Hideo Kojima and Konami held a special event at Gamescom today, and when it concluded I felt let down. This likely won’t hold true for fans of the Silent Hill franchise and its terrifying new demo P.T. (which apparently stands for “playable teaser”), nor those who showed up for a look into Mr. Kojima’s thoughts. But for those watching for Metal Gear Solid info primarily, the event flopped harder than a supermodel taped to a cardboard box. Which, as we now know, is an incredibly awkward way to flop.
The Gamescom demo wasn’t completely devoid of newness, and I do want to reiterate that first before leveling my complaints. Snake approached his infiltration from a new vantage point, there were wolves involved, he hijacked a Jeep, and the mission concluded with a reasonably epic helicopter chase and a big explosion. I’m not saying it was terrible. In fact, it was pretty fun.
With that out of the way, though, I have to ask; why did this demo require a lengthy, Twitch-streamed, Geoff Keighley-hosted gathering? Kojima has joked on Twitter in the past about his insecurities when comparing the latest MGS to Grand Theft Auto V, yet at today’s event it didn’t feel like such a joke. It felt like reality. The desperation to show something cool was palpable, and it was almost a bit sad.
And yet, much of what was shown was the furthest thing from cool, in too many ways to count. Before beginning his infiltration, Snake whips out his binoculars and scans the horizon, only to spot an oddly-placed cardboard sign. “E3 vantage point.” Wait wait wait, hold up. You mean to tell me that an enemy camp in an open world game can be approached in multiple ways? Astounding! The audience clapped faintly, and I downed the last of a cold cup of coffee on my desk, poker face intact. Bor-ing.
And then there was the cardboard box, Snake’s trusty household stealth device. What was funny at E3 has now been dragged out, beaten, mutilated and otherwise completely sapped of any and all intrigue for Gamescom. It’s no big deal to have to view the box’s old tricks again (diving out from behind it, using it as a decoy, etc), but the new stuff shown today is what really left me scratching my head. Snake can paste a fathead-like image of a swimsuit model to the box, at which point the bimbo guard patrolling nearby will come tottering over like an oversized bantling who just saw something shiny. Of course, it’s not food luring him, but breasts. The mere sight of the female form has reduced him to a distracted, oblivious fool, despite his training. Meanwhile, Snake is immune, because he’s cool like that.
Now before this gets out of hand, I want to reiterate something. I’m not offended. Some would say Kojima’s humor is in pretty bad taste, and it goes without saying that the degradation of women in this scenario is nastier than the drooling stereotype also being applied to men. Still, it’s meant to be a joke, and I can accept that.
What I can’t accept, however, is how utterly lame it is in the context of the game. What’s compelling about this new facet of gameplay? I realize Metal Gear has always had its tongue at least partially planted in its cheek (and occasionally up its own ass), but having a guard be completely distracted by a pretty girl pasted on the side of a box, to the point that Snake can literally crawl right through his line of sight, just feels bad to me. Bad design, bad AI, bad humor — whichever. I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s just lame.
As the event progressed viewers and showgoers were, for some awful reason, subjected to the same joke twice more, one instance changing pace via a woman laying upon a bed of roses, holding one flower to her face in a vaguely suggestive pose. Again, it’s a joke, and a bad one, but I can look past it temporarily. When I do, though, I find nothing. Why take the rest of Snake’s options seriously when he can just lure the enemy away with the broad side of his surpassingly seductive box? Does Snake have some porn in his backpack I could use instead? Let’s just tape nudes all along the wall of a building, and get a nice shooting gallery going when dozens of enemy forces line up to aimlessly gaze.
Keighley and the audience stayed polite and issued pleasant, muted applause, but the awkward tension in the room transmitted itself from Cologne, across Twitch’s servers, and into my bedroom without much of a problem. There was also horse poop, goofy squeals from Fulton’d foes, and in the absence of any remaining swimsuit posters to adhere to his trusty cardboard slate, Snake slapped a pic of an enemy soldier to it instead. The result was the same. That’s not even a bad joke; it’s just unrealistic. I don’t care if you like comic relief in your games, to me that’s an immersion-breaker.
There’s no question in my mind that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be a great game once it’s actually available, and maybe that’s why I feel so frustrated. Why make fans suffer through some of the lamest hype-building imaginable? Kojima is legendary, and I think it’s out of respect that the Gamescom audience nodded along and chuckled nervously to his antics. But maybe he’s right to fear Rockstar. Most of the canned sequences from today’s demo can happen completely organically in a title like Grand Theft Auto V (albeit in a far less stealth-centric fashion), and the ones that can’t were shoved in my face so flagrantly that any semblance of fascination was swiftly swept away. Subtlety, for better or worse, is not Kojima Productions’ strong suit.
If my enjoyment of the next Metal Gear requires that I tune out everything about it from now until the Amazon package hits my doorstep, then so be it. It’ll probably take a load off my mind. It’s just a shame it has to be that way.
