Kuwabara, Kuwabara
To say that Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the best "videogames" that's come out is really a misnomer. Certainly it is a game with a tried and true core gameplay mechanic, marked improvements over previous installments in nearly every area, and Hideo Kojima's legendary mix of attention to detail and a flair for the odd and experimental. All these make a truly great game, and despite what some critics may think, it deserves the highest honors available based solely on those aspects. However, there is more to the MGS3 package than all that.
To play, or rather watch, Snake Eater is to treat yourself to an interesting story that truly attempts to evoke an emotional response from you, the player. Now, that's all old hat for the MGS series, but Snake Eater to me seems decidedly less preachy than the original Solid or as surreal as Sons of Liberty. It finds an equilibrium between those two extremes. Why is that important? Because it shows that Kojima and his team genuinely learned something after each Metal Gear Solid game they've made, and moreover applied what they learned to the next game. How many other developers can you name that have done that?
Unlike Idle Hours' other contributors, I am have no background in film studies, but even a film layman can see that Hideo Kojima has a desire to direct in him and the talent to back it up. That he couples that with the ability to make these fantastic scenes of action, drama, emotion, etc. interactive is where I believe his true genius lies. You'll hear lots of people in both gaming and film talk about "bringing you into X" with "X" being either a movie or game. Most of the time it's just lip service, and the extent of immersion they provide is making the character movie when you manipulate the controller. But with Kojima, it's everything you can imagine.
How many times, when playing a Metal Gear Solid game, have you said "I wonder if it'll let me do this?" and found that it did? For me, it's numerous times. More times than any other game or series I've played in my time as a gamer, combined. To me, that qualifies Kojima as being both genius and innovator-in-chief of this hobby we call gaming. If anyone should be bestowed with the accolade of spearheading the charge of making games equal parts art and entertainment, there is no one else I can think of more deserving.
Well, I've gushed enough over MGS3 for one post. It's time we address the dark side of gaming, as epitomized by Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
As the only one of the Idle Hours group that I believe has any prior experience with the LSL series, I figured I was going to have to defend this game from the valid arguments of being crude and decidedly unamusing. The older games, LSL III in particular, hold a special place in my heart as being one of those guilty pleasures of one's early teens that let you poke fun at your own budding sexuality with over-the-top innuendo and usually no payoff, mirroring the dichotomy between one's own sexual fantasies and then the harsh reality that destroys them (or maybe that's just me?).
Anyway, what I got with this new Lesiure Suit Larry was less the silly fun of my youth and more the laughable but usually pathetic puesdo-softcore porn movies they sometimes show on HBO that try to weave some contrived 'coming of age' story into the mindless sexual escapades of a hapless college student. These kind of stories are nothing to me but a futile attempt to try and dilute the animal stupidity inherent in pornography with a few cheap laughs inbetween the flesh slapping sessions. So, that's about the gist of Magna Cum Laude.
I can imagine in my mind the hopeful look on the face of the Vivendi Universal exec when he found out about this property from the library of their newly acquired subsidiary, Seirra. The visions of frat boys and lonely nerds lining up around the block to slap down fistfuls of dollars on this frankensteinian fusion of two of their demographic's primary pastimes; watching porn and playing videogames, must have consumed him as he pitched this marketing opus to everyone on that floor of the office building. If fate is just, then hopefully he's either been dismissed or relegated to the underbelly of game design (mobile phone).
This game is a shameless cash-in on the LSL name and the hormones of young adulthood. I can respect The Guy Game in the sense that it's very clear with its intentions; overcharging you for a drinking game and a few clips of topless (apparently underage) women. Aside from the rather unseemly alleged pedophilic aspect, The Guy Game is a harmless thing on par with the 'Girls Gone Wild' video series or the Cinemax channel after midnight. LSL: MCL, on the other hand, is a disturbing 'bait-and-switch' system that entices you with loading screens featuring real-life models posing as the female characters and then sporadically delivers only a cartoonishly bad imitation of intercourse.
It cannot reconcile with the fact that it is cartoon porn, so it hides behind often lame jokes (I too will admit that I occasionally got a chuckle, but it was rare) and liberal doses of toilet humor. To say that the originally LSL games were 'classy' is perhaps a stretch, but when compared to this drivel it's more than fitting. Unfortunately, it seems the kind of tongue-in-cheek sexual humor from the old LSL games is an outdated concept and the series itself seems to have little hope of living down this mastodonic blemish. I weep for the death of the point-and-click classic, and fear for the future of all gaming franchises from the long arm of moronic marketing.
- Will
To play, or rather watch, Snake Eater is to treat yourself to an interesting story that truly attempts to evoke an emotional response from you, the player. Now, that's all old hat for the MGS series, but Snake Eater to me seems decidedly less preachy than the original Solid or as surreal as Sons of Liberty. It finds an equilibrium between those two extremes. Why is that important? Because it shows that Kojima and his team genuinely learned something after each Metal Gear Solid game they've made, and moreover applied what they learned to the next game. How many other developers can you name that have done that?
Unlike Idle Hours' other contributors, I am have no background in film studies, but even a film layman can see that Hideo Kojima has a desire to direct in him and the talent to back it up. That he couples that with the ability to make these fantastic scenes of action, drama, emotion, etc. interactive is where I believe his true genius lies. You'll hear lots of people in both gaming and film talk about "bringing you into X" with "X" being either a movie or game. Most of the time it's just lip service, and the extent of immersion they provide is making the character movie when you manipulate the controller. But with Kojima, it's everything you can imagine.
How many times, when playing a Metal Gear Solid game, have you said "I wonder if it'll let me do this?" and found that it did? For me, it's numerous times. More times than any other game or series I've played in my time as a gamer, combined. To me, that qualifies Kojima as being both genius and innovator-in-chief of this hobby we call gaming. If anyone should be bestowed with the accolade of spearheading the charge of making games equal parts art and entertainment, there is no one else I can think of more deserving.
Well, I've gushed enough over MGS3 for one post. It's time we address the dark side of gaming, as epitomized by Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
As the only one of the Idle Hours group that I believe has any prior experience with the LSL series, I figured I was going to have to defend this game from the valid arguments of being crude and decidedly unamusing. The older games, LSL III in particular, hold a special place in my heart as being one of those guilty pleasures of one's early teens that let you poke fun at your own budding sexuality with over-the-top innuendo and usually no payoff, mirroring the dichotomy between one's own sexual fantasies and then the harsh reality that destroys them (or maybe that's just me?).
Anyway, what I got with this new Lesiure Suit Larry was less the silly fun of my youth and more the laughable but usually pathetic puesdo-softcore porn movies they sometimes show on HBO that try to weave some contrived 'coming of age' story into the mindless sexual escapades of a hapless college student. These kind of stories are nothing to me but a futile attempt to try and dilute the animal stupidity inherent in pornography with a few cheap laughs inbetween the flesh slapping sessions. So, that's about the gist of Magna Cum Laude.
I can imagine in my mind the hopeful look on the face of the Vivendi Universal exec when he found out about this property from the library of their newly acquired subsidiary, Seirra. The visions of frat boys and lonely nerds lining up around the block to slap down fistfuls of dollars on this frankensteinian fusion of two of their demographic's primary pastimes; watching porn and playing videogames, must have consumed him as he pitched this marketing opus to everyone on that floor of the office building. If fate is just, then hopefully he's either been dismissed or relegated to the underbelly of game design (mobile phone).
This game is a shameless cash-in on the LSL name and the hormones of young adulthood. I can respect The Guy Game in the sense that it's very clear with its intentions; overcharging you for a drinking game and a few clips of topless (apparently underage) women. Aside from the rather unseemly alleged pedophilic aspect, The Guy Game is a harmless thing on par with the 'Girls Gone Wild' video series or the Cinemax channel after midnight. LSL: MCL, on the other hand, is a disturbing 'bait-and-switch' system that entices you with loading screens featuring real-life models posing as the female characters and then sporadically delivers only a cartoonishly bad imitation of intercourse.
It cannot reconcile with the fact that it is cartoon porn, so it hides behind often lame jokes (I too will admit that I occasionally got a chuckle, but it was rare) and liberal doses of toilet humor. To say that the originally LSL games were 'classy' is perhaps a stretch, but when compared to this drivel it's more than fitting. Unfortunately, it seems the kind of tongue-in-cheek sexual humor from the old LSL games is an outdated concept and the series itself seems to have little hope of living down this mastodonic blemish. I weep for the death of the point-and-click classic, and fear for the future of all gaming franchises from the long arm of moronic marketing.
- Will
posted by idlehours at 8:31 PM
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