There’s a fascinating phenomenon observed in Lacanian psychoanalysis which showcases that human beings do not want what they actually think they want, causing themselves massive grief in the process.

Time makes wise fools of us all

Before I further expound about the proposition I just opened with, I did want to say that the Words of Wisdom yesterday was a joyous romp into the absurdly aberrant, and I nearly followed it up today with a part two of sorts, which would have taken the form of a “Reflecting on Wisdom” kind of a deal, in detailing some more of the nefarious realities surrounding the idea of propaganda, or breaking down the notion of the more specialized “Propaganda of Self”, which is a concept, along side the reflection follow up as an article structure, both have plenty of legs left for discussion. What’s mildly insane about yesterday’s article, was two fold: not only in being completely off the cuff and on the spot, but that I had to stop myself short, just after my 1,000 word mark quota was reached, just to make my midnight deadline. There was far more that I had the ability to elaborate on, but due to time restraints, and in respectful part of my normalized modus operandi of attempting to keep most of my thoughts on the “shorter” side for digestibility sake, the idea will have to stand as is. I’ve mentioned before the leaving the audience wanting more before the too soon bow out is the magical methodology of maniacally preferred mayhem, when dabbling in the artistic and or performative arts, as leaving the imagination of the minds or the hearts of the crowd wanting more, is a sultry sweet kind of charitably soft sadism that falls well within the pretense of playfully painful dick teasing I can get behind.

I’m on the “back nine” of Delta (The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater [MGS3] remake, for those of you just joining us), as I am about to escape the jail cell in Groznyj Grad fortress, following the torture sequence. As is the case with a lot of my replays of old games, even of titles I had great admiration for, my memory isn’t what it use to be, after years of theatrically over the top party shenanigans, and all of the debaucherous self-debasement that came with it. The obvious downside is that my forays into the already explored, like the Silent Hill 2 Remake (from not too long ago), or my current run through of Delta for that matter, end up nearly feeling like a new experience in some ways, and that is certainly inspite of how faithful both of those remakes ended up being (I’m not all the way through with Delta yet, but I seriously doubt the remake is going to take a hard left in terms of changing anything before the end at this point, leaving the title almost completely interchangeable with the original version of MGS3).

I already wrote a piece awhile ago, even before I started Delta, about why the game being so similar to the original wasn’t a deal breaker for me, and why ultimately, due to the implications of where the series stood in relation to the fans, and in combinatory reality with the design snafus Konami would have run into with a full rejiggering of the whole approach in question, leaves little to the curious imagination of why they choose to do the things they did. In a very Kierkegaard kind of way (Existentialist Dutch Philosopher), in reference to his famous quote about regretting no matter what one chooses, Konami could have done literally anything with the remake, and yet still, no matter the decision, they would have still lamented some regret in the process, as no matter what, fans or gamers in general, at least a subset of them, would have complained either way, whether or not they changed too little or too much, or any other trinary option filling out the who’s who of triple troubling treachery of hypothetical theorizing. I’ve seen similarly mad moments with reactions to the Final Fantasy 7 remake conversation, people who weren’t down on what was an otherwise largely lauded rendition of the Resident Evil 2 Remake, and Halo fans complaining about any of the Halo remakes, up an down the cosmic spectrum. That last one kind of makes sense: Halo fans are just generally not happy campers, or at least, only happy when they’re teabagging. Such a sour lot, those god damn intergalactic gooner griefers.

Today represents a bit of a respite from a heavier lifting write-up, as I never give myself enough time on any given week to let my Tuesday vibes flow in a more naturally, breathable sort of way, and normally have to speedrun my post before rushing off to much sexier escapades. In a similar vein, as I consider doing a replay of MGS3, immediately after beating it, I may only maybe barely be able to get away with it, due to the notion that if one skips all of the cinematic work and the codecs conversations involved, you’ve saved yourself about 4 of the 5 and a half hours it would take to get through the game a second time, giving me some wiggle room to cut my teeth on even harsher contexts of stealthy reality before moving on to one of the last games I will have time to play through before years end.

I can’t honestly remember if I made this point explicitly clear or not in any of my articles detailing my time with the Silent Hill 2 Remake, which would surprise me, as I wrote about the fucking thing for god damn weeks, but whether or not I did, and aside from my efforts in expressing a sentiment that quietly reinforces the notion I am about to mention, I remain surprised about just how many jimmies were rustled, in terms of the largely untouched nature of the core gameplay of MGS3 in the Delta remake, just like I was similarly shocked at Silent Hill fans, first when they were luke warm to SH4, then threw excessive amounts of shade at Homecoming, rejecting Homecoming, and then going onto completely dragging Downpour, finally being relatively okay with the Silent Hill 2 Remake, maybe due to realizing every time they complain about what they get, the next effort by Konami is somehow even more heartbreaking than the last. I know some of the fans are either just bored, or complaining to them is just the thing that you do, almost a hobbyism of sorts. Even aside from those notions, online discourse always seems louder and more relevant than it really is. Considering all of that, and how insatiable gamers usually are, with how diehard the fans are in always wanting more, companies doing what they can to please them, you’d think they would be just mostly be happy with new content, the alternative being literally nothing at all. When you further consider that most old school vets of any series are going to be massive purists, wouldn’t a largely faithful remake be something right up there alley, instead of something they want to shove in a toilet just to shit all over?

The funny thing about most of my points I just made about one Konami series, can easily apply to another, as you could have replaced most of the nouns in that last rant from Silent Hill entries to Metal Gear Solid titles, and a lot of it would have been largely similar, if one goes deep enough into the MGS game release timeline. Birds of a feather, it would seem.

And to that point: sometimes, it comes off to me like gamers just don’t know what they actually want…like they enjoy the notion of eating crow by having their cake, too.

-Pashford