I started played metal gear solid tonight and it had an “extra” where it outlined the plot of some of the previous games.
I’ve played and beaten the first game, but this bugged me then and it bugs me now.
Okay…The metal gear is supposed to be: "a walking tank capable of launching a nuclear strike.
My question is…So what?
Tanks, particulary walking ones, are going to be limited by weight and size. If it’s going to have any mobility/stealth, it’s going to be rather limited in the deliverly of the nukes it’s carrying. It’s going to have to fire nuclear artillery shells(which, as we all know, aren’t really worth it) or nuclear-tipped cruise missles. To threaten anyone at significant range is possible because it would require ballastic missle technology…and attaching a ballastic missle to a tank it going to both limit the ammo capacity and make the metal gear fricken huge and slow. And let’s not forget that a metal gear would very likely be easy prey to an air strike unless supported by AA units.
And let’s face it, mobile missle lauchers already exist and they’re supposdly not nearly as scary as the Metal gear is supposed to be.
One last thing…the metal gear in the first game required a fricken supercomputer to run it. Isn’t that a rather large liabilty? Last I checked, niether Ballastic missles or tanks require supercomputers to be effectivly used. What on the metal gear requires so much computing power to work?
Wouldn’t it make much more sense for the terrorists just to hijack a couple nukes and some mobile launchers instead of all this attention paid to the metal gear?
It’s a video game, so normal logic or the laws of physics don’t have to apply. For example, if Snake can hide all of that gear on his outfit, imagine how much stuff you could put in a big friggin robot. It probably has two more Metal Gear inside.
Suitcase nukes and ballistic missiles don’t look as badass as Metal Gear.
3)First clumsy step in an emerging technology. In Metal Gear Solid 2, the thing was amphibious and more heavily armored. Other nations were producing it because the specs were leaked, etc. Best to stop it now before the sequels get silly.
Hi Opal What do you mean I screwed the joke up? Third item? Oh son of a…
Dood, it could like totally punch someone, and it would really hurt. You’d be all like “Ow. I just got hit by a big walking tank. Wish some covert ops guy would come and kick it’s ass.” And then Solid Snake would show up and you’d be all like “Solid Snake? Wouldn’t that be a stick?” And then he’d totally shoot you.
By the end of the second game, the series has abandoned all logic, science, common sense, its own themes and forms, and generally flushed itself down the toilet.
The in-game reason (at least, what the script has the chartacters keep claiming) is that legs give more mobility than treads. Sure, whatever. I think it’s because Kojima has a penchant for two-legged robots, and he’s not really alone in that regard when it comes to video games and anime. Maybe it’s something in the water supply.
Anyway, the big deal is that since the Metal Gear can go places a wheeled or treaded missile platform can’t, supposedly it can fire its nuclear missile from anywhere, which makes anywhere on Earth a target. This was back in the days when missiles were believed to have fairly limited ranges. You’d also have to ignore the big 'ol transport to carry around the fuel supply, maintenence crew, and such across the ocean.
The Metal Gear Rex in MGSolid 1 goes a little bit farther in that the Rex launches the warhead using a railgun propulsion system unstead of a rocket, which makes the launch almost undetectable.
In regards to MGS2…Yeah, pretty much everything goes downhill. I’ve heard that it was supposed to be a big fourth-wall breaking postmodern story, all “Dude you’re playing a videogame see how cool it is it doesn’t have to make sense just sit back and enjoy it and stop making fun of my plot holes while I take away the conventions between game and player in an entirely new form of storytelling that surpasses anything ever and will make your brain explode.” I might see where Kojima’s going with that, but just because I know the message doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Good news is that the third game backed down from that crap.
After getting a bit farther into this game, the bit about the metal gear makes a bit more sense.
Though I still think that if they were talking about it in terms of “This is the next big battle tank” and thus it would be a good idea to keep it out of the hands of bad guys, instead of “This is a doomsday weapon that would screw us all if anyone every got ahold of one”.
Using a railgun to launch nukes is an interesting ideas, but frankly I’m not sure how workable it would be.
Also, I can’t help but think that MSG is very much like the original game but with much better graphics. Except the strange plot twists that keep popping up.
I played MGS2 finally a couple of months ago. That twenty minute long cut scene toward the end where it’s one “dramatic” revelation after another with that character switching sides THREE TIMES in the one cut scene really was annoying. Not that MGS made much sense to begin with but geez was that stupid.
