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[HLBeta]

Maybe I didn't explain it too well, but it's not that I don't understand the morality of the characters, it's that I literally do not know what any of the characters are trying to achieve.  There's two different AIs that I can never keep straight but they were both made by the Patriots, and there's Ocelot who wants to fulfill his mancrush on Big Boss' dreams, and UN-sponsored forces who want to stop him (for the Patriots?), and I don't know who Campbell is supposed to be representing at this point, and Raiden's fucking crazy, and the entire moral underpinning of wanting to stop Ocelot or defeat the Patriots is kinda lost when you don't know who's actually on which side of the question, let alone the allegiance.

I'm gonna try to tackle as much of this as I can, so here goes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Motivations:
Liquid Ocelot
First and foremost, most of the schemes stem from disagreements about the Boss' vision of a perfect world that is better for soldiers. Ocelot sees this perfect world as a lawless land, like the idealized western frontier. He believes that through the daily struggle to survive and maintain one's position via armed conflict people will come to know the joy of life and all become directly dependent on combatants. He is, fundamentally, an anarchist. Liquid Snake believed the vision of the Boss' perfect world as handed down by Big Boss, a world consumed by perpetual warfare, to ensure that soldiers were always needed and employed. This vision is pretty close to the state of affairs at the start of MGS4, but he seeks to extend the conflicts past historically troubled nations and into the developed world as well. Ocelot's Liquid Snake persona seeks power, especially over those he feels wronged him by creating Liquid. Ocelot chose to take on the persona of Liquid to help himself break free of the Patriot's influence and to build himself up as a credible threat (more on that later).

Roy Campbell is a representative of the UN, which is largely unaware of the Patriots pulling everyone's strings and sees Liquid's attempts to defeat the System as an attempt at global-scale warmongering (which it partially is). The UN sees him a threat to its client countries and global stability. They fight for maintenance of the status quo, even if that means they may have to support the Patriots in their shadow war with Liquid Ocelot.

The USA is run wholesale by the Patriots. All actions undertaken by the American government and its various personnel are ultimately determined by and to the advantage of the Patriots.

Raiden is a tiny ball of impotent rage lashing out a the Patriots, who he rightly blames for ruining his life. He fights for revenge and has a serious deathwish.

Snake is a largely apolitical hired gunman with a heart of gold. He will always try to side with the greater good as best he can see it, no matter how much that costs him. Snake sides with the UN against Liquid Ocelot because he believes that Liquid's plans will reduce global civilization to chaos and destroy countless civilian lives. He has no real stake in the war due to his imminent demise but fights because it is the right thing to do, making him the only power that is purely morally motivated. Though this brings his goals in line with those of the Patriots, he does not deliberately side with or support the Patriots. He also suffers from poor intelligence (in post the personal and operational sense) and is thusly often played to suit the needs of others.

Firstly, the Patriot AIs are never shown to be sentient. They do not appear to have any kind of personality and are mainly intended as a means of sorting through and controlling the vast global flow of information in order to maintain their power. The Patriots accumulate power for power's sake, becoming increasingly inhuman over time as the AIs develop more effective and brutal schemes. The two most important AIs are George Washington (often referred to as GW) and John Doe (JD). GW is apparently destroyed at the end of the second game, and in the fourth is revealed to have been recovered and rebuilt by Ocelot. John Doe is the foremost Patriot AI, in charge of maintaining security and internal governance between the other AIs. Importantly, JD also has control of the Patriot's arsenal of WMDs.

Wheels Within Wheels
Liquid Ocelot's plan in MGS4 hinges upon breaking the Patriot's hold on world power. He initially seeks to do this by neutralizing the networking of battlefield nanites, which are under the control of the Patriots and prevent attempts to overthrow them through strength of arms. This fails due to problems of psychological and biochemical backlash when the stabilizing influence of the machines is removed. He then moves on to attempting to subvert the system as a whole. Access to the Patriot AI is, for unexplained and mildly daft reasons, tied to the genetic and biometric data of the four Snakes (Solid, Liquid, Solidus and Naked a.k.a. Big Boss), although these signatures can be locked out permanently if JD notices signs of misconduct. In act 1 Liquid's code is used, obtained from Ocelot's grafted hand. Act 2 uses Solid's code, supplied by Naomi. Act 3 pulls a shell game on Liquid and the player by having Eve and her co-conspirators substitute a mutilated Solidus for Big Boss' corpse while Big Boss is being surgically reconstructed from frankenstein-d parts of his dead clones offscreen. Ocelot successfully uses Solidus' body to connect to the Patriots and plant the mended GW AI in their network. His ability to control GW give him the ability to mess about with most things the Patriots control, but he is still locked out of John Doe's functions. This prevents him from gaining control of the Patriot-controlled WMDs he needs to further his plans. So he cooks up the plan to destroy JD to cause lead AI status to fall to GW, putting him in charge of the primary Patriot AI and thus the world thereby fulfilling Liquid Snake's goals... or so he claims. What later becomes apparent is this was in some ways a gambit to try to force the entities moving against him to find a better way to neutralize Patriot AIs so that he could use that to finish off the Patriots and thereby collapse world government, achieving Ocelot's vision of the perfect world. Failing that, he'd still end up with control of the US nuclear arsenal and could still nuke the other AIs and/or destroy world government by starting world war three. The key thing to remember with MGS is that most of what comes out of Ocelot's mouth is lies, even when playing the role of Mr. Exposition, and that Ocelot tends to set things up so that all roads lead to victory.

^It's a wall of text, but I did my best to explain every significant character's viewpoint, goals and how those dictate their actions throughout the fourth game.

[Vector]

And Naomi?

Because seriously, I'm only playing the first game and I've seen most of the LP of MGS4, and... well, I am not exactly a fan.  At all.

EDIT: Also, good Stinger, best friend

I suspect that my modus operandi on the last battle was somewhat cheap, though.

EDIT: I am kind of shocked that they still make you play through the escape route stuff.  Final Fantasy would've faded to cutscene, for sure.  Ah, well.

[Aqizzar]

EDIT: I am kind of shocked that they still make you play through the escape route stuff.  Final Fantasy would've faded to cutscene, for sure.  Ah, well.

If you're playing the PS1 version, you should check out the cutscenes from Twin Snakes.  The highlight of the sequence and the game is Solid Snake repeatedly headbutting Liquid as they car-battle.

[Vector]

If you're playing the PS1 version, you should check out the cutscenes from Twin Snakes.  The highlight of the sequence and the game is Solid Snake repeatedly headbutting Liquid as they car-battle.

This sounds unbelievable.  It's like DBZ all over again but with less screaming and more sneaky spy action.  And railgun missions.  And cyborg ninjas.  And body pans, skintight suits, and gay, though I thought that was physically impossible.

(I can't actually believe that the part I'm having trouble with is the escape.  Well, okay, I did have a hell of a time with the last boss fight, especially the bit that involved being shoulder-driven.  I'll look up the cutscenes when I finish, though)

EDIT:  ... If the Otacon and Meryl endings have the same dialogue, I will be laughing always and forever.

[Aqizzar]

EDIT:  ... If the Otacon and Meryl endings have the same dialogue, I will be laughing always and forever.

No, they have pretty wildly different dialogue.  Everyone drops some secret hints about themselves (including Snake's real name) if Meryl dies, but if she lives it's just sappy (and Otacon survives off-camera, obviously).  That said, all the dialogue in both is technically "canon", even though Meryl lives (which is sensible, but worth remembering).

[Vector]

Huh, cool... yeah, the dialogue is pretty sap-overloaded.  I can also understand why Kojima would have wanted to end the series here.

(But lordy, after that ending message thing there's no way he couldn't continue.  Also, I kinda figured that Solid Snake was the inferior clone, given that Liquid was able to pound me so hard =/)

On the other hand, despite only being able to compare MGS 1 and 4, I feel that the message at the end of 1 is surprisingly well followed up on in 4 (despite Snake not dying of FoxDie, but presumably his genetics).  The character development seemed like it mostly went okay, too, though I gotta say that Otacon comes off like a completely different level of nerd between the two games.  His VA was much more subtle in 1 than he ended up being in 4.

Ahhh, well.  No matter.  It was a great game, and in retrospect I really enjoyed every aspect of it.  The bosses were clever and fun, and I approve of the emphasis on both Stinger and sniper rifle.  It's really pretty danged brilliant.  Even the side stories managed to tie everything together.  There were honest twists I couldn't anticipate.  Just enough character development that one ended up wanting a little bit more, and yet still extremely satisfying.  Great music...

*sigh*

I really can't believe it took me so long to get off my bum and play this, because it's bloody amazing.

[Aqizzar]

Well, if you want character development between 1 and 4, obviously you have to see 2.  Otacon especially gets hit with a ton of bricks.  Snake emerges as basically the same guy, since the whole point of his half of the story was to emphasize how awesome he is, before he turns into a slightly more philosophical and/or unhinged version of his Dad at the end of the game, when he tries to inspire Raiden.

Spoiler: Hey, I got a present for you. (click to show/hide)

Allow me to explain.  Back in 2007, it was revealed that Solid Snake would be a playable character in Super Smash Bros Brawl.  It was very immediately noticed that his model was based on his sneaking suit in MGS2, but riding up in the back even worse.  Mostly because almost every promo and demonstration spread of the game that included Snake anywhere had his spandex-jockeyed ass somewhere in the frame, usually smack in the middle of the picture.  You can judge for yourself.  Whether Kojima had anything to do with that is a mystery for the ages.

[Angel Of Death]

Spoiler: Hey, I got a present for you. (click to show/hide)

Stupid sexy Flanders Snake!

[Jackrabbit]

Chip and Ironicus convinced me to buy the third game. I thought it was Subsistence but it wasn't. Still don't regret it at all.

Subsistence was the director's cut, with an added multiplayer mode, extra other modes, and a different camera system.

I'm aware, which is why I wish I'd bought that one instead but it's going for like 80 bucks on eBay now and seriously, screw that.

[Vector]

Well, if you want character development between 1 and 4, obviously you have to see 2.  Otacon especially gets hit with a ton of bricks.  Snake emerges as basically the same guy, since the whole point of his half of the story was to emphasize how awesome he is, before he turns into a slightly more philosophical and/or unhinged version of his Dad at the end of the game, when he tries to inspire Raiden.

Spoiler: Hey, I got a present for you. (click to show/hide)

snip

Then in that case, I am going to be putting MGS2 on hold from the library and playing the everloving shit out of it.  Snake does seem like a "mostly the same guy" sort of character, but that's the point... and I am looking forward to more Otacontacular goodness.  His VA sounds so hilarious when he cries <3  But also adorable.

_{Don't mind me, that's just a little schadenfreude showing}


Also, thank you for the lovely pictures >___________________>

If Kojima had nothing to do with the assvertising, I will be shocked.  Snake is basically wearing a corset, suspenders, and garters already, with Kojima's approval.  And MGS4 had the ridiculous musclesuit + garters + crotchbelts thing (I mean, seriously, did they really need to throw in the massive highlight on that, uh, area?  And then pan up it a billion times?).  I have never seen a series that sexualized violence more than this one =/  Never.  And that includes both Soul Calibur and DoA.

On the other hand, I heard something about how Raiden was originally supposed to have panty lines under whatever it is he wears, to appeal to the ladies who like 10-year-olds D:  I guess I shouldn't expect anything else out of an M-rated game, but I've played some others which managed to be grungy without being... well, this.  MGS doesn't need a hot coffee mod because it pretty much already is one >_>

All the same, I am not complaining    If I have to endure enormous amounts of fanservice to enjoy my manly action game of shooting things dead, I am sure I will survive.

[Aqizzar]

Snake does seem like a "mostly the same guy" sort of character, but that's the point... and I am looking forward to more Otacontacular goodness.  His VA sounds so hilarious when he cries <3  But also adorable.

_{Don't mind me, that's just a little schadenfreude showing}

...

On the other hand, I heard something about how Raiden was originally supposed to have panty lines under whatever it is he wears, to appeal to the ladies who like 10-year-olds D:  I guess I shouldn't expect anything else out of an M-rated game, but I've played some others which managed to be grungy without being... well, this.  MGS doesn't need a hot coffee mod because it pretty much already is one >_>

Whoooooo boy, are you going to have a love-hate relationship with MGS2 then.  The grand breaker scene lies right at the intersection of those two things.  Good luck, and don't kiss too many posters.  Anyway, the game has some of the most irksome pattern-bosses, so I hope your gaeming skills are up to snuff if you want to play it on any major difficulty level.  (Supposedly, on the hardest difficulty, there's only two Rations in the entire game.)

[Vector]

Whoooooo boy, are you going to have a love-hate relationship with MGS2 then.  The grand breaker scene lies right at the intersection of those two things.  Good luck, and don't kiss too many posters.  Anyway, the game has some of the most irksome pattern-bosses, so I hope your gaeming skills are up to snuff if you want to play it on any major difficulty level.  (Supposedly, on the hardest difficulty, there's only two Rations in the entire game.)

Hahaha.  I'll... keep that in mind about the poster-kissing, then.

Honestly, my gaeming skills are kind of craptacular.  I think I used what, 40 rations in my normal playthrough of MGS1?  Part of that was getting used to the game controls, because I didn't have any idea as to how they were supposed to work.  Part of it was that this is pretty much the first game I've ever tried in which aiming whilst being chased/shot at/whatever was necessary (the only other games I've played with aiming at all were Zelda games, and, well... totally different story, especially in terms of ammunition usage).  And the last part was 100% rank sucking.

But, on the other hand, getting better at them vidja games can't hurt at all, right?  It's a valuable lifetime skill!  And I am looking forward to this purported combo, because it sounds hilarious in the extreme >_<  Yup, it'll be only a couple of weeks before I'll be able to play, and it shall be awesome.

[Duke 2.0]

Part of that was getting used to the game controls, because I didn't have any idea as to how they were supposed to work.

I still have no idea how you're supposed to grab and choke guards, so for the most part I just straight up avoided everybody.

 Which will be a problem for one segment of MGS2 if I recall, which I had hell with for precisely the same reason.

[sluissa]

Part of that was getting used to the game controls, because I didn't have any idea as to how they were supposed to work.

I still have no idea how you're supposed to grab and choke guards, so for the most part I just straight up avoided everybody.

 Which will be a problem for one segment of MGS2 if I recall, which I had hell with for precisely the same reason.

Choking guards vs simply killing them is a bit tough to distinguish. Killing them involves running up behind them and pressing the right button(been years, forget which) and holding it firmly. This will snap their neck. Choking them involves doing the same thing, except with a lighter touch and repeated tapping which will almost, but not quite let them go. Do this several times and you'll knock them out.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Part of that was getting used to the game controls, because I didn't have any idea as to how they were supposed to work.

I still have no idea how you're supposed to grab and choke guards, so for the most part I just straight up avoided everybody.

 Which will be a problem for one segment of MGS2 if I recall, which I had hell with for precisely the same reason.

Choking guards vs simply killing them is a bit tough to distinguish. Killing them involves running up behind them and pressing the right button(been years, forget which) and holding it firmly. This will snap their neck. Choking them involves doing the same thing, except with a lighter touch and repeated tapping which will almost, but not quite let them go. Do this several times and you'll knock them out.

Unless you do it too many times. Which will also snap their neck.