Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Saucer Men From Mars

[Thyroid]

  Thrik said:

At this point I can very easily see me rating MGS4 overall on the same level as MGS3, which I still cannot say is better or worse than MGS1 — both are masterpieces of their time. MGS2 is the odd one out in a way, although I still love it only slightly less.

Hmm.

Well, I'll say this: Metal Gear Solid 2 was the one that showed the potential of video games to. It's convoluted, yeah. It's a total mind-fuck, yeah. Is it brilliant? Yeah. The whole twist with

  Reveal hidden contents

Snake having been on Shadow Moses and the tanker in a different time than yours, with you being Raiden and the game console being a stand-in for the simulation that Raiden goes through,

was brilliant. All the games had a lot of needless cutscenes, bad pacing, some face-palm dialogue - even though there's a little that gets lost in translation. The series is an emotional whirlwind, but it takes itself too seriously. It can also get a little boring (e.g.: the ending scenes of the tanker chapter in MGS2). Also sometimes unnecessarily weird: why isn't the Cobra Unit just a bunch of very good soldiers...why does the Pain control bees, etc? It's just so out of place.

All in all, a very good series, but man does it have its problems. Does it ever.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Didn't you leave in a huff?

[Thrik]

I think that was Zaarin.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Oh, er. Hey Kroms!

[gdf]

Got a PS3 last month, and I have to say I really like it. I started Metal Gear right after I got the HDMI cable and forty eight hours later I finished it. The save was at twenty five hours.

I liked it, but no way is it one of the best of last year. Tied up all the loose ends of the story nicely, but Kojima totally took the piss after halfway through act three. The cutscene/gameplay ratio was already pretty obscene, but I shrugged it off because, you know, it's Metal Gear, and I do love the sequences. As soon as you met Eva/Big Mama it went downhill. There were many a cool moment, but all of those were just barely game. Very much set-piece after set-piece with virtually none of the rather awesome sneaking that the original for MSX was meant to deliver.

I think my problem is that I thought the gameplay in the first half was the absolute realisation of the stealth formula. It was decidedly Metal Gear, but improved to the point of near-perfection. That those sections can be finished in under three hours if the cutscenes are skipped, adn this seems like a horrific waste of good work. Even if they'd chucked a few hours of VR missions in there I'd have been happy. Everyone else seems to have been mesmerised by the big moments and superb visuals, and it frustrates me hugely that the best bits were infact the core gameplay rather than all the fluff surrounding it.

You know what Hideo? Just remake MGS3 with this engine and all will be forgiven.

Edited January 10, 2009 by gdf

[DanJW]

  gdf said:

You know what Hideo? Just remake MGS3 with this engine and all will be forgiven.

Well, they remade MGS1, so it's not impossible. I must find a way to play number 4, I've become a big fan of the series.

(Also, friendly tip, but be careful about throwing around scores for games on these forums. They are a bit of an anathema for Thumbs.)

[gdf]

  DanJW said:

Well, they remade MGS1, so it's not impossible. I must find a way to play number 4, I've become a big fan of the series.

(Also, friendly tip, but be careful about throwing around scores for games on these forums. They are a bit of an anathema for Thumbs.)

Done, thanks

*Rushes off to edit other posts*

Also, buy a PS3, they're quite good you know.

[Marek]

You can use scores if you want to!

[gdf]

Alrighty then!

I hate mixed messages.

Ah well, I suppose I'll strike a happy medium. MGS4 = sixteen Giant Enemy Crabs out of ?

[toblix]

If you use scores I'll fucking kill you.

[Thyroid]

  gdf said:

I think my problem is that I thought the gameplay in the first half was the absolute realisation of the stealth formula. It was decidedly Metal Gear, but improved to the point of near-perfection. That those sections can be finished in under three hours if the cutscenes are skipped, adn this seems like a horrific waste of good work. Even if they'd chucked a few hours of VR missions in there I'd have been happy. Everyone else seems to have been mesmerised by the big moments and superb visuals, and it frustrates me hugely that the best bits were infact the core gameplay rather than all the fluff surrounding it.

Trust me, it's a lot bigger than you think. E.g., if you follow the rebels after a certain point and don't bother afterwards (say the power plant) you'll find yourself in a completely different area/kind of gameplay than otherwise. I snuck past the power plant, for example, and my brother helped the rebels take it. I went straight ahead and into the largest trap in the world (swamps and helicopters abound), he simply went around the forest. So on and forth.

Needless to say he's great at that game and I suck.

[Thrik]

Yes, I was quite surprised when I replayed MGS4 and realised there were large areas of the South America chapter I hadn't even encountered the first time through (I generally replay MGS games completely thoroughly the second time). The 'Follow Naomi!' bit alone had a whole bunch of little areas/traps I hadn't seen with some extra gameplay to enjoy, including a mother fuckin' UFO landing site(?!).

I like the iPod pick-ups, incidentally. They're a good incentive to take the unnecessary routes and go through all that hell. And shit me, I've just gotten through the Europe chapter on hard mode and that is an earnest bastard when you're trying to find the music pick-ups too.

[gdf]

I think tailing the guy in chapter three was my favourite part of the game. It reminded me of dressing up as a scientist and knocking people out with those special cigars in MGS3

[Cigol]

  gdf said:

I think tailing the guy in chapter three was my favourite part of the game. It reminded me of dressing up as a scientist and knocking people out with those special cigars in MGS3

Someone is also tailing you at the same time

[Thrik]

I love how different MGS games can feel when you go from normal to hard difficulty. The enemies feel extremely realistic in hard, with their sight and hearing improved dramatically; it pretty much necessitates using all the shit in your inventory like playboys and stuff, whereas in normal I rarely did to be honest. They also love to put extra enemies here and there where you aren't expecting them.

Of particular greatness is that during the Europe chapter you're taken through a whole area you don't even go near when tailing the game in normal, adding quite a bit of gameplay to the chapter.

Combined with the goodies and little targets you can go for (no non-tranquilliser kills), the replayability of these games is superb. Highly recommended to play on hard. :tup:

[toblix]

Okay, I just started this, after putting it off for months working hard on my awesome LBP level. Some impressions right from the start:

• Installation sequence was surreal and awesome. I never know with these games if they know they're being weird.
  
• Nice menu screen intro with the start button triggering a gunshot.
  
• I actually thought I had started the wrong game when that horrible gym/drug thing came on. What an awesome way to start a game. Any game.
  
• The game starts just like the previous one, apparently throwing you right in the middle of the action while "gently" protecting you while learning you to duck, cover and roll, and then more cut scenes.
  
• Water melon armor!
  

[OssK]

  toblix said:

• 
  and then more cut scenes.
  

I sure hope you like them

[James]

  toblix said:

[*]I actually thought I had started the wrong game when that horrible gym/drug thing came on. What an awesome way to start a game. Any game.

I also wondered for a moment whether I'd received the wrong thing. OF NOTE: there are actually several advert/programme combinations, and I believe you can switch between them as if flipping channels. I'm not super into the programmes, but the adverts are my favourite thing in the game. That isn't to say that I didn't like the game, but the adverts were so surreal, so unexpected, and so well-made that I can't help but love them. They set a tone for a really weird and sinister world which the game ultimately fails to sustain. I'd love for a game to expand on that idea and style somehow. I guess the problem is expense. I believe they put a great deal of time into producing all that FMV stuff.

I kind of wish I'd gotten the special edition so I could watch them in full resolution and at will.

[Nappi]

  Nappi said:

Will probably buy MGS4 a bit later, most likely after finishing Uncharted and playing through a good chunk of GTA4. I promise to post my thoughts on it here, provided that I still remember to.

Yeah... that didn't really happen. Played through the demo, though, a couple of days ago. It sucked horribly until I realized I should probably adjust the brightness to be able to see in the darker areas. Then it sucked some more until I finally realized that higher value actually means lower brightness.

Then I started to suck, but I hope that's mostly because it just takes time to get used to the controls. Does the game become horribly difficult further on? I am thinking of finally buying this thing since it's so cheap now.

[James]

Once you've played it a bit, if anything it's actually kind of easy. Then again, I guess it might be a matter of being repetition-tolerant -- I got the medal thingy for beating it on the hardest setting in under a certain amount of time and without being seen or killed or whatever, but I did so through incessant use of saves rather than truly spectacular talent. There are bits that are frustrating, certainly, but I don't think the game as a whole gets particularly punishing. There's something at the end that can be really awful if you're trying to do it without dying, though. Playing it normally, however, should be OK, I think.

[toblix]

I just held up a guy and then knocked (tickled?) him out. Then I found a Playboy in a locker and started to look through it. Just as I figured out how to combine turning the page with the first person view (naturally, three simultaneous button presses to do this), the guy woke up and killed me. Whoa. Hasn't knocking out always been the "good guy's kill", where they're out cold indefinitely? Does this mean I'll have to go around knocking people out and then excecute them?

[James]

From what I remember people don't wake up any time soon unless they're woken up by a buddy or something. Perhaps something brought him to. Or the scent of the fresh Playboy pages lured him out of his stupor.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  toblix said:

I just held up a guy and then knocked (tickled?) him out. Then I found a Playboy in a locker and started to look through it. Just as I figured out how to combine turning the page with the first person view (naturally, three simultaneous button presses to do this), the guy woke up and killed me. Whoa. Hasn't knocking out always been the "good guy's kill", where they're out cold indefinitely? Does this mean I'll have to go around knocking people out and then excecute them?

They've always woken up after a time in MGS. How short that time is depended on what difficulty level you were playing on.

[zomboid]

I loved MGS and MGS3. MGS2 was good, but not my favorite.

I had to quit playing MGS4 by the time I got to Europe. If I had a dollar for every time that game made me roll my eyes and blurt out: "Oh Brother!!!!"...

[Shakesbeard]

  zomboid said:

I loved MGS and MGS3. MGS2 was good, but not my favorite.

I had to quit playing MGS4 by the time I got to Europe. If I had a dollar for every time that game made me roll my eyes and blurt out: "Oh Brother!!!!"...

I remember having a demo disc with MGS on it back in the day, when all I had for my PS (only system) was FFVII and Tekken 3. I played it pretty much every day for at least a month. The music, atmosphere, and overall tone of that DEMO drew me in more than anything I'd played and anything I would play for years to come.