Is the Metal Gear Solid series overrated?

[ComicsAreWeird]

MGS is not overrated IMO. It brought something new to gaming with the "stealth mechanisms as opposed to blowing enemies to bits" formula.The story is pretty good too (and cinematic).

I understand that you might not be able to understand it now, but at the time (the PSOne era) it was revolutionary. MGS4 is just the latest evolution of a beloved franchise. With way too many cutscenes

 

[Thaius]

It really all depends. If one likes good stories and can handle the over-the-top, monologue filled story that is Japanese storytelling, the games are some of the best ever (despite the older games being cursed with old-school fixed-camera syndrome). On the other hand, if someone either doesn't understand and/or like Japanese storytelling or is an elitist who thinks video games should only ever tell their stories entirely through gameplay with no cutscenes involved, they will not like it. It all depends on perspective.

EDIT: I would like to point out that the term "overrated" is not synonomous with "bad," however pop-culture-haters might try to make it so. Anything that is popular will be overrated. It may also be good. It's possible. Especially considering quality in art is partially subjective in the first place. So sure, considering there are many people out there who think the series is the best thing to happen since the son of God died for their sins, sure, it's overrated. It's also really good regardless.

 

[Ben Agar]

The first was awesome, loved the complex plot and interesting characters but from 2 it seemed to go down hill from there (although not sure about 3 never really played it) 2 seemed to suffer from sequelitis the plot was so confusing and convoluted it was ridiculous, too many Xanatos gambits and Raiden replacing Snake was a bit stupid (although I didn't mind as much about him as other people do) 4 I found just unplayable and boring, hated it and gave up within the first half hour.

 

[sumanoskae]

I haven't really played any MGS game except 4.

I tried playing 2, but found it has not aged well. Fixed camera angles cripple stealth games.

Maybe you need all the backstory for it to seem relevant, but I found MGS4 to be highly competent but artistically bland.

The gameplay is tried and true, if a bit repetitive, the boss fights are... at least novel(If incredibly generic and cheesy), and the story and characters are well structured but without any real depth.(Spoilers) At the end of the game, Snake saves the world because... he's a good guy, from bad guys who want it under their control... because they're evil... yeah. The whole commentary on technology is interestingly executed, but thematically obvious. You mean if we continue to depend on technology we won't be able to function without it?, well no shit

Plenty happens in MGS4, but none of it really carries any weight. After I played Mass Effect 2, I thought "I'll remember this for the rest of my life", Then I played it again. After I finished MGS4 I thought "That was kinda cool" and haven't played it since.

I'd say that the games are defiantly overrated, people talk about Metal Gear for it's story, but i'd say that's it's weakest link, not because there's so much of it, but because there's no point to it. It's seems so proud of it's story but what's it showing off. Games are passed the point when a decent story is groundbreaking, but MGS4's competence is praised as brilliance(To quote Extra Credits)

 

[The Night Shade]

MGS is not overrated the problem is that the games aren't appealing for a wide audience also i like to add that the gameplay in the MGS games are great it's different,and the story (the biggest complaint this game has) if you don't like it skip it you can skip about 90% of the cutscenes

Also again:if you want to really enjoy the series i recommend playing MGS 1,3 and 4 forget about 2

 

[dancinginfernal]

I would say no, but I've loved MGS from the first so I'm a little lenient towards that.

But still, it's a great series. Play Twin Snakes, it's for the gamecube and should run on the Wii. I haven't tried. It's a remake of the first game, and good for people new to the series.

 

[migo]

Given you say this:

I don't understand your "only being able to move forward and turn is pretty damn archaic" complaint as you can move anyway you want even in first-person IIRC.

I'm not sure I trust the rest of what you're saying. Also, you're comparing MGO to console FPSes, which are objectively inferior to PC FPSes, and the whole problem I have with MGS3 is that it's massively inferior to Thief.

 

[Austin Howe]

Technically speaking, no. The flaws in Metal Gear are partially due to it's sticking to more traditional design in regards to narrative whilst having a more prominent narrative than most any game of that style, but, whilst the dialogue is. . .really more cookie-cutter than bad, the themes are really good. Some of them I have yet to see explored in another medium, and there are some really radical politics that sit right under the surface.
Gameplay-wise, most each of them was revolutionary at the time, a gold standard of design, then completely obliterated by the next game. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake makes Metal Gear, one of the most important 8-bit titles ever, completely obsolete, and this continues throughout the series.

 

[Austin Howe]

The thing with MGS4 is that it is pretentious. It tries to be a thought-provoking treatise on the violence of war, AND a blockbuster Hollywood film. The problems with this are twofold:
1. It's a game, not a film.
2. The script is rubbish.

Also, the gameplay has not moved on significantly since the PS2 days.

WHHHAAAAAAATTTT????!!!
You can't be serious, MGS4 completely redoes the control scheme and camera system, and also introduces total felxibility of play, making the game playable on a range of anything to Hardcore Sneaking/Stealth action to straightforward shooter with lots of customizable guns and plenty of different ways to affect your enemy to keep the variety. 4 is completely different.

 

[GiantRaven]

As far as I'm concerned, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a fucking [http://www.deltaheadtranslation.com/MGS2/DOTM_TOC.htm] masterpiece [http://www.insertcredit.com/features/dreaming2/index2.html] of videogaming.

 

[warm slurm]

Frankly, I don't think anyone who liked MGS4 is a true fan of the series - call it elitism, or whatever, but eh. Kojima lost all my respect as far as I'm concerned.

I think you're missing the point. MGS 4 gives the fans everything they were baying for, but in the most completely hateful way Hideo Kojima could do it. Bringing back the wise, awesome, Bad Ass Solid Snake as a sad old man is just the beginning. There were points where you could practically hear Kojima cackling "Be Careful What You Wish For!", such as The Scrappy finally getting horribly injured - in a meaningless Heroic Sacrifice, with the very conversation from Metal Gear Solid 2 that people cite as the exact moment they started to hate him playing in the background, and the insanely popular Ensemble Darkhorse's surprise appearance, which consists of him doing absolutely nothing awesome at all and then being passively killed, even going so far as to say, "This is good, isn't it?" to rub it in further. Kojima doesn't care if you don't have respect for him: he has hated you for years.

You're giving him waaaaay too much credit.

 

[GiantRaven]

You're giving him waaaaay too much credit.

In the context of MGS2 also being an 'anti-sequel' of sorts, it actually gives him the credit that he doesn't tend to get very often as this aspect of the game flies right over peoples heads.

 

[Stretch.]

I want to enjoy Metal Gear Solid, I really do... But what am I doing wrong? Every Metal Gear I play seems like an absolute chore, rife with pseudo-philosophic babble and unimpressive--not to mention brief--gameplay sections.

I?m glad I found this thread. I recently purchased MGS4 and have been having an experience that very closely parallels yours. My own history with the Metal Gear series goes back some ways, but my actual experience with the games is somewhat sparse. Back in elementary school, Metal Gear was the first game I ever saw in person on the original NES. I remember being intrigued by the idea of stealth and enemy avoidance ? it was a refreshing contrast to the predominant tradition of facing enemies head on and jumping/blasting your way through 2d landscapes. As I recall, back in those days you had to wait until the guard?s back was turned before you could move onward.

It must not have made as big an impression as I thought however, because I never bothered to purchase the game after I got my own NES. In the years following I didn?t pay much attention to the series, with the exception of a brief dalliance with one of the Metal Gear sequels for the PS2. Fast forward to today, where, much like yourself, I was interested in reconnecting with the series to see how far it had come.

My first run through the early portion of the game (on naked normal) produced a number of contrasting impressions that ran the gamut from admiration to dismay. I was duly impressed by the cinematic feel of the first 20 minutes in addition to the atmosphere, graphics and sound design. Those mock TV segments at the very start were confusing, to say the least, and the cutscenes had a tendency to intrude perhaps a bit too much at the start. After things had settled down a bit and I?d gotten past the geckos, I expected to start knocking out guards and sneaking around with at least a decent amount of efficiency, but I found the early experience to be very difficult. The PMC?s seemed to be gifted with a preternatural sense of their environment, and I quickly found that it was quite difficult to get close (for my preferred method of takedown) without them hearing you, or without another PMC appearing from around the corner while I?m trying to knock out his buddy. I was frustrated, so I decided to put the game aside for the evening and start fresh the next day. I made the decision to not adhere so closely to the principal of pure stealth and to simply use whatever means were at my disposal, be they stealthy or weapons based, to get through.

The next day I began again, this time on the easiest difficulty level, stumbled through the early portions, and by the time I infiltrated the outskirts of Liquid?s camp I had really begun to enjoy the game. I felt much more acquainted with the control scheme by now and was starting to get the hang of toys like the MK II. Thinking that a little experience was all I lacked, I went back to the beginning of the game on Naked Normal, just to see if things would work out better this time. Startlingly though, I found the experience to be very punitive once again. Being stealthy was once again difficult, and on a few occasions I had to cry foul because PMC?s were detecting me (as I walked hunched over at the slowest possible pace) despite the fact that their peripheral vision was blocked by environmental structures.

So, right now I?m of two opinions on the game. There is definitely some depth here, and I feel like there is a lot to like, but there are many instances (especially in the beginning) which I feel could have been made better use of to gradually ease new players into the game and help veterans reacquaint themselves with the control scheme. I?m going to try a few different approaches on varying levels of low to medium difficulty over the next few days to see if the experience improves.

Also, learning more about the Metal Gear series mythos and pedigree has helped me to appreciate many of the idiosyncrasies of Hideo Kojima?s approach to game design, and I find myself tending to agree with random fox when he points out that MGS4 is, in many ways, both a distillation of the series? best elements and it?s quirkiest.

 

[loc978]

I really enjoyed Metal Gear and Solid Snake on the NES... and I loved Metal Gear Solid. Metal Gear Solid 2 lost me, though. No desire to play anything further.
My advice is to look into MGS for the PC, assuming you posted this from one, it can probably run Metal Gear Solid with little trouble.

 

[Woodsey]

I do struggle to understand why the writing seems to be so highly praised when no one has a fucking clue as to what's going on for most of it.

Even Kojima has admitted he doesn't really know what fits where anymore.

 

[StarTroop]

I've never had any trouble with the MGS games because I'm good at getting into stories near the end. Until I got MGS 3 and Peace Walker, MGS 4 was the only MGS game I ever played, I loved it so much that I replayed 4 times, read through the entire database and spent hours of research on the MGS wiki, now I'm a self-proclaimed expert.

MGS isn't for everybody. You have to be a patient who prefers to watch then act.My advice is to play the games on a hard difficulty fisrt. That way you're forced to use all the stealth & other gameplay mechanics (like the stress gauge). It makes the game much more enjoyable because when you reach the next cutscene, you feel like you accomplished something (as long as you managed no to get spotted). Then, you can start getting into the story.

As for which MGS game is the best, everybody has a different preference. I know different groups of people who who prefer any one of the games over the others. I know people who love MGS1 because of the engrossing story, the nostalgia, the setting and the cast.

Some people love MGS 2 because it brought movie like cutscenes to the series and had a deep plot that takes multiple playthroughs to begin to understand.

Then there's the people who prefer MGS 3 for the new cast, new setting, new type of gameplay, the boss', the action movie plot and the shear amount of content.

There's also the people who (like me) think that MGS 4 is the best. I love it because of how emotional it was. I literally shed tears at the epilogue. There's also the updated combat, the high-tech gadgets, the octocamo and of course the next-gen technology allows for cooler cutscenes and amazing graphics that still hold up 3 years later. Also, believe it or not, but MGS 4 in fact does answer almost all the questions in the MGS series, you just need to be an MGS fan to find all of them.

Finally, there's Peace Walker (my second favorite) which is simply awesome because of the fantastic story about nuclear deterrence which is not only the best and most mature story in the series, but it's also the most accessible because it requires little to no knowledge of the previous games to understand. Plus, to quote IGN for the umphbillionth time, it's the series's biggest game on sony's smallest console.

Anyways, that's my two cents on this whole situation (actually that was more like 2 bucks fifty).

 

[Stretch.]

Out of curiosity I took the time to watch some gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on Youtube. It inspired me to go back and try a more stealthy approach, with special emphasis on shaking down each guard for extra ammo and items. On the easiest difficulty I had a pretty good time of it ? I was able to sneak around with a great degree of success. It was pretty fun and this time I actually felt more like the stealth-commando that Snake is supposed to be. Since I took my time, I was also able to discover more hidden caches in the environment and take greater advantage of the terrain.

I tried doing the exact same thing on Naked Normal, one step up from the easiest difficulty, and found it to be more challenging ? I had to be much more careful when I snuck up behind guards and the ?Put ?em up? move that initiates the pat down sequence didn?t always work, even when I had my rifle aimed. This was a bit of a bummer, because on Naked Normal it seems more difficult ? particularly with the number of guards that come to investigate - to get everything to ?calm down? once the alert has been raised. And since it only takes one guard to raise the alarm, well, I had to be extra cautious with my movement and sound.

MGS isn't for everybody. You have to be a patient who prefers to watch then act.

I think that's a good point of view. Overall I?m still enjoying the game, but in my particular case I?m leaning towards playing through on easy difficulty to avoid too much frustration.

As for the story and cutscenes?.

Even Kojima has admitted he doesn't really know what fits where anymore.

If that?s true, it?s hilarious.

 

[thethain]

I think the series is a bit off. If you want a stealth game I would recommend Hitman or Splinter Cell over it.

If you want a movie with a completely nonsensical story, and an occasional mini-game, play Metal Gear.

PS: F captchas , I am logged in.
Whiblich l88

 

[TyrantGanado]

I think MGS annoys a great many people because they come into expecting a game and nothing more. Now, that is not an unreasonable assumption if you're buying a game, obviously, but MGS has much more going on behind it in the subtexts and the way it messes about with you that it's more like an experience and narrative that happens to be presented in game format.

I'm not going to sit here and proclaim how everything is "so deep man herp derp" but I will defend the series as a ballsy effort in post-modernism and truly messing with the medium it's a part of and exploiting everything from the hardware to the player's expectations of sequels just to fuck with people. Marvellous.

tl;dr In my opinion, definitely not.