News: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 Announced

[starschwar]

I never bothered with it - nor did I get to enjoy "real" MGO back in the day save a few short, confused sessions. I wasn't aware Foxhunt had already fallen out of favor.

But of all the things they could have screwed up with Delta, the multiplayer (which had already been gone for so very long) was probably the least bad thing that could have happened.

Who knows? Maybe they'll do an all-MGO spectacular for the final Master Collection? Portable Ops and Peace Walker had such modes, didn't they?

[Wayno]

Portable Ops and MPO+ had solid online play for what you could do with the PSP. I doubt we'll get online with them, though. Well, we're never getting MPO+ anyway as there was no story just like 15 levels of sneaking to level up / acquire new characters to take online.

[Null]

Every time a new Metal Gear Solid 'game' is announced that isn't a full-blooded remake of the 1987 Metal Gear and the fictional chronology 1995 Zanzibar missions, a part of my soul quietly dies.

[Dirty Duck]

Every time a Metal Gear fan posts about that I'm aware it's a day of the week ending in "ay"

[ballisticola]

This is from the sample of the PW Master Book. PO fans might want to look away for this one, it's pretty damning...



...it's no secret that I have history on both sides of this debate, but saying that and then directly mentioning PO is cold!

[starschwar]

Here's my two cents on Portable Ops:

It -was- canon. At the time it was made, through its blink-and-you-miss-it imagery reference in Guns of the Patriots, it was intended to be part of the core canon.

At some point soon thereafter, Kojima became dissatisfied with it, and it was demoted. Almost nothing that happens in that game ever comes up again - including the character whose alias, "Ghost" really should have considering how important he is! I'm phrasing it this way for the sake of anyone who hasn't played the game yet.

Now, that doesn't mean -nothing- in Portable Ops happened. Indeed, parts do! The post-credit phone call is mostly accurate to what happened later. And Peace Walker confirms that Snake did -something- at San Heironymo.

Of course, a taped conversation with Ocelot in Phantom Pain severely contradicts the ending of Portable Ops - but when hasn't Metal Gear contradicted itself? The second MSX game says that the entire world disarmed itself of nukes by the end of 1999 and we know that isn't true!

I think the healthiest approach is to treat any and every part of Portable Ops as "canon unless contradicted". If any of the Kojima games that followed provide any information that contradicts with Portable Ops, the later information is what "really" happened. If the rest fits, its okay. I think Kojima himself once said that the broad strokes happened, it just wasn't a literal depiction. Think of Portable Ops as the Patriots' "memetic" version of the San Heironymo incident, and the real truth is lost to time.

[black king]

Oh it was definitely made to sound like the big missing gap between MGS3, MG1, and MGS4.

Regarding other MGS4 connections, Kojima said about the PSP Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, " If you change the Ops story, you have to change 4. If you change 4, it also becomes necessary to change Ops. Until Ops is finished, 4's story can't be finalized." 

Source

[ballisticola]

I am fully convinced that this was only said to sell the game. This is the only time anyone gave a definitive statement. After that it's been very soft, bare minimum and contradictory acknowledgement. This includes a pre release interview with the writer where Kojima straight up says he didn't like the character of Null. And much like this statement he said he'd change MGS4 to suit. This didn't happen in any sense. Nothing about Gray Fox in MGS4 reflected the events of PO. Later, for PW pre release, Kojima talks about how PW came about, in that he started thinking about it during the development of PO (and MGS4), which looks like the truth. That he saw it. Didn't like it and wanted to make his own.

There has been a lot of pro PO propaganda in the last few years since the Master Collection came out. And all I'm hearing is stuff I once said being echoed back at me. I've even had a twitter account seemingly dedicated to fabricating information and trolling me LOL Ironically, this person gave me that interview with Kojima, but tried to censor out certain words...yet posted the actual uncensored interview, obviously believing I wouldn't actually check his dodgy translation.

The more I've looked into it over the years, the more I see nothing of any substance connecting PO from the rest of the series. The one and only thing that matches is that Zero is the leader of the Patriots, but everything surrounding it is completely different. There's even basic facts that don't match. Ocelot calling the CIA half of the legacy "the other half", when it's the only half we've ever seen. Volgin firing the nuke during Operation Snake Eater...he didn't. Volgin firing the nuke in MGS3 was "something no one could have predicted", until PO says Volgin was manipulated into firing it...by Ocelot, because they literally show a picture of Ocelot, yet he is pleading Volgin to not fire the nuke after Volgin had decided to fire the nuke...is Ocelot Mantis now? Controlling people at will without doing anything. Null is Gray Fox and child soldier from Africa, rescued by Big Boss in 1966, yet before PO he was a child soldier in Africa in 1979, rescued by Big Boss from Vietnam (a place PO never mentions, even when artwork for PO does). This is most probably what Kojima is referring to with his dislike for Null. When I write these lists (and this is be no means a full list) all I get back is "but this series is full a retcons", which (even if that were true) doesn't explain how so much can be disconnected from the rest of the series. There isn't a game in this series that has had the antagonist completely forgotten about. You can't get rid of Liquid even in death. Even in MGS4 when it's not him, he is still mentioned heavily. Solidus is a major part of MGS4. The Boss, Volgin and all of the support team for Big Boss are heavily involved in the rest of the series after MGS3. Even Hot Coldman is mention in MGSV. But Gene, a character that should have great importance to Big Boss' own ideology, is nowhere to be seen. Not even a influence. Not a sniff. None of Gene's money or equipment. Outer Heaven came from Gene...except even that doesn't fit with the rest of the series, because Outer Heaven came from Big Boss' interpretation of The Boss' will. That's why Gene's influence isn't there...because the rest of the series says it came from a entirely different place.

And do you know what happens when I write these lists? Someone will pick one and think they can try and explain it, but that's not good enough. It has to be taken as a whole. And the whole is damning. Whoever wrote the Master Books clearly knows this. You also get "Well, PO is referenced in MGS4 and PW", so is Snake's Revenge, Snatcher, Policenauts and Ghost Babel, but no one is saying they are canon, and even they don't get the dismissive treatment that PW gives PO. Even they aren't called "crap" or want to "cut ties" with them.

[starschwar]

@ballisticola I agree with almost everything that you said.  That said, Portable Ops does not necessarily claim that Ocelot manipulated Volgin.  It sure looks that way, though! And it's arguably a bigger problem that way.


Rather, it was the unidentified "cunning strategist".  The problem is, the visual representation of this character is a silhouette derived from artwork that also depicts Ocelot, so you aren't wrong at all in coming to that conclusion.  It's one of the most "what the hell were they thinking?!" cases of asset re-use I can think of.  I don't know if it's Ashley Wood's fault, or the people who gave him direction on what he was drawing, or if the people who animated the cutscenes just doctored that one sketch, but it's pretty damn reckless.



https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Strate...the_scenes

And of course Cunning Strategist never, ever comes up again along with myriad other things that really, really should have. Especially in Peace Walker. And they just don't. Ever.

[starschwar]

As an aside, the idea of Volgin being manipulated or ordered into firing the nuke takes so much away from his character.  Any James Bond fans here?  I feel that series made the same mistake.


In 2015's Spectre, 

Spoiler:

It is casually revealed that Silva, the villain from Skyfall was in fact a member of the titular organization and was taking orders from the recurring Bond villain Blofeld.  What?  No he wasn't!  Silva was entirely motivated by personal revenge and downright insanity.  That he gets demoted to lackey in the subsequent movie robs the character of all agency and dramatic relevance and makes no damn sense.  And don't get me started on Blofeld's new origin story...