Is Tanker part just a demo?

[Anonymous No.8222393]

I just watched a speedrun of MGS2 and the Tanker part is just like 5 min. So the theory says Kojima conceived the Tanker part as a demo and the real game is Big Shell. Agree?

[Anonymous No.8222395]

It's just to make it more like a moobie. The mini mission before the big mission.

[Anonymous No.8222404]

>>8222393
I'm sure it's some sort of specific narrative device I don't remember the name of.

[Anonymous No.8222407]

>>8222393
Yes, it was literally a demo given out with ZoE if you didn't know.

[Anonymous No.8222408]

>>8222393

Just like Ground Zeroes.

[Anonymous No.8222427]

It was created to be a bait and switch. The demos, the press footage, the trailers and screenshots in gaming mags were all of the tanker. Everyone thought youd be playing as Snake.

[Anonymous No.8222432]

Its basically a demo but more effort went into it than any part of the big shell

[Anonymous No.8222545]

As the game evolved it was a big mix of everything. Main game, epilogue, introduction, demo, and media deception tool.
He wanted to make the game take place on a ship, but decided there wouldn't be enough content, so focused the game on an oilrig with the ship as an additional location.
Lots of the game's technology was implemented and tested in the Tanker. Combined with playing as Snake, it made for a perfect demo, and a stage for capturing sizzle reel.
At one point of development the Plant section would be called Metal Gear Solid III, and after beating it you'd unlock the Tanker as an epilogue titled Metal Gear Solid II.
At another point the Tanker would be an introductory tutorial framed as Raiden's VR training of how the event happened according to the Patriots, and when Snake reveals himself in the Plant section, you'd play a different version based on Snake's account.
In the pre-Substance releases of MGS2 in Japan and Europe, before starting the game you get a questionnaire and if you answer that you didn't play MGS1 it makes you play through Plant first, followed by the Tanker.

[Anonymous No.8222550]

No, it's an into to the game you dumbfucks.

[Anonymous No.8222614]

>>8222393
Look at those pits. More like Big Smell am I right fellas?

[Anonymous No.8222635]

>>8222393
Even ignoring the snake bait and switch, tanker is so much more fun than big shell. I would legitimately prefer playing the tanker mission over and over rather than play the actual main mission of the game.

[Anonymous No.8222639]

>>8222635
Yes, Tanker is short but full of soul. Big Shell is just a repetitive orange industrial facility.

[Anonymous No.8222640]

>>8222404
cold open

[Anonymous No.8222649]

>>8222639
Only soul in Big Shell are rubber ducks.

[Anonymous No.8222734]

A demo... For hairy armpits

[Anonymous No.8222756]

>>8222393
>I just watched a speedrun of MGS2 and the Tanker part is just like 5 min.
In a non-speedrun it's more like an hour for a first time player.

[Anonymous No.8222769]

>>8222393
Speed runs are not really representative of what an organic playthrough of a level is like.

[Anonymous No.8222840]

Kinda off topic but holy shit, I just played through MGS2 while skipping the cutscenes. No joke it only took like 90 minutes.

[Anonymous No.8222865]

>>8222393
No.
>>8222408
I don't think GZ was conceived as a demo/ standalone game either.

[Anonymous No.8222873]

>>8222639
I like the tanker, but Big Shell is a lot more varied than you're suggesting.

[Anonymous No.8222898]

>>8222840
the big boss emblem is 3 hours and you can feasibly do it in 2
that's playing the game correctly though. no kills, no alerts, no rations etc

[Anonymous No.8222909]

>>8222393
yes if you got zone of enders for the demo. jk that only went up to olga. but really yes it felt like what it was, just a small sneak peek

[Anonymous No.8223236]

kojima is a schizoid methamphetamine addict none of his works are coherent

[Anonymous No.8223263]

>>8222635
>>8222639
Big shell's level design suck major ass, not to mention you're backtracking it over and over. I'm always offended when people suggest it's the best MGS because it tells me they only care about muh subversion and muh metanarratives

[Anonymous No.8223276]

>>8223263
>not to mention you're backtracking it over and over
And MGS1 didn't do that with the sniper rifle, the towers, and the PAL key? Even the Twin Snakes remake bit a huge chunk out of the last one.

[Anonymous No.8223283]

>>8222393
It was a bait and switch. Kojima knew exactly what MGS1 fans wanted in a sequel. The Tanker level is exactly that. Thats why all the prerelease marketing and screenshots focused on that. He then betrayed the fans with the androgynous blonde gymnast fruitcake and the bland big shell environment. Kojima did that because he is a vindictive prick and his apologist fans continue to justify it by talking about how brilliant he was for contradicting expectations. MGS2 has a lot of brilliant shit in it, but it all could have veen done with Snake and in more interesting environments.

[Anonymous No.8223307]

>>8222393

If you actually play the game for yourself and follow the story you'd know that the Big Shell is actually integral to the plot and everything comes full circle at the end

[Anonymous No.8223308]

>>8223283
>Kojima did that because he is a vindictive prick
Vindictive prick, or trying to illustrate fanboyism is retarded, as per the codec conversations at the end? How do you know he wasn't being hostile toward Sony or Konami, not the audience?

Either way, I think he could have made MGS2 as gritty/grounded as MGS1 and still made whatever point he was trying to make.

That said I'm still not entirely sure what he was trying to accomplish with Raiden as the main character, but I think you gotta give him props for one of the biggest cons in gaming, maybe the biggest. The Liquid Snake-Ocelot bullshit I don't think was a product of him subverting expectations, but a stupid idea in general that's not really necessary for a game about government conspiracies, military shenanigans, and covert ops. If he bothered to foreshadow it in some way, I wouldn't have minded.

Another issue with MGS1 and 2 that doesn't get discussed much is some of the gameplay elements objectively suck. Being on a humvee with a turret and turning it into an action game is stupid. Being trapped on an elevator and having to neutralize invisible soldiers has nothing to do with stealth, nor does climbing up stairs while being chased with soldiers. Insult to injury, they put the VR missions in as side content, when all that stuff should've been in the normal game.

With MGS2, either flesh out the katana or eliminate it from the game. Don't make me have a bad ass final battle with a katana if you didn't bother to implement the damn weapon completely. Fucking Kojima.

[Anonymous No.8223320]

>>8223236
the first 3 mgs games are written by fukushima, 4 and later shw how bad kojimas when let loose

[Anonymous No.8223321]

>>8222545
>At another point the Tanker would be an introductory tutorial framed as Raiden's VR training of how the event happened according to the Patriots, and when Snake reveals himself in the Plant section, you'd play a different version based on Snake's account.
>In the pre-Substance releases of MGS2 in Japan and Europe, before starting the game you get a questionnaire and if you answer that you didn't play MGS1 it makes you play through Plant first, followed by the Tanker.
Woah this is cool af, I never knew this

[Anonymous No.8223381]

>>8223263
Nah. The backtracking is annoying in a few cases (namely freezing the final bomb), but it's never that egregious otherwise. The level design also maintains the same design beats the tanker has, and each room is accordingly distinct. Even the connecting bridges aren't the same. The game design is by far the biggest reason I like MGS2 as much as I do. I wish crawling had more significance, but MGS1 was a step down from MG2 in that regard as well and ultimately we got Crawling Gear Crawled: Snake Crawler that more than compensated for its relative absence in MGS2.

[Anonymous No.8223421]

>>8223263
VR missions make it peak MGS
Only storyfags enjoyed campaigns

[Anonymous No.8223436]

>>8223308
>Either way, I think he could have made MGS2 as gritty/grounded as MGS1 and still made whatever point he was trying to make.
It's not as gritty, but for the most part it's not any less "grounded."
>I'm still not entirely sure what he was trying to accomplish with Raiden
A new, naive character put into a (deceptively) familiar scenario is how the game highlights most of its ideas of agency in the face of social pressure and information control. Snake already had his existential crisis.

I don't feel much "hostility" in MGS2 at all. It pokes fun at Raiden, but it also affirms him (and the audience) with an inspirational monologue as heavy-handed as anything in the entire series. Which is saying something. And KojiPro delivered a conventional sequel on new hardware that nailed most of what it tried on that front, which even more critical contemporary reviews acknowledged. It's a flawed game, but the idea Kojima was vindictive or hostile seems like serious projection to me.

[Anonymous No.8223487]

>>8223436
>It's not as gritty, but for the most part it's not any less "grounded."
part of the grittiness could be attributed to the graphics. maybe that's all it is for me. but i feel like shadow moses has a better sense of place. granted, the big shell is a ruse, but i feel like the ruse could be more fleshed out. what do these rooms do? why are they here? how does this facility work when it's fully staffed? they didn't have to take this too far; actually, i think the player putting the pieces together like "ok, this facility is supposed to do XYZ...but if that's the case, how come ABC?" and getting suspicious about it would have been much stronger. i think the game would have benefitted from underwater parts on the outside. although i have zero faith the controls/gameplay would've been adequate for such sections.

>A new, naive character put into a (deceptively) familiar scenario is how the game highlights most of its ideas of agency in the face of social pressure and information control. Snake already had his existential crisis.
true. i get that. but i didn't put together big shell was supposed to be all that similar to shadow moses. sure, the high points are there, but lots of stories repeat the high points, like with terminator 1 and 2. to me that's just an action movie/thriller series storytelling device. mgs3 has some familiar scenario aspects, but it's not intended to be a ruse the way big shell is. considering this is a videogame, it all the more makes sense some things would be repeated.

i can allow this from the angle of kojima handing out redpills: SEE? ALL GAMES ARE THE SAME. YOU FOOL! but in terms of the reveal of big shell being part of the S3 plan, i don't think there are enough gold coins on that path.

[Anonymous No.8223586]

>>8223487
>but i feel like shadow moses has a better sense of place.
I agree, but the Big Shell still does things like present a kitchen, restrooms, a break room, etc. It also captures the serenity of being out in the ocean -- gull shit included.
>i didn't put together big shell was supposed to be all that similar to shadow moses.
It uses a similar instigating event: terrorists take over a facility and a lone agent must covertly rescue the hostages, and the terrorist's leader is a Big Boss clone aided ("aided") by Ocelot. MG1 and MG2 had similar structures. The potboiler premise is the same. As far as the game itself overall, it's a very different game, but by the time a cyborg ninja shows up it should be obvious. (Even though MGS1 also borrowed its ninja premise from the previous game.) But MGS2 really isn't anymore similar to MGS1 than most video game sequels. The difference is it decides to call attention to the similarity and make that a plot point.

[Anonymous No.8223956]

>>8222407
the only reason why I, and probably 99% of other people, bought that trash game

[Anonymous No.8225337]

>>8223308
> How do you know he wasn't being hostile toward Sony or Konami, not the audience?
Because we were the ones who bought the game based on the screenshots and were disappointed. I still remember sitting on the floor in front of a CRT thinking "who the hell is this ballerina man?" and I kept hoping it would go back to Snake. I was fucking STOKED for that game and it was a massive disappointment. It wasn't the game I saw in the trailer (the one with breaking glass, storage room shootout, etc.) that I spent half the day downloading on my 56k modem.

[Anonymous No.8225343]

>>8223321
The Document of MGS2 is a fascinating piece of software.

[Anonymous No.8225357]

>>8222404
>>8222640
It’s a prologue. Also, not retro.

[Anonymous No.8225367]

>>8225357
>Retro gaming means platforms launched in 2001 and earlier, and official game titles for those platforms released no later than December 2007

[Anonymous No.8225376]

>>8225367
Not retro, never will be.

[Anonymous No.8225383]

>>8225376
>dude read the sticky
>sticky get rules adjusted according with what the definition of retro for this board is
>NOOOOO HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??!?

[Anonymous No.8225580]

>>8225383
>READ THE HECKIN STICKY YOU CAN’T JUST IGNORE THE STICKY!!!!!!!!
>IT’S IN THE STICKY SO THAT MEANS IT’S TRUE!!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.8225662]

>>8223308
As others have said, it’s the fans who got burned by the bait-and-switch, since they’re the ones who actually played it. The publisher doesn’t know who or what a raiden is to this day.

[Anonymous No.8225752]

>>8223308
>With MGS2, either flesh out the katana or eliminate it from the game. Don't make me have a bad ass final battle with a katana if you didn't bother to implement the damn weapon completely. Fucking Kojima.
it's a thematically bold move. i see the katana signifying raiden becoming his own character instead of being a bootleg solid snake and right after that happens he throws away the dogtags with presumably the players name on them and thus rejects the game itself and his role as a solid snake substitute.

[Anonymous No.8225767]

>>8222407
The ZOE demo ended very early into the tanker section. There was a later demo with the UK official PS2 mag which went much further. If I remember right it stopped just before you have to sneak past the marines.

[Anonymous No.8225769]

>>8225580
make your own fuckin board you vagina

[Anonymous No.8225784]

>>8225357
Maybe, just maybe YOU'RE not retro.

[Anonymous No.8225925]

I think I had a demo for MGS2 that was just the entire tanker segment, but maybe I'm misremembering.

[Anonymous No.8225929]

>Just watched a speedrun
>tanker is just 5 minutes

Jeez I wonder how is that possible. C'mon man, speedruns aren't real proof of a game's real length played under normal circuntances.

[Anonymous No.8225940]

>>8222393
I just watched a speedrun of Morrowind and the main quest is just like 15 min. So the theory says Todd conceived the main quest as a demo and the real game is side quests + expansions. Agree?

[Anonymous No.8227891]

In a way the tanker section was a texh demo for the PS2. What was shown in that 8 minute trailer was fucking amazing for the time. If you didn't see it at that time you could not understand how mind blowing that shit was.

[Anonymous No.8229036]

>>8223421
Unfathomably based
MGS2 Substance is the best game in the series

[Anonymous No.8229039]

>>8227891
It still holds up today really. Compare it to a modern stealth game and you'll see things haven't even changed much since then

[Anonymous No.8229079]

>>8222898
>that's playing the game correctly though. no kills, no alerts, no rations etc
Is it supposed to be real hard to do this? Does it required a ton of memorization? I do my best every time I play but it's so easy to mess up

[Anonymous No.8229285]

>>8222393
It's a prologue

[Anonymous No.8229301]

>>8222898
I never went for that shit. I prefer to play MGS in its full 8-hours-of-talking true form.

[Anonymous No.8229385]

it was a bait and switch, a subversion if you will. that ties into the actual plot where the main character is also bamboozled, it was a meta fuck you to the player. its one of the many reasons MGS2 is literally the best game ever made. it also served to sell some copies of ZoE

[Anonymous No.8229630]

>>8229039
>It still holds up today
It does. Back in 2000, it was absolutely amazing. I don't think any game trailers or previews since then have compared in terms of blowing minds wide open. The technological leap from the PS1 to the PS2 was enormous. Since then, the technological advances between generations have become less and less significant. The most recent generation is only incrementally better than the previous. You could play Killzone 3, a 10 year old PS3 game, right next to just about any game on on PS5, and it would at least look comparable. Hell, even the Dreamcast versions of Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive 2 still hold up when displayed on a CRT computer monitor, and those games are 20+ years old.

We will probably never have massive "holy shit" moments like we did from the mid 90's up to the early 00's because the technological advancements just are not nearly as impressive. If you were not there during that time, reading the magazines and the websites, you simply cannot understand how exciting that shit was--not just the new tech, but the innovation in gaming as a whole. Many many new concepts and ideas were coming out every year. We were optimistic about the future of gaming. For me, that optimism began dwindling when the Dreamcast died and by the time the PS3/XB360 generation was here, it was obvious that the industry was in steep decline. I suppose I'm preaching to the choir given that's probably roughly the same reason why we are all here right now.

[Anonymous No.8230151]

>>8222614
>>8222734
Best feature of the game imo

[Anonymous No.8231467]

>>8229385
>its one of the many
School has failed you.

[Anonymous No.8231487]

I am a huge MGS1 fan. I never beat MGS2. i just got really into the skateboarding stuff. i thought it was a fever dream but i booted up my copy and there it was. even now as an old balding man I do the same shit. when im 'in the mood' for mgs2 I just end up doing tanker and then skateboarding for a few hours.

so yeah i like skateboarding.

[Anonymous No.8231491]

>>8231467
Theres nothing wrong with what he said

[Anonymous No.8231509]

>>8222393
This is fucking bizarre. It's like if someone made a thread like "hey guys here's my theory, what if the Roxas part of KH2 was a prologue to the rest of the game?" Uh, yes. No shit. That is indeed what it is. Water is indeed wet my nigger.

[Anonymous No.8231649]

>>8231491
It’s is a contraction for it is or it has.
Its indicates possessive.
You know this, ESL-kun.

[Anonymous No.8231780]

>>8230151
>

[Anonymous No.8231784]

[Anonymous No.8231787]

[Anonymous No.8231791]

[Anonymous No.8231792]

>>8230151
And as last, here's a better one of that

[Anonymous No.8232568]

>>8231649
nobody here is esl

[Anonymous No.8232589]

>>8223421
BASED.

[Anonymous No.8232607]

>>8229079
mgs2 is the hardest in the series to get the best emblem
memorization helps. the game is very freeform though and headshotting dudes from cover is a consistent problem solver
the real fuck you is only 8 saves. everything is way more tense and frustrating when it costs you half an hour of progress

[Anonymous No.8232628]

>>8232607
not that anon. I've gotten BB/Foxhound in all 4 mainline games and 2 is definitely the hardest. I'm no speedrunner but I was able to implement a few easy to learn tricks in there. Pic related was the last time i did it.

[Anonymous No.8232647]

>>8231787
>*grimaces*...just like meryl

[Anonymous No.8232657]

>>8232647
>I had enough of Tomboys
did you think the Patriots infected Snake with FoxGay?

[Anonymous No.8232658]

>>8222545
Kojima-sama… I kneel

[Anonymous No.8234932]

>>8232657
How do you think Olga and Meryl's armpits compare?

[Anonymous No.8234995]

>>8231780
>>8231784
>>8231787
>>8231791
>>8231792
Autistic

[Anonymous No.8234998]

>>8234995
Only took me 10 seconds to make these images you slack jawed faggot

[Anonymous No.8235000]

>>8222393
>So the theory says Kojima conceived the Tanker part as a demo and the real game is Big Shell.
Wait... you're saying that a brief section at the beginning of the game stars Snake, turns out to be a misdirection, and then becomes a game somewhere else completely starring Raiden?
That's... like... the first thing anyone ever knows about the game. Why did you make this thread?

[Anonymous No.8235002]

I wish TANKER was INCLUDED in TWIN SNAKES.
why didnt they do that? it psises me off to this day