Nuclear Monster

  • Richard Stanton has this great article on Metal Gear Solid 2 and how the game was itself an examination of expectations for what a sequel to Metal Gear Solid could be. Here’s a short part about the protagonist, Raiden:

    Raiden was MGS2’s big secret, a character visually designed to appeal to people who didn’t play MGS – specifically women. The first game’s audience was largely male, and Kojima believed a good-looking young man would be a pleasant contrast to the gruff chain-smoking Snake.

    But the true purpose was different. Before he was ever called Raiden, the character was known by the kanji (Ore) that literally translates as ‘I.’ Raiden was intended to represent the player, specifically the type of player who enjoys war-themed games like MGS. The events at the Big Shell closely parallel the events at Shadow Moses, with one big difference.

    The first time you control Raiden, with his mask off and blonde locks flowing freely, the location is designed around a bespoke effect: lots of bird shit. Walk on it and Raiden pratfalls, an initially amusing animation that soon becomes a little tiresome as you search for the way forward.

    It’s a little thing but, boy, do they pile up. MGS2 in ways big and small undermines Raiden at nearly every turn, constantly reinforcing to both him and the player that he is not Solid Snake. The Big Shell is Raiden’s first combat mission, and no-one misses the opportunity to remind him of it. When Snake meets Raiden he calls him “green” and “rookie.” Raiden’s first boss fight, against Fortune, cannot be won – and she taunts him for not being Snake. Where Snake stoically bore torture, Raiden ends up crying.

    There’s so much more in the article. The upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5 is giving people a great excuse to write about the older games in the series and how awesomely unconventional they were.

  • The FCC’s page on the CALM act that outlawed loud commercials:

    Q: Do these rules also apply to radio commercials or commercials on the Internet?
    A: No, the CALM Act only applies to commercials aired on television.

    This explains the deafeningly loud commercials while watching Mr. Robot on USA’s Apple TV app.

  • Sean Hutchinson has the story behind the famous slogan:

    But what, then, should the slogan say? How could the Bureau be concise without coming off as condescending or paternalistic? The teams spitballed phrases and designs. Fay remembers that Davenport came up with the final slogan. Davenport believes it was someone else. “We were just tossing things around,” he said. Anyway, both of them found “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” direct and snappy, with a blithe cheerfulness that would’ve fit at any Boy Scouts meeting. “We wanted to get it to something that was short,” Fay said, “something that you could say winners not only applied to game-playing, but also if you want to be a winner in life, you can’t use drugs.”

  • Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 open beta just started on the Playstation 4, you no-longer need a pre-order to check it out. I tried it for about 20 minutes earlier and was super impressed with what they’re doing.

  • The Flock was released today on Steam for Windows. It’s the first game from a new developer called Vogelsap and it is an asymetrical first-person multiplayer game. The asymmetry comes from everyone in the titular Flock fighting against one player who has a glowing artifact that kills the flockers if the light shines on them. This is a fairly unique concept but what is entirely unique to The Flock is that after a certain number of player deaths the game will cease being for sale and end with some kind of finale that the developers aren’t talking about yet.

    Sounds interesting, right? Well, I have some more impressions about the game in the video above, but I would definitely not recommend anyone purchasing The Flock in its current state. The game is incredibly limited in content and seems to be very broken from my play time with it. Hopefully Vogelsap will be able to resolve all of those issues because I am interested in the concept.