MGS

Do you remember when you would purchase a gaming magazine, browse through the contents absorbing all of the relevant information affiliated with a fabled game you desperately covet, while merely feigning mild interest in other auxiliary news and contempt for the titles that received exulted praise they didn’t deserve. The covers smooth surface, veneered in a protective coating to defend from prolonged exposure, decorated with vague quotations of a games review and snippets of news with the title embroidered like lavish tapestry of elegance. Can you also recall discarding the elaborately constructed packaging and removing the sensitive disc that remained benign behind the useless paraphernalia enclosed, and cautiously removing the sensitive demo disc from the corrugated sleeve before sampling a demonstration of its unreleased contents. Though such conformities to physical publications and distributed demo’s haven’t been consummated just yet, the advent of internet has receded the need to expedite such an extrapolating monthly cost. Trailers are readily viewed on YouTube, breaking new developments are far more immediately accessible with social media allowing for significant immediacy, with developers capable of convening with consumers more directly, rather than just through editorial mediators. Independent blogs can be published and distributed without ambivalence amongst the social equality of other gamers, making the digitalized world a far diminutive, but convenient playground to convene.

"I'm sure Ground Zeroes will be impressive. But not £28 impressive."

“I’m sure Ground Zeroes will be impressive. But for £28, I would want snake to cook me a steak (Medium) and chips, clean the house and wipe my ass. Without arousing suspicion obviously. He is spy after all.”

The symmetry of gaming has, and always will alter as time and technology accord. But demo’s–whether physical or digital have always been a prudent way of affirming a games core facets, even through temporary means, for free. It was then your own inclination that what you had experienced was enough to persuade you to retain a product or if you simply weren’t fussed. Now it seems that we are expected to pay for this privilege. I am referring to Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, which acts as prologue to The Phantom Pain. What’s relevance is this I hear you retort disinterested? (I know that isn’t what you said but tolerate the hypothetical) Well your anointed one, Ground Zeroes is a condensed demonstration of The Phantom Pain, that will ultimately cost you 30! Yes OK, it is a separate commodity from PP, but let’s not persuade ourselves that it’s a completely separate entity altogether, but merely an entertaining demonstration of the fox engine and a publicised advertisement that consumers will be charged to play. Perhaps there is a tangible sense of yearning from gamers for something to do with their new bloated console, that developers believe that consumers will feel passively cajoled into obtaining a compact abiding, simply to stem the content latency from Sony and Microsoft.

For me however this is just an aberration of a growing discordance that is becoming a perpetual blot on out industry; charging gamers for additional content through discriminative exclusivity. For instance a general release of a standard game will cost X amount, but why settle for adequacy of the general, impoverished natives when–for superficial fiscal extrusion–you can obtain additional, extended content that has little impact on the narrative, with supplementary attire for your character that the general peasants could only dream about possessing?! Perhaps my pious surmise has become so agitated by the extrapolating cost that I miss the point of such extravagant accessories. Maybe there is significant differential between standard and special additions, or that there is a benign benefit to releasing an exposition of the PP potential aptitude. But I think I’ll prolong my abstinence for a company that values me as a customer, a fan or even a consumer. Not as currency.

……Hmm? I could be waiting a while couldn’t I?

Will you be buying the Ground Zero? Or is it a needless expense? Let me know. Cheers.

Do do do do do dodododododo, do do do do do dododododooo…Now this musical notation really doesn’t need clarifying, considering that its glaringly apparent that this musical composition converted from it original audio, is Sonic the Hedgehog’s antagonistic parable (Dr Robotnik’s) theme music. Altering the exuberant tones that accompany your accelerated endeavours to more urgent intonation, and even after adolescence has absconded me, coercing me into reluctant maturity (well, older anyway) this piece of scoring is still distinctive as well as abiding encapsulation of my absent youth. Though the variable encounters that you engage with this questionable physician are as onerous as a scuffle with candy floss, it is lamentable to think that such vivid boss battles have become somewhat moderated, diminished by the advent of multi-player or if not completely relegated. The latent catharsis is so apparent in modern games that its difficult to differentiate between one ambivalent, mutated creature and another repellent engineered mutation augmented by a dilatory, shady corporation with clear apathetic ethics. The glaring abstinence of villainy has only been compounded by the swelled infirmity of developer creativity.

“Captain Birdseye’s original vocation before fish fingers.”

During MGS3: Snake Eater for your confronted by many gregarious oppositions with varying conceptual eccentricity, composed of individuals such as “The Pain” who largely spent his time propelling projectile hornets at my crutch (probably), a former cosmonaut known as “The Fury” that spews incendiary retardants with flame-thrower while elevated by combustible jet pack, and The Sorrow, who though technically dead can still kill you. But the boss that is most visceral in my mind is the sniper extraordinaire referred to as “The End”. Which is ironic considering that this battle (loosely termed) never ended! You were required to identify the location of a surprisingly nimble geriatric, camouflaged amongst the dense foliage that required passive mobility to avoid detection from his remarkably precise reticles. Hours were emaciated tracking him to various environments across a linear, though vapid environments, culminating in a number of indolent manoeuvres and vocally expressive retorts.“You sneaky son of a gun. I’ll get you next time (paraphrased statement).” At one stage I became so ingrained in my environment that we spent 10 mins lying parallel, innocuous to one another’s stationary presence despite the close approximation of our adjacent equivalent’s, before I crawled surreptitiously into Captain Birdseye’s sniper barrel. The misery of being repressed by a boss that spent the majority of his time preserving what little vitality he had left by sleeping is humiliating enough, but the most disconcerting thing was that this entire protraction could have been averted if I had simply dismissed nobility, by shooting him while he was slumped defensively in his wheel-chair earlier on in the game.

“Run from the pixels Claire! RUN!”

The Tyrant in Resident Evil 2 still evokes anxiety too, with his almost harmonic, synchronised steps that reverberated throughout the dilapidated corridors in Raccoon City Police Department. With the clattering of wood that heaved under the excessive force of his gargantuan frame indicating his nomadic return. Though his massive frame prevented much urgency in his mobility, this giant, follicle infirm vagrant with cumbersome pace, still strode with menacing pace that always appeared to catch you up. It was his perpetual presence, his motivated penchant for your death that made every pious step excruciating. The DMC series has often revelled in the eccentricity of its extenuate portrayal of mythical beasts and demonic spawns, secreted from the depths of hell with intriguing abstract depictions, they also required collating tactical awareness. You had to parry at the exact moment, cultivating your moves with minimalistic button prompts as simply squeezing the attack button wasn’t enough. Patience wasn’t just a virtue but vital to succession as much of your time was expelled utilising cover and dodging projectiles rather than extruding aggression. But sadly even this series has pandered to some nonchalance of sterility.

“If a tumour had a penis, it would look like this.”

Now we are presented with enemies that resemble a pulsating phallic with an angry tumour attached! Or an angry demonic bald man who diminishes as a prospective bogeyman, as without rhyme or prior exposition mutates into a generic giant, composed of concentrated tarmac and metal. Why?! But that’s the problem; nonsensical boss’s that pander to the conventions of simple extraction of weak points; dodge a few wayward, choreographed moves that are easy to interpret and counter with sardonic exclamations of your exuded captivation “Ooh isn’t this exciting!” This may not necessarily apply to all current games, but there is an endemic nuance on aesthetically pleasing abominations, with grittier, bigger and with more grr presentations! That are shallow, simplistic are most notably, forgettable.

Let me know what your favourite boss fight is, and are boss fights really relevant now? Cheers.