Topic: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (BLAST from the PAST)

[Artimus]

So, I got this several years ago and never made it far. So I've been playing it lately. I just have one question:

If Kojima wanted me to sit and stare at my tv without doing anything, why didn't he just make a movie?

I like the game portion of this, but only half of the time is actually a game! I cannot believe this overblown FMV fest is so highly praised...

[JonLeung]

I thought they were cutscenes.

I use "FMV" to describe prerendered scenes.

MGS2 is worse for that.  I haven't played 3 yet.

[Artimus]

Ok then, cutscenes. I don't really care, they're far too common and obnoxious.

[Arbok]

I didn't have any particular problem with it, they were directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (of Versus and Godzilla: Final Wars "fame") on Twin Snakes and they didn't drag or anything and you can skip past most of them if you like. I could have done without the slow motion every five seconds though...

[Artimus]

They do drag! People just talk and talk and talk and talk. It has more exposition per scene than a tv pilot!

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Artimus
They do drag! People just talk and talk and talk and talk. It has more exposition per scene than a tv pilot!

I only really found that to be a problem near the end myself, where it seemed like it just kept going and going as it was trying to wrap up all of the plot points (taking way to long in doing so as I just wanted to fight, god damn it...).

[vudu]

The cut scenes are a bit much.  If it makes you feel any better, they weren't so long in the original (PSX) version.  Most of the bloated fight/action sequences were added just for Twin Snakes.  However, if its the plot scenes that bother you so much, those have been around for the past ten years.

It would be nice if Silicon Knights could magically go back and change up the action cut scenes so they were similar to RE4's.  Just the simple additon of a few timed button presses here and there make the player feel more involved with the story aspects of the game.

[trip1eX]

Thanks you guys.  You just talked me outta buying Twin Snakes in the future.  I can't stand cutscenes.

I'm reminded of the cutscenes while playing Psychonauts on the pc.  It looks awesome, but there's too many cutscenes.  The first 2 hours of the game is half cutscenes.  

That's one thing the big N has the others.  It's almost all game baby!!!  The videogame's strong point is it's interactivity.  

[Artimus]

I must admit this game is a disappointment. That said, I'll finish it anyway, it's short enough.

[PaLaDiN]

I didn't mind Twin Snakes' custscenes. I played MGS on the PS1 so I knew exactly what to expect.

It's pretty good as a movie. And the actual gameplay was fun back when it was new.

[Jensen]

Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
That's one thing the big N has the others.  It's almost all game baby!!!  The videogame's strong point is it's interactivity.

Except that really long one at the beginning of Wind Waker.  It sucks when I want to let someone try the game.  Same with Ocarina.

[Renny]

The cutscenes would feel a lot shorter if there weren't thee codec sequences in additon to each cutscene. Good game anyway, I guess.

[ThePerm]

MGS is Ryuhei Kitamura best work....i am a godzilla fan, but Final Wars was meh, and I saw verus..thats mroe funny then it is good. However, those MGS cutscenes are awesome.

[trip1eX]

Quote
Originally posted by: Jensen

Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
That's one thing the big N has the others.  It's almost all game baby!!!  The videogame's strong point is it's interactivity.

Except that really long one at the beginning of Wind Waker.  It sucks when I want to let someone try the game.  Same with Ocarina.

Yeah the fact you can't skip it sucks the 2nd time around.  I enjoyed it the first time tho as it got me in the mood to play the game.  (maybe there's a code to skip  it out there??? )

Still I don't count that as a cutscene.  

[Nephilim]

I just bought it from play-asia for 30aussie, looking forward to finally playing it
yay

[Ian Sane]

Twin Snakes is one of those games that once I started playing I couldn't stop until I beat it.  That's pretty rare for me.  Something just clicked that made me want to keep playing it.  I just found it a lot of fun.  I think the real idea behind the game is that you get to play an action movie and from that perspective the game succeeds.

There are a lot of cutscenes though and Kojima breaks a key rule in gaming in that some of the coolest moments in the game are watched rather than played.  I think Kojima is a really creative guy with some good ideas but he needs a filter.  I think he would be a good contributor of ideas for someone with a better grasp of gameplay, like Miyamoto.

The game has a pretty big anti-war message throughout as well which is a little annoying, particularly since you're hit over the head with it so blatantly.

[JonLeung]

I don't mind cut-scenes in a game, but they shouldn't disrupt the pacing of the gameplay.  I can forgive a lot of them or long ones if the flow of the game isn't messed up, but even if there are few or short ones, if they mess me up, I'd rather not have them.

There should be save points before the long ones in any case...I remember a few instances in the FF games where I'd just gotten through a tough situation like a boss battle.  And then, over twenty minutes later, I got a chance to save.  My obsessive-compulsive nature of constantly saving, especially before and after a tough battle, makes it harder for me to enjoy what could be a good scene if I'm thinking "LET ME SAVE" all the way throughout.

For scenes that are eye candy, I don't understand why these games don't have an option to let you view them all again, even if you have to switch discs to do it.  Eternal Darkness had that option, except it for some reason missed one really cool scene, sheesh.

And then there's Custom Robo.  Boy, a Nintendo-developed game is one of the worst for exposition.  I like saving, as mentioned above, but if a long single scene near the end of the game has three points where they let you save, and it's just a big long scene of talking, you know that's a pace-killer.  On a related note, it had a nice opening FMV sequence, but they should've put some of those explosions in that big long blah-blah-blah scene to wake me up.  

[Ian Sane]

"My obsessive-compulsive nature of constantly saving, especially before and after tough battle, makes it harder for me to enjoy what could be a good scene if I'm thinking 'LET ME SAVE' all the way throughout."

I agree.  If I made some sort of RPG or adventure game the second the boss died the game would prompt you to save.  They KNOW we want to save right after something like that so why make anyone hunt for a save point and risk dying at the hands of some scrub nothing enemy after barely surviving the boss?

Pace is important and it should practically be a rule that if I've seen a cutscene once I should be able to skip it.  It's the worst when there's a cutscene before a boss but the boss is hard and takes a few tries to beat and you have to see the same stupid cutscene every time you fight him again.  Plus I like the ability to pause during a cutscene in case the phone rings or something.  Plus parents, wives, girlfriends, and virtually anyone involved with your life that doesn't quite "get" gaming will inevitably bug you about something right in the middle of an cutscene with important dialog that contains information required to beat the game that you can't pause or watch later or turn the game off and resume from the last save point without redoing something really hard.  And the interuption will be for something incredibly stupid.

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"My obsessive-compulsive nature of constantly saving, especially before and after tough battle, makes it harder for me to enjoy what could be a good scene if I'm thinking 'LET ME SAVE' all the way throughout."

I agree.  If I made some sort of RPG or adventure game the second the boss died the game would prompt you to save.  They KNOW we want to save right after something like that so why make anyone hunt for a save point and risk dying at the hands of some scrub nothing enemy after barely surviving the boss?

I'm more concerned about power outages (especially in this case where we're talking about long cut-scenes), even though those are extremely rare.  I don't want to have to redo a battle just because the game wants to show me over ten minutes of Bahamut nuking something and every character in the game freaking out about it.  Getting killed off for a non-gameplay reason feels dumber than getting killed off for a gameplay reason, though I'm sure I wouldn't like some "scrub nothing enemy" either.  Sure, power outages aren't any more likely during long scenes but when you're playing a game and getting used to being in control, a long break of non-control really makes me feel at a loss.  At least let me save beforehand!

I agree with the whole skipping/replaying bit.  If a scene is cool, I may make an extra save file for it, but if I have limited saves or they take up a lot of room, I don't see why they couldn't have an option to replay them.  If they ARE skippable (pre-boss ones really should be), then there really should be a replay option, in case you skip one you didn't see before.  Now in these cases I'm generally referring to FMVs, which should be simple for the game 'cause it's just a matter of calling up the right movie file on demand.  Real-time cutscenes where it uses the in-game engine would of course be more difficult (it'd have to load up the area, place the characters in the scene, etc.) but those scenes are generally less visually impressive and dialogue doesn't have to be sped through if there's an interruption so there's less need.

I'm not a graphics whore, but a lot of people are, so you'd THINK more games would have a replay option so you can show your casual gamer friends how cool a "game" is just by having access to all the videos.
 

[Ian Sane]

"Real-time cutscenes where it uses the in-game engine would of course be more difficult"

Eternal Darkness does it so I don't see why it's not that doable.

[JonLeung]

Oh, you're right.  Absolutely.  But most of those scenes are apart from the gameplay, though, like "meanwhile" scenes, or introductory.  Anything with any gameplay mixed in between might not be worth trying to implement from the programming side.

Though Eternal Darkness also let you replay particular chapters anyway.  More games with any sort of linearity really should have that...

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: ThePerm
MGS is Ryuhei Kitamura best work....i am a godzilla fan, but Final Wars was meh, and I saw verus..thats mroe funny then it is good. However, those MGS cutscenes are awesome.

I almost agree with you However, I would say that Azumi was his best work to date, which really surprised me after how dissapointed I was with his previous films.

[dack25]

It almost seems like decades since that game came out with the lack of Cube games. I beat it like two times and played it a third time.  

[Pryopizm]

I don't play Metal Gear games for the ludicrous story lines or the cutscenes full of words, I play it for the stealth action joy-fun.

Though it is funny in a Bugs Bunny-ish kind of way how many times Liquid Snake dies and comes back only to later on die of a cold.  

[wandering]

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