Comments on Hit Self-Destruct: The Spy Who Loved Me

You're wrong about Diablo, and it just confuses th...

2008-09-10T06:49:00.000+12:00

You're wrong about Diablo, and it just confuses things that you mix it up with MGS, where I think you're right.

People who criticize Diablo for being a "clickfest" are just like people who criticize the Myst games for being a "slideshow." In both cases, you're pointing at something that is not actually the core game mechanic and then criticizing the game as if it were the core game mechanic.

Criticizing Diablo because people playing it click the mouse alot is like criticizing Gears of War because people playing it sit on the couch alot. "That stupid Gears of War is nothing but couch-sitting. It's a regular couchfest."

Steve, yeah, it's pretty bad. I think Kojima is th...

2008-07-12T10:32:00.000+12:00

Steve, yeah, it's pretty bad. I think Kojima is the worst genius in video games today.

qrter: I'm sure he won't do anything different, which is why he won't disappoint the people who love him (as is the case with Blizzard.) Kojima's really never going to have to adapt to a different storytelling model, which is fine for him since that's where he's most comfortable, but the longer he does it the more anachronistic his style will become.

noc: yeah, there are quite a few examples. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey was a weird attempt at aping MGS that, despite being the game being a sequel to a cult classic, didn't work nearly as well as the Longest Journey or MGS. I feel like such a tool saying this but if Dreamfall had come out in 2006 and was a 2D point-and-click game -- trading on the power of nostalgia -- it would have done better.

"They trade on nostalgia, sure. But they'll never,...

2008-07-12T03:29:00.000+12:00

"They trade on nostalgia, sure. But they'll never, ever betray those memories."

I don't know.. is that an actual choice, though? Is Kojima actually able to do something different with MGS, thereby "betraying the memories"?

I really have no idea, I've never played any of the MGS games. How would someone like me react to playing MGS4 (ignoring the fact that someone like me wouldn't know the backstory, ofcourse)?

Ken Levine might also not be the best example - he already was doing the non-cutscene thing with System Shock 2, which was released around the same time as the first MGS, if I remember correctly.

Playing through MGS4, I'm amazed at how outright p...

2008-07-12T02:47:00.000+12:00

Playing through MGS4, I'm amazed at how outright poor Kojima is at delivering story cinematically. The scene: two talking heads sit across from each other spewing exposition for 15 minutes. It's just really incredibly poor and I don't understand how anyone's praising it. Show don't tell, Kojima.

On a side note, for a perfect example of how yeste...

2008-07-11T23:28:00.000+12:00

On a side note, for a perfect example of how yesterday's (or last decade's, really) gaming conventions fall flat in a modern setting without nostalgia to prop them up:

Play the first, oh, fifteen minutes of Lost Odyssey. They're pretty enlightening. If that's the right word.