FA FA FA FA FA FFFFFF...

Raziel_Likes_Souls:

Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa.

Damn, ninja'd. By several days in fact. I really should have read this earlier.

OT: I really must getting around to playing a Metal Gear game. I don't mind super long cutscenes, and the concepts they throw into these games sound really good. Question is, should I start from the PS1 and work my way up? Or just pick one at random? Or, an even better question still, will I even have the time to play one?

Brendan Main:

teknoarcanist:
I don't think Mantis's aim was 'break immersion over his knee' and mock the player for taking the game so seriously *. Rather, I think the effect was to enhance immersion by expanding it into dimensions the player had not previously had a game expand into.

I agree with nearly all of what you argue, but I thought I might respond to a couple points.

This depends on the slipperiness of a word like "immersion," and how we've come to use it. You're right, for example, that Mantis' controller spazzing and save file reading enters into a new space, with new boundaries and dimensions

..I don't know. Isn't the game already fighting with the fact that you're only interfacing into the game-world with the controller, and watching a TV..?

Like the other guy - when the game was suddenly aware of me, that I saw the game through a TV - that immersed me in the narrative and the running theme about the nano-machines, the system, virtual soldiers, and so on, in a new way.

Because I didn't get Kojima's comment on video-games until that point. Or - I understood the reference, and I could read and hear the words, and so on - but I didn't experience it until the game broke the "rules".

That was beautiful. Mantis truly is head and shoulders above the rest of any of the bosses out there.

Madara XIII:
There was also another one in the 4th game.
When Snake is in Shadow Moses, Otacon tells him to stop and switch out discs, but snake says there's no second disc to which Otacon replies "OH yeah we're on the PS3 multi-layered discs"

Snake: "grrr Otacon get a grip"

That made me seriously LOL XD

There's also a great part in Metal Gear Solid 4 where you fight another psychic boss. If you go into the PS3 options and change your controller to #2, there's a brief scene where Snake complains that he can't move and Otacon chides him for not having the controller set to #1. Good stuff.

Madara XIII:
Would it also encourage you to find out that Raiden is No longer a Wussy!? Trust me that game is arguably the best of the 4 series.

Raiden is an even bigger wussy in MGS4. Sure he's a better fighter and indeed gets some great fight scenes, but he's also a suicidal wuss whose every line of dialog throughout the game made me wish he'd shut up and just end himself already.

Really love this article. Gave me a new perspective on one of the weirdest and craziest boss fights I've ever encountered.

DTWolfwood:
Yes sir, Psycho Mantis is my favorite boss in MGS.

Just curious tho, am i the only one who didnt swap out the controller and simply shot the flying busts out of the air to achieve the same thing? Cause you know, im lazy and breaking those didn't involve me getting up XD

There was another 4th wall breaking in MGS2 or 3(been too long >.<) where snake or raiden was escaping naked after being tortured. Campbell (in all his skull face glory) kept hounding you to stop playing the game. I thought that was an excellent lvl as well.

Also my favorite boss.
And would you consider the convincing to switch game discs a 4th wall breaking? lol. I always liked that part.

I've always enjoyed that sort of interaction with the real world. It brings the hero/villain Deadpool into mind. He also has a 4th wall breaking. He realizes that he is in a comic and often explains what he is doing to the reader and looks toward the reader while talking. But nobody will believe him of course. He is thought to be insane and being inside a comic is just ludicrous.
Characters that can interact with people in more than a fictional sense are rather intriguing. :o

Ha ha, you know, when I played MGS for the first time I actually beat Psycho Mantis without switching for the second controller. Yeah, it was a lot of bullets ^^.

I hated this boss. Any part of a game you cannot beat without being told specifically what you need to do it just stupid.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand these articles? All you're doing is quoting an ACTUAL article, and adding some useless commentary that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

This wouldn't be a good forum post, much less a good article.

Also, while a huge fan of the Metal Gear games, I didn't love the Psycho Mantis battle the way everyone else seems to. Maybe it's because I didn't play MGS until after MGS2 came out, and it wasn't really new.

Oh and btw, MGS breaks the fourth wall all the time. The frequency on the back of the case, and Otacon flat out telling Snake to change the disk are two examples that come to mind immediately.

Brendan Main:
A remake of the game is on the GameCube

However funny your next point was (and it was funny), there's really no excuse for bringing up that horrifying travesty of a game, much less linking to a place people could buy it. Unless you happen to think gaming should be about broken level design that doesn't take into account the player's abilities (basically every level is most easily cleared now by standing still at the begining and shooting first person until everthing in the room is dead) or over the top cut-scenes that make Die Hard 4 look realistic.

Straying Bullet:
Never knew he existed. Sounds like a shit load of fun and sounds like a reason to obtain that specific game. MGS never attracted me...Oh wait, no PS3.

Get a PS1...

Why do so many people like psycho mantis? Also, there were two other ways of beating him, people seem to ignore both, the first was shooting or punching him, he only dodges most of your shots, the second was to smash the statues, effectively the same as switching controllers.

I was thinking of making a song outta psycho mantis and Psycho killer. But i never got the chance, great title though.