Comment by leoc
7 hours ago
Odd that it doesn’t mention Metal Gear Solid, which was casting doubt on the morality of the player character’s actions and painting boss fights as tragic affairs back in 1998, even though it does mention MGS love letter Spec Ops: The Line (and even though MGS is a media darling and probably significantly overdiscussed in general).
I think the article is intentionally focused, if it were to mention every game that is related we'd be here for a while.
That said, this is a common thing in articles about e.g. video games - "I wish they mentioned X". I too wish that but at the same time, one needs limits.
MGS (and MGS2) are prominent enough, and directly relevant enough, and predate Shadow of the Colossus enough, that not mentioning them is a conspicuous omission, and not just something it would have been nice to add. In fact not mentioning them makes the article somewhat misleading, especially when at the same time it chooses to highlight Spec Ops: The Line.
You really can't mention MSGS without giving due mention to DOOM, which owes its existence to the popularity of Zork. And you can't mention that without D&D, but you have to preface every mention of D&D with historical war board-gaming and... chess and Go.
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Slaying people is optional in MGS2 and higher, gameplay-wise. There’s not even a dilemma as long as you can handle hand-to-hand combat and a dart gun.