Examination nation nation... na- n-

Six hours of exams. Wuthering Heights, and poems from the period 1200-1800... STRAIGHT! "Prepositional phrases are utilised by Tennyson to connote an aura of omniscience"

I spent my weekend before the exams revising/annotating poems which I shockingly discovered was an .absolute. waste of time. Am I complaining? No. I'm metally tough/'ard, dude.

The exam wasn't helped by the fact that our fat, secluded English teacher, Miss Selby, handed me a novel, in sheet form, to read, the weekend before the exam... clever.

Yet, I guess she thought I deserved it. I mean, the amount of times she's probably heard me bitching about her is obscene. "Lol, no one answers her in class" "She's so small and fat", "Everyone hates her. How does she have the will to go out the house?". To be perfectly fair, I have been notably damn unlucky, as everyone else bitches about her. I guess it's fitting that at least someone had justice induced upon them. I was that unlucky sod. But, wtf, I don't even know if she gave me the sheets because of that, or if she cares about one narcissistic loser bitching about her, or if she even heard me properly when I was bitching.





Though thank fucking god, I have 2 weeks of partial freedom now. The new PS3 firmware (upscaled PS2 games, remote play from any wireless access point), the Motorstorm update, two more sessions of the Kojima productions report, time to obsess over my newly acquired mint 1999 MGS artbook, and time to play MGS 1 again, and if I can afford it, the European version of MPO - purely for collection purposes of course, and maybe a bit of lag-free online play (with the BBFC sticker on the UMD... sheesh.), and the PSP camera, before my next venture into hell. 3 hours of British history - Gladstone and Disraeli anyone? The great reform act of 1832... Irish emancipation, home rule... Parnell... Stop me, I can't wait!





Enjoy the exam season, all you students out there! Hold the phone, I don't have any readers. Who am I talking to? No matter, it's a handy life documentation which will no doubt, serve as a nostalgic night's read sometime.

Don't Let It Bring You Down - Neil Young (original). Great song. Another recent discovery by me! However, I suggest finding a cover (there are loads) by a female artist.

Skating Nostalgia, and MPO.

< rantyreview/

I am commenting on a US copy of MPO (I suppose it is fitting that I am actually reviewing it now, the European release date is the 25th of May, due to all of the UK copies being sent back to the distributors, from the retailers, because the UMD discs lacked the BBFC rating sticker). My review is still useful to the European community because there have been little-to-no significant changes made to the game. I do not own the European version (I would get it on release day if I had the money, because I would be able to play in the European servers, with no lag, and take part in the European tournaments.), but all that has been changed/added is the menus, to a small degree, there are soldiers with the various European flags as their army fatigues - which you can recruit, there is boss rush mode, a few new (probably of the same standard as the US maps) maps for multiplayer, and two new careers for soldiers - hooray! < sarcasticinterjection/ If Kojima Productions have not addressed the online hacking issue, then I consider the European version of Portable Ops to be worse than the US version, as it is a half-a-year old game, with a multiplayer mode which will die in 1-2 months.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

In my opinion:

MPO should have lived up to this (watch the second half):



But, this is what we got (I know this is low quality, but to be honest, there isn't much quality to miss):



There are a lot of ‘good’ aspects to this game -- the narrative is detailed, and the cutscenes - entertaining. But, the dialogue...!? Where did the seriousness go? What the hell happened to any sense of realism? "Knock it off Gene!" wtf? "They'll have their asses handed to them." A military soldier with that idiolect... I think not -- (yeah, I know soldiers can be particularly vulgar, but a -said-to-be- disciplined green beret talking to a supposed military legend. Get real).

I realise that a lot of people think that MGS, and the trilogy is over the top -- but, that doesn’t mean to say that you should make the next game as unrealistic and over-the-top as possible. A soldier who wears a Liquid Nitrogen suit because he can't regulate his body temperature due to a war wound (Python)? Why am I subject to this torture?

Payton, you're gonna make the Japanese English, proper English? If that means adding a load of internet slur crap to a game that is meant to be serious, then I'd prefer Japanese English, thank you. It is one hell of a lot more mature. The vocal minority on internet forums will maybe stand for the “motherfuckers”, and the “asses handed-to-them”s, but the silent majority will not, and will suffer for your ignorant sacrilege. I was expecting Campbell to say "Pwn that noob!" at any moment. I’m not joking. It came very close. Moreover, Campbell tells you what you need to do in your mission, when you finish your mission, when you select your mission, and when you get into the mission, on the radio, not to mention rephrasing intel reports after you've read them, and again at any other possible moment! I read through all of the dialogue, in the game... because I expected it to be of a high linguistic standard. But by the end of the story, I was mindlessly following Campbell’s 3rd explanation of the mission with no enthusiasm, vainly hoping to hear something either informative/intelligent, some game tip which he hadn’t told me 5 times already, out of fear that the less mentally able gamers would not know what the hell to do or might post on a forum, “ops sux lol”. Consequently, I was desperately searching for a phrase in the text that wasn’t something which was a slur commonly used on the net, interpreted into the game by Payton's "English English", in an effort to make me feel 'okay' about MPO. Believe it or not, I am not exaggerating. I know now that Payton wrote the codec dialogue, as well as a lot of the written text (non-audible dialogue). God dammit, it shows so badly. “What? You’ve found new intel on the whereabouts of Snake, from a high-ranking office? Great!”. How could this have ever made it into a Kojima Productions game? I am offended. It sounds fucking sarcastic.

Payton is a nice guy, he hosts bearable podcasts - http://mp.i-revo.jp/user.php/kp-ryan/?lp=1 While I enjoy them, I expect his english in the games to warrant an extremely high standard - fitting writing styles to specific characters... and much more.

I personally feel that Snake's character was damaged severely by MPO because of this. He sound like a teenager talking to his mate on msn.

The online mode involves multiple users playing with the same boss character from the game (at least, in the beginning)... making it seem completely meaningless and warped. Even the interfaces are bland, and show a distinct lack of effort. I have fought the Null boss battle, with my own recruited Null, from a previous play through. Make of that what you will. There is a severe problem with hacked characters online. If you’re not ‘in the know’ on the online mode, and you have recently purchased the game, then you will NOT have any fun whatsoever. People churn out hacked characters, and send them to their friends, and they quickly reach all the hardcore players in the community (characters which can take up to three headshots to be killed, and with an HP so high, you’d feel stoned if you played against them). This is the hardcore minority which now play the game (last time I checked the number of players online, was 33.) No doubt, people have warmed to the fact that there is no point in playing against people who constitute the hacking. The multiplayer mode has now become a broken mode for anyone outside of the hard of the hardcore US online MPO multiplayer community.

The level design couldn’t have been more simple and bland. On the extreme difficulty setting, I can easily use Snake to run to the goal, on every mission, whilst alerting every guard - and still having no problem! I cannot remember where I read this, but this paraphrased quote puts my feelings about the level design into a distinct sentence, “Take Metal Gear Online for the PS2, downgrade the graphics and effects to a stark degree, base a single player game on it, and you have MPO.” Stealth has been thrown out the window. There is never anything more to the mission than, “get to the X!”.

The set-pieces are eyesores. Background sound was ripped straight from MGS3, as well as all of the character models, apart from a select few. You could call this game a severely diluted port of MGS3. EVA wearing exactly the same clothes as she did in Snake Eater, six years ago? Why are you doing this to me, Kojima Productions!?

Snake Eater EVA:


MPO EVA:


The stat system is far too complicated to ever have fun with. At first, I thought it would provide a lot of play time, and that it is nice and detailed. However, after a while of continuously moving soldiers around groups, and then finding a better one, to go and replace another one, I thought... "This isn't game play... it's not fun either. This is not MGS." Organising a hundred characters with a multitude of stats, strange names, (I ended up calling my brethren ‘Heathcliff’, ‘Edgar’, and ‘Gimp Hole’, out of sheer disgust at the un-inventive names that they originally had) etc., when, you can just play an entire mission as Snake, without being spotted once (if you have a brain mass which is large enough to be measurable), there's no need for comrades, let alone organising them.



After having played the game, I feel very divided upon my opinion concerning it. The voice acting is fantastic in cases - David Hayter's talented voice performances have consistently carried through to each Metal Gear Solid game in the series, including this one, to give an example - (though, put to displeasing use). At least, it was as good as it could get concerning the dialogue (nevertheless, there was actually some interesting dialogue from Python - "I have stolen far too much life to ever make amends," and from Gene at the end of the game). Furthermore, the art from Ashley Wood was somewhat expressionistic, and pleasingly stylistic... which complimented the voice acting.

One wonderful aspect of the game, which I guiltily haven't mentioned, is the music. Just listen to the second half of the first youtube video again! Classic quality. Akihiro Honda, the sound director has done a wonderful job in the music department... but a shocking job in the SFX one. It equals out, resulting in a mediocre soundtrack.

All I know is that an MGS game has all of these fantastic elements and a hell of a lot more, but not the disgusting ones... MGS’ standard puts other games to shame. Though MPO is a great title, it's not of the standard of an MGS one.

Kojima didn't work on MPO, and... fuck me, it shows. It shows like the beauty of an MGS game should show. And that’s a lot of show. Due to this, my fears which I would have about MGS4, if Kojima had worked on MPO, can be put aside.

In conclusion, MPO is a wonderful game for the average player, and I recommend it (surprised?). Yet, if you are a hardcore Metal Gear Solid fan, do not expect it to live up to any of your MGS expectations.

< rantyreview/

Griffo

Oh, and here’s a recent, casual video of me skating after 3-4 years of laying it to rest:



This is me skating when I was 12 (I am now 16. I've got some work to do...):



I'm always finding gems in my itunes library, since I idiotically imported all of dad's music... a recent discovery has been Wrong Number by The Cure. Check it out!

The initiation ritual, TUS...

The moderators of TUS (metalgearsolid.org) are a totalitarian joke:

Okay, my email which I have cried out to numerous moderators/administrators of the site with... -- And, then to receive no reply at all from any of them:

Hi, it's Griffo - you probably don't know me. I've recently been banned from the TUS forums. I haven't posted on them for quite a while. I believe I have been banned because of what I have posted on the news comments section of the PTT episode 5 podcast. I am deeply concerned about it. Primarily, because I did not receive any warning whatsoever (It is clearly stated within the TUS rules, that a member is to receive one warning if they break a major rule -- which I did not do -- and numerous, clear warnings for breaking a minor rule -- which I did not do, before being banned). Moreover, the ban seems to me to be quite rediculous, since I can still freely post on the comments section of the news posts, which is where the dispute began. I am requesting that my ban be lifted, since I did not cause trouble on the forums, from which I am banned. My debate on the comments section was very civil, and, most irritably, again, I received no warning that my civil criticism was out hand... If I deeply offended anyone, I apologize, as I did not mean to -- I was, as I mentioned on the comments section of the news post, trying to give some criticism with personality. I would be entirely grateful if you would give a message of apology from me to whoever it was that banned me (I really don't know who it was). I enjoy the forums, and the community, and would be very disappointed to be cut off from them because of this dispute.

If you can't let me remain a part of the community, I would very much appreciate an email detailing the reasons for my removal from it.

Griffo

-----end of email.

To be fair/unfair, I now do not give a crap about this, and don't want to participate in a forum which constitutes this crap... There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone presenting the truth, and their opinions on it. All I want to do is let the community know how the site is run.

*This is what I got banned for*:

1. Episode 4 was good, it was in-depth, and addressed a lot of serious issues. It also showed that you didn't bind the podcast to just MGS discussion. Also, it's not a good idea to admit to depression because of a podcast, while on a podcast.

2. You couldn't pronounce a pretty simple, uncommon name, after an embarrassing 5 or 6 attempts.

3. Lots of people think that MGS2 is a great game. It is not shocking that someone got into the series because of it. They should not have to explain themselves if it is so. I personally, loved it.

4. You say that wikipedia is very unreliable, and then you confess to having edited in that Ricky Martin loves to give rem jobs, and receive anal.

5. You immediately assume that Horvitz will give a bad, and 'gay' performance. You come on the podcast, expecting to discuss this topic, and you haven't checked the link to his myspace blog which talks about him having recently finished MGS4 voice work. This was in a TUS news post.

"I'm voicing a role for MGS4, lol.". Sort it out.

6. Gay characters in games are hilarious? Not a fact. You want to see a really gay guard in MGS4, which runs around saying, "I'm gonna get you!". Please, even if it was a joke, it was painful to listen to, and really shouldn't be associated with this high-quality site.

7. "That guy from Shadow of the Colossus" Again, if you're going to be on a podcast, please give us the actual information when you report news. "...I dunno, I didn't even read the article except for the last bit, so I'm not even gonna talk about that..." Uh... okay.

8. You ask if you said a name correctly, and in a side-thought on that, you say "Joker-HQ" unintentionally. That's most likely a reputation-destroying mistake.

9. You seem physically unable to say "anyway" and not "anyways". Either that, or you think "anyways" is correct.

9. The one genuine message you received, you dismiss ignorantly. To be fair, it was a pretty good idea. The least you could have done is said, "sorry, no." And, we definitely didn't need to hear the rest of what you read out. Please, manage your time. 37 minutes is good, if it is actual relevant content.

10. MetalGearJ is the only person who reads the comics, who is on the forums? He probably wouldn't admit to it, but that's an insult to him right there.

11. You don't know how long the comics have been out. Simple info, and you're the host. Did you do any preparation? I live in the UK, and I know that they have been out in America since September, '04.

12. "...two green boxes with two people inside them yelling at each other?" You did a great job of helping MGJ with his explanation. If you were trying to be funny, you failed, as Wolfpox's half-assed snigger explains.

13. "When does a lightsaber know to stop?" Seriously, I ...think... I know what you're getting at, but, wtf.

14. "Everybody hates Portable Ops, it seems." I didn't love MPO, but I think I can just leave that quote as it is. It speaks for itself.

15. Learn to say Null properly, and, it was TNT which you planted, not C4.

16. Please, listen to yourself at 19:01. Are you okay, man? Plus, you couldn't have cut off MGJ in a worse way.

17. "His art style's really weird... it's just kind of scribbles... " No.

18. You sold the digital graphic novel, after winning it in the Subsistence tournament. If you're going to host the MGS TUS PTT podcast, please try to give more of a crap about Metal Gear.

--------------------

Okay, just to address the people who may be beginning to believe that I have pasted this piece of writing in entirely too many places: this issue had to be made evident to people. Maybe I should post it in a thread on TUS, using a new account, so the members can see what a moral shambles the administration team is in (at least what I have experienced of them). I was considering just never shouting out about this. But, I suppose that even this will do nothing to bring about the justice which has been so sorely robbed of me, much like Heathcliff's dignity in Wuthering Heights. ;)

Oh, and maybe I am extremely lazy in that I have just pasted a load of abstract crap in here, but I feel that it is an entertaining insider example of the fag faces that run a lot of big sites.

Yeah, yeah, I realise that I should just make another account, and pretend to be someone else. But that's not right. I would lose all of my reputation, (at least, the reputation I thought I had), and most irritating of all -- I would feel that the moderators had gotten away with the perilous deed in which they had/have/are(whatever) participated in... lol.


(To be honest, Nitroid is a really cool guy, and so are a lot of the other TUS admins. However, people like the podcast host, Jim Sensei need to learn to take criticism from someone, without squeamishly banning the critic out of fear of being stood up to by a member of marginal intellect.

Griffo