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Metal Gear Solid Gets All Comic
Thanks to Comic Book Resources for its article discussing the new Metal Gear Solid comic book series, launching this September from IDW Publishing. According to writer Kris Oprisko, the Ashley Wood-illustrated comic "follows the story line of the original game, in which Snake must infiltrate an Alaskan island overrun by a genetically-enhanced terrorist group. His mission: to find and rescue two hostages as well as ending the terrorist threat - a threat that includes the specter of a nuclear strike." Wood, who has "previously done some work for Konami on their Contra video game", provides an interesting visual take on Solid Snake, and elsewhere, IDW President Ted Adams reveals that "CVO [Covert Vampiric Operations] is being developed by Konami as a video game."
The story is, bar none, the worst aspect of any Metal Gear Solid game. Poorly written, convoluted, full of cliches, and just plain awful. Now mix that with a heavy dose of preachy anti-war and anti-nuclear garbage (as opposed to a non-preachy and non-garbage argument).
The only good thing about the MGS series' story was that the cutscenes (not the codecs) were well-directed. Everything else about it clashed horribly with the generally good gameplay.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
If you've played Metal Gear Solid 2: SoL...
;-)
here's a fitting quote: "No! That is NOT Solid Snake!"
While I do appreciate different artistic styles, this is so radically different than Yogi Shinkawa's artistic style that it might turn some people away from the comic...
then again, fanboys will be fanboys
Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
The artwork doesn't look too different from the recent games. In fact, it's so close that I couldn't help but think that they might have just took screenshots of the game and blurred them in Photoshop (or maybe The GIMP - can't say for sure what they use :) ).
At first, in a lot of ways, parts of Metal Gear Solid seem perfect to adapt into comic book form, particularly fights involving the cyborg ninja. But what about the codec scenes? How are the supposed to adapt those into the comic without making it ridiculously long and tedious?
I was about to say the same thing. It looks mostly like screenshots of the game blurred. But if you think about it, a lot of American comic books are going for the ultrarealistic look with blurs. I saw a Batman comic book not too recently that looked as if they dressed up a man in a bat suit, took pictures, and put crappy photoshop filters all over the comic. It was absurd. Drawing photorealism is an accomplishment in itself, but it isn't visually appealing to me. Especially when you make the Dark Knight look just like a regular guy in a stupid costume. There's no stylization, they leave no room for your imagination. And honestly, reading a blurry comic would make me want to gouge my eyes out.
And is it just me, or is Canada going the opposite way in its comics?
Well, the company has done pretty well with the Silent Hill comics - 'Dying Inside'. The first two were superb, and stood alone as a story and the other two, while being a tad goth-heavy are pretty good as well.
at least to me it looks like they gave him DBZ hair!
I'd pick Headhunter over MGS any time.
Circumcision is child abuse.
trying to gleam some glory with tired hackney shitting on a well known story and game.
It doesn't really show in the picture, but this version of Snake better have a sweet-ass mullet.
;P
I mean Snake just isn't Snake without one.
The cutscenes were great, but I do miss the fast-forward feature from MGS2 when I go back and replay MGS1. Sure they disrupted the gameplay, but that's the point, isn't it? IMO, virtually nobody but John Woo can manage to allow sheer gunplay to develop characters half as well as good-old-fashioned dialogue.
I, for one, feel the storyline in MGS1 was great. I've always felt that the genius here was that it refused to take itself too seriously as it repeatedly makes fun of itself as a video game. After all, why write the next Tom-Clancy bestseller, when a more *ahem* novel approach is to write a decent story and pepper it with humor that exploits the medium of presentation. It keeps the player's expectations in check, chuckling along the whole time. Suddenly, there is a ceiling to the level of realisim provided by the whole experience; kind of a nice thing if you're pushing the PS1 around the way Konami did.
Take for example the fact that the Colonel keeps knocking down the fourth-wall to give Snake instructions on how to swim or control his movements by using the controller. They could have dropped into tutorial mode or used a narrative voice-over instead, but didn't.
Moments like this crop up all over the place: advice on saving your game, how to beat Psycho Mantis, Snakes arm hurting after the torture sequence, etc, etc. Its gets better as you move along, kind of like a runaway inside-joke if you will. That is of course you're not adverse to that kind of humor.
That having been said, I feel that MGS stands to have a great run as a comic book. The medium has a long history of laughing in spite of itself along the way, and to great effect. But to be faithful to the game, they'll have to occasionally poke fun at the fact that its all in a comic book.
Psycho Mantis: I can read your mind.. let me see.. you.. enjoy reading comic books don't you.
Snake: Colonel, he's dodging everything! How do I beat this guy?
Colonel: Snake, you'll have to hold him off for a while! We're reading the next issue right now to find out.