Game of the Year Awards 2010 Day 5

PSP received one of the best Metal Solid game in recent years in 2010 with Peace Walker which also makes it to number 7 on my Game of the Year Awards 2010

6:

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP):

Last time Snake ventured on the PSP (Portable Ops), it was met with mixed reaction on my part. I could not get used to the camera angles and a few wonky control issues. So when Peace Walker was announced I was a little skeptical, yet excited at the same time, I mean come on, this is Metal Gear Solid!. I was hoping that Hideo Kojima may have worked on the issues from the previous game and to my relief he had which made the game more than playable. Using the 70's era and the Banana Republic phenomena of Central America as a driving force for the plot, Peace Walker became the PSP game to play in 2010.

Peace Walker has a really tightly wrought storyline with the right amount of political intrigue of the 70's and its global ramifications. Peace Walker also puts the ball in motion for the Metal Gear sage and it became fascinatining to see how Snake slowly become the main villan of the future games of series. And thank God for that as MGS series has been know to have pretty convoluted storyline as was evident with MGS 2 and MGS4. But with Peace Walker Kojima kept every thing pretty simple in lieu with MGS 3 and in end the game had the same emotional impact MGS 3 had on me. With the plot centering around the mystery for a certain person from the MGS mythos, you can't help but be impressed by the direction taken by Kojima-san.

The game play is classic MGS fodder and it shows that the developer have put in the effort in making a perfect MGS game. There is sneaking, A LOT of sneaking, more sneaking than found in MGS 4 (which was a bit a mess in my opinion). And the forest environs once again become the perfect setting for the tried and tested stealth action. The camera angles which were a pain to get used to in Portable Ops, have been tuned very well for the PSP and the control schemes felt reminiscent of Syphon Filter games for the PSP. Its an achievement for Hideo Kojima and his team that they have made many small changes to the mechanics but their effects are very clear which made the game shine rather than chruning out the same engine from Portable Ops.

But perphaps the most amazing thing about Peace Walker for me was how it spun such a story which made me actually wiki many of the names and events from the 70s. There are huge references to Che Guevara, the Sandinista from the Nicaragua Revolution and the repercussion of the Cold War from the scary days of the 60's (Cuban crisis and all). I mean this game made me watch some of the best movies based on the Cold War and getting my attention to read Confessions of the Economic Hitman. There aren't many games which feel very relevant to real life events.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a really well made game with huge amount of content and some great characters. For me MGS 4 kinda killed the attachment from the series with its sterile settings (and the art designs, I mean I am sorry but the MGS magic was missing from the game, plain and simple) and a very (needlessly) complex storyline. But Peace Walker rectified the issues I had with both Portable Ops and MGS 4 and delivered a very bright and tightly woven MGS game.

My Inconsequential Stand

(*Disclaimer: I like games of all kinds. My game interests are vested in games targeted to the younger audience, games where strategy and tactics are involved and mature games with blood, gore, violence and sexual content*)

As the trailer starts we see a band of soldiers in full gear surrounding a run down shack in the streets of Kabul. They get into their attack positions, and as the music wells up into a frenetic beat, the soldiers bust down the door and hell as breaks lose as guns are shot at the terrorists. The trailer end with this phrase "This is Tier 1".

These are scenes are taken from the trailer of an upcoming (I think it got released a couple of days ago) video game: Medal of Honor. A video game developed by the industry giant Electronic Games or EA, is a virtual depiction of the terrible war in Afghanistan. In the game we player assume the role of one of the elite US Marine soldiers as we transverse the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, searching and exterminating pockets of insurgency forces.

Let now me just come to my point. The more I write about this game, the more angry I feel. And hence i draw the line. I make my stand. As video game player I will boycott this game.



Many gamers and non gamers will be wondering what sort of content does the game have which has incited my extreme stand. Let me start my simple explanation with a rather generic remark: I hate war, I hate video games depicting real life war. That is not say that video games displaying war has no place, on the contrary. War video games need to a little preachy and maybe even have a message rather placing gamers in middle of a virtual battle field and calling it a day. How about comparing some of the great war movies such as Apocalypse Now, Lions for Lambs, Letters from Iwao Jima or Saving Private Ryan to popular games like Call of Duty or the aforementioned Medal of Honor. These movies show case the true brutality of war and its complexities on a soldier in a battle field as well as repercussion on innocent lives. While Call of Duty and such games usually have a ham fisted story and wholly concentrates in giving a whole lot of things to shoot at, offline and on.

I feel many of the game developers who make war games do not use the powerful new medium of video games to display the horrors of wars. More often than not most war games just give gamers the licence to become a 'bad ass' soldier and kill everything and anything on site. Sure most real wars are like that but again you ask any war veteran and he/she will tell you it is not as simple or as 'fun' as it sounds. This aspect of war is usually ignored and hence it numbs the gamers or viewers to the insensibilities of war.

Yes many will argue that this is only a game and is not real and that in effect makes it OK. I am not saying that I am against violent games, as one of my favorite games are violent games but making a video game about a real life war is callous. And I am not against war games per say. I mean if there exists a message in amongst it all then such games can be used to propagate anti-war sentiments. As I mentioned earlier that movies have been made on the topic of wars where it would show the raw nature of conflicts and they have been successful. Video games about wars also can be used in such an exercise

Yes there have been very good attempts where the concept of war has been displayed in its entirety along with its impact by people like Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid series. The games in this series always had stories relevant to the real world as well as a message which has made this series a big hit amongst the gaming fraternity.



The RPG genre also have many games about wars and its brutalities but as the genre lies a little out of the main stream audience (even after the incredible run of awesome RPGs during the PS1 and PS2 era), the purpose of such games usually don't get to an average gamer. What I trying to say is that game developers have to be a little progressive, just like how movies makers and musicians assumed that role in the late 60's and 70's, and starting making war games with a some purpose rather than just thinking of making maximum profit.

So anyways as I end this blog update and the realization dawns upon me that this my stand basically is pointless and eventually without result. My boycott won't stop this game selling around a million copies (or more) around the world and my opinions will be scoffed at by many of my fellow gamers. But I will accept this fact and therefore I will preserve on my principle. I will draw the line. I will make my inconsequential stand.