After finally getting my hands on Policenauts, I really don't feel sorry for Kojima anymore, lol.

[Devsman]

Previously, I felt sorry for him since ha had all these ideas for one-off stories that he never got to do because Konami demanded he pump out more MGS.

Then I start playing Policenauts, and it's like...

So there's Raiden's white blood...
So there's the pharmaceuticals conspiracy...
So there's the man vs machine trope...
So there's the genetic engineering thing...

And I slowly start to realize that MGS was just all of his ideas anyway, lol.

[Birds]

It was a franchise about remaking the same game 10 times so that people can't tell what the ideas are anymore.

[Devsman]

Bird の投稿を引用：

It was a franchise about remaking the same game 10 times so that people can't tell what the ideas are anymore.

S1 could be considered a borderline 2 remake (though more than a little bit of a stretch), but otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean.

[crunchyfrog]

I don't know what you expect frankly. Or rather I think you're expecting too much.

ANY artist in any field has a set of tropes or ideas they repeat all the time.

Go and look at any musician, no matter how much credibility they have. Mozart has regular little trills and ideas he'd repeat. He'd even recycle parts of one piece into another, and maybe flip it to be a bass part. He was also well known for taking others' work and playing around with it too (often satirically).

Any group also does similar things too. The Beatles who I bang on about a lot (because I know an awful lot about their recording history) did this too. Songs like One after 909 was written in their early days, but was rejigegd every now and then and only finally surfaced on their last album.

Or take an outtake from their later years - the John Lennon composition "Child of Nature". That never made it out until they broke up and John Lennon changed the words and kept the song the same and released it as "Jealous Guy".

And so on.

The thing is this is how ideas and composition works.

[Birds]

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

Bird の投稿を引用：

It was a franchise about remaking the same game 10 times so that people can't tell what the ideas are anymore.

S1 could be considered a borderline 2 remake (though more than a little bit of a stretch), but otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean.

It's a 1 remake with aspects of 2's plot. The same themes and general plotline is preserved though, and 2 itself primarily shores up the problem with assuming these are isolated individuals. Rather, these identities are natural outcroppings of the reality of how the world is organized militarily. Which, in turn, is due to economic realities.

Generally speaking the closer he gets to discussing the economic realities the harder his games get whacked. Death Stranding was a pretty clever approach, but it's neutered. Just like 5 was.

Heck even the NES release of 1 got a lot of censorship thrown its way, and every single game gets censored in some fashion.

[Devsman]

crunchyfrog の投稿を引用：

I don't know what you expect frankly. Or rather I think you're expecting too much.

ANY artist in any field has a set of tropes or ideas they repeat all the time.

Go and look at any musician, no matter how much credibility they have. Mozart has regular little trills and ideas he'd repeat. He'd even recycle parts of one piece into another, and maybe flip it to be a bass part. He was also well known for taking others' work and playing around with it too (often satirically).

Any group also does similar things too. The Beatles who I bang on about a lot (because I know an awful lot about their recording history) did this too. Songs like One after 909 was written in their early days, but was rejigegd every now and then and only finally surfaced on their last album.

Or take an outtake from their later years - the John Lennon composition "Child of Nature". That never made it out until they broke up and John Lennon changed the words and kept the song the same and released it as "Jealous Guy".

And so on.

The thing is this is how ideas and composition works.

Didn't happen so much with Zone of the Enders. I was a huge fan of both MGS and ZoE, back when they were still active, and while you had a few common elements, like obviously the mechas, the cutscenes and the communications, they were mostly aesthetic things. Even the mechas were wildly different--Metal Gears were more or less highly advanced tanks, while OFs/LEVs, you know, could fly and used swords and stuff. Now, that last part got a lot less true as time went on (Sahel is basically an Orbital Frame that can't reach outer space), but I digress.

At a story level Policenauts is like completely the other way around--it's pretty much just the aesthetic stuff that's different.

[Devsman]

Bird の投稿を引用：

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

S1 could be considered a borderline 2 remake (though more than a little bit of a stretch), but otherwise, I'm not sure what you mean.

It's a 1 remake with aspects of 2's plot. The same themes and general plotline is preserved though, and 2 itself primarily shores up the problem with assuming these are isolated individuals. Rather, these identities are natural outcroppings of the reality of how the world is organized militarily. Which, in turn, is due to economic realities.

Generally speaking the closer he gets to discussing the economic realities the harder his games get whacked. Death Stranding was a pretty clever approach, but it's neutered. Just like 5 was.

I suppose that's fair. S2 did also have that thing where it was a remake of S1 in-universe (I know, MGS2 is weird), but the themes, characters and plot elements are pretty different. At most it could be considered an expansion, but then again it doesn't make sense except as a sequel.

But anyway, after those first four, I really see no way you could argue they were remaking each other.

[Devsman]

In any case, I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing Policenauts. It's pretty much everything I've ever hoped and dreamed--it's just funny seeing just how many ideas that I was familiar with from MGS actually came from here.

I mean, it's Kojima game where reading lore is literally the gameplay, lol.

[Birds]

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

Bird の投稿を引用：

It's a 1 remake with aspects of 2's plot. The same themes and general plotline is preserved though, and 2 itself primarily shores up the problem with assuming these are isolated individuals. Rather, these identities are natural outcroppings of the reality of how the world is organized militarily. Which, in turn, is due to economic realities.

Generally speaking the closer he gets to discussing the economic realities the harder his games get whacked. Death Stranding was a pretty clever approach, but it's neutered. Just like 5 was.

I suppose that's fair. S2 did also have that thing where it was a remake of S1 in-universe (I know, MGS2 is weird), but the themes, characters and plot elements are pretty different. At most it could be considered an expansion, but then again it doesn't make sense except as a sequel.

But anyway, after those first four, I really see no way you could argue they were remaking each other.

S3 is more of a demake really. S4 was probably the most 'original' and 'different' series, but the ideas and the plot itself are pretty much the quintessential distillation of the series. If anything it's the advancement of his artistry and his ability to convey subtle ideas which held the game back, because it meant that all you really needed done was to confuse people about what it meant for them to write it off. In essence the only people who would or could understand it probably already knew, and it was more or less preaching to the choir on its way out the door.

Given his luddic ethos this is a big shift tonally. Before 4 he mostly made games any babby with a controller could pick up and cut their teeth on, learning certain ideas about how society is organized along the way. Crazy ideas, fantastical ideas, ideas that can't possibly be true. But, in the end, are. ... just not in the same way, exactly, but close enough. A discussion I could imagine Solid and Otacon having easily, Otacon feeling 'close enough is good enough' and Snake feeling 'close only counts with horseshoes and handgrenades, and it's because society never really explodes that close doesn't count.' I think they had a conversation about jumping on grenades too, but idk.

S2 was very different and probably one of the most successful mediations between the luddic experience and the more cerebral thematic content of the game. Which is why the lead writer got fired, was followed by yakuza and harassed at every job he went to, and even had doctors misdiagnose him and attempt to cripple him for life. Something about it just worked, and it's hard to parse why that is exactly.

[Birds]

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

In any case, I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing Policenauts. It's pretty much everything I've ever hoped and dreamed--it's just funny seeing just how many ideas that I was familiar with from MGS actually came from here.

I mean, it's Kojima game where reading lore is literally the gameplay, lol.

How do you feel about its memetics, and the ability to repeat what it says so that people understand?

[Devsman]

Bird の投稿を引用：

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

In any case, I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing Policenauts. It's pretty much everything I've ever hoped and dreamed--it's just funny seeing just how many ideas that I was familiar with from MGS actually came from here.

I mean, it's Kojima game where reading lore is literally the gameplay, lol.

How do you feel about its memetics, and the ability to repeat what it says so that people understand?

Memetics?
Repeat?
People?
Understand?

Actually, as an Adventure/VN game, it leaves most of its dialog optional. So that's nice. I read it all anyway, though.

[Devsman]

I stopped at a twist yesterday, so my mind has been going all night/morning, "now, if this character is in on the scheme, then... but then how..?"

[funewchie]

I mean, I've complained about Kojima plenty of times before.

Regarding MGS, people said "He's revolutionary! He's a visionary!", to which I point out:
"No, he's not. All he did was rip off Escape from New York!
Even kept the main character's name of Snake (with an alias of Lt. Pliskin).
In addition, he just added Gundams, and seasoned the story with some Cyborg 009."

Seriously, look at a picture of Solid Snake, and compare it to Kurt Russel as Snake Pliskin.
-----

How he avoided a plagarism suit is anyone's guess.

(I'm pretty sure if I made a sci-fi game with a main character with quasi-magical powers named Luke (with an alias of Col. Skywalker), and despite adding giant robots and a depressing story... I'd likely get the absolute crap sued out of me.)

[Devsman]

funewchie の投稿を引用：

I mean, I've complained about Kojima plenty of times before.

Regarding MGS, people said "He's revolutionary! He's a visionary!", to which I point out:
"No, he's not. All he did was rip off Escape from New York!
Even kept the main character's name of Snake (with an alias of Lt. Pliskin).
In addition, he just added Gundams, and seasoned the story with some Cyborg 009."

Seriously, look at a picture of Solid Snake, and compare it to Kurt Russel as Snake Pliskin.
-----

How he avoided a plagarism suit is anyone's guess.

(I'm pretty sure if I made a sci-fi game with a main character with quasi-magical powers named Luke (with an alias of Col. Skywalker), and despite adding giant robots and a depressing story... I'd likely get the absolute crap sued out of me.)

Oh, he ripped off way more than Escape from New York. It's official that Kojima altered the story of Metal Gear because he wanted to rip off The Great Escape. Then you have Solid Snake's appearance changing over the course of the series from Kyle Reese to Mel Gibson to Jean-Claude van Damme with Christopher Walken's head, and finally Kurt Russell, then you know, literally making Dr. Strangelove a character in the one where he ripped off Dr. Strangelove, lol. Ahab and Ishmael with the giant flaming whale. James Bond. Lee Van Cleef.

[crunchyfrog]

Devsman's Comet の投稿を引用：

crunchyfrog の投稿を引用：

I don't know what you expect frankly. Or rather I think you're expecting too much.

ANY artist in any field has a set of tropes or ideas they repeat all the time.

Go and look at any musician, no matter how much credibility they have. Mozart has regular little trills and ideas he'd repeat. He'd even recycle parts of one piece into another, and maybe flip it to be a bass part. He was also well known for taking others' work and playing around with it too (often satirically).

Any group also does similar things too. The Beatles who I bang on about a lot (because I know an awful lot about their recording history) did this too. Songs like One after 909 was written in their early days, but was rejigegd every now and then and only finally surfaced on their last album.

Or take an outtake from their later years - the John Lennon composition "Child of Nature". That never made it out until they broke up and John Lennon changed the words and kept the song the same and released it as "Jealous Guy".

And so on.

The thing is this is how ideas and composition works.

Didn't happen so much with Zone of the Enders. I was a huge fan of both MGS and ZoE, back when they were still active, and while you had a few common elements, like obviously the mechas, the cutscenes and the communications, they were mostly aesthetic things. Even the mechas were wildly different--Metal Gears were more or less highly advanced tanks, while OFs/LEVs, you know, could fly and used swords and stuff. Now, that last part got a lot less true as time went on (Sahel is basically an Orbital Frame that can't reach outer space), but I digress.

At a story level Policenauts is like completely the other way around--it's pretty much just the aesthetic stuff that's different.

May be but that doesn't dispute the point does it?

I never said they repeat it ALL THE TIME.

[crunchyfrog]

funewchie の投稿を引用：

I mean, I've complained about Kojima plenty of times before.

Regarding MGS, people said "He's revolutionary! He's a visionary!", to which I point out:
"No, he's not. All he did was rip off Escape from New York!
Even kept the main character's name of Snake (with an alias of Lt. Pliskin).
In addition, he just added Gundams, and seasoned the story with some Cyborg 009."

Seriously, look at a picture of Solid Snake, and compare it to Kurt Russel as Snake Pliskin.
-----

How he avoided a plagarism suit is anyone's guess.

(I'm pretty sure if I made a sci-fi game with a main character with quasi-magical powers named Luke (with an alias of Col. Skywalker), and despite adding giant robots and a depressing story... I'd likely get the absolute crap sued out of me.)

Well no, again you can't say this and ignore all the other artists in the world who have done the same.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Many well known artists have whole heartedly used things from other artists.

You know even Oasis released an Album "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" after they kept getting accused of stealing from the Beatles.

The thing is ALL art is iterative - EVERYBODY uses stuff. You just are aware of this particular one as it's something you recognise. When you get older and you widen your scope you'll find everyone does it. It's simply how it works.

The question is though you have to take the whole into account. Does it work together and does it make something that wasn't there before?

You could equally moan about groups like Greta Van Cleef for soudning like Led Zeppelin. When people moaned about that I never got the point because at that time, there were precisely ZERO Led Zeppelins around, and it doesnt remove Led Zep's songs from being around.

I think people get too bent out of shape with recognising stuff and thinking "hey I know where that came from" as theft.