Bullet Points @ timlongo.com

I just wanted to spend a post to thank everyone who supported the show (I just finished directing a local production of Sam Shepard’s True West, for those who didn’t know that). We closed it in late April and I had a wonderful time with a great cast and crew and design staff. It was a joy to be involved with and I really saw it as a stress-free “fun” thing to do each night. I especially want to thank my wife and daughter though. They felt the brunt of me being gone so much and I couldn’t have done that without them. Let alone Jen was the Producer for the show as well!

Also thanks for all who made the effort to come see it. I know I was shy about telling everyone but a few of you managed to make it to the show. Whether you liked it or not the attendance means a lot to me. Even Tracy Chapman came to see it (as she is a local) so that was exciting!

Yeah, community theatre can really become the cliche of a “Waiting for Guffman” mess sometimes, but this wasn’t the case for me this time. We were all proud of the thing and were sorry to see it go. That is one of my favorite things about the medium though…You Can’t Take it with You as they say. Once it is over the product is gone forever. Never to be seen again in that form. That is why the process itself is so important to me. I think we set out to have fun with it and we did just that. If there is a next time I can only hope we are lucky enough to repeat at least some of that fun.

P.S. It was also nice to ship a product in only 6 weeks (of rehearsal, 4 weeks of performance). Imagine shipping a game in 6 weeks!

Note – That image is of Scott and Pete thinking they are all Hamlet or something. Thanks guys!

I wanted to share a pretty neat series of events that I recently experienced during the first week of a launch for a friend of mine’s game. Nothing can beat the feeling that you are witnessing someone’s dream come true in real time and you are even able to contribute to that dream with your own monetary support. Game Development is hard enough as a medium even when you have the backing of a big publisher. But when you can find a way to make a game under smaller more controlled circumstances and make it work for you and your team and actually have some success under that model, in this day and age, it gives you some hope for the future. The independent games movement is the obvious example here. No longer is there an explicit need for a removed executive group’s opinions on what sells needed to rule the destiny of a creative endeavor. There are other ways. Here is some potential proof.

• 11:45pm on March 16th I turned on my Wii.
• I immediately go to the Nintendo Channel to see what kind of news in there.
• The first montage video of all upcoming games shows a mysterious gameplay video of a retro game called Bit.Trip Beat. It is surrounded by other first party titles as big as the new Punch Out. Cool!
• I then go to the shopping channel to buy the game I saw on the Nintendo Channel, the game I know was released today. Luckily I have left over points from my R-Type purchase. Perfect!
• Within minutes I have a new game on my Wii menu. The animated channel icon shows an 8-bit pong-like paddle and the simple word “beat”.
• I click on the game and see Commander Video for the first time ever on my TV screen. Apparently he is only a man, or something.
• I lose. The game is damn hard!
• It is late so I go to bed and dream in 8-bit.
• The next day I read a review on IGN giving the game 8/10. They have valid points.
• I listen to one of my favorite podcasts on Friday of that week and they discuss Bit.Trip Beat and speak positively about it. They rarely speak of Wii Ware games. It was a nice surprise.
• The next week I go to the Nintendo Channel and a behind the scenes video of the developers of the game, Gaijin Games, is now on the front page. NOA loves the game and considers it a perfect use of Wii Ware so they sent a film crew to talk to them.
  
• I am at the Nintendo keynote at GDC and the NOA speaker is announcing the new SanDisk feature and scrolls over about 50 games he has on the disk and other than Zelda 2 he makes sure to point out that Bit.Trip Beat is on the Wii as well. In good company.
• Later that night I go home and play the game. It is still freakin’ hard.
• A good friend and his partners have finally taken their game developer destiny into their own hands and in only 4 months created a game worthy of the Nintendo partnership. Commander Video has become a reality.

The three guys at Gaijin Games have officially made me jealous. To watch them from afar go through this process over such a short time and have so much fun doing it makes it hard to come to work on some days and worry about the large scale of many projects today. I knew that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel with small scope gaming, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would be so close to home. Congratulations to Alex, Chris and Mike. We have lots to live up to.

P.S. And yes, I still owe those guys a freakn’ Tomb Raider slot machine. I have no idea how I will ever manage to pay up.

Plus, look at this crazy stuff…see what you can do when you don’t have PR breathing down your neck.

Just keeping an eye out for more of Commander Video’s exploits…

I’ve been having some issues with comment spam on my site over the past few months. I haven’t had time to look into it and see why my filters aren’t working or if my setting are correct, etc. Something isn’t right here. So for all those who have commented in the past few months, there is a chance your witty and wonderful comments never made it to me to moderate and were lost. So if you for some reason said something that was so insightful and amazing that it can’t be forgotten, then please post again and I’ll make sure it gets on there one way or another. Once again, thanks for all those who do comment.

Of course, no one has probably been commenting anyway, so this post probably is meaningless.

Only a Man from CommanderVideo on Vimeo.

There are moments in a pop culture geek dad’s life which could be called milestones for his kid. This is a story about one of those.

It is hard to decide when and how to introduce your child to something that seems very important and life-defining for you but that when you really think about it is kind of weak as a legacy to pass on. I mean, at the end of the day, does anyone really care about things like science fiction epics like Star Wars? Does it really have any bearing on a child’s future? Well it did on mine and damn it, I was going to see if it did on my daughter’s. So, seeing that she is 5 (or was when this story occurred, she just turned 6 a couple weeks ago) and seeing that I wanted to start her out on a non-Wii game where she had to try out dual-sticks, I decided rather than watch the movie that we would start with Lego Star Wars. Low on the literal violence, pretty easy in general, etc. Plus I couldn’t remember how adult the first Star Wars film (Episode 4 for the kids out there) was, so this seemed like a safe place to start. However, there was a catch with that; the game forces you to start with Episode 1 before you unlock the rest of the game, this being The Complete Saga game. So, despite my wishes we had to start with that part of the game before we could start with Ep. 4. I had no choice. We quickly finished the first level and sort of kept playing the second level because she was having so much fun before I recalled the danger inherent in that. Here is how it went down.

• Lia: “Oh, who is this funny guy with the big ears?”
• Me: “Oh, no one.” (shit!)
• Lia: “He sounds funny.”
• Me: “Yeah, he is kind of goofy, isn’t he?”
• Lia: “I like him, look, he can jump really high too!”
• Me: “Uh…maybe we should play another level.”
• Lia: “What is his name Dada?”
• Me: “Well…uh…his name is Jar Jar.”
• Lia: “Jar Jar! Look, he jumps really high!”
• Me: “Ok, let’s play a new level.” (presses start)

My savior came in the form of a lovable trash can. The simplest design for a robot ever. One that has more character than any damn floppy-eared, duck-mouthed buffoon of a alien with insulting racial connotations. The one Wall-E owes everything to. I thought I had already ruined the whole thing, but then…

• Lia: “Did you hear him make that funny sound when he fell off the ledge! He is so cute!”
• Me: “His name is R2-D2. He is a robot. (well droid really)”
• Lia: “Ooo look, he can fly. And he can shock people. I got ya Dada!”

Thank the Force for R2-D2.

Then it was time. I was 5 in 1977. Lia is 5 now so it was the time for her first viewing. I had memories of some allusions to torture, a bit of charred skeletons (which you can’t really see too well), a guy in a black suit choking another guy to death, and Snaggletooth’s arm being cut off in a bar. So what the hell, let’s give it a try. Because of the game, she already knew the opening musical score and begun to hum it as soon as it came on. I cracked my first smile. Honestly, it is hard to say how she felt about the entire movie. She still seemed to love R2 and was mainly concerned about his well being. Obviously she has no idea of the power of Han Solo or Luke, really, but Leia is pretty high on the list and Chewie is always good for a 5 year old chuckle. Though I look back when I first saw it and think that I probably didn’t get what the hell was really going on either. There was an interesting conversation about Jawas. Another one about how an entire planet could be destroyed by the Death Star (which the Death Star, in some weird twist, has now somehow become the punch line for knock-knock jokes). I was happy that I was able to pass on the tragedy of how Chewie was left out of the final ceremony and didn’t get a medal like Han and Luke. Something the fans are still pissed about. Now she can carry on that injustice after I’m gone. In the end, I just wanted to know what she was thinking. I know you can’t force something like this and we’ll never know where her inspirations will come from, but it is worth a try, right? Truth is, we won’t know for many years and I need to just calm down about it all.

Yet another proud fatherly moment is the first time your child learns to down an AT-AT. I’m not kidding. Is this the modern day version of the first “hunt” as a rite of passage? I think it really is for a sorry-ass geeks like me. I didn’t think she would be able to do it either. Once again, the game was Lego Star Wars. The typical gameplay involves firing the tow cable and then making 3 to 5 tight circles around the legs of the giant mechanized beast transport full of snow troopers. This is usually hard for most adults, but she did it! I was so proud. Then, once the AT-AT was down I finished it off with a nice bomb from my snow speeder. Some good old Father/Daughter teamwork. Now it is one of her favorite things to do in the game and she asks to play the Battle of Hoth over and over again when given a choice. She loves that the AT-STs are nicknamed “chicken walkers” and calls out, “Let’s down some chicken walkers, Dada!” (sniff)

The culmination of all of this was the first Star Wars toy purchase for her birthday: A Lego Star Wars X-Wing Fighter set. Complete with her favorite…R2-D2. We spent each day of the Thanksgiving holiday putting the damn thing together bit by bit and once it was finally done I somehow felt that my mission was complete. A modern day introduction to one of the defining mythologies of my own childhood (and adult) life passed on to my own 5 year old, and she actually enjoyed it, despite little mermaids, fairies, and princesses. At least the melodic digital beeps and boops and “screams” of a tin can on wheels can still hold his own against a muscial score by Alan Menken.

Special Thanks: To my good friend Geoff Jones who gave me a DVD copy of the original cut from laser disk of the first three movies before “old man” George came around. In all its grainy and low quality glory. I know that the original cuts have come out on DVD since then, but I’m happy to not have a remastered version for her. So we can get as close as possible to the real deal from 1977. The special editions will just not do. Can’t wait for Empire in three years.

Sorry for the delay, busy over the last 6 weeks. This is long overdue seeing that the winners of the Q.E.Y.S. contest from over a month ago solved the thing in about a week. A good friend of mine and his colleagues at Gaijin Games found all of the keys both in their own geek-like gaming memories as well as with some help from Google. Ironically the one that was holding them up was from a Tomb Raider game. Their tireless efforts have won them a Tomb Raider game of their choice. As you can see in their post about the contest on their very own site, they have found and requested quite an interesting Tomb Raider selection as a punishment for me taking up valuable work time for this damn contest. However, other than the one in our lobby at Crystal Dynamics, there is no way in hell I’m going to get them this one. So I’ve decided to shoot for this instead. Good job guys!

Also, they deserve a plug for their new game company as well. Alex and his pals have taken the plunge and started their own thing. I’m jealous and excited for them and I wish them the best on their indie game path to fame and fortune. The crew at Gaijin games were some of the people who worked on the Tomb Raider: Underworld DS game (while at another company) for the Crystal TR: Underworld team and there has been some great early buzz about that version. I have a lot of faith in those guys and I think Gaijin Games is going to be an indie studio to look out for.

So, thanks for playing everyone. Some of you got pretty close but Alex and crew got them all. I wish Gaijin Games the best!

A few weeks ago I finally got off my ass and uploaded the slides from my short lecture at GDC 08. Yes that was many months ago, but better late than never. I really appreciate all the interest in getting a copy of the slides from those of you who asked and I’m sorry it took me so long to share them publicly.

Here is a link to the slides on the GDC site itself. They are in PDF format for general consumption. I tend to keep my slides simple and clear and they really only act as a framework for the talk. So if you didn’t attend or listen to the audio you may not get much from them alone. Though I did reveal the slide notes in the PDF to provide some help.

The real reason I’m posting these slides though, is that I never got a winner for the “mini-game” that I had embedded in my slides. Forget the content of the slides, have fun just trying to figure out the answer to the mini-game! Each of the “10 Keys” had an image of a key from a different famous game throughout gaming history. The first one to send me an email with the correct names of all ten games will win a free copy of a Tomb Raider game of their choice! I think Morgan Gray was the one who has gotten the farthest with 6 out of 10 correct answers which he figured out during the actual lecture. Go Morgan!

Hope you have fun figuring out the keys and GDC 09 is right around the corner!

P.S. So is the IGDA Leadership Forum. Check for them…

Well, sorry for the even longer delay this time. I actually finished MGS3 a few weeks ago and have not had a chance to post. I’m actually on to Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops for the PSP now. I’ve gone completely MGS insane apparently. But moving on to the main post…

I’m done! The goal of Operation Shadow Moses is complete. I’ve played all three of the first set of games and am prepared for MGS4 (which will be later on an under a different mission name, of course). I’ve never had so much enjoyment going back to play a series that I missed the first time. The amount of effort and care that has gone into these games was astounding not only for their generation, but for any generation, I think. Yes, the story is off the wall. Yes, the characters are nearly impossible to relate to, but yes, the series stands on it’s own and cannot be compared to anything else. More and more these days, as I am only scratching the surface of what it means to produce a game of such high standards as a Metal Gear, I am dumbfounded by the amount of craftsmanship put into the more influential games out there. I find myself stopping and just sitting there, in awe, of the shear amount of work that is involved. The attention to detail that I’ve been talking about all this time finally culminates in MGS3 in most every way and I just want to give up. I’ve been invovled in my fair share of large scale games too. But I find myself wanting to know what their production process is like, how they work as a team, how they make decisions, how they get the ok to move forward on shear insanity, and how they have the faith to continue under all of it. I look forward to MGS4 if for no other reason than to see the current gen version of this craziness.

I try to think of other endeavors in our industry that can match it all. Say what you will about the content, the themes, the style, it is hard to argue the point of craftsmanship. What can we really compare these games to? GTA? – Perhaps a series of games which put a lot of half done pieces into an ingenious context to make someting magical, but nothing beyond that. Final Fantasy? – A series that throws more at the screen than you can even remember in order to really convince you of greatness while you forget all the flaws after a hundred hours. Half-Life? – A series that is limited by it’s medium, which benefits from that focus but cannot flourish beyond those limitations to deliver deeper meanings. Mario? – Pure gameplay for the sake of gameplay without the resonance of a context that anyone really cares about apart from nostalgia or childlike delight. A toy. But how do you take a context, a style, a theme(s), an experience, a gameplay genre and on top of all of that give the player some of the best tools for gameplay expression without them even knowing it? You make a Metal Gear game.

A recent quote from Kojima which exemplifies how differently they think of their purpose as developers. Obviously he is talking about MGS4 but the point is to share the attitude:

“The heroes in most animations and movies don’t age. They are often immortal. Snake, on the other hand, has aged with the times. I made him this way because of the unique characteristics of the game medium. Snake is a fictional character, but at the same time he represents the players themselves because of the interactive nature of games.

I would like you to think that this good-bye to Snake is a good-bye to this era and represents closure to your old self. If there ever were to be a new Snake (might have a different name), he will be a Snake for a new era.”

It just seems like so often all we ever get from developer as spokesperson is how cool chainsaws on laser guns are or how pissed off we should be about lame game forum moderation. Eyes on the prize people! We are trying to keep our head above water in an industry that is taking it from all ends. We need to stop fracking around and use our medium for good and not evil. I know it might sound odd, but Snake really is a hero for a generation and he carries a strong burden on his shoulders like any good popular (or classical) hero should. I suggest you give him a chance and see what he can tell you. You may not want to take him seriously, but he sure wants you to try.

Final Live Blog from MGS3 playthrough (from Lab to end):
• Costumes are fun.
• Pushing up his glasses. Attention to detail.
• Missing link. Metal Gear? “Legs are what we need on our weapons.” Of course they are.
• Philosophers Legacy. Best name for a shit load of money I have ever heard.
• The Father of Metal Gear – “Thank you for the compliment of my nice shoes.”
• Uh, The Fear. Er…why do they all blow themselves up when they die? Oh, right, it is Metal Gear.
• Will he please stop saying his own name over and over again.
• Fear was a nice combo of a few different mechanics though. Optionally even.
• Spider theme I guess. Bees and Spiders. The Fear = Arachnophobia?
• The End, father of modern sniping.
• Love that I could have sniped him the first time if I’d known.
• Or Wait two weeks in real time for him to die? Shit that is brilliant.
• Sometimes, it is actually very hard to see Snake on screen with the right camo. Even for me as the player.
• God rays to The End.
• Parrot from MGS2?
• What is up with his eye?
• He is one with the forest?
• Started raining during The End fight. Felt quite good.
• He freakin’ falls asleep. That is awesome.
• Now mist is happening? Great atmospheric effects over time.
• The End is so fun to search for. There are so may tricks to finding him and sneaking up on him.
• Thermal Goggles show his footprints! Ah, but your footprints mess it up if you backtrack.
• The jungle sound effects are very very well done.
• The videos for when you eat animals are hilarious.
• Rotten food needs to be cured!? I have a stomach ache!
• The End – “Spirits of the forest I thank you.”
• Nothing like sneaking up on the greatest sniper in the world and shooting him in the back with a shotgun to finish him off.
• The longest ladder climb in the world with a musical soundtrack underscoring your ascent!
• Ok…this ladder is too long. WTF.
• Yup, I just yawned while climbing this same ladder. Seriously.
• Now at the mountain top. The variety of locations is pretty damn good.
• Nothing like waiting for 2 minutes straight for the alert to turn off.
• That colonel looks a lot like Raiden.
• Eva – “Does it have to be one or the other? Love or Hate?”
• So are there guys that look like the dudes in HL2?
• So after the fury, are the cobras the fantastic four?
• Great fire.
• Once again Raiden is naked. Of course.
• Sokolov – “All I wanted to do is build space rockets…but it was not to be.”
• Raiden gets his junk grabbed again! Oh, and what is up with the the colonel and the kid?
• Love The Boss’s suit.
• That was the most brutal fight scene I’ve ever seen.
• Bag over the head…
• Slap to the face with red mark. Twice!
• Fuckin’ freaky shit with the Sorrow behind The Boss with R1 view.
• Why can’t I steal the weapons off of guys when I’m messed up?
• So Ocelot is the reason for the eye patch. Man, Snake is messed up.
• The great Snake fighting with a fork.
• The Sorrow and all the dead soldiers. Apparently each one you killed in the game is here in the ghost scene.
• The Sorrow – “You will be killed by your own sons.” “They live inside you.”
• Time Paradox. ‘Nuff said.
• Kill yourself to win!
• Eva – “Can’t even eat snake during a mission?” “I’d like to eat you.”
• Nothing like making a heart or butterfly out of C3 explosive putty. Only in this game would that occur.
• Eva as Raiden? = Player?
• Crazy bike scene at the end.
• More with the variety of gameplay. Bikes now escort. And an irritating escort as well.
• “When life ends, it leaves a lingering aroma.”
• What the fuck is the Boss talking about? Now she is barren? And now she is going into space?
• Cycle of war. The Boss was at Normandy. She is the last child of the Philosophers.
• What, she gave birth on the battlefield of Normandy and The Sorrow was the father?
• The Boss – “I’ve never talked this much about myself before. Thanks for listening to me.”
• Snake gets all the money.
• Player gets to execute The Boss.
• Drinking wine in front of a fireplace!?
• “…and you have to live.”
• 14:35:11 Jaguar

The Mission is over. Now it is time to live.

More delay on posting. In the middle of MGS3 now. Minor Spoilers below.

Freedom versus Continuity. A common topic and sometimes issue of any franchise. Prequels tend to be a solution to the problem when Freedom wins out as the main goal of the endeavor. That was Kojima’s choice this time. Whether he was looking for freedom or not I guess you couldn’t really tell. MGS3 is a prequel and so far (maybe half way through the game) there is a certain sense of freedom from the previous two that he has been able to accomplish. MGS2 left in such an odd state that if he has been saving up how to resolve that continuity all those years in order to allow 4 (just having come out this year) to finally resolve everything then I can’t blame him for doing 3 in the meantime. Why not take a game off with 3 and go back and fill in some backstory and origin histories for some characters. I’m sure it isn’t totally cut off from the story thread and I know some of the characters from 3 even show up all those years later in 4, but I have really been enjoying the prequel mentality on this one. There is almost a relaxing quality to being able to not worry as much about what is happening and where it fits into the grand scheme of things. With 2 I felt that I had to really search each scene for a deeper meaning and for the link to 1 and beyond and it got to be too much at times. There is a significant choice to be made when looking at continuity or the risk-free path of prequels. Yet there is a weird balance and expectation that even a prequel must fit in somehow as it obviously should explain why things got underway in the first place. There is such a thing as going too far though. Feeling the need to explain too much and fit too many things together in order to make the other stories seem cohesive or justified can throw things into eye rolling territory when you ask yourself the question of why they didn’t just leave well enough alone.

Again I bring up George Lucas (I don’t know why exactly, but I have been feeling the need to compare the two a lot as I play) who took the first three movies and added not one, but three prequels to the canon in order to try to tell the “complete” story. We all know how that turned out. But now I will bring up another example which, if it is true that it actually is a prequel, to me proves that the right amount of backwards exposition can be a very good thing if done well. With Shadow of the Colossus we saw a potential origin story of the Ico myth with very minimal exposition and hand holding. I don’t think it was ever totally confirmed that it was an official prequel but the pieces fit together. The amount of subtlety is perfect for the fiction and like MGS3 there is a release from having to continue the story from Ico so that we as players can come at the experience with a clean mind with only a hint of fiction from before. They chose the right time and right amount of information to bring you along but to still deliver a sense of wonder as well. MGS3, so far, is striking that balance quite well. What is more, when introducing such characters as The Boss (not to be mistaken with The Big Boss) we are not only introduced to new faces which still fit into the canon but new concepts and exposition which we are surprised and happy to know. Freedom with Continuity at the same time? Perhaps. We’ll see how it goes. I am still intrigued by the direction things are heading but as with any good prequel, I am still gaining new knowledge about an old concept. As long as it remains to be the right amount of knowledge.

Finally, there is the final aspect of continuity versus freedom in the fact that the farther a franchise goes the harder it is for new audience members to enter the fiction. TV shows suffer from this in an extreme way. Games do as well. Long running movie franchise like Bond or Batman (both of which have had recent “resets”). MGS3 is an odd hybrid at this point. Sometimes I feel like a new audience member would be lost but most of the time it is all fresh and new. The sweet spot for a franchise at this stage is to find a way to do both, and trust me, that isn’t easy.

Opening of the game to the Lab:
• The opening song is so classic Bond it isn’t even funny. But it is brilliant as a parody at the same time. You have to watch that opening.
• More Russian Cold War themes. Wise idea to go back to the 60s (prequel).
• “THE Boss, the mother of the Special Forces.”
• Great rumble design. I remember that from the previous games as well. Rare to even notice.
• Snake has the same mask as Raiden in the beginning?
• Awesome free-fall HALO jump opening.
• Jack? But what about David?
• The Boss – “Politics determine who you face on the battlefield.”
• The changing times.
• The Boss – “Only the mission matters.” She seems oddly conflicted. Am I reading more into it or is it just good performing (both on animation and VO)?
• Finally, a game where I can crawl through the grass in first person view!
• Convincing jungles to be sure.
• Zero – “If you just stand up and run around the jungle like an idiot you’ll be spotted.”
• The Sneaking in the Grass is amazing.
• Wind blowing you off bridge is great.
• Fun humor with Sokolov. Not too campy.
• Retro Ocelot…nice. Ocelot unit. The origin of Revolver! Maybe my favorite character.
• Combo of US and Japanese esthetics is much stronger in this game. Even if you look at the timeline provided in the manual, it calls out many American movies and events. More than Japanese even.
• The Boss – “He has not yet found an emotion to carry into battle.”
• Boss relationship is nice and complex.
• Nice touch with the bandana.
• The first Metal Gear?
• Volgin – “Remember the Alamo.” Said by a Russian guy.
• Excuse for a drone?
• Back to where we started. Oh boy. Re-use, re-use, re-use.
• The Boss – “Looks like death wasn’t ready for you yet.” She is quickly becoming my favorite.
• Speaking Russian? There was a reference that Snake’s Russian is quite good. The lip-sync is clearly off. So either they are implying that everyone is speaking Russian and they are dubbing or they never bothered to do English lip-syncing. The former would be quite an interesting choice. The later isn’t typical of Kojima as the previous games didn’t do that. I am hoping for the former.
• I love the Boss horse scene for some reason. Why the hell did she ride in on a horse? Another Western thing from Kojima? I predict it now…the next game follows the story of The Big Boss in the old Wild West!
• The way he describes the new gun is hilarious and so Kojima.
• The Eva scenes are classic as well. Good old womanizer.
• Adam and Eva and Snake, nice.
• The music for the Eva intro is spot on as well.
• Analog button zoom…great and rare touch. have always known there is analog button control on the controllers but have never seen anyone use it.
• Fun sequence taking out all the guys after Eva.
• Great and crazy motorcycle fight.
• The survival mechanics and UI are quite well done and fleshed out. I’m surprised. We’ll see how long it lasts.
• Never has walking slowly in water been so much fun.
• Theme of changing perspectives?
• WTF kind of game allows you to burn leeches off of your character with a cigar?
• Do I really need to be managing my inventory? I mean, come on.
• Quick sand too. First?
• Good old fashioned western duel with Ocelot. Another west reference.
• The underground caverns are a nice change.
• The Pain. Yet another crazy boss. Dancing in his Thai Chi way. Cool bee-themed abilities though.
• Boy, I looooove to walk through water really slowly. For a long time. Damn it!
• Ocelot juggling his guns now?
• There it is, someone wet themselves. Pee in all three so far.
• I don’t know what the End is all about, but I like him so far.
• Hmmm…what is the deal with The Sorrow?
• So I just realized I haven’t been using radar at all. Did they abandon it this version?
• The art direction is very good in this one. Consistent and different from the others. And amazing for PS2.

More to come…

P.S. This just in, as I found this out after I wrote this post. Apparently it was widely known that the main character in this game IS Big Boss and not Solid Snake. I don’t know what this does to my whole point about Freedom or Continuity but is must mess it all up in some way. Up to you to decide if you even care about any of it. I’d like to take a poll to see how many people even knew about that. Apparently it was widely publicized before MGS3 launched as well.