I am a long time fan of the Metal Gear Solid series. I loved the first one, enjoyed the second one, and REALLY loved the third entry in the series and hence I was really excited for the fourth and final entry in one of my favorite series's. Overall I've found it to be a bipolar experience, one both enjoyable, strange, breathtaking and frustrating.
I'll start with the narrative and must state that much to my and many other players chagrin MGS4 has returned to the lengthy exposition, high handed idealism and blatant hamminess that made MGS2 such a polarizer. Sure Snake is back, but he's not in top form. Remarkably this made the game better for me, watching Snake struggle against both his advanced aging, the fox die virus and the impossible odds he's faced with was a joy and he comes across as a great hero, a slightly better than average man facing super human obstacles and winning out through sheer grit. Unfortunately the rest of the cast does not deliver, Naomi Hunter seems shallow, Vamp is silly, Liquid is snarling and over the top, Otacon is whiney, Sunny is annoying and Raiden needs to chear up before he starts cutting himself (which he does at one point, HA!) and don't even get me STARTED on Johny Sasaki and the explosion of toilet humor Kojima somehow felt he needed to add to the game (why? not sure). Personally I have no tolerance for toilet humor, what I did find funny however was that Johnny shitting himself served as a plot point, the significance of which is revealed in the final act. Conversly the fourth wall humor is hilarious and had me giggling throughout, as did some minor jokes that focused on character quirks that have been well established in previous games. All of this lends a bipolar feel to the story, I was genuinely concerned for Snake throughout the narrative, but couldn't bring myself to care about the others, and in this respect I think Kojima fails. As well the wealth of exposition involved whenever you meet a new character is a failure in writing, taking too much time to heap on too many details that confuse rather than clarify and provide answers to questions you never new you had, as well as creating some bizarre new ones. There are several very poignant character moments throughout the game, a particularly engaging moment with Naomi Hunter during the ending and everyone on the good guys side gets a heroic sendoff in the most epic fashion possible. The nearly 90 minute ending wraps up pretty much every surviving character you ever met in a Metal Gear game and it is moderately satisfying though at times a bit silly. As well if you're a fan of SCRUBS there will come a moment when you will interpose The Janitor over Liquid and laugh your head off, such is the danger of acronyms.
In terms of villains I found the B&B Corp. as polarizing as the rest of the game. The boss battles against Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven, Crying Wolf and Screaming Mantis are excellent and are alot of fun but I found the idea of 4 hot, emotionally damaged women a little perverted and can't help but wonder if Kojima has some strange sexual issues he's working out through these characters. Further more after each battle Drebin will hit you with a long sequence of exposition that clarifies the back story of each, something that could have been conveyed better.
I also dispised the "plot mcguffininess" of the whole endeavor. MGS's strong point is its characters, and Kojima doesn't exploit that as much as he should and spends far to much time explaining various faceless acronyms and pointless socio-economic mumbo jumbo when he SHOULD have concentrated on our favorite haggered hero and his relationship with everyone around him as he desperately tries to get this one last job done. I wanted MORE time with the characters, despite their hamminess. I also would have liked some more time in Snake's head, getting into how he feels about the fact that he's rapidly become a senior citizen and can barely function outside of his powered stealth suit. But I suppose asking Kojima to lay off the heavy handed politics and pointless macguffinry is like asking McDonalds to stop making crappy food.
Lastly none of the villains in MGS4 achieve the mythic awesomeness of Colonel Volgin or The Boss, both of whom I consider some of the best villains in videogames and overall the story is more Silly Sci-Fi than gritty espionage drama with a bit of a Sci-Fi twist ala MGS's One and Three and I found this a great disapointment.
Gameplay on the otherhand is greatly improved over the previous games. Gone is the cumbersome First Person Aiming and Firing of the previous titles, where you waste half a clip of ammo because you somehow needed to both press AND release the fire button in order to attack and it has been replaced by an excellent quick aim system that can be switched to first person with the touch of a button. You can also still move in First Person Mode making the game an odd hybrid of Third Person Shooter and First Person Shooter at times (I thought this was awesome).
Unfortunately the Stealth Aspect has fallen by the wayside, as you now have an easy means to acquire weapons and ammo and don't just find yourself armed with a simple pistol and tranq gun for 50% of the game. However I personally enjoyed the sort of hide-assassinate-run-gun style of play that I achieved with MGS4. This is one of the best aspects of the game, there are many ways to play, many paths to take and so many options to exercise and on my next playthough I thoroughly intend to sneak my way through to the best of my ability killing only with Pistol and Knife.
Further more there some nice variations on the standard MGS play style which shake things up. For example one mission, which I found both exciting and frustrating, calls for you to tail someone through the military occupied streets of a city. It's an interesting sequence that I appreciate for trying to change things up but hate in its execution. There are also some chases which are fun and exhilarating and there is quite possibly one of the greatest sequences ever found in a videogame which I will discuss at the end of the review with a massive SPOILER tag.
The addition of the Psyche gauge, I felt, was unecessary. It lacked the usefulness and realism of the Stamina Gauge from MGS3 (it restored your health when it was full) and was really only used for comedic effect in some of the cutscenes. It was little more than an annoyance when it ran down and I found I often had more than enough psyche restoring items available when it dropped. I don't feel it was BAD I just wonder why they bothered adding it since it doesn't seem to bring anything to the table gameplay wise.
The graphics are gorgeous and in my opinion as good as videogame graphics ever need to be. Theres no slowdown (that I noticed) the textures look great, facial animations are superb and everything looks really good. Unfortunately it falls into the next gen trap and you will find yourself assaulted with various shades of grey, brown, and drab green rather than a real color palette.
In regards to the cutscenes, MGS4 is a doozy. There are cutscenes GALORE and going into this game expecting a few short story scenes is pure folly. They range from excellent and exciting to long and boring. The extended "mission briefings" often fall into the latter category, going on forever and rarely accomplishing much. The games ending comes VERY close to scraping the 90 minute mark, and if you count the timer on the entire scene it probably clocks in at over 2 hours long, though several save points are scattered throughout. I do not feel that this is grounds for criticism as games should be allowed to make their endings as long as they like since once you beat the final boss you SHOULD expect to sit back and watch the ending, gameplay is over at this point and IMO it doesn't matter whether it's 10 minutes or 90 minutes, that's purely up to the game designer.
As a final technical point I will discuss what I believe to be the GREATEST flaw in MGS4, the infamous install times. I don't understand why they're necessary and it makes the game feel sloppy, like the programmers were too lazy to make sure these didn't occur. Instead of several smaller load times you have 5 enormous ones, which isn't much of a trade off IMO.
Overall this is a game for longtime Metal Gear fans who have played through at least all 3 previous Solid titles. I played this with my Girlfriend and Roomate watching and neither of them appreciated it as much as I did, neither of them having played the previous titles. I would recommend, for best enjoyment of this game, rewatching your favorite moments from previous Metal Gear Games on Youtube or something (replaying them if you have time) then sitting down by yourself and playing through the game at your own speed. This game is basically a swansong for the series intended primarily for fans, so make it just between Kojima and yourself, you'll enjoy it more.
As an afterthought I will state that I hope Yahtzee Croshaw does NOT review MGS4 anytime soon, because he will, in my opinion, RIP IT A NEW ONE! It has several things the man has been well established to dislike, long cutscenes, a sometimes unbreakable wall between gameplay and story, and an overt Japaneseness about it that many Western centric gamers (read PC Gamers who want their glory days back) cannot stand. I suppose there are some excellent moments why Kojima does a BRILLAINT job of crossing gameplay and cutscene, if you've finished the game you know the 2 scenes I'm talking about. He also makes excellent use of Quick Time events (you have lots of time, you know when their coming, and they really fit the scenes you use them in) for once. Still, I almost don't want to witness the savage beating this game will likely recieve in a ZP review, please, don't ask for one, if it happens it'll happen but I have no desire to see it any faster than necessary, I'd much rather he attack bad games like Haze first.
***SPOILER WARNING***
The Greatest Moment I refer to is where you battle Liquid aboard the Metal Gear Rex, while he pilots the Metal Gear Ray. It was a brilliant scene which I felt really conveyed the power and scale of both machines, I enjoyed it so much I stayed up until 1:00 AM when I had to be up at 5:30 am in order to finish it. As well I enjoyed the fact that the first time you actually get to pilot the Titular Metal Gear is in the last game of the series, it's a nice bone thrown to the long time fans by Kojima and it's greatly appreciated by me at least.
Unfortunately the End Boss Battle isn't, and pales greatly in comparisson to the final fight against The Boss in MGS3, or even the showdown with Solidus in MGS2. It goes through some interesting and amusing references to previous titles, but overall it felt anti-climactic and in some cases downright unplayable, coming down to "Press R1" than offering any sort of real battle. It doesn't ruin the game, but it is dissapointing and expect the Gameplay Portion of MGS4 to come to an end after you beat the final member of the B&B Corps which I suppose is a servicable, but equally anti-climactic, end boss fight.
I'll start with the narrative and must state that much to my and many other players chagrin MGS4 has returned to the lengthy exposition, high handed idealism and blatant hamminess that made MGS2 such a polarizer. Sure Snake is back, but he's not in top form. Remarkably this made the game better for me, watching Snake struggle against both his advanced aging, the fox die virus and the impossible odds he's faced with was a joy and he comes across as a great hero, a slightly better than average man facing super human obstacles and winning out through sheer grit. Unfortunately the rest of the cast does not deliver, Naomi Hunter seems shallow, Vamp is silly, Liquid is snarling and over the top, Otacon is whiney, Sunny is annoying and Raiden needs to chear up before he starts cutting himself (which he does at one point, HA!) and don't even get me STARTED on Johny Sasaki and the explosion of toilet humor Kojima somehow felt he needed to add to the game (why? not sure). Personally I have no tolerance for toilet humor, what I did find funny however was that Johnny shitting himself served as a plot point, the significance of which is revealed in the final act. Conversly the fourth wall humor is hilarious and had me giggling throughout, as did some minor jokes that focused on character quirks that have been well established in previous games. All of this lends a bipolar feel to the story, I was genuinely concerned for Snake throughout the narrative, but couldn't bring myself to care about the others, and in this respect I think Kojima fails. As well the wealth of exposition involved whenever you meet a new character is a failure in writing, taking too much time to heap on too many details that confuse rather than clarify and provide answers to questions you never new you had, as well as creating some bizarre new ones. There are several very poignant character moments throughout the game, a particularly engaging moment with Naomi Hunter during the ending and everyone on the good guys side gets a heroic sendoff in the most epic fashion possible. The nearly 90 minute ending wraps up pretty much every surviving character you ever met in a Metal Gear game and it is moderately satisfying though at times a bit silly. As well if you're a fan of SCRUBS there will come a moment when you will interpose The Janitor over Liquid and laugh your head off, such is the danger of acronyms.
In terms of villains I found the B&B Corp. as polarizing as the rest of the game. The boss battles against Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven, Crying Wolf and Screaming Mantis are excellent and are alot of fun but I found the idea of 4 hot, emotionally damaged women a little perverted and can't help but wonder if Kojima has some strange sexual issues he's working out through these characters. Further more after each battle Drebin will hit you with a long sequence of exposition that clarifies the back story of each, something that could have been conveyed better.
I also dispised the "plot mcguffininess" of the whole endeavor. MGS's strong point is its characters, and Kojima doesn't exploit that as much as he should and spends far to much time explaining various faceless acronyms and pointless socio-economic mumbo jumbo when he SHOULD have concentrated on our favorite haggered hero and his relationship with everyone around him as he desperately tries to get this one last job done. I wanted MORE time with the characters, despite their hamminess. I also would have liked some more time in Snake's head, getting into how he feels about the fact that he's rapidly become a senior citizen and can barely function outside of his powered stealth suit. But I suppose asking Kojima to lay off the heavy handed politics and pointless macguffinry is like asking McDonalds to stop making crappy food.
Lastly none of the villains in MGS4 achieve the mythic awesomeness of Colonel Volgin or The Boss, both of whom I consider some of the best villains in videogames and overall the story is more Silly Sci-Fi than gritty espionage drama with a bit of a Sci-Fi twist ala MGS's One and Three and I found this a great disapointment.
Gameplay on the otherhand is greatly improved over the previous games. Gone is the cumbersome First Person Aiming and Firing of the previous titles, where you waste half a clip of ammo because you somehow needed to both press AND release the fire button in order to attack and it has been replaced by an excellent quick aim system that can be switched to first person with the touch of a button. You can also still move in First Person Mode making the game an odd hybrid of Third Person Shooter and First Person Shooter at times (I thought this was awesome).
Unfortunately the Stealth Aspect has fallen by the wayside, as you now have an easy means to acquire weapons and ammo and don't just find yourself armed with a simple pistol and tranq gun for 50% of the game. However I personally enjoyed the sort of hide-assassinate-run-gun style of play that I achieved with MGS4. This is one of the best aspects of the game, there are many ways to play, many paths to take and so many options to exercise and on my next playthough I thoroughly intend to sneak my way through to the best of my ability killing only with Pistol and Knife.
Further more there some nice variations on the standard MGS play style which shake things up. For example one mission, which I found both exciting and frustrating, calls for you to tail someone through the military occupied streets of a city. It's an interesting sequence that I appreciate for trying to change things up but hate in its execution. There are also some chases which are fun and exhilarating and there is quite possibly one of the greatest sequences ever found in a videogame which I will discuss at the end of the review with a massive SPOILER tag.
The addition of the Psyche gauge, I felt, was unecessary. It lacked the usefulness and realism of the Stamina Gauge from MGS3 (it restored your health when it was full) and was really only used for comedic effect in some of the cutscenes. It was little more than an annoyance when it ran down and I found I often had more than enough psyche restoring items available when it dropped. I don't feel it was BAD I just wonder why they bothered adding it since it doesn't seem to bring anything to the table gameplay wise.
The graphics are gorgeous and in my opinion as good as videogame graphics ever need to be. Theres no slowdown (that I noticed) the textures look great, facial animations are superb and everything looks really good. Unfortunately it falls into the next gen trap and you will find yourself assaulted with various shades of grey, brown, and drab green rather than a real color palette.
In regards to the cutscenes, MGS4 is a doozy. There are cutscenes GALORE and going into this game expecting a few short story scenes is pure folly. They range from excellent and exciting to long and boring. The extended "mission briefings" often fall into the latter category, going on forever and rarely accomplishing much. The games ending comes VERY close to scraping the 90 minute mark, and if you count the timer on the entire scene it probably clocks in at over 2 hours long, though several save points are scattered throughout. I do not feel that this is grounds for criticism as games should be allowed to make their endings as long as they like since once you beat the final boss you SHOULD expect to sit back and watch the ending, gameplay is over at this point and IMO it doesn't matter whether it's 10 minutes or 90 minutes, that's purely up to the game designer.
As a final technical point I will discuss what I believe to be the GREATEST flaw in MGS4, the infamous install times. I don't understand why they're necessary and it makes the game feel sloppy, like the programmers were too lazy to make sure these didn't occur. Instead of several smaller load times you have 5 enormous ones, which isn't much of a trade off IMO.
Overall this is a game for longtime Metal Gear fans who have played through at least all 3 previous Solid titles. I played this with my Girlfriend and Roomate watching and neither of them appreciated it as much as I did, neither of them having played the previous titles. I would recommend, for best enjoyment of this game, rewatching your favorite moments from previous Metal Gear Games on Youtube or something (replaying them if you have time) then sitting down by yourself and playing through the game at your own speed. This game is basically a swansong for the series intended primarily for fans, so make it just between Kojima and yourself, you'll enjoy it more.
As an afterthought I will state that I hope Yahtzee Croshaw does NOT review MGS4 anytime soon, because he will, in my opinion, RIP IT A NEW ONE! It has several things the man has been well established to dislike, long cutscenes, a sometimes unbreakable wall between gameplay and story, and an overt Japaneseness about it that many Western centric gamers (read PC Gamers who want their glory days back) cannot stand. I suppose there are some excellent moments why Kojima does a BRILLAINT job of crossing gameplay and cutscene, if you've finished the game you know the 2 scenes I'm talking about. He also makes excellent use of Quick Time events (you have lots of time, you know when their coming, and they really fit the scenes you use them in) for once. Still, I almost don't want to witness the savage beating this game will likely recieve in a ZP review, please, don't ask for one, if it happens it'll happen but I have no desire to see it any faster than necessary, I'd much rather he attack bad games like Haze first.
***SPOILER WARNING***
The Greatest Moment I refer to is where you battle Liquid aboard the Metal Gear Rex, while he pilots the Metal Gear Ray. It was a brilliant scene which I felt really conveyed the power and scale of both machines, I enjoyed it so much I stayed up until 1:00 AM when I had to be up at 5:30 am in order to finish it. As well I enjoyed the fact that the first time you actually get to pilot the Titular Metal Gear is in the last game of the series, it's a nice bone thrown to the long time fans by Kojima and it's greatly appreciated by me at least.
Unfortunately the End Boss Battle isn't, and pales greatly in comparisson to the final fight against The Boss in MGS3, or even the showdown with Solidus in MGS2. It goes through some interesting and amusing references to previous titles, but overall it felt anti-climactic and in some cases downright unplayable, coming down to "Press R1" than offering any sort of real battle. It doesn't ruin the game, but it is dissapointing and expect the Gameplay Portion of MGS4 to come to an end after you beat the final member of the B&B Corps which I suppose is a servicable, but equally anti-climactic, end boss fight.
.
