Session duration is entirely controlled by the operator.

While you think it is obscene to compare the two works, you are equally guilty of trying to force Metal Gear Solid 4 into your own definition of cinema. Why not, instead, try to relate the two on the basis that they are both emergent art forms (one with a significant head start)?

jakechance

Kojima's work is existentional bull shit. It has no right being mentioned in the same sentence as something like Citizen Kane. People need to stop confusing big words and random philosophy in a video game with a work of art and something with substance.

KirbyMorph

@Ashurahori:

I totally agree as well!

MGS 4, Firefly, Star Wars and numerous other fan based series have a different appeal than a movie like Citizen Kane. MGS 4, despite its exploration into various complex themes and crossing story lines, required to appeal to fans of the series by including references to past games and fun little in-jokes. Really MGS4 is as deep and complex as the player wants it to be in almost every facet. On one hand the story has many twists and layered themes, but on the other it is filled with the same small mocking tone and funny little inclusions that has always been present in Metal Gear games. I mean look at the Blu-Ray codec, the Beauty-Beast photo shoot, Akiba's diarrhea, and Sunny's little dancing moments with the iPod. They are all small, shallow elements that give the funny relief in an otherwise depressing story (except for the ending ;]). For those looking for some fun moments MGS4 has it and for those looking for a serious and intelligent story they will also be pleased. This goes double for gameplay where the player can choose exactly how they approach a situation.

Weasel3689

@VampireHunterZ: Agreed, it's mind-numbingly tedious. There may (or may not, I have no idea) be genuine reasons to consider it groundbreaking in terms of what came before, but when I saw it - admittedly some time ago and I can't remember it - it wasn't interesting today. (Admittedly, I'm pretty cynical when it comes to 'classic' films; but some later ones like Casablanca say are pretty good...)

Actually there may be a parallel with computer games, at least if you accept my characterisation of the film's quality. In other words, it's pretty crap and not very interesting, but it was groundbreaking for the time - just as even our better video game stories (e.g. MGS4) are pretty crap and not very interesting if you didn't periodically get to sneak around/shoot things, but are excellent for their time considering the immaturity (both senses) of the medium.

quen

Holy mother of god that was a long post. Sorry everyone.

Sunjammer

Alright, this is less of a response to the article than it is a response to how much attention Kojima is getting as "a filmmaker".

When i bring up the movies i did, i bring them up because they, unlike the metal gear series, display an actual understanding of how the film medium works. I was bringing up kids movies mostly because they ask the least of the viewer in terms of narrative, yet still manage to tell tales of, superficially, the same complexity as MGS. I know the real heft to the MGS story is in the details, but the details are for those that really, really, really care for them, and what Kojima is doing is assuming everyone cares deeply enough to be able to look through the torrent of data he throws at us, or rather that we are willing to try and get through the onslaught for the sake of his story. In my case, i liked MGS, but MGS2 and 3 were just outlandish, and 4 hasn't improved on it; more like the opposite.

In effect it's a contradiction: He doesn't trust us enough to read the article, so he puts the article in the byline. Yet he puts so much information in the byline it's genuinely hard to pick out what matters and what's just verbose extravagance.

Here's a concrete example: In MGS, exposition happens through cutscenes. Period. Next to no information can be found by your own effort. You are expected to move from gameplay to plot back to gameplay. He doesn't trust gameplay to be a narrative device beyond climactic confrontation and travel between two points, and instead puts his money in the most obvious narrative tool at his disposal.

I'm hugely disappointed in how MGS has turned out. MGS2 was a fun game with a ridiculous story. MGS3 was a funner game with a slightly more grounded story. MGS4 takes us LEAPING back into ridiculousness. None of them have improved an iota on the narrative technique, they've just been putting in more hours.

To make my opinion clear; i think Kojima is an amateur filmmaker with a hollywood style apparatus. I think that MGS exists is awesome. I think that treating MGS as the final bridge between games as bland entertainment and games as art is a huge misjudgment.

@jakechance: Cinema looks backwards and creates a refined history. Games look forwards and anticipate change. Games emulating cinema is a huge step backwards. Filmmakers wish they could have "our" tools to tell a multifaceted story where the viewer can dig deeper and deeper and indulge themselves completely in the world. Filmmakers are saddled with the responsibility of telling a complex story within a limited timespan with a limited toolset, while game designers can basically create their own tools and expectations at will. What Kojima is doing is forget all of that, and try to saddle himself with the limits of filmmakers. It's really pretty bizarre.

I'm not going to argue over Citizen Kane being an incredibly innovative film for its time. All you have to do is watch it back to back with some of its contemporaries. We are talking 1941 here.

@JustThisGuy: We basically agree :) Sorry if you felt my post was a red herring (it kind of is. I'm discussing MGS as filmmaking, not the article. Sorry if that's not appropriate within the context).

@Ashurahori: Thats my point though. The "filmmaking" of MGS actually kills my fun. I'd rather have a fun game with the MGS mechanics than one that is mostly a really rough MGS scifi movie.

Sunjammer

Why the hell are people bringing up Citizen Kane? It was never mentioned in the article, and only mentioned in passing in this post in relation to the occasional extreme fan reaction - no one who knows what they're talking about is seriously comparing Kane with MGS. The message that this article is trying to get across is that there are a lot of similarities between the way Griffith and Kojima operate as directors and how their works are similarly flawed.

I'm still not finished with MGS4 myself, but I'm far enough along to realize that the cutscenes are easily the weakest part of the game. Even the mission briefings, that are supposed to me uniquely interactive, don't do enough to offset the dialogue that drones on and on or to make the player feel like they're a part of the action.

Blah8

I totally agree with this write up.

Abbott points out both the genius and foibles with Kojima's work much like Griffith. Though I really disagree with Griffith's glorification of the KKK, he was a true pioneer in film making. This genius however, like abbott notes, is not in the successes of making films but in how well the emulate the then dominate medium of theater while still maintaining the facade of a movie.

Kojima follows this same idea in that his genius is merely derived that he can so effectively link both the gaming and cinematic mediums together effectively. At its heart, the gameplay is exceptionally in MGS4 containing the detail that Kojima painstakingly crafts into each of his games but without the engaging and cinematic style of the cutscenes it is not complete. Like many people have pointed out these cutscenes by themselves really are merely lessons taken from B-Movie Japanese film with somewhat awkward pacing, lengthy and somewhat redundant dialogue, punctuated with a some pretty camera angles and heart racing action sequences; basically a cookie cutter cinematic experience. But this all changes when it is placed alongside gameplay. They all combine to create an experience that is unmatched in the gaming medium at this point. Most other games seem to make the story as a vessel to allow more action and gameplay, but MGS4 celebrates the story and the characters and gives them a chance to at least get the time to have development rather than simply starting conflict after conflict like many other game story lines. This refreshing style is what makes Kojima and MGS4 really stand out.

However, like the article mentions, Kojima and Griffith were both hampered by the specter of the dominant medium at the time. Despite how excellent both of their works are, they are both are hampered by the fact that at best they are merely emulating and combining styles. Although it does create a new and unique piece, this act can only take the artist and the art to a certain point. Kojima's pieces compare to Citizen Kane as much as Griffith's. No matter how excellent their works may be, they lack that purely unique power of Kane.

Now that MGS 4 is out and I have played it twice (F*king Amazing!!!!), I hope that Kojima will now have the freedom to create a new IP that can have the same impact as Kane in the gaming world. As much as I love the MGS series, and as much as I would love to see a Kojima prequel/sequel in this series, i think that Kojima needs to have the freedom to experiment and create a piece that helps to legitimize gaming as an artistic medium and legitimized Kojima as an artist/genius.

Weasel3689

@robotomasher: I think you meant that comment @dowingba

Evil Tortie's Mom

@wicko: I mean that the cinematography changes based on the players' actions. MGS4 has scripted cutscenes, directed like a movie. Mass Effect does not (for the most part). I don't see how it's comparable.

dowingba

@Weasel3689:
ooops looks like I strayed a little off topic. What I meant to state is that games in general games suffer from this problem of 'fitting in', something that is evident with the advent of casual gaming and is somewhat the inhibiting factor in MGS games. They kinda feel too much like they have to incorporate what cinema deems acceptable. Although I feel that Kojima does an excellent job making a game that incorporates cinematic elements to make a unique experience, there are definately moments that seem bogged down on his insistence on using cutscenes like Sunjammer notes. He needs to shed this "blind spot" and explore a more homogenous mixture of the mediums to his heart's content and avoid emulation to appease the masses.

Weasel3689

@VampireHunterZ: Because it literally invented film techniques that had never been seen before. It's also considered by many to be the finest movie ever made by man, mostly stemming from the fact that it solidified film as an art form. I also think it holds up extremely well today, as it actually tells a deeper story entirely through images.

Now get off my lawn ya dern kid!

Thorax

Thought provoking indeed Maggie.

artofwar420

From the Comments Section on the page

"Michael, allow me to rephrase what you just said:

"Yes, Bach is up to some very interesting and ambitious things. I truly admire him and as you may know, I'm a nut for classical music. Having said this, I simply don't think this experience has much relevance anymore. Hardcore barroque music fans like you and me can get our kicks, but let's be honest...we're a minuscule group of music lovers. Now, if we could incorporate Bach's composition techniques into a modern audio experience - that makes me very excited. But it would be a very tough fit, I think, because of all the things such a musician would have to give up to accommodate the limitations of modern music."

I don't give a rat's ass if there are just about 10 people in the entire world listening to Bach, or reading Virgil, or watching old B&W silent Charlie shorts. These are some of the finest moments in mankind artistical expression and I don't think they are less relevant just because the so-called "common man" enjoys dumbed-down fun/entertainment because it is what talks about "our times". F*ck that!

I'm sure in about 5 years of history, mankind was able to produce some true gems that surpass and transcend anything our mediocre "here, now" has to offer. I could care less about the masses eating grass and wondering about life like a bovine."

This quote is totally on the money.

Weasel3689

@Sunjammer: No worries, mate. I just wanted to make sure we were both referring to the same source, lest I look like an idiot (well, more so than usual).

JustThisGuy

@Sunjammer: I rarely noticed because I was usually pretty quick with the responses. But it would have been cool if they'd stare at you for a few seconds and then say "well?" or something.

dowingba

sorry, that last sentence was horrible to make sense of. Let me try again:

I suppose that means I concede to the point being made about the quality of his film-making being debatable.

There.

StormTec

@JustThisGuy:

And Kurosawa was also a perfectionist, wasn't that the defining aspect of the way he directs? Much like Kojima, he wouldn't be satisfied until a shot had exactly the kind of impact that he wanted. Kurosawa's techniques are, by now, nothing revolutionary, of course. Going back to the way the article differs between a genius and an auteur: I'd say Kurosawa was a genius of cinema, in his day. And Kojima is an auteur, at least, of videogames of our times. Though I suppose that means I do concede to the point of whether he would make a good film maker debatable.

StormTec

@Sunjammer: It would have been neat if they had the other characters reacting to your pause. Even if it was just cosmetic.

Guild_Navigator

@dowingba: Did you find yourself disappointed in Mass Effect for not forcing you to make choices on the fly? I liked being able to make dialog decisions ahead of time as you do in a normal conversation, but that illusion was broken when you could just leave the controller and the other character would just stare at you until you made a choice. I would have liked the game to somehow urge you to make those decisions to keep the pace up

Sunjammer

OK, here, I have the end to the entire debate!

Konami: Relabel the game Metal Gear Solid: Tactical Espionage Action-Adventure RPG and instead of being blasted as a shooter with too much story, it'll be lauded as an RPG with gameplay ahead of the pack.

screamingslave

MGS4 was one of the best movie that i have ever seen

MGS4 was one of the best game that i have ever played

Leepox

@Sunjammer: Fahrenheit had that mechanic, but as Mass Effect is more of an RPG, it focuses on choice rather than realism.

But actually, I think Mass Effect was pretty weak when considering choices. The characters had next to no exposition or personality to speak of, except "I am joining your party because we have similar goals". The story itself was quite simplistic, and there were no indearing moments or characters we could truly quote or identify with, at least for me.

KOTOR, for example, was a storytelling masterpiece, because instead of just casually getting close and banging a person like in ME, Bastilla was a spoiled little brat who you allowed to slowly change by seeing the truth. And not only sparser fields and better sidequests with more envolving stories made it grand, it was essencially better than all the movies combined.

Ashurahori

really cool post. but i'd want to get away from the auteur model for analyzing video games. lots of people in film studies have abandoned (or at least criticized) auteurism, since making a film involves so many other things than just one dude and his vision. i would say auteurism is even less suited to analysis of video games--think about all the people involved in the production of MGS4. we can't just uncritically accept that that game as a text magically emerges from Kojima's mind without any other mitigating factors. i guess i just wonder what sort of model we can use when thinking about video game authorship.

rejack

@robotomasher: Here's your magical technology :P [www.oc3ent.com]

Nirolak

guys i have never said this one here, and probably won't for a long time.....

ALL OF YOU FUCKING ROCK!

great debates on the subject matter, this is what kotaku is all about!

now moving on......

i have always viewed kojima as a man torn. i say this because he thrives through success and failure at the same time. one culture we have noticed in the game industry is how devs succumb to a cookie cutter format in how to interpret what really should be played and discussed as "art". MGS is a child who has grown and maturated before our own eyes. and at best MGS is like a nomad trying to find a meaning in this world, all the while pissing off the masses for its controversial outlook on life. kojima has pioneered every bit of this nomadic journey of himself into his work, which is why i idolize him. sure there many reasons we shouldnt, but then you could also make the argument that games with less style and substance have gotten as much or even more praise. we as a whole don't have life figured out, it is truly a puzzle. MGS is puzzles pieces meant to be put together by us, instead of the puzzlemaker. kojima doesnt just flirt with the idea of cinema and game... he attempts to blur that line and make you either love or hate his passion for bringing those 2 worlds together. and it seems as though he really throws caution into the wind when it comes to compisition of action and storytelling. and although MGS clearly could have followed a path to simplicity where the games extra heavy plot could be spread through countless media like a Star Wars,"why should we judge it based on the style of the stroke, when it is the painting we should be critiquing?" when does the destination become less important than the journey? People who adore Citizen Kane will tell you the masses don't get it. they can't see the vision for what it is.. genious (subjectively) MGS series as a whole has fallen into that same category, for better or worse. does it fail at times? sure! but boy it sure does succeed in ways most games or even movies wont for a very long time. there is much to be said just in that regard.

just my 2 cents..lol

zanzibarlegend

IMO, Kojima needs to learn to edit his own work before he can be compared to any decent filmmaker. The dude's so in love with everything he creates that he can't bear to leave out any of the pointless drivel that the series is known for - and the quality bits of his stories end up drowning in it.

There are good reasons why directors cut scenes from their own films - scenes that are excessive, unnecessary, or just don't contribute anything meaningful to the work as a whole. Kojima, on the other hand... if that guy was a filmmaker, he would have the cleanest damn cutting room floor in the whole business.

Number41

@Number41: "There are good reasons why directors cut scenes from their own films - scenes that are excessive, unnecessary, or just don't contribute anything meaningful to the work as a whole. Kojima, on the other hand... if that guy was a filmmaker, he would have the cleanest damn cutting room floor in the whole business."

And I bet you have a few "Director's Cut" films in your collection. What you seem to forget is that cut scenes add what most non-ADHD people call "context" and you seem to forget that Kojima stated that MGS4 currently ([kotaku.com]) IS as condensed as it can possibly be.

dadeisvenm

That horse up there is dressed in bed linen.

GogolGants

I think MGS4's greatest liability is the fanbase. It seems like any time criticism (whether vindictive or academic) is brought against the game, they same crowd of idiots feel the need to defend it.

It's hard to proffer that it's Art, and then at the same time, turn a deaf ear to criticism.

You think everyone liked Van Gogh's paintings, or Citizen Kane when they came out?

I'm sure Kojima is happy people are talking about his game. Pay him some respect and let the dialog continue, even if you disagree.

Reading the thread so far, it looks like many of you agree.

Snokie

@dadeisvenm:

Yes, Kojima thinks the story is as compact as it can be. Many people would disagree with him. But It's Kojima's game, so he wins. :)

I think it's harder to "edit" CGI, because it may have taken 4 artists a month to come up with 3 minutes of "film". How do you tell them "It just doesn't fit"?

Film editors have the luxury of hours upon hours of film, reshoots, and a known target time of 80=120 minutes. CGI editors use most everything everything they "shoot", and I think that is the problem Number41 is talking about.

Any movie editor would have certainly cut out half of MGS's cut scenes. IMHO, I think it would have improved the game, and forced a more coherent presentation.

Snokie

Saw someone switched his name in the comments. Kojima Hideo is perfectly reasonable to use in Japanese. It is the usual for the language, we switch so don't get 'confused'. What the hell is confusing about it is beyond me.

iseptimus

I think a lot of you are missing the point. Metal Gear isn't a movie, it's a game that borrows some movie tropes. It doesn't have to follow movie rules. It doesn't have to come in at 2 hours to fit in more showings per day -- if it did, 90% of you would be complaining that it's too short for your $60.
Films don't (with a couple of exceptions) take place in real time, they can chop and change to the most efficient way of relating the story to the audience. In Metal Gear, you are Solid Snake. You experience what he does in real-time (again, with a couple of exceptions). That's how immersion works. And taken on that level, the storytelling in Metal Gear is virtually identical to Half-Life's, except Kojima prefers you play a specific role instead of a blank slate, and he has a keen visual sense of where to point the camera.

Out of curiosity, what do you folks hold as the high watermark of videogame storytelling?

mfolwell

@dadeisvenm: I bet you have a few "Director's Cut" films in your collection. What you seem to forget is that cut scenes add what most non-ADHD people call "context"...

Yeah, I do have some "Director's Cut" films on DVD, but just because a director's cut is different from the theatrical cut doesn't mean that the director didn't cut anything. See what Sunjammer said above about pacing. Also, I would refer you to Roger Ebert's reaction to The Brown Bunny. In short, the film was improved immensely after its director cut out almost a half hour of pointless crap.

@Snokie: I think it's harder to "edit" CGI, because it may have taken 4 artists a month to come up with 3 minutes of "film". How do you tell them "It just doesn't fit"?

To tell the truth, I only mentioned "the cutting room floor" in my comment to sound clever ;) Kojima should do most of his cutting when everything is still just on paper.

@mfolwell: Metal Gear isn't a movie, it's a game that borrows some movie tropes... In Metal Gear, you are Solid Snake. You experience what he does in real-time

Fine, compare it to 24 then. The same arguments still apply. The problem isn't with the amount of movie-like content in Metal Gear, it's with the quality of that content.

And as for my high watermark of videogame storytelling, I imagine that would have to be Silent Hill 2.

Number41

@Sunjammer:

Props for every single word you said.

I find interessting the efforts ones like Valve are doing into storytelling thru games(even if borrowing a lot of content from too many movies..)... I wish we had way more examples to name .. but we don't.

TheurerDiciple

@mfolwell: I have never felt immersed in an MGS game. They have been games you watch more than anything, MOSTLY in fact because of how little they actually let you interact with the story, choosing instead to let you interact with how you watch the story.
It's bizarre.

Sunjammer

@mfolwell: High watermark of videogame storytelling? Planescape: Torment. I also absolutely love Thief 2 and System shock 2.

Sunjammer

@Sunjammer:
Making a distinction of medium A is better then medium B is a mine field, because there is no such thing. Each effort is graded on it's own efforts and any parallel comparison would have to be contrasted accordingly. example.

If you take into account and compare Final Fantasy 1-7 to any film them it would have to be compared to films of the silent era because there was little to no voice acting and that comparison a concise FF7 play through (minus the hokie stuff) would be considered higher in caliber then most simply because it was driven by story, cut scenes, and (kick a$$) composition.

What CAN we compare MGS4 to? Sequel, Science Fiction, Espionage (military) films.

Any science fiction espionage sequels we can draw correlation to? No? Yeah. Thats pretty much what I thought.
But if we are to make a comparison it would have to be to Aliens.

Even in that comparison its "apples and oranges". Where an argument can be made is if MGS4 shifted any non pertinent MGS4 information strictly to the briefing sessions and were they concise enough during the non-briefing sections; did they move enough of the non MGS4 act specific information to the briefing section and make the normal inline cut scene informative enough?

Given the sheer amount of information and back story Kojima had to fit into MGS4 to give first time players context to the series, MGS4 does a great job.

@Number41: "...Kojima stated that MGS4 currently IS as condensed as it can possibly be." - dadeisvenm"

@Snokie: The cut scenes (except for the ****SPOILER ALERT!!!**** Egg frying. -END SPOILARRZ ELERT, Are are in game engine driven. No cutting involved. If it were CGI you wouldn't be able to control the MarkII or change the camera angle like you can. This is what makes MGS4's interactive cinematics head and shoulder above the rest. Editing the cut scenes is no different then editing a scene in Half-Life 2's Gary's Mod.

dadeisvenm

Having actually seen Birth of a Nation in film school, I can tell you at least one similarity - mind numbingly long scenes with no interactivity. Still, I would gladly play though all the cut scenes in Metal Gear games before watching that little bit of film history again.

TheRockingDead

@dadeisvenm: I dunno man, for someone with so much information to deliver, Kojima sure chose a heavyhanded way of doing so. I don't think we're discussing wether MGS is a complex story, it's wether Kojima has been telling it effectively. I think he hasn't at all.

Sunjammer

"What CAN we compare MGS4 to? Sequel, Science Fiction, Espionage (military) films.

Any science fiction espionage sequels we can draw correlation to? No? Yeah. Thats pretty much what I thought."

How about Escape from LA/Escape from NY? that's a sci-fi/espionage film with kojima-like humor .. characters .. dialogues .. uh .. sound effects .. plots ..

TheurerDiciple

@TheurerDiciple: True at the surface but Escape form NY/LA is thin in back story. If we're to do a true comparison we would have to reduce MGS4s content to only MGS2 and all other content would be simple footnotes. The Escape films only "unfinished story" is Snake himself.

@Sunjammer: I didn't play through MGS2 (only the demo and the full version is on my pile of shame) and I haven't finish MGS3, but oddly enough MGS4 makes perfect sense (Yes I have and watched the MGS Saga DVDs and watched the GT Retrospectives). I can't change your opinion. Kojima's direction in telling the MGS4 story is effective since the likelihood that a first time player can "get it" without having played MGS1,2,3 or Potable Ops.

dadeisvenm

@dadeisvenm: I guess at that point it just boils down to both your tolerance level and your preferences. I can't argue that the people that enjoy MGS are wrong. They aren't. All i'm saying is that many, many more could be enjoying MGS if it was more elegant in its storytelling.

If you want to talk complex narratives, lets get into Planescape Torment, which has one of the most complex, backwards, loopy narratives i've been through, yet it's all always clear what's going on and why you are where you are.

Sunjammer

@dadeisvenm:
Yes, but you could bring other kojima's influences into account for this kind of comparision.

I demand for a dreamworks CGI movie directed by Ron Gilbert .. NOW.

TheurerDiciple