Ladies and Gents!
Recently I've managed to finish up Metal Gear 3 and 4. I may have finished 4 in one sitting, trust me I'm not proud of it. Regardless the point of this topic is that I feel there's a level of quality within the series seen within great storytelling worth looking at.
I've always had a odd kind of respect for the series because of all the crazy content jammed into these games. But to me, the really cool fun parts of the different ways the game approaches player interaction. I often ponder to myself how I can inset my own version of such reader / writer point of view. For example, how can one have a story with such a serious political, military overtones, but yet be fun, lighthearted, and down right silly at times?
I'll be honest. When I write, I want my characters to be realistic, but dare I say, I want to have fun while writing. But how does one maintain such?
I've opened this as a lighthearted discussion, more or less about a game series I finally managed to finish up a few days ago.
Love MGS. Not up to date with it yet.
Depending on your approach I think it's entirely possible. I'm in the process of publishing an anthology. One of the shorts is military based, dystopian, but also satirical. Doesn't get as light hearted as it could have been, the main guys were picked based on looks, through a process like X Factor, as they were on TV so much. They're the heroes and had to look the part for society. The boy bands of that age.
Off the top of my head, Catch 22, MASH, Dr Strangelove... They all manage to inject humour without detracting from their message. Spec Ops has some banter, but very little humour generally. Oh, but as an example of storytelling in games, amazing.
Having thought about how MGS would work as a book. It could be a choose your own adventure, after something harrowing has happened -
Would you like to put down this book and watch James Bond instead? If so, close the book and watch it.
If you fight the bad guy wearing nothing but a crocodile skin hat, turn to page 47.
If you rescue the hostages, turn to page 56.
I have to be honest, when I played MGS2 waaaay back when the PS2 was new, and it snowballed and snowballed and escalated to such a ridiculous ending, true anime style (based on my very limited exposure) where they take melodrama to a truly new level of absurd- that which I wouldn't have before thought possible- and then piled more plot twists toward the end than modern math has a number for...
Yeah, I never looked at any metal gear again after that.
I have a great fondness for the MGS series, but they can be somewhat bloated. (So are Moby Dick, 2666, and lots of other works.) The weird juxtaposition of relatively (for a video game) hard realism with utter fantasy is one of the appealing things about the series, but I don't know if it'd work as well in a textual medium. I doubt it.
As far as the humor goes, there are dialog jokes, and then there are gags (like the cardboard box, soldiers with the runs, etc.). It'd be a hard sell in a book to have a guy routinely produce a box and hide in it, evading capture over and over. Despite the sometimes heavy themes and long periods of seriousness, the series has never fully let go of its game-ness, and the variable experience of player interaction in games allows for greater room to, well, play.
I have a great fondness for the MGS series, but they can be somewhat bloated. (So are Moby Dick, 2666, and lots of other works.) The weird juxtaposition of relatively (for a video game) hard realism with utter fantasy is one of the appealing things about the series, but I don't know if it'd work as well in a textual medium. I doubt it.
As far as the humor goes, there are dialog jokes, and then there are gags (like the cardboard box, soldiers with the runs, etc.). It'd be a hard sell in a book to have a guy routinely produce a box and hide in it, evading capture over and over. Despite the sometimes heavy themes and long periods of seriousness, the series has never fully let go of its game-ness, and the variable experience of player interaction in games allows for greater room to, well, play.
Not that I would personally carbon copy the styles of game play vs literally prowess. I totally agree with you that they're very distinct things that very much make it a game (unless you've played MGS4...it's more a interactive TV series..), but my point being that, the series itself is quite thought out; there's fair amount of room to dig into timeline and story wise.
For example I've got two stories that are in the ilk of video games. One more in the shadow of arcade jokes and Zelda gags. Another about a second person / third person fighting game that exists within the context of the tale. Each character representing a chapter.
There's a way I've been having fun with it..
