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Behind the scenes: Metal Gear Solid 2
Kevin Lomax writes "GameSpot has posted another one of its
Final Hours stories, this time detailing the
development story
behind Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PlayStation 2.
They did one on
Black &
White earlier this year and this one looks just as good with lots of interesting quotes
from the developers in Japan about how they built the game."
"You see this callus on my finger?" Kojima asks. "Well, that's from me using so many highlighters to go through all the bugs. I use up at least two highlighter pens a day."
Now that's thorough software development.
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
Exactly what does this have to do with Metal Gear Solid ?
Todd McFarlane of Spawn fame is doing the second series too. Check 'em out here. Pretty wicked detailing, as per usual.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Just a little one here. He loves Shrek. :)
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
When you first sit down to play Metal Gear Solid 2, you assume the role of Snake for the opening sequence. But soon the tables turn--Snake disappears and you take control of Raiden. It's a twist that even the most die-hard Metal Gear fans surely won't be expecting.
Oh, right. Except its all over the Internet. Like movie trailers that give it all away.
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
well, my guess is that he or (god forbid)she either copied the wrong article (textfiles.com/.../backdoor.txt) , or was just saying that he/she would rather play Metal Gear Solid then have the above happen?
Honestly, the story of MGS2 seemed to...well, fall a little loose as the game wrapped up. It went from really nice in the majority of the game but became to a tad too philiosophical for it's own good near the end.
:-)
Also it seemed that some of the neater things(the sword, the partner mode) were SERIOUSLY underused and both were so cool!
Oh, and I disagree with the thought in the article that Raiden was 'overly feminane looking', nancy might be a better for him
All in all, I still enjoyed it greatly. Great game, maybe we'll even see a sequel. One can hope
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
This game has gotten universally near-perfect reviews. But is it really THAT much different from the original? To me, it's a remake with a longer story and better graphics. Isn't this the kind of thing that gets ID a bunch of flack with each iteration they put out?
I'm playing it now, and it is fun... but it is the same fun that Quake3 was, after playing Quake1 or 2.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Slightly offtopic, but does anyone have the E3 2000 trailer of mgs2 with the crowd noise in it?
Would anyone else kill to be making games for a living?
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Kojima once had what he thought was a great concept: designing a product where the player would be forced to buy a new copy of the game every time the player character died. "As I said, I have some very impractical ideas," he admits with a grin. Imagine if everytime Windows crashed, Bill Gates got a dollar, he'd be a billio- err.... Hey, he does!
Hmmm, well I tend to disagree with you. I sure bet Hideo Kojima is one of the most interesting people you could ever meet. The man is a genius, but since I can tell you havent played any of his games, so you wouldnt know. For this guy to be so proficent and elite, I doubt he whines about petty shit. Would you call an artist, a person with 'no concept of how to enjoy life?'. Probably not, the man loves what he does, and he gets to do it every day for lots of money, and not for the feeling that he beat the system. Code really owns j00, as does Hideo Kojima, and without this 'boring' code, ungreatful people like your self would not be able to come up with these exciting games.
Spilled.net
Making games is the most difficult career i can think of.
When you make regular software, it may have a bug but its not such a big deal, when you make a game there can be NO bugs at all.
And you better love serious calculus and math because you'll be writing some very complex algorithms.
Oh and last but not least be prepared to spend at least 2 years, sometimes up to 3 or 4 designing and writing one game.
IT sounds nice, but writing games takes alot of work, for a long time.
Imagine getting 4 hours sleep a day for 3 years of of coding, you'll be a total wreck when its over.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Gamespot have always brought out pretty cool features but there reviews now suck and there site is really slow loading, not like in the early months of 2000 where they had a fast loading site with minimal graphics.
:) Thanks.
Anyway I loved the B&W feature so I will check out this one
After all the hype that stupid game black & white got here, I went out and bought it. Holy shit was that game boring. I gave it away after like one day. I really should have known better than to listen to the likes of CmdrTaco.
XBox pushing the envelop, GameCube's standing by with classic fun, PS2's exemplary sophomore year: it's going to be a great Christmas to be a gamer.
...too bad that doesn't make a fun game. I swear I spent more time with my hands off the controller, watching a cutscene of some sort, than actually _playing_ the damn game. It's all beautifully done, but there's just too much inactivity for what is supposed to be an action game.
The action that it does have is superb, and the storyline is definitly the best in the series. But overall, it just wasn't as satisfying and FUN as the original MGS (for PS1). I don't really have any incentive or urge to play it over again.
Maybe I was just expecting too much, but I must say that I'm dissapointed. If I had to give it a rating, it would be 8.5/10. Oh well. Back to Grand Theft Auto III.
--
#nohup cat
Can I get the specs on Solid Snake's mullet? I'm thinking of tricking out mine and want to see what's out on the market. I've already overclocked it a bit. It's halfway down my back.
Too much Space Ghost has rotted my brain!
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
Speaking of the original MGS, this is the same game with an upgraded shiny factor. I bought it pretty much because of that, so I'm not disappointed... but if you're looking for any major changes, forget about it. This game also features about the same frustration level... sometimes a room is difficult because the controls are so overloaded, or the camera angle bites, or your timing has to be absolutely perfect.
All things considered, though, I'm having a fairly good time with it. Not nearly as much fun as with GTA3, though, and I'm beginning to wonder what else there is to look forward to on the PS2.
That turned out more caustic than I'd intended. Maybe I'm more disappointed in MGS2 than I'd realized. %-)
There's some toy on the market this Xmas that requires an ongoing supply of "powerup cards". I don't expect it to be a success, but if it had been Pokemon-based last year...
http://www.consumptionjunction.com/feat/cc/detail. asp?ID=6906
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I find this quote from the article interesting:
"One way to solve a production problem is to bring on more people," matter-of-factly states Matsuhana. A core team of 35 to 40 employees had been working on the game since 1999, but during the final months of development the team would balloon to 70 members, most of whom were brought over from other development teams at Konami."
They actually hit a deadline by adding more developers onto a project? I don't know much about game programming, but in business systems development that would be a miracle to say the least. I wonder what is different between game programming and system development?
I was so disapointed by MGS2. The gameplay is much improved, thank god. But the story is rediculous. I'll put it in a form most slashdotters can understand:
John Woo + Tom Clancy + lots of crack = Metal Gear Solid 2
The game play was horrible compared to the first Metal Gear Solid. If you take a cue from Oni which was brilliant in that goals were stated. UI hints were given as to which direction (in general) you should head towards.
Instead, in this game, you were just a confused pawn meandering around without much in terms of guidance. The prequel to this was much better. There was an actual sense of purpose.
Without giving it all away, this game was really just the first one redressed in new technology. If you played through it, they even tell you it's the same thing as the first one. Sort of rub your nose in it doesn't it?
So what makes this worse than the first one?
To quote the president character, "Hey you're a man!" That's all I gotta say about that.
You know, nearly every time Slashdot runs a video game story, I see a spate of posts complaining about the plot of this game or that. Usually "plot" is in quotes, signifying the player's deep dissatisfaction with the story, or the plot is mentioned only to vilify its mindlessness, simplicty, predictability, or staleness.
What I'd like to know -- and this is an honest question, not sarcasm -- if anyone out there has encountered a really good video game plot in their time, and if so, what their favorites are. So many video game stories seem to leave people wanting more -- what game plots comprise the standards to which others should be held?
Non smokers don't deserve any rights.
You really are a cock head Will. Let me ask you something, are u a nigga? are you a nigger like the one i beat the shit out of last night? are you that nigga? I sure hope you are, because he was not getting up after the hiding he coped.
Anyone remember the original Metal gear for Nintendo? That kicked ass for its time--it was one of the few original nintendo games and actually had a plot. And the bad translations from Japanese were somewhat amusing, too "The truck have started to move!". The really freaky thing is that there are people my age who have kids who play the sequels to games that I played as a kid. It's a good thing that emulators like MAME exist, otherwise future generations of gamers who ten years from now play "Metal Gear 30" or "Golgo 13 III" (I can only dream) would never truly understand where their games fit into the whole plotline. Without MAME, how many kids playing the current line of nintendo games would know that Donkey Kong was originally evil and that the only thing Mario was good for was jumping over barrels?
WIPO, this is getting waaaay old, either drop it or revise it.... there've been no updates for days now...
CmdrTaco
...am I the only one who doesn't enjoy playing MGS2? The camera flipping and control just drives me kakacoocoo- especially that first boss battle--with normal controls or being able to move in FP mode I could've finished it right quick, instead it took a frustrating 10 minutes...IMO that is NOT good gameplay.
The really annoying part is that the production values are so good in the cut scenes etc, that I want to see more but the gameplay is just a mess to me.
Did anybody else find it strange that a child "growing up in Japan" played "cowboys and Indians?"
You played the plot. Even the alien settings at the end fit pretty good. Brilliant game.
Bleh!
You see, the post was not simply candidly discussing an excerpt from the article. He made a stretch in saying that the cough was a product of smoking, and then went off into a really annoying tangent. You see, you moron, tying into an imagined connection for a personal rant isn't following the topic.
Today our lesson will be Chapter 1 of Elementary Necromancy: Proper Use of a Shovel.
Yep, now that was a brilliant game.
;-)
And Planescape Torment had a rather good plot aswell
In game programming, you have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher percentage of algorithm-related problems (mathematical efficiency, adequate precision to make this texture map properly on this wireframe, etc), whereas in the business app world, most late-breaking problems are behavioral or logic problems that the end user/customer/project manager doesn't like. The two types of problems are drastically different to fix.
:) Those sorts of behavioral problems are difficult to solve if you aren't entrenched in the design process of the business application.
:)
Algorithms for sound, video, timing, or object/model/sprite placement are often very isolated (this algo is only used in this scene to time the action between hero A's sword and monster B's head), and can be worked on without a thorough understanding of the rest of the program. Fresh blood can be brought in solely to fix the functions that sync 'facial' movement with voice. It's a LOT harder to do that sort of staffing-swap when it comes to a business app which doesn't have the (customer's) "right" behaviour when you shift-click-drag over a certain box of text while in print-preview mode only.
It basically comes down to the classic left-brain, right-brain divide.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
And Fallout 1, I would suspect. I've never played the first game but the second one is based from the plot of the first, so I kind of know what it was about. The reason fallout 2 has such a great plot is because you are given the goal of the game (save your village), and you fill in the plot yourself.
When I'm sick-I cough.