Duke Nukem Forever now gets to sit there forever as a reminder of why you should definitely be worried about perfectionists for whom it's never done.
The new management is strictly business-focused. They believe that free-to-play mobile titles are the future. From a business standpoint, such reorientation may be the right thing to do. From a creative standpoint, this is unacceptable to someone like Mr. Kojima.
I don't know what you mean by "look at what was finally released of MGS5", either. The title was very well received by critics and sold very well, too - unlike Duke Nukem Forever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideo_Kojima#Works
He has produced more games than I have written pet programs.
The most publicised issue is that the last chapter that was completely cut from the game, but the issues with the game go much further then that. One of the hallmarks of the MGS franchise is it long dialogue and cinema like cutscenes, however MGS5 has hardly any dialogue or significant cutscenes. Towards the end of the second chapter, the game forces you to replay old missions to progress with the main story. Many scenes just feel janky and unfinished, like the car ride with skullface where you sit and stare at each other for a few minutes while the theme music plays. One of the major overarching plot points is your characters descent into becoming a "demon", yet I feel that the game really failed to convince me that any decision I made was particularly evil. If Kojima had more time, maybe he could of done a better job with that.
The best scenes are the ones that made it to the trailer, if the rest of the game could of been at that quality it would of been fantastic. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the game is that it clearly had a lot of promise and if Kojima was given the time he needed, it could of been an amazing game.
I think splitting the prologue mission off from the main game and releasing it as it's own game hurt TPP. The core game mechanics are polished and fun in MGSV, so I'm happy with that. It was obviously released in an incomplete state, but it looks like that wasn't Kojima's fault. Maybe in a few years he'll be able to do a "director's cut" of it.
MGS2 is my favorite entry in the series. It certainly had the most ambitious plot (about information control, and how being a soldier in a game is nothing like being a real soldier.), the mixed reaction to which made Kojima dial it back for all of the subsequent games.
It also has incredible production values, being one of the best looking games on the PS2 while holding an almost-solid 60FPS.
The series certainly has it's ups and downs, but on the whole I enjoy it. The worst parts are a silly science fiction-themed soap opera, but the best parts are some of the most compelling and exciting gaming I've ever experienced.
I would not call MGS5 an unfinished mess. I would call it unfinished, but that fact doesn't detract from it as one of the most innovative games I have ever played. I have never had the opportunity to truly "be" a character in a game before. When you're playing every mission in MGS5 - you are Snake.
You decide how every single objective is accomplished. Every mission can be played in a variety of varied ways. The fact that each mission felt so fluid and organic is a testament to the tremendous engineering and ingenuity that went into designing it.
Oh, but how I pine for the final chapter that could have been!
My first play through I played stealth and captured quite a few people for my base. If I didn't want the person then I just left them be, I only killed when I had to for survival or if required. For instance, I know of no way to capture a helicopter, so for those elimination missions you had no choice but to kill the pilots. My second play-through my style is to leave no one alive whenever I enter a mission, otherwise I avoid contact. I'm not even halfway through the story and the debris in my head signifying my demon level has lengthened quite a bit. Otherwise, I haven't noticed that much of a difference between the two sessions. Advanced equipment for the enemy has appeared sooner than before, but it's still way too easy. I wish there was a way to increase the difficulty from the beginning.
I wouldn't say it was an unfinished mess. It was remarkably polished and bug-free for a modern 5-platform AAA game. If it had ended with Chapter 1 I think everyone would have been happy with the content and length of the game. Chapter 2 provides closure for a couple story lines and evokes the "Phantom Pain" of the title - you've achieved your revenge, but now what? Life goes on, it is not happily ever after. The repeated missions are "bonus" content that you are not required to do to unlock anything.
> I feel that the game really failed to convince me that any decision I made was particularly evil.
Maybe I'm just a Kojima apologist, but to me this is the genius of the game. You don't think you did anything evil - and it's true, the game doesn't let you do overtly, blatantly obviously evil things like killing the child soldiers or detonating your nukes against civilians (or anyone for that matter). But look at it from an outside perspective - you're building a nuclear-armed mercenary army out of kidnapped soldiers who get thrown in the brig and interrogated / brainwashed by Ocelot. An army that will hire itself out to the highest bidder. Look at the role of real-life PMCs in Africa like Executive Outcomes or Sandline International, or more recently the role of Blackwater in Iraq. Imagine if they had nukes.
Everything you do in the game makes sense and is justified when looked at while you're doing it, but you end up building this giant army that in reality would be a tool of neo-colonialist oppression used to ensure the smooth extraction of raw materials from Africa by multinational corporations.
You have a skilled employee and suddenly they become a diva.
Now you have to put up with the stuff you don't like about them, but you need their skill.
For example: "Hideo Kojima originally wanted the boss fight to last one to two weeks but was told that this was impossible and not recommended." - http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/03/21/hideo-kojimas-top-5-met...
I think it fits the style of the story more, and certainly it was well-received by players, but for me personally, I found it interminable. I watched a friend play MGS4, and its story was completely bonkers. Ground Zeroes literally made me sick to my stomach. I'm done with MGS and while I'll watch for what Kojima puts out next, I'm pretty nervous about it.
You can also kill The End using a sniper rifle the first time you see him in the game (right after emerging from The Sorrow's boss "fight"). You have to snipe him while he's sitting in the wheelchair before he's taken away.
I can't wait to see what Kojima puts out next, and I believe that Sony will allow him the freedom to do what he wants. Even if it isn't the most fun game in the world, there is a guarantee that it'll be wacky and challenge the general notion of what video games have become now. That's what makes it so exciting.
Because of the graphics/gameplay? Or the story? If it's the story, I think that's a good thing. It's a devastating critique of US foreign policy as it relates to extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, black sites, etc. Except for the very end, there's nothing that happens in the game that the US army / CIA haven't already done.
I don't remember it as something special.
Psycho Mantis or The Sorrow I remember as good, but the end was just "yet another boss" to me.
What have you read which gives more insight into what happened inside Konami? I think it's reasonable to assume that the changing direction of the company lead to the rift, but based on what I know, I cannot conclude that Kojima initiated his departure.
Likely won't be able to gain insight on exactly what happened inside Konami, and even those are personal anecdotes. I'm sure everyone has a good reason for what they did.
Major time spent developing this game was on the engine and the plan was to reuse this engine on other Konami properties and developing more Kojima games. Also, for sure Kojima is one of the few people who can get away with the time it takes to make his games, but he is also one of the few people in the gaming industry who is doing what he is doing. With the cinematic, the wild story and even though MGS5 didn't have a wild story. Once you start to think just how much engineering and time spent on creating that incredible smart AI, the open world and an engine that can handle all this, its easy to see why it took so long.