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Metal Gear Solid 4

E

EricMartello

Senior member
Graphics:
The devs went all out and this game takes advantage of the PS3's graphical power. If you don't have an HDTV as your display, you will be missing alot.

Sound:
Sound is also well-done. The real-time 5.1 audio and accurate weapon sounds will make your living-room sound like a warzone. Cool...again, if you don't have a decent HT sound system, you'll miss a lot.

Music:
There isn't much in the way of BG music in this game, but there are a lot of songs in it that you can find and play on your "virtual iPod". Overall, I'd say the music in this game is forgettable. Not bad, but not very good either.

Gameplay:
I think that MGS is trying to give players the choice of either being sneaky or just running into battle with guns blazing. That said, this game fails in terms of combat. I'm used to FPS games on a PC, and the FPS combat implementation on MGS is sub-par. If you want to sneak around, you'll probably do better that way. There are some zones where you absolutely need to avoid getting into combat, but besides that, you can decide how to handle the different scenarios.

Expanded Evaluation:
Overall, I didn't really like this game. It has some cool elements to it...but the best part of the game was being able to play as Metal Gear Rex and wup ass. The game is called Metal Gear - YOU SHOULD BE IN A DAMN METAL GEAR MOST OF THE TIME...but that's not the case.

First of all, Snake is an old fart in this game. The whole game you are a bumbling old man who probably soils his pants every time he crouches. WTF? The "hero" of the game is the epitome of weakness...maybe in Japan it qualifies for "clever story telling" but from my point of view, playing as a weakling sucks. All this nanotech and they can't just make Snake into a damn cyborg? Again, W T F?

The combat in this game is a joke...once you encounter the "FROG" soldiers, have fun. The biggest gripe is the fact that targeting enemies who can move faster than you, leap hundreds of feet in to the air at will and take positions at locations on the map that are entirely inaccessible to the player is pure failure. You're not fighting enemies; you're struggling with the crappy control implementation. Targeting the enemies quickly is not possible, so you will die many times when you have to deal with multiple enemies until you pick up a good machine gun like the P90. I do not feel a sense of balance there...and I do not feel that shoddy game mechanics should be passed off as making the game "challenging".

The cut-scenes in the game are longwinded and sometimes preachy. Some lasing 10 minutes or more...yeah, they're visually impressive but in terms of being entertaining...not really. Hideo made his money off war games, and is trying to preach to us how war is terrible and evil...and that such games are making the masses into mindless war mongers who thrive on violence. Was that sarcasm...or can I get some bacon on my hypocrisy sandwich?

Lots and lots of references to other Metal Gear games, including the original NES game. If you didn't play the other MGS games, like me, then you'll just be like whatever. I got the feeling that they were trying to "connect" the storyline across all the previous Metal Gear games...when in reality, the original storyline was never deep enough to span 5 installations. It just gets stupid watching long, boring cut scenes attempt to make the simplistic story from a 1987 game relevant in 2008.

Boss fights - you fight 5 bosses in this game. None of them are particularly hard, but their attacks are incredibly cheap and overpowered. Each boss requires a certain "technique" to defeat...and it's pretty easy to figure out what it is. You better stock up on rations because you'll need them, and you cannot buy them for some odd reason. The last fight, between Snake and Liquid, is perhaps the WORST and most TEDIOUS event I've experienced in a modern game. It's SOOOOO bad...it's like a joke, "Haha, you played till the end and your final fight is this craptastic garbage". I won't say what it is because I don't want to spoil it for you, but it sucks goat nuts.

The best part of the game is when it finally ends. I finished it on the normal setting in about 29 hours...I wasn't looking for any special items or 'easter eggs', but the raw game time of 29 hours seems a little low - I wonder if that includes cut scene times? Oh yeah, the game rewards you with over an hour of cut scenes if you do actually play it through.

Rent this game, don't waste $50-$60 to buy it. I got it as a "filler" item from Newegg...otherwise I would not have bought it at all.
 
I'm not blown away by it either, I just got on Act 2. I am not a huge MGS fan or up on the history, but the game seems cheesy to me.
 
It's understandable to feel a little lost and confused with the games if you haven't played the prequels, it's not the kind of game that's for everyone though, especially when it might easily be confused with your run of the mill balls to the wall action shooter.
 
The combat was too clunky for me. I always felt torn on whether I should be sneaking or just shooting.

Cut scenes were boring as hell too.
 
I've never played the other MGS games, but it was clear by the first paragraph of your expanded evaluation that you hadn't either. Sounds like you were just looking for a different type of game.
 
I haven't played this MGS, but i have played all the others. I only liked the first b/c it was a new and different experience. The following ones were more of the same and felt tedious after playing the first one. For me, MGS is a one-game experience.
 
This game was too hyped as being a system seller. They shouldn't have done that. It was a system seller for fans of the MGS series, but far from a general title to do such for non-fans. It was very much a MGS game through and through, with some neat additional features. I really would advise playing previous games before playing MGS4. Forget the notion of doing so just for the story (which you should, as MGS is really almost more about the story than the game), but the gameplay elements almost require previous experience to really understand what they wanted. It was still a sneaking game, but they offered up the ability to do some covert combat/action at times. I rarely did, as yes... the FPS elements are very clunky, but that's because those controls are more suited for sneaking.
It's an excellent game, if you like the previous ones. For those that liked this one and are new to the series, do yourself a favor and play the previous ones. Great games, excellent story.
It's a narrative-heavy game, but that's nothing new to the series.
 
Wow, your critique on the game was horrendous. By the time I got halfway through I was already bloated with stupidity.

EDIT: I just reread your post to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, and yes, EVERY SINGLE one of your points, with the exception of the controversial cut-scene length issue, is utter garbage.
 
I beat it w/o playing the previous games... it was a great game... played it on normal, but will play again in big boss mode sometime


i think ill skip the non-raiden cutscenes the next time i play 🙂
 
I thought the combat was very intuitive. I don't understand your complaint. Were you expecting it to play like TFC? Sorry, no rocket jump for you. That said, combat was incredibly intuitive; you have sneak mode, combat mode, and aiming mode. That's only one more than standard FPS games; this is not a FPS in the first place, so comparing it as such is pointless.

It sounds to me that you just suck at video games, and after years of practice have been able to cope with FPS to the exclusion of other genres. The rest of your "extended" review was utter crap, not because I disagree with it but because you go into pointless rants and come across as a moron (or a 14 year-old boy, I can't decide)

Seriously, 29 hours? Were you TRYING to get yourself repeatedly killed? The game really wasn't difficult on normal. I can understand your frustration with video games in general if you have this much trouble playing them. Try easy mode?

PS: Anyone who uses a word like "craptastic" deserve a punch in the mouth
 
I was a huuuuge fan of MGS for the PS1, but couldn't get into MGS2. Too many different views and gameplay changes. I might try 4 as it looks great, though.
 
Originally posted by: spittledip
I haven't played this MGS, but i have played all the others. I only liked the first b/c it was a new and different experience. The following ones were more of the same and felt tedious after playing the first one. For me, MGS is a one-game experience.
Click to expand...

The first MGS is one of my all time favorite games.
 
Originally posted by: spittledip
I haven't played this MGS, but i have played all the others. I only liked the first b/c it was a new and different experience. The following ones were more of the same and felt tedious after playing the first one. For me, MGS is a one-game experience.
Click to expand...

This is truth.
 
few things ...

1. snake is not an old man. snake is probably 30 or so, but due to what happened to him, he ages faster. makes me wonder if you even paid attention to the story. (hell im only through act 3 and know this)

2. 29 hours ... that seems insanely long, yet you say it is too short? again, i'm only done with act 3 and i think my total game time is like 12 hours so far. i'm either on normal or the difficulty right above it. im going to have to agree that you probably just suck at this game.

3. some cutscenes lasting "up to 10 minutes" ??? did we play the same game? there were some lasting up to about 45 minutes. pretty much every cutscene is at least 10 mins.

i agree that the game tries to cater too much to both sneaking and run/gunning, and doesn't really succeed very well at either of those. i found myself not even trying to sneak around because it's just not necessary, but then I also found the running/gunning kind of awkward as well. mgs4 was for sure over hyped, and i got through act 3 like over a month ago, and i don't know if or hwen i will get back to finishing it. i just have no desire to finish it.
 
Best acts are Act 1, 2, and 4. The ending was meh. Sneaking is more of a way to challenge yourself, definitely not a requirement in this game. MGS1 still the best in the series!
 
There are people who can enjoy what the game offers and those who don't.

I loved the game and I hung on every cut scene. Sure I wish I could have played some of them but it wouldn't have been as cinematic. It is one of my top games this year and it got me to pick up a PS3 which I now use heavily. So it's a system seller in my eyes.

The combat was difficult for about an hour but after that I could down enemies pretty quickly using tranq darts. I tried my hardest not to kill anyone in the game and it made it a lot more fun for me. Running in with a P90 works but taking my time to not be detected and get head shots to knock them out quickly takes skill. Later on I was gunning down swarms of enemies with little trouble. You have to be aware of your surroundings and you can easily get through the game with minimal deaths.

Now, I have heard from other people that hate all the cut scenes which is understandable but I didn't mind putting the controller down for 15 minutes to watch some cool stuff.

It wasn't for you but it is going to earn a lot of awards at the end of the year.
 
To destrektor: Don't be ridiculous, of course MGS4 is a system seller, by your reasoning no game is a system seller because not everyone likes all genre, I know a good amount of people that hate Halo yet Halo was a big 360 system seller. Many people don't like GTA IV at all yet that game is also a system seller. Remember "system-selling" games don't ever sell more units than 10-25% of the total system userbase.

I haven't played MGS4 yet but MGS3 was the best of the original three, I was very skeptic of the change from MGS2 but it paid off in the end.

I think people are approaching MGS4 as an action game or as your Call of Duty 4 clone #33, it's not a shooter at all, in fact, the only time the action really pumps up is during boss battles, the rest of the game is all about doing a lot with little, don't know if they changed that in MGS4 since some people say you can actually play the game guns blazing (which you couldn't do in previous MGS games) but I'm sure MGS4 still maintains the same "spirit" as the other games.
 
- I did not have any preconceived notions as to what MGS4 would be, having only played MGS2 briefly and not long enough to form an opinion on it.

- MGS4 is "all about sneaking, not about combat so who cares if the combat sucks". That's an invalid sentiment floating about in here. It IS very much a combat game, with many parts relying on combat to progress. You cannot "sneak" by the bosses - you have to fight them. I do not like FPS on consoles much in the first place, but there are some good implementations and there are some bad. Mass Effect has a good FPS implementation...and you could say that Mass Effect is also not a 'combat game'. Why does MGS4 fail so bad at combat? I don't know...but it does.

- I suck at video games because I took 29 hours to complete? hahaha Ok, if it was any less than that I'd feel even more ripped off. A story-driven game should be in the 40 hours range to complete.

- "Snake is not an old man". Yes he is. I don't care if his actual age is 29 or 30, his body is that of a 85 year old and the game plays as such. He moves slowly, he has to take a break after doing a dodge maneuver and the hand-to-hand combat is even worse than FPS. Oh yeah, and it even says "Old Snake" above his health bar - the game agrees.

- Eeezee you are craptastic. Come punch me b1tch.

- It's all about the story, as the MGS series has always been...this game's story is weak at best. Remember the original Metal Gear story line? I don't...something about some guy making a mech called metal gear to take over the world or some crap. Anyway, the story isn't very compelling. This game constantly tried to be all dramatic and emotional, but it just didn't work. It's not a good story like FF7 where you actually cared about the chars and felt something. The original story was so thin that trying to make it deeper without actually changing it results in what amounts to story-telling diarrhea - hence many excessively long cut scenes.

A few things that could have made the game better:

- Combat mechanics that match the pace of enemies within the game.
- Play as Raiden instead of Snake (assuming improved combat system).
- "Steal" Metal Gear Rex, since it's just sitting there, and use it to complete most of the outdoor missions.
- Ability to spy on Naomi Hunter with MG MkIII when she's in the shower. =)
- Flamethrower
 
I'll take splinter cell or hitman stealth action over metal gear anyday. The gameplay is just rehashed from game to game and the story is boring and impossible to follow often times.

what do you expect it's a bunch of american, japanese-ass-kissing fanboys who do nothing but hype these kinds of games up for no reason...? That said, it's not a bad game but like all big franchises, everyone soils their pants when they hear a new game is coming out for the 'next gen systems' and it usually always turns out to be more of the same. If I wanted to watch 2 hours of cut scenes, I would watch a movie. I want games for mindless action and little to no thinking in terms of complex stories or character development. But games like God of War or RE4 are games where there is just enough story to keep you interested in what's going on in the game but not enough to take away from the gaming experience.

btw war IS terrible and evil but making films, games and books about it = filthy profit :thumbsup:


my friend bought the mgs bundle and he only played 2 hours of the game. The rest of the time he spends playing it online... pretty much all day everyday.


edit: if you look at RE5, it's one of the most hyped up games but is complete shit as of right now. Almost every animation is recycled from Re4. I don't know what they're thinking but if they don't make new animations, I hope the game gets a 4/10.
 
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