Announcement

**The Dude** · 06-15-2008, 07:21 PM

Not had much time to play it, its typical the game arrives on the same day as a family berievement of an estranged relative so been wrapped up dealing with that amongst other things, onto act 2 now though.

**Umon Daisuke** · 06-16-2008, 02:06 AM

Sorry to hear that Dude.

Originally posted by randomwab View Post

Although this is a stealth game, it’s much easier at most times to just play it like a shooter. And when I do play it like a shooter, it seems clear to me that when the stealth is stripped away from the game, Metal Gear Solid 4 becomes an average third person shooter.

It's always been much easier to ignore the core gameplay concept of stealth and just gun enemies down. In fact, it was easier before. Of course this wasn't meant to be a shooter, so you can't expect it to be as robust as a game in that genre (though customization sure is). Yes, the cover system isn't as smooth but I wonder if it was revised to deter people from playing it as a shooter. Even as a shooter, a genre which I have no fondness for, it's easier to swallow than games like Lost Planet (the word generic comes to mind).

Lack of memorable boss fights on the other hand is something worth noting, but that's a minor gripe given the scope of the game. I'm at Act 5 now, and so far the story is wrapping up things nicely. At this point, after 10 years, it's puzzling to see anyone complain about the series' trademark: long cutscenes. It was promised that SE would have short cutscenes and less emphasis on story, but that didn't happen back then, and you know the saying, fool me once...

With MGS4, closure is better than dragging something forever after all.

**Carnivol** · 06-16-2008, 03:15 AM

Originally posted by Umon Daisuke View Post

In fact, it was easier before.

By that, I assume you refer to Metal Gear Solid 3?
As far as my memory serves me; at pretty much all points in the Solid titles prior to Snake Eater, "run and gun" would award you with nothing but a blocked exit that required you to do something about your alert status before you could pass through and progress the story.

Originally posted by Umon Daisuke View Post

At this point, after 10 years, it's puzzling to see anyone complain about the series' trademark: long cutscenes.

I think the problem is the 10 year counting. To some of us, Metal Gear existed pre-Solid. Metal Gear Solid was pretty much everything fans had been waiting for over the past 8 years. For those who hungered for more, there was Sons of Liberty, which fixed up the gameplay a lot and provided a pretty solid piece of next gen-candy at the time of its release (Code: Veronica, Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2 were the 3 reasons for why a PS2 came into my house). However, the story in Metal Gear Solid 2 really tried too hard to basically be a damn "story".

Originally posted by Umon Daisuke View Post

Lack of memorable boss fights on the other hand is something worth noting

How are the boss fights in Metal Gear Solid 4?
I remember getting pissed beyond human and divine comprehension when playing through that game and at the same time hearing about how people praised those bosses as the best shit ever put on the market.

The force that made me do absurd things in the old days, like play through games like Mega Man 2 on NES without getting hit a single time or getting all dog tags in Metal Gear Solid 2 was totally gone absent when I played MGS3.

Some of the bosses felt like I was playing what I guess today best can be described as poor attempts at doing what has become stuff like Trauma Center (NDS/Wii).

Other bosses were just retarded easy, as you'd always run around carrying some random shit your ammo greedy ass forgot about and it'd nicely save the day if you decided to use it in a boss fight.

And then there was that damn THE END, everyone made it sound like it was the most epic thing since being a kid and stealing some binoculars from grandpa's summer cabin to spy on chicks wearing swimsuits (in stead of joining them in the water). And the end of the day, that fight took me a few minutes of my time the first time (none on the second, HARR HARR) and I was already pissed off by then thanks to some really shitty dialog writing.

[/rant]

**randomwab** · 06-16-2008, 04:24 AM

I never really understood all the praise that the MGS3 bosses received. The Pain, the Fear and the Fury were all very generic battles, the only thing elevating them being the horrible cure system. The idea behind the End was good, but I do think it was flawed in its execution, if only because it really wasn't fun, and it seems that everyone skips the battle in every follow up playthrough.

The Boss was the worst in the game though, and I really don't understand when people get all teary eyed when you mention it. When I played it, it didn't feel like an epic CQC showdown, it felt like she always had the upper hand in the fight, and she'd slam me to the ground, and I would have to pause the game, go to the cure menu, see what damage was done, fix it, and go back into the fight. There was nothing amazing about it.

The bosses in MGS4 are all rehashes of previous fights, which they try and explain by giving them the animal names from the Foxhound characters of MGS1 and the emotions that the bosses unit felt in MGS3. In other words....

Spoiler:

Umon is right though. None of them are memorable. The only one that I somewhat enjoyed was Crying Wolf, but to be honest, I'd rather skip that battle in future playthroughs like I do with the End.

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post was the weapon selection. There's a hell of a lot to choose, and that's one thing I did really love. They're all modelled accurately and it's nice to see the majority of them being somewhat customizable with silencers, laser sights, flash lights, grips or additional weapons. The only thing is that it feels that you get the best weapons early on, and there can be no real need to try anything else. Drebin gives you the M4 at the beginning which is the most customizable, and very early on you get the P90, the RPG7 and one of the better sniper rifles (I can't remember its name -_-).

And another minor gripe is that the game somewhat forces you to use the default handgun, as if I take the Operator out of my weapon menu, it'll automatically be back in the menu after one of the "fade into gameplay" cutscene ends. So at no point do I ever want to use any other handgun.

**nemesis_lover** · 06-16-2008, 06:29 AM

so down, left it too late to get the L.E of mgs4 on play.com, now ebay want double the amount for it

**James** · 06-16-2008, 08:13 AM

By that, I assume you refer to Metal Gear Solid 3?
As far as my memory serves me; at pretty much all points in the Solid titles prior to Snake Eater, "run and gun" would award you with nothing but a blocked exit that required you to do something about your alert status before you could pass through and progress the story.

To be honest, I don't remember this happening more than twice in the entire game in the Solid series, especially in MGS4. MGS3 placed a much larger emphasis on this element though, and luckily for me I was a stealthy player from the beginning. To be honest though, the first thing I noticed when I first booted up MGS4 was that it was very easy to run and gun. And plus, with the game throwing in excess of 50+ weapons at you (including some very devastatingly powerful weapons from both previous and other Kojima games *wink*) it's as if the game wants you to be loud and gunning.

I think the problem is the 10 year counting. To some of us, Metal Gear existed pre-Solid. Metal Gear Solid was pretty much everything fans had been waiting for over the past 8 years. For those who hungered for more, there was Sons of Liberty, which fixed up the gameplay a lot and provided a pretty solid piece of next gen-candy at the time of its release (Code: Veronica, Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2 were the 3 reasons for why a PS2 came into my house). However, the story in Metal Gear Solid 2 really tried too hard to basically be a damn "story".

The story is definitely ambitious, especially after viewing the conclusion of MGS2 and Snake Eater, but after completing Guns of the Patriots I've gotta be honest and say that Kojima has pretty much explained everything that anyone could ask. Mind you, one glaring example is the whereabouts of Nastasha Romanenko. God knows what she's doing - I'd assume she was on the run from the Patriots after writing that book but it would've been nice to receive closure on her story, since we did for everyone else.

How are the boss fights in Metal Gear Solid 4?
I remember getting pissed beyond human and divine comprehension when playing through that game and at the same time hearing about how people praised those bosses as the best shit ever put on the market.

The force that made me do absurd things in the old days, like play through games like Mega Man 2 on NES without getting hit a single time or getting all dog tags in Metal Gear Solid 2 was totally gone absent when I played MGS3.

There's definitely none of that Mega Man 2 "force" that you described in the boss battles, but the boss battles all play on Nostalgia. As Wayne said, a lot of the battles aren't rehashes per se but as I said before play on a heavy amount of nostalgia (and being a huge fan, I am happy with them). They are definitely better than MGS3 (I too thought Fury, Pain and Fear were very uninspired), and I also enjoyed battling them more than MGS2 as well. Nothing will beat MGS though. One thing I would've liked to see was the implementation of some bosses that were in the pre-Solid games, such as Running Man, Dirty Duck and Four Horsemen. Regardless, I still think the boss battles were pretty enjoyable.

Some of the bosses felt like I was playing what I guess today best can be described as poor attempts at doing what has become stuff like Trauma Center (NDS/Wii).

I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you elaborate? Which bosses in particular? Are you talking about fighting the GUILT / STIGMA strains?

And then there was that damn THE END, everyone made it sound like it was the most epic thing since being a kid and stealing some binoculars from grandpa's summer cabin to spy on chicks wearing swimsuits (in stead of joining them in the water). And the end of the day, that fight took me a few minutes of my time the first time (none on the second, HARR HARR) and I was already pissed off by then thanks to some really shitty dialog writing.

People reckon it took them 30 minutes plus to beat him but it took me no more than ten and that was only because I was terrible >_>

And another minor gripe is that the game somewhat forces you to use the default handgun, as if I take the Operator out of my weapon menu, it'll automatically be back in the menu after one of the "fade into gameplay" cutscene ends. So at no point do I ever want to use any other handgun.

This REALLY annoyed me, especially when I wanted to keep it old school using the SOCOM. =P

Umon is right though. None of them are memorable. The only one that I somewhat enjoyed was Crying Wolf, but to be honest, I'd rather skip that battle in future playthroughs like I do with the End.

I reckon I'll remember them. The way they're presented is interesting at best and the way they are characterised will make me remember them. The battles themselves, as I said before, played on Nostalgia (especially Crying Wolf). I think it was an interesting concept to add back story to each of the members following their demise, since they were too fucked up to do so themselves. It kinda made them more human, I thought, and although not exceedingly interesting to an average people I found it interesting from a psychological perspective.

MY BIGGEST COMPLAINT THOUGH WAS LACK OF CODEC! Why on earth did we only get two contacts. Mind you I didn't mind our non-Otacon contact, but I used to always love calling up different people during boss fights to see what they think, and perhaps even get some more information on their origins (I'll never forget the origin speech for Mantis, how he dove into someone's mind and took on the persona of that person, who was a serial killer himself, or how Sniper Wolf could wait for days, weeks even months for her prey.)

Still, I'd give it an 8/10 as a game and a 11/10 as an interactive movie (I shamelessly stole this quote from someone else but I still agree with it.)

EDIT: If anyone is looking for the North American collector's edition, including the blu-ray disc, vastly superior box artwork by Yoji Shinakawa and the soundtrack, VideoGamesPlus just got a few more in. Not sure how good the price is but I picked one up (marking my third purchase of the game >_>)

EDIT AGAIN Oh wait, they're all gone >_>

**Rombie** · 06-16-2008, 08:37 AM

I just want to go back to the earlier comment and about the focus of Metal Gear series... while I understand the connection to MG and MG2SS, the general focus of MGS4 is the Solid series at it's core (and kinda Portable Ops) which is why, clearly as this topic is showing, the nostelgic references to the titles that have existed in the previous 10 years and little else.

I'm not belittling the earlier titles in this sense.... I played the NES version of Metal Gear in 90 or 91 at a friends house, but never got to finish it (as far as "action" titles he enjoyed the more direct action titles he had like Die Hard, etc.) and while the MSX existed here I never saw MG or MG2 here. I only finally played them when I got MGS3S in 2006. I wish I'd had the chance earlier.

Back OT, I haven't yet finished MGS4, I've gotten to the 5th act and haven't yet proceeded beyond the mission brief... and while certain elements in themselves have dissapointed me and while there are certain plot decisions made I don't like... I'm struggling to fault the plot on it's own.

Someone said it exactly as I was thinking at another forum I was at, but it's kinda hard when you have to answer everything that elements of the story won't dissapoint... half of what made the earlier titles exciting is the plot teased you enough to be interested but left enough details out to let your mind go wild on what it could actually be. Once you get stuff explained to you it can be fairly dissapointing.

I have to give KojiPro props for general story consistancy. There is a bit of retcon here and there, but I've never seen a series keep as cohesive with it's plot like the MG series... and I think they also deserve far more credit for that than anything else.

Gameplay has been generally good... it feels like an extention and improvement over MGS3 which I like, but I do agree it faulters compared to other titles out there as people have mentioned. On it's own merits I'm happy enough with it though on the basis it's Metal Gear because for the series it was a good step. That goes the same on the cutscenes... I mean sure they've said they'd try and cut down on the excess but whe you have to show as much as you do and answer everything you can clearly... well cutscenes have to take place in length. It's a double egde. Clearly the lack of codec and the voice over action sequences is their general answer to cutting down the excess. Most hardened fans of the series don't seem to like this fact... so it seems like (disc size apart) it was a bad idea.... additionally which is a shame too because this game is a fan game... no doubt about it. Sure anyone who hasn't played MG before could play this but they won't get anything out of it like someone who's played the series.

Additionally on that the game seems... short. Not only in the distance between gameplay to cutscenes but it's general gameplay amount is short. Every time I finish an act I kinda reflect on what else could have been put in place to make it longer. The first two acts feel the longest gameplay wise and my dissapointment with Act 4 is I love going back to it so much I wish they could have allowed us access to more of the area we know so well.

Right now I don't have much else to say and while I think I want to respond to more comments in here, but I think I can't do this until I finish. I'll be back once I do that.

**randomwab** · 06-16-2008, 09:33 AM