As Dragoons say upon their creation, I have returned. My disappearance from Dtoid was sudden and unexplained, but there was a fairly common reason for it. Since I've finally gotten the time to come back, I figured I'd share with you all what I've been up to.

This year was my senior year in high school, and as most can testify, it is either a very easy year for those just trying to get by, or a very busy year for those that aim high. Well, I fell into the latter category, and so I was inundated with work and all sorts of things to do. Early in the school year it wasn't as busy, and I had plenty of time to manage school and still have time to actively play around, but as the year progressed, I found myself being severely strapped for time. Work from my AP classes was getting heavier, there were college matters to handle, scholarship interviews, extracurricular actives, etc etc. There was no feasible way for me to maintain any modicum of a time for playing online, specifically with my PS3, without it completely distracting me from my studies. It was then that I decided to make a tough choice: I had to get rid of my PS3.

Now before you all accuse me of blasphemy, let me qualify that last statement. I didn't actually get rid of my PS3. I lent it to my brother, so that he may enjoy the wonders it had to offer, and so that I will not be tempted to stray from my studies. It's sitting comfortably at my brother's apartment, a mere 5 minutes away from my house, in very good hands. And I have not remained without my own entertainment. I did swap the PS3 for my brother's PS2, so that I could catch up on a few RPGs I'd left behind last generation, whenever I had some rare free time.

Now I'm sure a few of you may be wondering if I got anything out of my self imposed exile. I believe I have. I've managed to keep on top of my schoolwork and maintain my grades fairly well. I got accepted to the University of Pittsburgh, so I'll be headed up to Pennsylvania come this fall to start my time as a Pittsburgh Panther. While I'm sure I'll miss the sunshine state after a while, I'll be sure to come back down to visit, especially since I haven't been to a Miami NARP yet~


With all of that said, I'll be active all over the place once again. Expect to see my rolling with Jimbo and everyone on FNF very soon, as I've sorely missed all that action over the past few months.

Where to begin? I guess I should start with me saying hi to everyone, what with this being my first blog and all. I'm new to everyone (except those that were on Warhawk for FNF last week). I've never been much of a blogger, so I'll just skip to talking about Metal Gear. Now, granted, this post is less about the MGS series, and more about how much effort people put into understanding the game (and any other game in general). But this may degenerate pretty fast into aimless rambling a bit, so I apologize in advance. Also, a Spoiler warning is in effect for this area.



I've been a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series since I was introduced to it back in 2000(ish). A friend from down the street would bring over his playstation and play at my house cuz his mom was an oppressive dictating b**** that would never let him play. So anyway, he brought over MGS 1 one day and we went through that for a few hours. Now, this was by no means my first introduction to games. Even while living in Jamaica, my childhood was filled with them. Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Genesis, you name it, I had it. I grew up with both Mario and Sonic, along with a wealth of other games. I had plenty of experience playing games, so while some may have been intimidated by the story, or it's "Tactical Espionage Action" description, I was eating that stuff up. Many of my other friends branded it as tedious, or boring, or difficult, but I saw it as none of those things. I loved it for everything that it did.

Since those days, I've been a rabid fan of the series. I've played the games into oblivion and back again. MGS2, MGS3, MGS3:Subsistence (Yeah, I bought both.), even the original Metal Gear 1 and 2 that were included with Subsistence I played. On the whole, Metal Gear is probably the series I sunk the second most time into (with the Final Fantasy series reigning supreme in that manner). Now, the point I'm trying to make is that when I played the Metal Gear games, I put forth effort to comprehend everything. Hell, when I play any game I put forth effort to make sure that I don't overlook anything important to the story, etc, but it's especially true for Metal Gear since it's plot is so thick and convoluted that any negligence in paying attention will lead to serious confusion. Now while I think MGS4 did a great job wrapping things up, (as good a job as can be done, considering all the loose ends that needed tying up) there are people out there who don't put as much effort into catching all the details as I do.

In general, I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer. I spend hours grinding in RPGs just for the sake of gaining levels. I'm the type to occasionally cringe when I see my casual gamer friends play Call of Duty 4, and get massacred on Normal. I'm part of the crowd that goes above and beyond what is required to just simply beat a game (although I'm not super hardcore enough to sit in front of a tv and dodge 200 consecutive lightning bolts in FFX. Screw that). I know that there are plenty of other people out there who just don't care that much about games to put forth all that effort. But it still irks me when people begin to comment on what's they think is wrong with a game when they haven't really paid attention to the game.

An example of what I mean is something I read recently on another site, where various people were complaining about the ending to MGS4. A few people were complaining about Snake's aborted suicide, while others took up defense of it by saying it ratifies Snake's humanity. These were the sensible posts of the lot. Then came the outlandish comments. People started posting things such as "Snake never meant to attempt suicide. The gunshot you hear is Big Boss firing the Patriot" (An absolutely ridiculous suggestion, in more ways than one. Not only do you see Snake's handgun empty when he's on his hands and knees, but if Big Boss fired a shot into the air, wouldn't Snake have turned to face the source of the shot?) I recently participated in a forum discussion where someone posted how they'd "fix MGS4's story" when they hadn't even finished playing the game! The audacity it takes to dissect a game's story that you have no comprehension of and then substitute your own suggestions is just, aggravating. And it's not justifiable complaints either, such as ones where people thought that some of the "Powerpoint presentations" removed some of the immersion factor of the cutscenes. Nothing gets to me more than people who know little to nothing about a game, but yet still tries to criticize it with flawed, broken knowledge.

I guess I've adopted a bit of Kojima's style here, as this blog is probably way longer than it needs to be. To wrap things up, I'd like to say that I've never played any of the Halo games' campaign modes, so I know very little of the story. I know some of the major plot points, but the finer details that would explain them are lost to me. As such, I restrict myself from criticizing the games (story-wise anyway). Why is it that other people can't do the same?