Anonymous
10/10/2025, 2:55:53 PM
No.722910613
>>722909906
Not only is it unnecessary to compare MGS to Thief because they're different genres, but the more important comparison for 1998 is MGS versus Half-Life.
In 1998, two games attempted to use the elements of movies to augment a videogaming experience. The experiments were successful, and semi-successful, and the result made videogames as a whole worse overall.
Metal Gear Solid attempted to be more like an action movie by taking away interactivity and focusing on cutscenes, conversations and hamfisted tell-don't-show and as-you-know exposition. Only about a quarter of a playthrough is interactive. More like playback instead of a playthrough. And more like an essay than a screenplay, because the only reason the product exists is that the creator was not talented enough to manage in the movie industry and videogames had a lower standard of storytelling.
Half-Life attempted to be more like an action movie by adding intricately scripted cinematic setpieces into level design, using approach-based framing, lighting manipulation and visual and audio cues, without sacrificing any interactivity, so that a game could achieve some of the qualities of movies without ever being any less of a game. It's hard to do because you need to basically manage a cinematic experience without direct communication with the director and the camera man.
The way MGS did it ended up being adopted as the industry standard and the way Half-Life did it was only partially adopted because it's harder to do. MGS and more importantly the bad taste of its fans made all AAA videogames worse going forward. MGS isn't bad because Thief is a better game, it's bad because every high-budget game we have is now worse because it sold well despite being less of a game than the average videogame.
Not only is it unnecessary to compare MGS to Thief because they're different genres, but the more important comparison for 1998 is MGS versus Half-Life.
In 1998, two games attempted to use the elements of movies to augment a videogaming experience. The experiments were successful, and semi-successful, and the result made videogames as a whole worse overall.
Metal Gear Solid attempted to be more like an action movie by taking away interactivity and focusing on cutscenes, conversations and hamfisted tell-don't-show and as-you-know exposition. Only about a quarter of a playthrough is interactive. More like playback instead of a playthrough. And more like an essay than a screenplay, because the only reason the product exists is that the creator was not talented enough to manage in the movie industry and videogames had a lower standard of storytelling.
Half-Life attempted to be more like an action movie by adding intricately scripted cinematic setpieces into level design, using approach-based framing, lighting manipulation and visual and audio cues, without sacrificing any interactivity, so that a game could achieve some of the qualities of movies without ever being any less of a game. It's hard to do because you need to basically manage a cinematic experience without direct communication with the director and the camera man.
The way MGS did it ended up being adopted as the industry standard and the way Half-Life did it was only partially adopted because it's harder to do. MGS and more importantly the bad taste of its fans made all AAA videogames worse going forward. MGS isn't bad because Thief is a better game, it's bad because every high-budget game we have is now worse because it sold well despite being less of a game than the average videogame.