So I played MGS4 Recently

[01d55]

Goddamn are the BB corps awful.

To start with, they're totally not acting their parts. Laughing Octopus sounds like she's making that angry fake laugh, like you might do if someone just said something awful and then tried to pass it off as a joke. Raging Raven says "raaaaage" like someone telling a lame ghost story might say "woooooo." Screaming Mantis is just straight up laughing at you. She doesn't even try to pretend to be screaming or scared or anything like that.

Crying Wolf sounds more like a wolf than someone crying but you gotta give her credit for not stealing someone else's shtick, especially since she got the lamest of the four shticks.

Oh, and Final Boss Fight? You ain't exactly Street Fighter, kid.

Story was okay. I mean yeah the setup is crazy stupid conspiracy theories and Naomi commits suicide for sketchy reasons but I liked it anyway. Also tranq darting fools while they're trying to wake up fools I already tranq'd is comedy gold.

[Kim]

The BB corps are still leagues better than any boss fight in MGS2.

I liked MGS4 well enough. Piloting Metal Gear Rex is badass, and although the plot is stupid dumb, and the final cutscene extremely boring, it has a lot of cool, flashy scenes that are just fun to watch.

[01d55]

Oh man, how could I forget Drebin? Drebin is cool.

The actual BB fights weren't so bad with the exception of the part where you're fighting Laughing Octopus and she rolls up into a ball and you gotta make your best 50's housewife impersonation and make like she's a mouse, only this one desk that looks totally climbable isn't, and then you're dead because that shit hurts worse than a gekko stomp. The whole rest of the fight was fine, and alla the other fights were fine, but goddamn that one move is such bullshit.

[Aeria]

How is the plot super dumb? If anything, it negates some of the apparently stupidity of the other games ( eg - Ocelot grafting Liquid Snake's arm onto his body, and having his mind taken over by him. Instead, Ocelot willingly underwent intense therapy and study to become more like Snake.) I'll admit I didn't like listening to the BB backstories, but they did their job... I mean, they show the atrocities of these wars caused by the patriots, and nobody really likes hearing about that. As per their voice acting it wasn't that terrible, keep in mind that these chicks be crazy. If anything Drebin's burping was the worst part.

As for the ending, have you no soul? First off, Snake is better than any Street Fighter -- CQC is one of the main points of MGS3, and it carries through. It is also an homage to all previous MGS games, as well as brilliantly scripted and beautifully presented. As to the endless ending sequences afterward... It's too bad that they had to end. They were moving, and enlightening, and they made everything that didn't make sense before make sense now. It is also very thematic, with many points to make, and it makes them extremely well -- about war, PMCs, control, soldiers, life and death... and more. Grr! If you didn't like it, grow up a bit, play it again in a few years, and you will >< Especially if you play the first ones again.

[Mirai Gen]

I knew I forgot something to the list since I got a PS3.

*marks this down*

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Aeria

It is also very thematic, with many points to make, and it makes them extremely well -- about war, PMCs, control, soldiers, life and death... and more.

And here I always thought that the MGS games were a parable about confronting your sexuality, and that it featured Snake as a way of defying common perceptions of the homosexual male. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of it is a stern condemnation of the US Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, something that Kojima has been actively against for quite some time now.

[Mirai Gen]

I haven't played it yet but from what I understand the plot in MGS4 is basically three games of retconning and surprise plot twists. This is pretty much why I love MGS3 the most, aside from just being the best presented with the most fantastic fights (Sorrow and the End), but almost none of the game had anything to do with Metal Gear Solid except a few throwbacks here and there. (METAL GEEAARRR?! Never heard of it.)

This is why I'm eagerly looking forward to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, because I'd love to see what Kojima can do with a Castlevania game, and fuck me it's got some totally aces voice actors in there.

[Seil]

You do know their back stories, right? Like, Laughing Octopus isn't really happy 'bout being forced to live with torturing her family and loved ones and murdering them, while being forced to laugh while she does it. Literally, last night, I typed out their back stories for something completely unrelated because I couldn't find them anywhere.

And who are you to disapprove of the last boss fight? That was pretty f***ing epic all 'round.

Also, something I found interesting:

The unit is based on previous MGS villains, Laughing Octopus is derived from the camouflage and name of Decoy Octopus, the P90 submachine gun and tentacles of Solidus Snake and the emotion of The Joy. Raging Raven is derived from the name and flying accomplices of Vulcan Raven, the explosives of Fatman and the rage of The Fury. Crying Wolf is derived from the name and fighting style of Sniper Wolf, the railgun of Fortune and the despair of The Sorrow. Screaming Mantis is derived from the name of Psycho Mantis, the thrown knife weapons of Vamp and a mixture of The Fear and The Pain.

The motion capture for each of the Beauties was done by models Scarlett Chorvat, Mieko Rye, Lyndall Jarvis, and Yumi Kikuchi. [link] They didn't do their own voices, that was left up to the respective voice actors of both the English and the Japanese development teams of MGS4, but Fred Tatasciore did all their lines too. A neat idea where when the B&B's are in their Beast state, in their suits, their lines are played with the roars of Mr. Tatasciore, which is just as cool as Phil Lamarr doing the voice of Vamp again in MGS4.

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Spoiler'd 'cause.... yeah.Laughing Octopus
"Laugh with me!" [link]

"You're a real piece of work, Snake. Never thought I'd meet the man who could take down Laughing Octopus single handedly. She just kept on laughing, didn't she. Now why do you suppose that is? ...She's from a village in Scandinavia - little seaside hamlet known to all the locals as "The Devil's Village." Place wasn't known for Devils, though. It was known for octopus. See, this was one of the few places in Europe where they ate octopus customarily.

Anyway, there's this cult of crazies who for some reason hate the village, with a passion. Then, when she was just a teenager, things get bad. These nutcases get their hands on some weapons and attack the village. Overnight, her sleepy little fishing village becomes a war zone. They round up all the villagers and execute them one by one. Except for that girl. They had something else planned for her, something a whole lot worse than dying. Calling her the Devil's Child, they forced her to do the kind of thing you'd expect from one of Lucifer's own. After they made her torture her family and friends, they made her kill 'em. The whole time they were forcing her to laugh, howl like some sort of demon. Like she was enjoying it. What was she gonna do, say no? They'd kill her, too.

So she let fear take control, and did exactly as they told her. She butchered the bodies of the ones she loved, and laughed while she did it. And as she bathed in their blood, it gradually turned from deep red to jet black. To her, it looked like the ink of an octopus. The experience scarred her deep. Since then, she hasn't stopped laughing. Only, that ain't really laughter.
-----

Raging Raven
"Show me your rage!" [link]

...I'd say about 20. But she had years of soldiers' rage hidden away in that youthful body of hers. ...The soldiers of Aceh, a place that hasn't seen peace in a long, long time. She was captured by one side or another, and kept caged up like an animal along with God knows how many other kids. It's unknown whether her captors were with the government or the rebels. In any case, they got their kicks by abusing these helpless little kids day after day after day. That constant barrage, that battlefield rage, slowly built up inside their bodies... their minds.

The kids tried to keep each others' spirits up, always clinging to the hope that someone would come to their rescue, barely surviving off scraps of food. But those soldiers didn't stop. They called the kids parasites and shit-eating ravens. Beat 'em even harder. Then one morning, the soldiers just up and left, leaving the surviving kids to be eaten alive by the birds. Almost like one of those sky burials. One by one, their bodies were picked apart by ravens' beaks, until finally the flock came for her.

But by some miracle, their beaks cut her bonds instead. And like that, she was liberated. In that instant, she was filled with an uncontrollable rage, and it smothered her soul. She ripped the ravens pecking at her to pieces and then went after the soldiers. And when she finally caught up with them, she waited until nightfall like a hunter awaiting its prey. They say that when a raven cries, a man dies. And that's exactly what happened that night. Screeching and cawing, she killed every last living thing in the camp, both the soldiers, and the civilians they'd enslaved. In her mind, there was no longer a difference. The cruelty her friends had suffered, the pain and humiliation she'd endured... Hers was the distillation of the rage that decades of war had imparted on those soldiers.
-----

Crying Wolf
"Cry... until your eyes run red!" [link]

You don't need me to tell you there's whole nations in Africa tearing themselves apart in the name of ethnic cleansing. Well, she was born into that environment. When she was a little girl, her village was attacked by rival armed factions. Her parents and siblings were slaughtered, and she was left a refugee. She took her last surviving relative, her baby brother, and ran as far as she could away from the war zone. One day, they came across an enemy unit, so she took her brother and hid in an abandoned shack. And then her brother started to cry... She knew that if the soldiers heard the noise, they would find them and kill them both. So she wrapped her hand as tight as she could around his mouth.

As the footsteps gradually went away, she came back to her senses. Her brother wasn't crying anymore. Horrified, she pulled her hand away, covered in sweat and spit. He wasn't breathing. They say wolves eat their own pups when they die. She was spotted wandering through the thick of battle carrying her dead brother in her arms. She had visions, too - a wolf walking alongside her. Every night, the wolf would howl and cry, just like her brother did that day. Eventually, she made it to a government-run refugee camp. But by then, her brother's body had rotted away. The camp was crowded with refugees like herself, and little children like her brother.

Day and night she was tormented by the cries of babies. The wolf that followed her heard her sorrowful screams and answered. He made his way around the camp. And one by one... he silenced the children. She tried to stop it, but she was powerless to stop the wolf. A few days passed, and on the eve of the enemy's raid, there wasn't a child left. The adults who survived were torn up pretty bad. Of course, there never was any wolf in that camp. She was the one who killed those babies. But she couldn't bring herself to admit it. She couldn't bear the thought of herself going from one baby to the next, howling like a wolf, snuffing out their little lives. And she never did, even as Crying Wolf, a lonely beast forever stalking the battlefield.

Snake, fighting with you made Wolf finally accept what she'd done. She was cleansed by you. If the cries she heard of children on the battlefield have been silenced, it's because of you. You ought to be proud.
-----

Psycho Mantis
"Let me hear you scream! Howl! Roar!" [link]

Mantis came from South America. She was born and raised in a country wracked by never-ending civil wars. Her village was attacked by enemy forces and burned to the ground. This was when she was still a little girl. Hunted by enemy death squads, she was separated by her family. She barely managed to escape with her life... Ended up in the basement of this one building. It was full of corpses that had been dumped there. Almost all of them had been tortured to death. She was petrified with fear. And then she heard the sound of heavy boots on the floor above her, followed by shrieking screams, the kind that would make every hair on your body stand straight up. She had stumbled across a makeshift torture chamber. Somebody had locked the door, and she was trapped.

It was dark. It was dank. And it was full of a wretched stench. She couldn't sleep with the screams of torture victims all around her. All she could do was sit curled up in one corner of the room, trembling. A week passed, then ten days. She managed to keep hydrated by drinking the filthy water pooled up on the floor, but there was no food. Being trapped in that kind of place, half-crazy from hunger, did a serious number on her mind. Did you know female mantises eat their mates?

The screams went on day and night. She covered her ears but it didn't help. And then, she was saved... By a little black mantis, that taught her how to block out the screams, how to plug up her inner ears. ...I'm saying Snake, that when she couldn't stand the hunger any longer, she started feeding on the corpses... But only the male ones. She didn't realize who was doing it. In her mind, it was a female mantis, devouring her mates. It was like one big, twisted waking dream.

There was no mantis, of course. It was all a hallucination. Nothing more than some story spun by another person she'd created inside. Her unstable mind was what made her so vulnerable. Later, they ripped out what was left of her psyche with drugs and hypnosis, and implanted the persona of Psycho Mantis. ...Screaming Mantis was just another puppet. Anyway, she survived several weeks down in that hellhole and finally got back to the surface. But the screams in her head didn't subside. They would always be with her... Only this time, they weren't real. The inner earplugs didn't work anymore. The black mantis had disappeared. There was no place left to escape. Which is why she was always screaming - to drown out the ones in her own head. But it's over now. You freed Mantis from that dark nightmare.

[01d55]

Originally Posted by Seil

You do know their back stories, right? Like, Laughing Octopus isn't really happy 'bout being forced to live with torturing her family and loved ones and murdering them, while being forced to laugh while she does it. Literally, last night, I typed out their back stories for something completely unrelated because I couldn't find them anywhere.

Screaming Mantis had to hide out in a torture chamber for so long it came down to cannibalism or starvation, but that didn't stop her from laughing quite sincerely at my puny bullets.

And if any of that was really so awful, how come all it takes to cleanse their minds is a clip of tranquilliser darts? And where did Drebin get that kind of psychological expertise?

And who are you to disapprove of the last boss fight? That was pretty f***ing epic all 'round.

I'm a guy who had to actually play that shit. Sure it looks cool (like the cutscene preceding it), and the changing health bars/music gimmick was neat, But the actual fighter minigame is a goddamn terrible game. If Kojima had just let me sit back and watch another 5 min of Liquid Ocelot and Solid Snake punching each other instead of making me play an entirely different (and entirely terrible) game for that one fight I would have less cause for complaint. Or even better, make a fighting minigame that is fun and not worse than passively watching something happen.

[Seil]

I'm not gonna argue. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. But I think the B&B Corps was cool, and I thought the ending fight was one of the best parts in the game.