Zone of the Enders series

[AstroBlue]

http://www.gamersbg.com/mgs/features/dreaming1.htm

This guy is pretentious at times, but he makes a lot of good points, the postscript is pretty interesting.

MGS2 is about memes, it's just a story how our thoughts and culture contribute to what we are, it's a lot like Ghost in the Shell. But were GinS was 40 minutes of some douche cyborg preaching to us existential fluff while showing us her titties; MGS2 packed it's philosophy into a Beretta M9 dart, creeped up behind us in a cardboard box and shot us in the arse. We are not sure what exactly hit us, but we know it was good.

Does MGS3 explain what the patroits are, are they "Puppetmaster"-like AIs or are they memetic conscious beings (muwakalls)?

[MechDeus]

MGS2 is about memes, it's just a story how our thoughts and culture contribute to what we are, it's a lot like Ghost in the Shell. But were GinS was 40 minutes of some douche cyborg preaching to us existential fluff while showing us her titties; MGS2 packed it's philosophy into a Beretta M9 dart, creeped up behind us in a cardboard box and shot us in the arse. We are not sure what exactly hit us, but we know it was good.

MGS2 repeated itself over and over, shoving after-school-special themed (and level of writing) dialogue down our throats in a terrible mixture of talking heads and nonsense clips of New York. It was mostly the same thing they went on about at the end of MGS, and while the same things there lingered to the point of getting absurd MGS2 made it take over twice as long (and/or at least felt like I had been there for hours). When I was done I wanted to know to more about the story itself but wished all the characters (except maybe Snake... he comes with coolness baggage from before so I can forgive those final speeches) would die horrible, excruciating, bloody deaths and that Kojima would learn how to integrate themes into his games without beating us over the head as though he's teaching the Torah to Nazis.

P.S. GitS was a condensation of its source medium, I wouldn't really list it as a great philosophical source in the first place.

P.P.S. The article seemed interesting but was written so terribly I couldn't stand it. I still skimmed as much as I could though you seriously weren't kidding about the pretentiousness, even if I agreed with everything he had to say (which I don't) I would still argue just because he comes off as such a goddamn ass.

[edit] This conversation is pretty funny for a thread with the subtitle "Hideo Kojima's other ps2 work."

[Johnny Undaunted]

Does MGS3 explain what the patroits are, are they "Puppetmaster"-like AIs or are they memetic conscious beings (muwakalls)?

More or less actually.

They were not always AIs, but were actually human at some point. They were originally the US branch of a much larger organization called the Philosophers, which also consisted of superpowers from the USSR and China. During the early 20th century, the Philosophers formed a secret meeting known as the Wisemen's Committee, however the original Wisemen died mysteriously during the 30s. They funded a project called the Philosophers' Legacy during World War II, but afterwards the Philosophers began fighting among themselves. Long story short, the US Philosophers broke off and establish themselves as a seperate entity called the Patriots.

Oh yeah, and Twin Snakes was teh suk.


As for the ZoE games, never played any of them. Even though I'm a Kojima nut (although technically speaking, the ZoE games are not Kojima's, he only produced them), I never really had the urge to track them down. I've been meaning to someday though.