#RAIDEN VAMP FIGHT FUCKED SO MUCH

[lemon-wedges]

.....

#well #in the end i can say this #mgs4 otacon was unfairly hot u_u #was it worth the weird fetishization of women suffering and mangled character arcs tho? #:| #honestly tho #both the shortest and longest mgs #the world isnt that big and im like really dissapointed there wasnt more people talk to on the codec #especially compared to mgs3 that seems to perfect relationship building thru those calls #also kinda insane how bogged down by exposition this was even tho???? idk if its any more than prev games? #possibly the way its paced out but man #even BBs final speech was wearing me down #but also #RAIDEN VAMP FIGHT FUCKED SO MUCH #and everything in and after shadow moses was fun #not the noami thing #but u know #the old man fights #... #god #3 more games #AHHHHHHHHHHHH

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Winds of Destruction

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Here I am, dirty and faceless Waiting to heed your instruction On my own, invisible warrior I am a Wind of Destruction!

As many of you might now, I’m a huge fan of the Metal Gear series. What you probably don’t know is  that, despite the series having a penchant for squads of quirky bosses, I’m not really a huge fan of many of them. FOXHOUND? I mean I like Mantis and Ocelot. The Sons of Liberty? I guess Vamp is alright. B&B Corps? I barely remember any of them. I love the Cobra Unit, but that’s because all of them are batshit insane and weird. I’m not saying they’re bad boss fights or anything—far from it, they all offer fantastic boss fights—but as characters I’m not really big on many of these villains.

The Winds of Destruction, on the other hand? I fucking love these guys (and girl).

Metal Gear Rising is what happens when you turn the insane anime action of the main series up to 11, and so it should be no shock the squad of bosses is cranked up as well. Each and every one of these guys is nuttier than the last, and the whole lot of them are some of the most memorable and memetic characters in the franchise. Also Khamsin exists.

Motivation/Goals: So besides the obvious way they tie into the plot because they’re working for Armstrong, each of these villains has a theme song which pretty much details what makes them tick, what they’re about, and expands upon them once you get their health low enough during their boss battles.

Mistral’s theme, “A Stranger I Remain,” details how she has come to this land to sate her bloodlust, and how she truly feels most at home on the battlefield; Monsoon’s theme, “Stains of Time,” acts as a reinforcement of his nihilistic outlook; Sundowner’s theme, “Red Sun,” expounds on his nature as a card-carrying villain and how he revels in the violence and bloodshed he causes; Sam’s theme, “The Only Thing I Know for Real,” lays out his desire for a one-on-one duel with Raiden, his foil, to see who is truly worthy to stand up and continue fighting for their ideals; and Khamsin’s song, “The Hot Wind Blowing,” showcases his patriotic nature as well as just generally acting as a badass boast. Most of these songs  act more as thematic seasoning for the characters, adding on to what is already established in their cutscenes, but for some like Khamsin and to a lesser extent Mistral, it’s pretty much the extent of their development.

Performance: Every single one of these actors really brings their all to make these characters memorable.

Sundowner is the ham and cheese of the group, working alongside Armstrong to ensure that all the scenerey is well and truly chewed. And who better to bring on the ham than Crispin Freeman? Salli Saffioti is Mistral, and is it any shock she’s also played Black Widow before? And also Hilda from Fire Emblem, I guess? Then we have Monsoon, played by John “The Crypt Keeper” Kassir, who delivers everything with gusto as always. Phillip-Anthony Rodriguez makes Sam just as smarmy and charming as a rival should be, and Benito Martinez puts in his all to his brief role of Khamsin. Not a weak vocal performance here, I’d say.

Final Fate: Seeing as they are video game bosses, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Raiden slices each and every one of them into confetti. Special mention to the absolutely brutal death of Mistral, where she gets frozen in liquid nitrogen before you get to shatter her.

Best Scene: For most of them, they only get the one scene followed by their boss battle, with the exception of Sundowner and Sam. Mistral and Khamsin’s boss battles are obviously their finest hours, though Mistral’s takes the cake between the two seeing how explosive and exciting it is, living up to the promise of that first battle with Metal Gear RAY, while Khamsin’s is the finale of a DLC featuring the game’s ultimate jobber, Blade Wolf.

Monsoon has a lot more going for him, because before his boss fight he gives off one of the most amazing monologues ever put into a Metal Gear game, as he lectures Raiden on memes (“The DNA of the soul!”) and his nihilistic philosophy. Then you get to have a kickass boss fight where, if you do well enough, you will make this nihilistic bastard beg for his life as you hack him to pieces.

Best Quote: Monsoon has the honor of dropping the most iconic bit of dialogue in the entire game (outside of everything out of Armstrong’s mouth, of course):

"Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something far greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture — they are everything — we pass on."

Sundowner, being the massive slab of ham that he is, is no slouch in the memetic lines himself. Two stand out, and that’s his battle cry of “I’M FUCKIN’ INVINCIBLE!” and his proclamation that he wants things to go back to the old ways of war, specifically “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS AFTER 9/11!” This is hilarious because even with confirming that 9/11 happened in the Metal Gear universe, it still is probably only the second worst thing to happen to New York.

Sam doesn’t really have any great quotes that stand out, but this man is a master of reactions, from his shit-eating grin to his rousing applause. I figured I’d highlight that here.

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s look at them from best to least best; I don’t think any of them are awful, though some are better than others obviously.

Monsoon

Outside of Armstrong and Sundowner, Monsoon is absolutely the best character in the game. I think part of it is because he so thoroughly represents everything the Metal Gear series is summed up in one character; he’s incredibly philosophical and legitimately fascinating while also being hilariously over-the-top and spouting off some of the most ridiculous and cheesy lines you will ever hear, all while being a bright red-and-black cyborg voiced by a guy famous for acting as the emcee of a horror show. Literally everything about him is the pure essence of the franchise, so even without Kojima’s direct involvement we still got a beautiful 10.5/10 character.

Sundowner

As far as the Winds of Destruction go, Sundowner is second only to Monsoon. He’s just over-the-top in ways I never could have even imagined for this series, and the only thing holding him back is he is almost immediately outdone by Armstrong two levels after you kill him. Still, this bloodthirsty butcher just revels so much in being a huge asshole and delivers all his lines with the Southern-fried charm that only an actor like Crispin Freeman could deliver, and you have a character I wish was around in the good old days after 9/11. He’s an easy 10/10.

Also he is literally just this image as a character, and that’s amazing:

Jetstream Sam

Sam is a really great character in the Cyborg Ninja tradition, easily following in the footsteps of characters like Gray Fox and Raiden himself. The sheer badassery of this man, a normal human whose only cyborg trait is a single arm and yet who is still capable of taking down a RAY by himself, cannot be overstated, and I think he gets a big boost from being playable. There’s an underlying tragedy to the character too, with how he’s something of a fallen hero whose sword was once a tool of justice but who became disillusioned due to his inability to make the world a better place all on his own  and losing to Armstrong in a fight. He’s easily the most complex character besides Armstrong, and his boss battle and theme song are both top notch. I really can’t justify anything less than a 10/10.

Mistral

As much as I love Mistral, it’s hard to deny she is really the epitome of a one-scene wonder. She does not get nearly as much characterization as her compatriots and is very vague and ambiguous even after the DLC… but that might be the point. Her image song is “A Stranger I Remain,” and though we know of her bloodthirsty nature from that song, Mistral still remains a mystery to us to the bitter end. But hey, it’s hard to deny that what we do see of her is pretty impressive (and I’m not just talking about her boobs, I promise). She’s not quite as good as her fellow Winds I’d say, but considering she’s a 9.5/10 that’s not really a knock against her.

Khamsin

Despite having one of the best songs in the game to his name, as well as an intriguing personality and motivations, Khamsin really is incredibly forgettable, to the point his comrades  don’t even bother to mention him in the main campaign. This is not something you should ever be saying about a dude who looks like Quaritch in his mech suit at the end of Avatar on steroids, and yet here we are. Of course, he’s certainly not awful by any means and he makes for a great boss fight, but he falls severely short of the main game’s enemies. Mistral managed to score as high as she did with only having one level to her, but Khamsin only manages a 5.5/10 with the same. Maybe it’s because he just feels so inconsequential… Eh, at least he looks cool.

#Psycho Analysis #Winds of Destruction #Monsoon #Sundowner #Mistral #Khamsin #Jetstream Sam #Crispin Freeman #John Kassir #salli saffioti #Phillip-Anthony Rodriguez #Benito Martinez #Metal Gear Rising #metal gear rising revengeance

[armed-saphire]

NOW ITS UR TURN WHO ARE YOUR MGS FAVS AND WHY!1!1?1!1?1!1?11!1! ٩( 'ω' )و

EHEHEEEE OK SO I'll say my fav from each game

Mgs1 is def Liquid he. He's so overdramatic it's really funny. He did so many backflips while explaining his tragic backstory 🥰 and then he just fucking died and turned into an arm which is the real tragedy (I have so many random HCs for him it's insane... I also rewrote his backstory a little...the recessive thing is so dumb)

Mgs2 I think it's a split between Raiden and Fortune. Raiden I really enjoyed playing as a character who is just... idk how to put it I just like that he's flawed and not some morally perfect charismatic guy. It feels like he's set up to be that way and then he whines about everything and is very dismissive at some points. It feels like he's a real person and not perfectly crafted to be the ultimate stereotypical good guy protagonist who can stay cool and collected in every situation. He has his moments where he lets emotion get the better of him and I like it a lot.

Fortune I have less to say about her but it doesn't mean I like her less. I think she's a really tragic character backstory wise but I also like how she sort of "plays into it" I guess? Ocelot points it out himself near the end of the game ("you couldn't get enough of the drama"). I thought the ending where she found out she could've died any time and she didn't have some magic ability was sad too and I lowkey wish she didn't die and was like redeemed somehow (imagine she comes back in mgs4 and has to go against Vamp or something that would've been so cool)..anyway I guess I didn't actually have less to say I like Fortune a lot blehhh😋

mgs3 AGH.. EVA ILY she is such a well written character and I love her so much I could write an essay on her if I wanted but I'll keep it more brief here. She's like a perfect subversion of the typical sexualized woman in video game thing...it's what she's doing as a spy for the mission and the best part is it doesn't even really work lol nice job snake. The game itself even adheres to whether Eva is in her Eva persona or her Tatyana one. It's....aghhhhghhh so great. (I have so many thoughts about her and Liquid btw)

Mgs4...difficult but probably Screaming Mantis. For real this time not a lot to say about her but I do like her a lot more since playing the game she went from my least fav B&B unit member to my fav one. She was really fun to watch in all her cutscenes and her boss fight was one of the best MGS boss fights I've ever done tbh. The callbacks and references to the first game were so good I won't lie I was giggling kicking my feet a lil bit. Screaming Mantis ily I have so many thoughts <333

Peace Walker ermmm Kaz and Paz equal I can't decide..also maybe Amanda. Yeah I like everyone a lot 😭 and Cécile....not Snake tho sorry lol. I haven't finished the game so I haven't gotten the full character arcs of everyone so it's hard to pinpoint exact explanations but you know I love Kaz forever and ever mwah mwah (I'm also a transfem Kaz truther and I'm RIGHT!!!). Amanda has a lot of really cool tapes explaining a lot of...not really exposition but it gives a lot of great context to her character. And her voice acting especially in cutscenes is some of the best voice acting I've seen in an mgs game so it adds a lot. Paz I need to learn more about her. I know basic plot points but not the inbetween stuff that really lets you get to know her. I do feel really sad for her though, Kojima decided he wanted shock value instead of a female character having a nice ending 🤷‍♀️ Sucks.

Mgsv QUIET!!!! QUIET ILY!!! she's soooooo OUGH. I'm glad a lot of the fandom has fixed her from her extremely flawed portrayal in the game because it shows what really could've been and I think I latch more onto that than the version of her in the game just a little. The foundation they were working with was still really good. The way they show her and venom building such a strong bond despite never having a single conversation is really well done and I like it a lot. Quiet ily my favourite creaturething killgirl my favourite ear biter offer...

#Ty for asking mwah mwah mwah <333 #Mgs #Asks #fenix dont look

[mewtonian-physics]

I had a dream I needed to share, hope that's okay.

SO, Konami announced that they were remaking MGS2 in the FOX Engine (in the dream) and for some reason, they decided to do the same Kojima trick where they made people think they were going to play as Snake? EXCEPT instead of it being Solid Snake they made a trailer where Revengence! Raiden did the Tanker Episode!! It was really weird! Rose was there, but her hair was cut to a pixie length. People were on the fence about that. She kept asking Raiden if he remembered what day it was (April 30th was the announced release date).

Even worse, people fell for Konami's trick again! Revengence Fans were hyped because they cut the trailer off before Ocelot took control of RAY and I guess they thought Raiden was going to fight the RAY on top of the sinking ship? I saw people talking about it and people didn't even realize who Ocelot was! It was wild.

Anyway, flash forward to a couple months ahead and the game comes out! People were being so mean to MGS2 Raiden again! 'Why's he so lame' 'Why isn't he cool like in Revengence' 'This prequel sucks' It was terrible! People just didn't understand Raiden once again. It was like the time before MGS4 came out and people went 'Whoa! Cool Robot Body!' They just wanted to slice and dice... Diet Armstrong trended on Twitter because people kept calling Solidus that! No fun at all.

On the upside, Raiden and Snake looked really great! Raiden's hair physics were top notch, and the skull suit looked weirdly really great? I think they redeisgned some stuff. They got Kiefer Sutherland to play Solidus, and this time he actually spoke a bunch! The whole speech!

They also added in that MGS4 mechanic where you press a button during cutscenes and it does short little flashes to the past. It was really great whenever Solidus was on screen, because there was new content to see. Stuff like confirmed young Solidus and a single picture of Raiden's mom getting shot. They also did the whole uncut scene of Arsneal Gear hitting Manhattan, and they let Solidus have a flag fall on him.

They also added a new game plus where you could play through Snake's side of the Big Shell incident, and I heard that was cool from my brother. You could save EE from Vamp by shooting him! They even showed Snake being kinda disturbed by the fact that his clone brother did all that Trauma to Raiden, y'know during the hallway cutscene in Arsenal Gear! Ground-breaking character development. He made a face like ||,:^T if that makes sense.

Rose had a speech about the differences between Japanese Gojira and American Godzilla as messages, and when you pressed the button it flashed to a really bad picture of the old Godzilla suit. If you pressed it a bunch it zoomed in on the face. I pressed the button too much and it woke me up.

Anyway thats the dream. If any of this happens, just know it came to me in a vision.

i would literally kill to make this happen in real life what the fuck

#ask

[asseater3k]

Metal Gear Mania Day 3

Game: MGS2

Major spoilers below the cut!

Today started with an unfortunate back to back case of forgotting to save I hadn’t saved the previous night after learning about the patriots and had to repeat the Nikita puzzle and acquisition before i went of to save Emma I did the Vamp boss fight and got to her and brought her back to the boss arena where I then accidentally cartwheeled into the death water and then accidentally pressed exit instead of continue so i had to repeat the boss fight and do the cool water level again. The E.E. Part of the game was welcomingly straight forward and simple after really getting blasted with patriot knowledge and especially in contrast of what’s to come I like Jennifer Hale in just about anything and she did a really good job here, enough to make me forget she was Naomi in the last game. She was charming enough though on a side not i found the conversations with with roses Mary weird at this point some of them make sense later and some of them didn’t I really didn’t like the one were she get jealous of Emma no real big judgment on the scene just made me uncomfortable as did a the serene where she’s dying and says stuff about her wanting otacon to see her as a woman and then otacon says he had affair with their mom both things I really want to gloss over. I did get pretty effected by Emmas death. A combo of seeing otacon just get totally ruined and myself being close with my siblings made me feel some type of way also final heroic gesture being ineffective or halted despite the effort they took always guts me in stuff since I was a kid and we got that with the computer virus, also The Fucking Handshake. Ive seen gifs of it before but when you hear the meta gear theme playing for the first time in the game and the emotions of the proceeding scene fresh it just hits in a such a way, and I think that might be the last normal cutscene in the game. The last like 40-50 minutes of this game is fucking insane. I talked earlier about the slow unraveling of threads and this point they take the spool and yank leaving you spinning. Revealing that Olga is Mr. X was pretty cool i dint see it coming but i also didn’t really think about Mr.Xs identity a lot and had zero theories still i really liked Olga by the end her kid being held by the patriots and her willing to get super own zoned because only raidens life signs needed to be up for her kid to survive was cool and I liked that it wasn’t like super overplayed and didn’t overstay its welcome. I like when a charter is like “oh I’ll for sure die to achieve my goals / save my friends” but is chill about it. The fucking Russian nesting doll of reveals on top of arsenal gear made me feel things I can’t articulate some combo of getting hype fro the reveal in terms of like narrative and gameplay execution and the first person bewilderment to match raidens. A while back my brother watched a documentary about Hawkeye a program used in tennis do determine out of bounds calls and some other stuff and he came back from it kinda shaken something about objective reality and perceptions of it or something I didnt get what he meant then. I think I do now. The last part of that game deals a lot with stuff about the self and personal identity and if we can really know anything about ourselves other or the world around us even though it leaves with an assertion that to an extent what we choose to believe and be is just as real as any objective truth, I really liked that the face of all these big uncertainties and questions from raiden snake just said “fuck that we are what we are our beliefs thoughts and actions subjective as they are make us people and people should and can do so much good if they put themselves to it”

The last things i want to talk about are how well done all the stuff with Campbell turning out to be an AI was and how the reveals of the s3 plan recontextualize the fucking design of the game. I talked at length yesterday about how effective Campbell is at creating this sense of unease in the early and middle parts of the game. I love scenes of layered flashbacks revealing stuff at the end of mystery stores and hearing Campbell acting goody towards the end and raiden saying how he realized he’d never met him in person gave me, the player on of those in real life every sitlted response every out of character action replayed in my head that was now also armed with the knowledge that the patriots have AI capabilities and I went nuts the best kind of mystery story telling lets you have these moments and similar things happened to my brain during the first s3 plan reveal. The fact that the game having a lot of similar set pieces moments and structure to the first went from an understandable if unremarkable product of making a sequel to making real diagetic sense and having a naritive purpose is insane. Ive never seen a game weaponize the fact that during gameplay you’re at some point going to see things as they which is to say designed by a person. That’s just a fact of the experience its not good or bad it just is but using that as a part of the story is geniuinly brilliant and some of the best example of something very uniquely suited to the medium

That’s about all I have I dont think i was able to put my feelings into words as well as i was yesterday but thats most likely cause so much of them are still very fresh and raw right now

If your able you should absolutely play MGS2 its one of the best games Ive played in a while and I’m so unbelievably excited to move on to

#metalgearmania #mgs2 spoilers #excited for 3 haven’t played it outside of the dress up sequence on my brothers 3ds copy ages ago

[garak]

raidens relationship to gender is so interesting because its so entrenched in the politics of mgs that trying to explain it makes me sound insane. like how do i phrase “raiden is the only main character to ever have a steady or loving relationship with a woman which is a point against the idea of him as a masculine character” without having to then explain the entire basis of how masculinity is constructed in mgs and how it both subverts and is deeply rooted in traditional gender roles especially the concepts of gender found in midcentury american action films. raiden is the pinnacle of how traditional western gender roles and weird mgs gender roles clash and end up creating this odd portrayal that is confusing looking at it either way. like obviously you have the fact that he was made as an agendered character, specifically designed to read as both man and woman, so the visual gendering is fucked. even after hes established as biologically male (which mgs2 goes weirdly out of its way to do) his portrayal in mgs4 is arguably even more feminine with the long stiletto nails and heels. his nigh-hysterical need for reassurance and attention in mgs4 also feels very gendered, but hes ditched the long hair and is now using the sword — swords and knives are hugely phallic symbols especially in relation to raiden. like its very blatant google mgs4 vamp vs raiden because that shit is textual. so his use of the blade from then on is masculinising, but he also carries that shit in his mouth at one point and his fights are so gay its preposterous, so it essentially cancels it out. ocelot’s guns can be a symbol of his masculinity despite being phallic symbols because he wasnt like, getting stabbed and spurting white (blood?) goo from the penetration point. raiden was and it was not good so obviously thats a point against his manliness. honestly, a lot of the things that are associated with masculinity are weirdly reversed in mgs otherwise, so besides blatant imagery everything else needs specific series context. like, its okay for men to show emotions but not normal for them to express any real love or affection towards women — snake snarkily hitting on women is just fine, but he can only express his genuine emotions to other men. by framing our ultra-masculine protagonist this way, it sets up raiden, who genuinely cares about his wife and child, as feminine by contrast since he is willing to form actually meaningful relationships with women. its a part of the lone wolf rugged hero thing kojima loves so much, but ultimately our heroes arent alone, they just only have deep connections to other men. whereas this kind of eternal bachelor uninterested in women thing would typically be feminizing, and raidens nuclear family breadwinner father white picket fence dream would be the traditionally masculine choice, these are reversed. i dont actually have a conclusion here i just think the way gender is portrayed in mgs especially in relation to family is very interesting and raiden is like the epitome of that

#living after midnight #mgs #i will have more to say after i actually finish mgrr

[just-mebs]

I know you're currently into tf2 but you're my only mgs mutual and I really need someone to explain to me the order of the games to me PLEASE

+"Also can you add an explanation of each I BEG"

Oh fuck okay pop quiz time for me i guess, in order of when they take place + little explanation [spoilers i guess???] added a cut bc this got long

1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - happens in the 1960s, the one where Naked Snake/the Big Boss goes to Russian jungle that 100% exists. Also Ocelot is gay

2. MGS: Portable Ops??? - Never played it and is one of the only games I know absolutely nothing about

3. MGS: Peace Walker - takes place like early 70s I think? this is the one Kaz gets introduced and him and Big Boss have gay sex :)

4. MGSV : Ground Zero - uhh you gotta save Paz and Chico from a camp in Cuba??? you get back to the MSF base as its being attacked and leads into-

5. MGSV : Phantom Pain - my personal favorite. Takes place in 1984. You play as Big Boss after waking up from a 9 year coma, but you dont. you aren't big boss. But you are? who are you? no one knows. Ocelot knows. Fuck Ocelot. He's hot tho. Him and Kaz both try to fuck Big boss/not Big Boss. Venom sweetie you deserved so much more.

6. Metal Gear - yes the og 1987 NES game. takes place in like 1995. Solid Snake infiltrates Outer Heaven and fights Big Boss :)

7. MG : Solid Snake - Another one I never played and know nothing about what happens?? tho I do know this is where Solid Snake kills Venom Snake who is not the Big Boss (but everyone thinks it is).

8. METAL GEAR SOLID - The og of the solid games. Solid Snake goes to Shadow Moses in 2005 and has to fight his twin brother/fellow clone Liquid Snake. Ocelot is here and gets his hand cut off. Solid Snake meets Otacon who pees his pants. Liquid Snake dies and it turns out Ocelot was working for the third clone: Solidus Snake who is the President of the United States

9. MGS2 : Sons of Liberty - Part 1 of this game takes place in 2007 with Solid Snake infiltrating a oil taker transporting Metal Gar Rex (???? correct me if I'm wrong). Ocelot is now Liquid Ocelot because he stole Liquid Snake's arm after he died and the arm lets Liquid possess Ocelot (thats how arms work btw). Part 2 takes place in 2009 where you play as Raiden who's a twink. There is a Vampire named Vamp, but not because he's a vampire rather because he's bisexual. Solidus Snake is Raiden's adopted dad and there is a meta about the internet

10. MGS4: Guns of the Patriots - Solid Snake comes out of retirement in 2014 and the Patriots (who have been the villain this entire time??? I never mentioned this???) have control over the entire world or something. Otacon and Solid Snake have a daughter named Sunny. I dont know anything else that happens in this game besides that Ocelot and Solid Snake make out before Ocelot dies. Oh and Ocelot lied the entire time, he wasnt possessed by Liquid he just hypnotized himself to act like he was :) We learn that Big Boss has been alive this entire fucking time and just ????

11. Metal Gear Rising : Revengence - game takes place in like 2018 I think and uhhh Raiden is a cyborg now?? Thats all I know about this game.

#fuck what everyone says PP is a good game #also feel free to yell at me if i got any of this wrong I havent played most of these in YEARS #anon #ask.mebs #playing games: mgsv #mgs #long post #I typed this out in one sitting and no references #all dates I pulled out of my ass i hope theyre right

[thatheathen]

Mamoru Oshii, Hideo Kojima Comment On The Matrix Resurrections Film (tumblr won’t let me link the site)

This shit is so embarrassing. I don’t understand how talented artists can’t see, or choose not to see, when bad movies are bad. I know that we’re all heavily inspired by the first Matrix film, but this new iteration was abysmal and by far this years worst films. Matrix Resurrections was so terrible it felt like a low budget indie parody and not the good kind of parody. The fight scenes had zero choreography to them. It all just felt like a silly hollow retread with gallons of fan service. I’m deeply disappointed and kinda offended honestly. The positive reviews are blowing my mind more than this amateur take on a Matrix sequel.

But I suppose Kojima felt very familiar with Resurrections’ silliness since MGS4 had tons of fan service and meta jokes, but at least Guns of the Patriots still managed to be something new to bookend the series with some memorable moments. Raiden and Vamp had one of best choreographed fight scenes in a video game that put most big budget films to shame. All it’s meta and forth wall breaking worked well within the game even if it felt too much at times. But compared to Resurrections, Kojima’s campiness isn’t so unbearable or seemingly forced into existence making his games more parody of itself than some serious work of art.

MGSV was probably Kojima’s weakest Metal Gear Solid game. It had terrible cinematography (all handheld & shaky cam), a very awkward plot and characters with the worst ending to a beloved series Kojima was tired of making. When Kojima took the helm it didn’t work out well especially with the Konami greed and drama resulting in abusive labor practices to where The Phantom Pain felt rushed and extremely unfinished. This all left a bitter taste in my mouth, but thankfully Kojima redeemed himself with Death Stranding, despite its awkwardness and strange plot direction, DS was a very unique and well crafted game with a real finished ending.

Lana Wachowski making Resurrections on her own was a mistake and should have either been left alone or be a completely different movie and it be less filled with meta jokes and take a more cyberpunk tone like the first two films (Revolutions to me was just a part 2 of Reloaded not so much a third entry). Resurrections could have been so much more than a boring save the girl movie with no real stakes and bland action sequences. I bet most people can now appreciate the other Matrix films. My favorite Matrix sequel isn’t the films per say; it’s The Animatrix and that was to me was a work of art.

So when Kojima and Oshii both state Wachowski “returned the Matrix back to its roots” baffles me. What do they mean? The constant flashbacks to the previous films? The rebuilding of the scenes from the first? And when Oshii states that the filming style hasn’t changed starts to really piss me off. Are they this stupid or are they lying? Did we watch the same movie? Resurrections had no cinematography to make it on par with any movie let alone be similar to the original Matrix. I just don’t understand this line of thinking and honestly just depresses me that the art of filmmaking isn’t what drives Kojima or Oshii creatively, they’re just EASILY entertained by anything Hollywood, constantly gushing at every blockbuster no matter how well crafted it is. As long as it has big famous expensive actors and explosions then it’s just as good as a Martin Scorsese film. Korean cinema be dammed.

You don’t need to be a smug cinephile to admit when a badly made movie is bad. It just means you’re not gonna start handing out Golden Globes to Marvel movies and straight to blu-ray dust collectors, or call a crappy rightwing political cartoon the next Mona Lisa. Then shit, why aren’t TikTok videos awarded anything? It’s art too no? Where’s the praise of random YouTube essays on mainstream media? Let’s start calling reality TV masterful art. Fuck Pyramids of Giza, give me Trump Tower. Anything that’s forged from our minds is art. My nightly dreams should start to be noticed as art. You can’t see them, but I can tell you it was a good dream experience greater than anything you dreamed.

Am I just too cynical?

#hideo kojima #the matrix resurrections #art

[daftpunkselectroma]

screaming mantis or vamp for the character impressions i’m SO curious

i’ll do both >:3c first up is screaming mantis

first impression: gonna be real i don’t think i had much of an opinion on her in the first place... i watched mgs4 like two years ago and i only cared about a few of the characters at the time 😭😭

impression now: I Love Her so much i am a screaming mantis enjoyer ms mantis if you’re free this weekend...

favorite moment: umm my memory is super bad but you know the one scene before her fight <3 yeah

idea for a story: god honestly just her and the b&b unit doing stuff together i like to think they r besties <3

unpopular opinion: not sure if any opinion other than “she was a good character actually” will be unpopular, bc barely anyone pays attention to her its so sad </3 but i think she deserved more screentime tbh

favorite relationship: her and ocelot... i’ve seen it i enjoy it

favorite headcanon: <3 she is trans. this is actually canon kojima told me himself

and now for vamp

first impression: god he’s ridiculous what do you MEAN he can run on water

impression now: Self Recognition Through The Vampire but still he’s ridiculous

favorite moment: whenever snavid shot him directly in the forehead as he was talking and then he spun around caught his phone and said he would be taking a nap.

idea for a story: whatever the fuck he was up to between mgs2 and 4 like there’s just So Much we don’t know?

unpopular opinion: vamp is actually a good character you all just dislike him bc he was mean to raiden :/ (don’t get me started about this bc i will get started...)

favorite relationship: you know how i wrote a ten page-ish fic of him and solidus for the zine all those months ago and have the url vampolidus saved. yeah.

favorite headcanon: i do like to think that he and fortune r just like father nd daughter i don’t care what anyone else said they are Family

#long post #zompdan #HII HI DANNY i’m so sorry for not having talked w you in forever life happened so much 😭 #this was fun though maybe i’ll replay mgs over da summer

[mewtonian-physics]

ok hi raiden/vamp anon. again. just wanna say i agree they would for sure never have an actual Romantic Relationship(god itd be funny if they did tho. theyd both be dead within a week) also i have a headcanon that they met and fought several times between mgs2 and mgs4, so it started out as raiden wanting to feel “real” again post-big shell and vamp just fucking with him/wanting to die, before turning into both of them just wanting to die :( also ur tags on that one post i think vamp is one of the hottest mgs men and i dont know why people think im weird for that. btw im saying this as an insane person-level raiden kinnie dont think too much about what this says about me

they WOULD both be dead within a week, what a time that would be for everyone. and i like that headcanon that makes a lot of sense. i mean we do see vamp at the end of mgs2 just kind of hanging out so he might live in the area. plus it's just an interesting concept. might explain the weird casualness of the initial encounter in mgs4 (raiden doesn't seem at all surprised that vamp still isn't dead). probably beforehand it would mostly have been raiden getting the shit beaten out of him (any time he fights vamp in mgs2 it's with a gun and i don't think he'd just have one of those, and vamp’s ridiculously tough so i doubt raiden would really stand a chance pre-conversion) but at least that makes him feel like a real human being. vr doesn't bleed quite the same. hence vamp's surprise in mgs4 at his sudden seeming inability to feel pain + weird as shit blood ('you too... immortal?') and equal surprise at the way he's fighting ('maybe you really can kill me...') it's probably the first time raiden's really been able to fight back.

anon i actually adore this headcanon it puts so much into place and adds some really interesting depth. may i use it in my study :)

also idk i can't really judge you because i have basically no concept of hotness when it comes to men. for example i know raiden is extremely pretty but idk if he is hot. [shrugs] it just doesn't really register that well with me. so i just take people's word for it.

#ask #anon