Metal Gear Solid 4: THE OFFICIAL GAMEPLAY THREAD. Open season on spoilers!

[Mupepe]

finally beat screaming mantis last night.  woman pissed me off 

[Smooth Groove]

Finally completed it yesterday.  The ending didn't surprise me since I've already read the spoilers.  I just kinda got sick of the game after the 1st part of act III.  It's the first time that I've done that with a MGS game. 

In the past, I trudged through some fundamental MGS gameplay design which I disliked just to get to the cutscenes and story.  This time, I just said "to hell with it" and read the spoilers.    The game gives you a whole mess of weapons and Snake is supposed to be such a badass yet the game penalizes you for not crawling on your belly against a bunch of low ranked foot soldiers.  Everyone praised act 1 and 2 but I found it ludicrous that Snake still has to sneak around when there's a war going on.   MGS4 would have been a much better game if it had been more selective about which sections required stealth.  The stealth in Act 3 at least kinda makes sense.

Maybe MGS just isn't for me anymore.  I'm just tired of the game punishing me with a bunch of respawning enemies every time I want to unleash my massive arsenal on the enemies.  The whole concept of alert, evasion, caution basically hasn't changed at all since the 1st MGS. 

[Smooth Groove]

Some questions about MGS4: 

1) Why would other countries trust PMCS when the soldiers were all under the control of Armstech?  Even if they didn't know about the Patriots, it still makes no sense to put so much trust in an American corporation. 

2) Why didn't the Patriots just shut down Liquid's soldiers if he were such a huge threat? 

[Vrolokus]

For anyone interested, we've finally got our review up at the Village Voice's gaming blog.  It's a bit more critical than the other outlets.  Here's a bit so you get the idea:

Assuming you don’t skip the frequent and lengthy cutscenes, you do indeed spend more time watching MGS4 than playing it. Long cutscenes and extensive dialogue have always been the series’ trademark, but MGS4 takes it to an unprecedented level, regularly subjecting the “player” to scenes that run as long as a television show, some even as long as an actual movie – complete with intermissions that give you a chance to save your, ahem, game.

For devoted fans of the MGS saga’s story, this might be thrilling; for purists interested in gameplay, it’s a appalling: a shameless, self-indulgent exercise in artistic excess that comes at the expense of a legitimate interactive experience. The nagging absurdity in the frequent watching is that many of the game’s cinematic sequences easily could’ve been – indeed, should’ve been – gameplay.

The clearest example: As is the series’ tradition, the game ends with a fistfight. But MGS4's innovation is to make the fisticuffs totally non-interactive at first, the player simply watching a virtual brawl for five uninterrupted minutes before abruptly handed the controls, as if the game snapped itself out of a masturbatory stupor and realized “Oh, I guess we can let you do this part.”

6/10

You can see the whole thing at http://www.joystickdivision.com/.

[Draft]

Nice write up. Nailed it, IMO. Bold forwarding of game narrative aside, I'm just trying to play a Goddamn videogame.

[Vrolokus]

Thanks.  I'm working with another one of our writers, Nate Patrin, on a sort of point-counterpoint or back-and-forth dialogue about the game's merits, which should be up in a few days.  I'll make a note here once it's done.

It's an interesting game to discuss or argue about.  Not nearly as interesting to play.

[drohne]

sorry, haven't read the whole thing, but from that snippet, you're engaging in the kind of prescriptive criticism that game reviewers absolutely have not got the chops or authority to engage in. evaluate the success of mgs4's lengthy cutscenes, but don't assume that lengthy cutscenes violate a principle

[Smooth Groove]

Drohne, can you answer my questions since you're a MGS expert?

[Narag]

Some questions about MGS4: 

1) Why would other countries trust PMCS when the soldiers were all under the control of Armstech?  Even if they didn't know about the Patriots, it still makes no sense to put so much trust in an American corporation. 

2) Why didn't the Patriots just shut down Liquid's soldiers if he were such a huge threat? 

I'll give it a shot.

1) I'm guessing it was a small snippet of PMCs shown and for the sake of the story, they were related. I'm assuming there's multiple PMCs out there and they're not all American.  They were only used in two conflicts anyhow.
2) I don't think they could after GW infiltrated the system.

[Smooth Groove]

2) I don't think they could after GW infiltrated the system.

Meryl said they still could when Snake first met up with her.  Why didn't they just do it then?  By that time, his army was already bigger than the US army. 

[Narag]

2) I don't think they could after GW infiltrated the system.

Meryl said they still could when Snake first met up with her.  Why didn't they just do it then?  By that time, his army was already bigger than the US army. 

I don't think Meryl was entirely in the know and just assumed they were normal soldiers at that point in time.

[Draft]

sorry, haven't read the whole thing, but from that snippet, you're engaging in the kind of prescriptive criticism that game reviewers absolutely have not got the chops or authority to engage in. evaluate the success of mgs4's lengthy cutscenes, but don't assume that lengthy cutscenes violate a principle

They violate the principal of letting a man play his Goddamn game.

At least codecs you could skip and still follow the story. With the cutscenes it's all or nothing. So brutal.

[MCD]

i wanted to CONTROL OR AT LEAST SEE the 2nd vamp/raiden fight.

goddammit.

[Smooth Groove]

Yeah, I didn't get to see the 2nd Raiden/Vamp fight either.  WTF

I'm hoping they'll just let you watch it in the eventual Substance/subsistence edition. 

[drohne]

i think your itagaki avatar is leaking

smooth:

re: question 2 -- the patriots' main concern was keeping the war economy going, and it's suggested as far back as mgs2 that their 'minds' are in a way very simple. as long as liquid's pmcs were contributing to the economy, and didn't seem to pose any imminent threat, the patriots would presumably be content to let them operate. by the time liquid became an obvious threat, he had started hacking sop as narag explained

[Narag]

I was actually hoping Act IV would give you control of Raiden as Snake recovered.  I had the notion that given all the Shadow Moses VR training Raiden had, it'd been neat to take him through there. As I said before though, the flashback codecs there made that level.

[Draft]

i think your itagaki avatar is leaking

smooth:

re: question 2 -- the patriots' main concern was keeping the war economy going, and it's suggested as far back as mgs2 that their 'minds' are in a way very simple. as long as liquid's pmcs were contributing to the economy, and didn't seem to pose any imminent threat, the patriots would presumably be content to let them operate. by the time liquid became an obvious threat, he had started hacking sop as narag explained

Yeah well I think your avatar is gay.

[Vrolokus]

sorry, haven't read the whole thing, but from that snippet, you're engaging in the kind of prescriptive criticism that game reviewers absolutely have not got the chops or authority to engage in. evaluate the success of mgs4's lengthy cutscenes, but don't assume that lengthy cutscenes violate a principle

I couldn't disagree more entirely with that.  But even if I did ignore the fundamental problem with a game that has relatively little gameplay and just, as you say "evaluated the success of MGS4's cutscenes", the end result is that same.

[drohne]

well, if you mean to be 'more critical than the other outlets,' assuming that cutscenes detract from a game's gameyness won't do. you're just skirting the issue with those first paragraphs and the 'if you're a gameplay purist' line -- which is equivalent to saying 'if you share my assumptions'

it's my (possibly wacky) opinion that mgs is eminently a videogame even when it's totally noninteractive. the fact of its realtime computer graphics, the persistent (unsuccessful) attempts to compare soldiers or spies to videogamers, the porous fourth wall, the psyche gauge that pops up when old snake feels bad. etcetera. the prescriptive statement that videogames ought ideally to be interactive all the time -- that any sort of cutscene is a furtive indulgence -- just tries to cut off some of the rich possibilities that mgs explots. and game reviewers haven't done enough groundwork to make statements of that kind

[Draft]

It's not any sort of cutscene, it's 20 minute long cutscenes about gobbledygook like nanomachines and gene inheritance and making out in the middle of a firefight. And there's like 3 dozen of them! That shit is not more bearable because Campbell tells you to press select, or my goodness, because the cutscenes are real time. Talk about giving a dog a bone. Let's also congratulate Kojipro on submitting them for ESRB approval.

Exactly what qualifications does a man need to present before he can state with a certain amount of conviction, "Goddamn, these are some long, stupid ass cutscenes."?

[MCD]

that is some real time spinning.

[Vrolokus]

it's my (possibly wacky) opinion that mgs is eminently a videogame even when it's totally noninteractive.

That is indeed wacky.  It's akin to saying a motion picture could in fact be a single frame as long as it was shown for 120 minutes in a theater.

the fact of its realtime computer graphics, the persistent (unsuccessful) attempts to compare soldiers or spies to videogamers, the porous fourth wall, the psyche gauge that pops up when old snake feels bad. etcetera. the prescriptive statement that videogames ought ideally to be interactive all the time -- that any sort of cutscene is a furtive indulgence -- just tries to cut off some of the rich possibilities that mgs explots. and game reviewers haven't done enough groundwork to make statements of that kind

 

You keep coming back to this strange assertion - that game critics aren't in a position to make the sort of argument I've made - with not real justification or explanation, other than the implied obvious: that evaluating a game on the terms I did makes a game you love a critical failure.  You accuse me of damning MGS4 in a subjective way; yet you praise it from just as subjective a place - then go a step further to say people with another point of view somehow don't have the credentials to argue it?  How disingenuous.  

Film critics evaluate movies and movies.  Literary critics evaluate books as books.  I'm evaluating a game as a game, yet somehow I'm not within my right?  Please.

[drohne]

i really don't care that you dislike mgs4 -- actually i'm starting to think that it has deep structural problems that undermine its local successes. i just dislike the prescriptive GAMES SHOULD NOT HAVE CUTSCENES argument that you've levelled, that shawn elliot has levelled -- when i say that 'you haven't done the groundwork,' i mean that you're making assumptions rather than arguments. which is good enough for message board gossip, but don't tell me that this is 'criticism'

actually your last paragraph begins to go somewhere interesting, i.e. evaluating mgs in terms of its influence. but i haven't got the time to get into that just now. maybe when i get back

[Draft]

The problem with cutscenes, as I see it, is that they aren't even last gen. They're 8-bit. The cutscene, as we know it, has been kicking around since Ninja Gaiden NES, at least. They may and probably do pre-date it.

The practice of wrenching control away from the player and treating them (or subjecting them, depending on your point of view) to a little non-interactive vignette is old as dirt. So to look at something like MGS4, which basically uses the same cutscene techniques that first introduced you to revenge prone ninja Ryu Hyabusa, and to praise it for those cutscenes... that's disingenuous. You can accurately claim their the slickest, most expensive, well produced cutscenes in all of gaming history, but that's all they are. While I can and do easily praise games for taking existing mechanics and doing little but refining them, I've no such patience for the cutscene. That shit is ancillary. Mocap yourself to death for all I care.

I agree with you that NO CUTSCENES NO STORY RAH is a rather limited POV, but it's not altogether an unexpected one after being subjected to something like MGS4. That game takes the cutscene concept and beats you with it so hard , I'm not surprised people walk away with a little post traumatic stress disorder. Vietnam vets dive for cover when a car backfires, MGS4 vets punch their TV when Captain Quark starts to explain why robots are shooting at you.

[Vrolokus]

Believe me, I'm not anti-cutscene.  I agree with you that it's an archaic way to present narrative to a player, and that games (like BioShock and Portal, my fav examples) are starting to find a way to reveal story through gameplay rather than around it... but cutscenes in and of themselves are fine.  My problem with MGS4 is just that it seems to have lost its way.  It's just too much movie and not enough game, period.

And yet the fact is: if the cutscenes were great, I might not have been so indignant.  I felt Lost Odyssey leaned on its short stories too heavily... but they were good, so it still managed a good score. 

MGS4's cutscenes are ridiculous, the story is poorly told, and the characters just silly - even by videogame cutscene standards.  Cobble them together into a movie or miniseries, and people would be rolling on the floor at how stupid and unwatchable they are.  The only people giving MGS4's story a pass are either the diehards, or people who confuse production values for merit.  That's why, to me, it's a moot point whether a critic can damn MGS4 for not having enough gameplay; what difference does it make when the noninteractive parts are even worse?

Shane at 1UP argues that despite all the flaws, MGS4 manages merit because it brings up "issues" like the roles of PMCs.  With all due respect, so did Army of Two.  LOTS of stories - maybe even most - have some kernel of a good or important idea in there somewhere.  But that's not what makes a story great - more important is how well it's told.

And that's where MGS4 flops, and flops hard.

[Draft]

Portal doesn't get enough love for its storytelling. I know that's kind of a ridiculous statement, as Portal very quickly became one of gaming's most sacred cows, but real talk: that narrative is tight, and delivered so well through gameplay alone. Shit should be studied and emulated.

The first time you sneak behind the walls of the test chamber and see a ratty ass shelter with all that cryptic writing on the wall... man that's good. That's Fat Tony seeing Kobayashi on his coffee mug good.

[WrikaWrek]

Portal was shit. It's a puzzle game, what's the big deal? Give me a break.

Played it, finished it, got online, people talking about a story, i was like "what story?". Some bitch was talking during the game, all i remember.

[drohne]

well, now you're onto something -- but something completely different from your article, which would apply equally to a game whose cutscenes are infinitely better-written and -realized than mgs4's. i agree that mgs's cutscenes are overly expository, ludicrously plotted, and unidiomatically written. i think their strangeness, invention, thematic ambition, and visual strength compensate for this -- and dismissing all the things you file under 'production values' doesn't seem very sophisticated to me. (n.b.: i do not make shane's case that mgs says something about the world, nor do i wish it to).

incidentally you're still making the assumption that cutscenes are an evil which must be compensated for either by brevity or exceptional merit. i guess gta4's cutscene-driven narrative gets an exemption along both those lines, and apparently you don't care for 'production values.' i'm not sure portal's method of narration over gameplay is so inherently videogamey, though i agree that it's a better story and a better game than mgs4. bioshock begins to do something inherently videogamey by telling a story through the construction of its world, but it leans on a lot of narration as well, and i'm not sure this narration works. nor am i sure that bioshock is much good

kick me if i'm wrong, but that whole 'bioshock portal gta4' catalog stinks a bit of congratulating oneself on one's own parochialism, in roughly the tom chick line
 
i agree that mgs4 is an extreme development in an endangered evolutionary line -- but i think the counterpressure is wii rather than portal or bioshock. we might be approaching a time when games like mgs and bioshock won't make economic sense. (p.s.: if you were reviewing animals and gave the tyrannosaurus rex a 6/10, i really would be pissed off)

that's not quite the same as saying that mgs hasn't been influential. no, there aren't many games with such long cutscenes, but influence needn't manifest itself so obviously. absurd comparison, but proust is influential even though nobody thinks or writes like proust. i see mgs's influence pretty much everywhere, including portal and bioshock, but this may be as wacky as my theory that mgs cutscenes are videogamey, and anyway i'm too lazy to get into it

[WrikaWrek]

(Image removed from quote.)

[fistfulofmetal]

you people are still talking about mgs4? Shit is old news, get with the times people.

[drohne]

i guess i should point out that i chose my avatar because i didn't understand why jon bon jovi was included in evilbore's collection of ready-to-wear avatars, and not as the usual expression of identification or homoerotic lust. so i don't have to answer for jon bon jovi. you have to answer for tracy morgan and tomonobu itagaki

p.s.: 'livin on a prayer' is better than xbox

[Draft]

I like my Itagaki avatar because it's animated and I think things that are animated are fun.

[drohne]

and also because you want so badly to caress his moonscape of a face that you've started to talk like him

[Draft]

You mean, in Japanese?

[WrikaWrek]

i guess i should point out that i chose my avatar because i didn't understand why jon bon jovi was included in evilbore's collection of ready-to-wear avatars, and not as the usual expression of identification or homoerotic lust. so i don't have to answer for jon bon jovi. you have to answer for tracy morgan and tomonobu itagaki

p.s.: 'livin on a prayer' is better than xbox

[y2kev]

I am wary of celebrating Bioshock. Interestingly, the game being so long probably dilutes a lot of its narrative power....among other things.

Ultimately it faces the same struggle that games like GTA4 face-- the narrative and its thematic elements contrast strongly with its gameplay possibilities.

[Draft]

Bioshock just took SS2's story telling mechanic, improved the voice acting, but gave us a much stupider villain. No praise.

GTA4 has, I think, maybe, the best dialog and voice acting in any game I've ever played. The pacing and delivery and inflection in each cutscene is so spot on. I was really, really impressed.

[y2kev]

The voice acting is really off for the character though, which is peculiar considering Rockstar's track record. The script is filled with things that an Eastern European should never say.

The story in GTA4 is absolute garbage.

I find a lot of the dialog in GTA4 becomes a slave to the terrible story, which hurts it sometimes...like Niko talking to the UAL Paper guy. But overall, I had no problem with the dialog and stuff.

[WrikaWrek]

I found nothing wrong with GTAIV voice acting and dialog, and the story was pretty good.

It's one of those things, if you can shit on the voice acting and dialog for GTA4, then you must bleed from your ears when you hear MGS4.

[Smooth Groove]

You guys are nuts.  Bioshock is one of the best next-gen experiences even if the game dragged on a bit too long. 

I can't believe Y2kev is complaing about Bioshock's length when he enjoyed Resistance.  That boring ass game was enjoyable for maybe 1hr but ran on for 12 hrs or so.   

[y2kev]

I don't even see how they're at all related.

Resistance, regardless of whether or not you like it, has no bearing on BioShock's complete idea exhaustion towards the end of the game. How many fetch quests do you think are acceptable for a first person shooter? And escort missions?

[Shuri]

Let's be honest; people would not be complaining about the cut scenes if they were really interesting. At least one third of the cutscenes needed a massive re-edit; and dwelled wayy too deep into mg fandom; so deep that regular mg fans like me got bored to tears. It was simply too much.

[MCD]

take out the mission briefings.

[Smooth Groove]

Resistance had lots of filler crap and was overall just boring.  If you have no problem with that mediocre game being 12 hrs long, you shouldn't have problem with a few extra fetch quests in a great game like Bioshock. 

[cool breeze]

Let's be honest; people would not be complaining about the cut scenes if they were really interesting. At least one third of the cutscenes needed a massive re-edit; and dwelled wayy too deep into mg fandom; so deep that regular mg fans like me got bored to tears. It was simply too much.

I actually enjoyed the cut scenes, with the exception of some later on in the game, but I still think cut scenes are stupid.  It boggles my mind that video game developers can only think of emulating another medium, movies in this case, to tell a story.  If you went to see a movie and it was all text on the screen, you would be pissed off, so why the hell is this acceptable in video games?  Portal did it really well.  Tell the story through the environment that you have control over.  Bioshock also did this well for the most part.

Personally, I think Bioshock should have ended when

spoiler (click to show/hide)

you killed Andrew Ryan.  The game should have ended with you dying right then and there.  That would have been such a powerful amazing ending to the game.  Instead it kept going past that and ended with a stupid boss fight and an even worse ending depending on if you were a pedo or Michael Jackson.

[close]

And wtf at the Resistance hate.  The game story presentation was atrocious and the AI is pretty bad, but the core gameplay is solid and it has some of the best weapons is a shooter.  I'm actually replaying it right now and just got to London.  There are a few boring sections when you are inside and fighting off Head Krabs and those tall naked things, but when the action picks up, it is really fun.  Not the best game ever, but a very solid FPS game.  Certainly a lot better than most console exclusive shooters out there.

[Smooth Groove]

Resistance is an unimaginative, copycat shooter that's fun for those who've had little or no experiences with FPS games.

[Draft]

Any SS2 vet knew that a ridiculously horribly boss fight was inevitable.

The Atlas fight was at least a little better than the Shodan fight. My God, what a way for one of gaming's defining villains to go out 

[cool breeze]

Alternate history of WW2 era with sci-fi weapons that range from a rocket launcher that can be frozen in midair to a gun that lets you tag an enemy that causes every shot to bend around corners to home in on him.  And as I said, it is great for a console only shooter.  Most of those end up bad.  The aspects it does steal, and I mentioned also in my post, are from Half-Life, but Resistance is far more about action than the atmosphere that the Half-Life games offer.

Any SS2 vet knew that a ridiculously horribly boss fight was inevitable.

The Atlas fight was at least a little better than the Shodan fight. My God, what a way for one of gaming's defining villains to go out 

That is another problem.  Bioshock was SS2.  I'm not one of those people who hated it because they were basically the same game, but it was really deja vu.  Bioshock should have really changed things up and got into its own, but it didn't.  I still really enjoyed it outside of the few problems here or there.  Now that there is going to be a sequel, I hope they do some interesting things with it.  I am glad that "Would you kindly" didn't catch on with nerds, that would have been annoying to hear.  I guess I should be happy that "The cake is a lie" was taken instead, but that is actually probably worse.   

[Smooth Groove]

And as I said, it is great for a console only shooter. 

So we agree. Resistance's fun for people who haven't played many shooters.  Also, HL2:EP2's final fight had more action than all of Resistance. 

[cool breeze]

So we agree. Resistance's fun for people who haven't played many shooters.  Also, HL2:EP2's final fight had more action than all of Resistance.

As much as I enjoyed HL2 episode 2, much more than episode 1, that entire end sequence sucked.  I liked the idea of having an open zone you can drive around in, but the controls for vehicles in Half-Life are horrible, it was repetitious, they already did something similar earlier in the same short game, and the only time the adrenaline started going was at the very end when there is a whole bunch of shit happening at once.  They also missed out on a prime opportunity to have some awesome unscripted sequences where Dog could have been helping you out here.  Maybe he didn't have to kill them, but if they started to get too close (which couldn't happen since it was so easy) he could have jumped in and kept them at bay while you had a bit more time to move your ass.

[Smooth Groove]

The controls didn't bother me on the PC.  I thought it was a challenging and brilliant sequence.  I liked how it required the player to pull off several actions in a row in order to win. 

The insect levels in HL2 are terrible though.  They're almost as bad as the flood levels in Halo.  I hope EP2 is the last we'll see of them. 

[WrikaWrek]

Resistance is on par with stuff like COD3.

But leave it to some people to try and bring that shit up a level or two just because it's exclusive.

[drohne]

sorry, not to get back into the mgs4 thing, but i saw another one of those 'mgs would be laughed out of a movie theater' posts on gaf -- from somebody whose english makes me hope he's foreign. how servile that line of thought is...not 'i laugh at it,' but 'an "average" movie audience would laugh at it.' if you really want to drive a point home, invent and then join a mob. mgs bashers can't be boors alone, they have to be boors en masse -- and i bet they are the sort of people who laugh and jeer and flatulate in the direction of movies that displease them

i mean...i can easily imagine a game enthusiast who bashes mgs and is not a smug philistine, but how often do you encounter such a creature

[Don Flamenco]

Big Boss Hard = Serious business. 

took me an hour to get through the scene right before you get the MkII and silenced tranq gun.  It was so fucking fun though...except that one time where I almost had it, pressed triangle to flatten on the ground, and a collision issue with a nearby garbage can caused snake to stand up and get caught. >_<


I have a feeling the fun is over now that I have a silenced gun...maybe I should go straight to extreme.

[Positive Touch]

hard isn't bad at all - extreme is the true bitch.  you can't buy tranq rounds, so you either have to be a serial killer, know where to find tranq rounds, or be reallllly good at sneaking.

[Vrolokus]

i mean...i can easily imagine a game enthusiast who bashes mgs and is not a smug philistine, but how often do you encounter such a creature

Well I am definitely a game enthusiast.  And I might even admit to being smug.  But as for being a philistine... well, I hope you're talking about the yahoo on NeoGAF, not me. 

[Smooth Groove]

Drohne's probably correct on this pt.  Who'd thunk that Pirates of the Carribean and National Treasure would be such popular franchises?

[drohne]

Well I am definitely a game enthusiast.  And I might even admit to being smug.  But as for being a philistine... well, I hope you're talking about the yahoo on NeoGAF, not me. 

to be honest i think you were included in there, but it was totally uncalled for. sorry. your article's well-written and i really like the last paragraph

i think i'm just irritated with the 'movie theater' line itself, which has become a thing people thoughtlessly repeat, and is thus stupider than any of its individual speakers

[y2kev]

I don't even think it's particularly true.

[Vrolokus]

Well I am definitely a game enthusiast.  And I might even admit to being smug.  But as for being a philistine... well, I hope you're talking about the yahoo on NeoGAF, not me. 

to be honest i think you were included in there, but it was totally uncalled for. sorry. your article's well-written and i really like the last paragraph

i think i'm just irritated with the 'movie theater' line itself, which has become a thing people thoughtlessly repeat, and is thus stupider than any of its individual speakers

Thanks for the compliment. 

You know, in the next day or two a back-and-forth conversaton about MGS4 will appear at the Joystick Division site.  I encourage you to throw your hat in (in the comments section).