QuezcatoL
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Total Posts
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7059
- Joined: Jul 16, 2005
- Location: Sweden/stockholm
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My MGS4 Review!
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Sep 15, 2008 23:43
So I finally got a playstation 3 and MGS4,and today I finished it,its the 15 sept 2008.
What I got out of it was mixed emotions,but also some hopes for the future,especially how to cleverly make cutscenes into action without fucking forcing the player to do QTE,but enough about that for the moment.
I happend to be a MGS fan,not a big one I might add,but atleast a fan of the franchise,MGS1 is a classic,one of the best games ever made IMO and by every other gamer.
While MGS2 didnt live up to the hype it still was a solid experience,and MGS3 at the end of the day was a great game,and so was MGS4 even though they never could touch the first one,which tbh is kind of impossible since the first one always create that special emotion since its so damn unique and every other tries to copy it,so im not bashing them at all for not achieving it,anyway so atleast Kojima managed to pull of a franchise he can be proud of.
Now you know where I stand,I thought MGS1 was a 10 and MGS2 an 8 and MGS3 an 8,5.
Lets go back to MGS4 shall we?
Lets go over first with what I liked,and then what I didnt,because at the end of the day im kind of angry,but not as you might think,this isnt a bash mgs4 review at all,but some will take it so.
What I liked was that the gameplay was true to it old self,its still the classic hide and seek gameplay style,and it spawns over from a middle eastern town to a snow world,and labs to carriers to even jungles,I mean mgs4 atleast tries to change it enviorments which is a appreciated thought.
I mean in mgs1 you was stuck in shadow moses,in mgs2 in an oil rig,and in mgs3 a jungle.
Im not saying thats a bad thing,even though it might sound so by saying stuck I mean Mgs3 for ex did one of the most realistic jungles I ever experienced,in terms of the ecosystem etc,and how it looked,not visually but how realistic everything was spread out to create an immersive feeling.
Mgs4 also features tons of customizations and there is tooooons of weapons,holy shit,I never could have thought MGS4 would have so many weapons and gadgets,its beyond what you could have hoped for,it really is.
And finally the camera has been fixed so you can move it much like in splintercells, or any other action game from west,which means that playing mgs4 as a shooter and controlling whats going around your character is easy this time,im not saying mgs is supposed to play as a shooter,but when you finally get yourself into a firefight the control are there,and top notch I might add.
One thing they did really well in MGS4 was some of the cinematic gameplay experiences,seriously they was top-notch,Kojima,why didnt you add more of them?
Like riding a bike in real time while shooting enemies,or at the top of an APC while your in a middle of a battlezone and ppl even try to climb it,that was just siiick,so was the Metal gear controlling part,which I was afraid would be horrible since I hate the whole giant mech thing,but no it was very easy to get into and very fun,andi t moved like a giant robot and gave a truly immersive feeling from the cockpit view,also the part with fox hounds,was one of the most intense shooting parts I experienced,you play it like a swat team with some a.i soldiers trying to escape an old aparatment while swat soldiers storms you from every direction and jump on walls and rooftops in an energetic attemtp to catch you,and boy do things happends (that are scripted) but rightly so since they left such a good impact on me.
It also left a very bad one on me at the same time,because ofc Kojima had to have a character shit his pants during the firefight,apparently thats humor to some ppl...
The graphic is also something I like but at the same time,while the cutscenes are among the most impressive things I ever seen,the gameplay itself falls a bit flat in comparsion,not that mgs4 isnt an amazing visually looking game,it is,but comparing the middle eastern map with for ex CoD4's and you see immeidately that the textures arnt as sharp,nor are the enemies.
But hey most of the game is just cutscenes anyway so you might leave the impression that its better looking then it is.
And that leaves me with the bad things...
MGS is about the story,I get that.
But when the story doesnt deliver,and when you at the end of the day force the player with tons of bs preaching about war and the industry and even illogical stuff then its very hard to shake of that feeling,especially wehn the game itself in some way focus more on the cutscenes then the gameplay,MGS4 is a short game.
I clocked in at 16 hours,but I know that I seen way more cutscenes then what I actually played and thats not good at all(its called a game not a movie),so I would assume it takes like 5-6 hours to complete in reailty.
Lets give you some ex,what pissed me off,so damn much...
Snake meeting Drebin,Snake doesnt know the guy,and are in a battlezone and takes a injection from a guy dressed like a pimp just because the guy says he need to do it to sell snake weapons.
I mean seriously,I know MGS world is unique but wtf?
Snake cant be that retarded,who would do such a thing?
What if that was poison,the legend had been dead right there.
Make no fucking sense,and you might think im nitpicking on details but thats so damn retarded,that I cant give it up.
And 2nd,the humor,a guy shitting himself isnt funny,Kojima you couldnt let the guy shit 1 time?
You just had to make him shit his pants alot of times,you just had to make us look at it,you just had to put fart noises in one of the most intense and best part in the game,(fox hound escpaing aparatment segment)here im hiding for my life and bullets are spraying everywhere around me and im totally into the experience, and ofc one of my guys starts to shit his pants and while that may sound funny to someone,it wasnt.
Johnny in whole was a fucking joke,he is like goofy in a swat army,I dont get the humor.
Nor did I get why the shit on the fans.
Thirdly the whole hunt for Bigboss corpse and the computers to break into the Patriots arnt intresting at all,you might think the hunt for bigboss corpse could have been,but it ends very fast,and btw since I speak of act 3 some stuff doesnt make sense,Big Mama is hurt,bleeding a lot.
What does Snake do? nothing he just give her a weapon and ask her to follow her around,and you can see how much in pain she is and later she dies of the injuries,she doesnt even put pressure on the wound at all nor is Snake,I never seen anything that illogical in a very looong time.
Did Kojima just forgot that she got speared by the fence and was bleeding?
Also the Hero,our Hero Snake,is basically an old grandpa who keeps falling down on the street in pain and crumble.
I think splinter cell developer once said that they never wanted Sam to look too old like he shouldnt be where he is,and Snake is just that person in MGS4,he keeps falling down in every cutscene,screaming and twsiting in agony and looking depressing and old.
In fact the ending is just depressing and not satysifying at all,like Snakes missions wasnt really worth it at all and will just rot away in the end anyway,instead Kojima give a happy ending to Raiden and Meryl,like who gives a shit about their lifes?
Why even focus on it?
I dont hate Raiden and Meryl but for some reason the ending for them was apparently just as importent and req just as much time as what to happend to Snake.
When you have a very short game like MGS4 which only seems long thanks to extremly long cutscenes,you better make sure each chapter is fun,Act4 isnt,not at all.
You face tons of robots...
Small ones with arms that just keep coming if they spot you,and they are fast and annoying,and you face Geekos,giant leg robots that are extremly tough.
Its so damn boring and since act1-2 are so short,your left with only perhaps 3 hours of great gameplay with 2 so-so and rest cutscenes,thats not okay at all.
Sometimes I just wanted to pull my hair and scream,some of the dialoges are just mindblowing boring,and doesnt focus on anythiung importent,but your to afraid of skipping it just incase its something importent so you end up listening to preaching and other crap you dont give a fuck about.
Also before I stop,why did he force me to Press triangle like 5000 times at one part,who at Kojima thought that was funny?
Now I could understand that they wanted to tire out the player and try to make us feel snakes pain while crawling during exahustions but it just annoyed me like hell tbh.
Better to make it like R1 then L1 or something,to simulate crawling then...
One of my favroite parts with the old MGS was the chatting in the codec with diffrent team members,it felt like I was part of a team,and thats all gone,you can only call 2 ppl,and one is Otacon,go figure how much fun that is...I cant even express my anger for that part in English,since I lack properly grammar and fancy words to express my hate for that blunder.
I wont whine on the installations,but why do they force us to re-install files when we want to start a new game?
Conclusion...
Mgs4 didnt leave me with a satisfying ending at all nor story,it didnt wrap up at all as I hoped or wanted.
But hey,thats a part of the story and not everyone can be satisfied with a very unique story,and I understand that Kojima wanted to show a broken soldier like Snake,but it made me lose the feeling of being a legendary soldier,I feelt more like being a cripple.
The gameplay is great,but very short,the graphic are splendid in cutscens but lesser in actual gameplay.
So the story isnt there,and the cutscens are way to long...but it does at some parts make the cutscenes into gameplay in a very clever way,so im a bit unsure what to say here...
nvm...
My score is a very solid (hehe I said solid) 8.5 it has great gameplay(the camera and shooting aspects are top-notch this time),great visuals,and while the story fell flat,it made my nostalic nerve tingle hearing the old characters speak with the same voice actors,so yeah its a great game and everyone should get it,just be ready for extremly long cutscenes,a story that might not live up to its name and some bad Japanese humor and preaching about the war industry,but even so it was worth every penny what the ps3 costed to go through it,to follow Snake(one of the best characters of all time) on his last adventure,bye Snake im missing you already ;/
oh! I almost forgot it also support Online,MGO is somewhat like GRAW or CS in third person,its fun!and yeah thats about it ;)
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