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 Too many cut scenes, counterintuitive controls. July 17, 2008
Chris Longhurst (Salt Lake City, Utah United States)
31 out of 109 found this review helpful
I had high hopes for MGS4. Next-gen platform - the writers probably learned from the previous games - lots of hype and lovely hi-def gameplay footage. It bode well until I put the disc in and it took 8 minutes to install the game instead of just running it off the disc. During the install, the screen is filled with preachy health-and-safety warnings like "don't play when you're tired" and "don't sit too close" and stuff like that. Oh oh. That's a really bad omen right up front.
Too many reviews are gushing over the graphics and sound and I think they've fallen somewhat for the hype, because if you analyse the game for what it is, it's just not that good. So rather than gush and fawn, I'm going to try to tell you what I found, and what I think it's faults are. If you've read any of my other reviews you'll know that I detest dark games, poor control systems and game programmers who think they're being clever. MGS4 exhibits two of these so if you don't like to read honest reviews, you should probably skip the rest of this.
So the faults in MGS4? Well - where to start?
I guess the most obvious place is the control system. It's truly the worst control system since - well - MGS2, MGS3 and Hitman. It's awful. Other reviews claim a one hour learning curve. One hour? In what gaming universe is that acceptable? First impressions last. If it takes an hour to figure out the controls (and in MGS4 it certainly does) then a lot of people, like me, are just going to switch off. How are Konami going to hook new players to the genre if the game is so difficult to get into?
MGS4 is largely a sneak-and-shoot game but once again, Konami chose to make it third-person. ie. you spend the entire time looking over the top of your own character. This makes it just impossible to move around properly because you're constantly fighting the camera and movement controls. It's like the original Tomb Raider in terms of the camera getting stuck on scenery and obliterating your view of the action at some critical moment. I've never understood third-person camera. It's a waste of time in racing games because it makes the cars uncontrollable, and it's a crime to employ it in what should be a first-person perspective game. How am I supposed to sneak, examine, explore and shoot when the camera is above and behind me?
The answer in MGS4 is supposed to be the threat ring. It's an Anime-style halo that surrounds Snake and has bumps in it where the enemy are. It is described briefly in the game manual but it's never really introduced or explained in-game, so it's just sort of there. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to for something that could have been solved by simply using first-person mode. Then you wouldn't need a threat ring - you'd be able to peek around corners, or use the audio to hear people around you.
Speaking of the camera controls; there isn't one invert-look option, but three. So if you're used to playing up-is-down on your vertical control, you have to change it in three places in MGS4. Why? Why not have a single "invert look" option?
I think one of the biggest crimes in MGS4 is the sheer amount of gameplay interruption. It's like watching TIVO and having someone else with the remote constantly pausing live TV or skipping fowards.
For example : weapon pickups happen when you run over something, but it pauses the game to give you a very nice but totally irrelevant info screen on what you just ran over. So the programmers spent the time to interfere with the flow of the game, but didn't spend the time auto-equipping the weapon. No - once you've picked something up, you have to pause, go to the inventory screen, equip or swap weapons, then back out and back into the gameplay. It ruins the flow of play.
It's. Like. Trying. To. Read. A. Game. Review. One. Word. At. A. Time.
Whilst talking weapons, it's worth talking about the targetting / aiming system. Third person mode is once again totally useless. You might as well have a nerf gun for all the good it does. So you have to go into first-person mode to aim, but this requires two controls to be activated - R1 to "activate" the weapon, then triangle to go into first person mode. Why? Why not just go into first-person mode when you activate the weapon?
Once in first-person mode it's impossible to move around, and your turn speed is like having your feet nailed to the ground. I timed it - it takes a good 35 seconds to do a 360. So there's no quickly turning around to pick off the bad guy behind you - you'll be dead long before you can even see him. Plus, if you waiver even slightly on the R1 button, it flicks back out into third-person view where the turn speed is much quicker. So you end up popping out of first person into third person mode, the turn accelerates and then you've overshot where you wanted to aim. (Sigh). Why? What purpose does this meddlesome control system serve? This is another place the camera control just fails miserably. Someone is behind you so you need to turn around to shoot at them. Snake spins around, the camera tries to follow, but gets stuck on scenery and is now facing Snake from the front. Now you're facing the enemy but you can't see him because the camera is stuck.
Then there's the rest of the interference problems.
I'd hoped with MGS4 that they would have gone away from the 75% story/cut-scene, 25% gameplay split, but sadly not. In the opening 30 minutes of "gameplay", I must have spent 25 minutes watching cut scenes, and having control taken away from me for a Bruckheimer-esque slow-motion shot of something completely irrelevant. Once again - stuff designed to destroy the flow of playing the game. You're just getting into the swing of things when *pow* - control taken away, arty shot of tank approaching - *pow* control given back. I could see the darned tank without the cut scene - it was right in front of me! Or worse, you'll be running towards an objective and *pow* - you drop out of game mode for a cut scene of someone making you eggs for breakfast. Jeez. It made me throw the controller at one point and just stand up and shout "Oh come on!". Hideo Kojima - the game's inventor and chief designer - has understood that videogames are a great medium, but he does concentrate too much on the 'video' and not enough on the 'game'. For example : put MGS4 in, start a new game and a stopwatch and time it; you won't be able to actually engage an enemy for over 20 minutes.
Speaking of "what the....?" moments, when you start the game, you'll sit through a weird TV game show clip where a woman chooses the wrong answer, followed by an advert (I think for women's perfume) advertised by gun-laden women squirming underwater with an octopus with a skull for a head. In pink water. I kid you not. I have absolutely no clue what that was all about. I seriously thought I might have had the wrong game disc in at that point - I ejected it and checked.
Oh and speaking of loading - if the game is installed on the hard drive, shouldn't there be zero load screens? After all, Drake's Fortune, Paradise City and GTA4 manage to let you free-roam massive environments with no load screens. Not in MGS4 though. Every time you get into a tight crawlspace or have to open a door, you drop out of the game into a loading screen. Worse, you then need to hit 'start' to get back into the game. It's bad enough they have load screens on a next-gen game but to make you have to hit a button to get back in-game is just criminal. Again - interrupting the flow of the game.
Then there's your assistant Otacon. He just will not shut up. He yaps and complains and - my god - the boy has verbal diarrhea. You can probably ignore 99% of what he says - it has no relevance to your gameplay. Problem is that a lot of the time - you guessed it - you'll drop out of gameplay to hear him blather on about something. It's like the programmers didn't know the PS3 supports bluetooth headsets. You know what - if Otacon is talking into your earpiece in the game (which he clearly does because Snake always stops, squats and jams a finger in one ear), why not have him talk into *your* headset whilst you're playing? That would have been a good idea, and so much more intuitive.
Other things that are problematic? Well - the you're-not-quite-dead problem. When you get hit sufficiently hard (which you will because the control system will fight you all the way to the ground), you lie there with the breeze wafting your cape around - or your hair - or something else. For all intents and purposes, the game would have you believe you're dead. Only you're not - you're still alive but there's no prompt to tell you this. The programmers filled the game with meddlesome icons, popups, info screens and pauses for everything from picking up an iPod to changing weapons, but they didn't have the courtesy to tell you that you aren't actually dead. Of course by the time you figure this out, you actually will be dead because someone will have found you and shot you.
So what about the graphics? Well, on my 120-inch screen through a full HD projector, it looks nice and polished. It runs in 1080p full HD as best I can gather. (correction from earlier assertion that it ran at 720p)
The graphics are good enough, but they're not really next-gen. More like warmed-over PS2 graphics with some neat touches. There's a fair amount of aliasing ("jaggies") especially when the game engine tries to render lines - power lines, ropes, that sort of thing. This sort of stuff just shouldn't be present. Draw distance is good, but not brilliant. There's a fair amount of popup and fade-in for smaller items. For example when you get the inevitable cut scene of a tank rolling up, watch the flare launchers on it's flanks. They wink in at a ridiculously short range.
There are other problems too - it's all in the details. The enemy soldier's feet are about 8 sizes too small for the rest of their body. The specular highlights change badly on some of the vehicles when they transition from low to high detail models. The dust and smoke effects, whilst clever, seem to use only three texture maps so the repeat in them is very noticable. One neat feature that is done well though is the Octocamo - where you can lie on the floor or press up against a wall and your suit behaves like a chameleon suit and takes on the texture of whatever you're next to. It's quite entertaining to see Snake running around the battlefield wearing a chintzy wall covering.
The motion capture isn't up to much though, with jerks and pops between the various character's predefined routines. Stand up. Pop. Aim. Judder. Fire. Pop. Squat down. It's really very irritating. The enemy troops 'patrolling' motion capture makes it look like they're walking on tiptoes, and there's another obvious pop in the motion capture loop after each left-right step. Tiptoe left. Tiptoe right. Pop. Tiptoe left etc etc. It's one of those things you won't notice at first, but once you've seen it, your eye will be drawn to it all the time.
In fact - it looks like they didn't do any new motion capture for a lot of MGS4 but re-used the stuff from MGS3. I put MGS3 in to check it out, and sure enough, the enemy troop movements are identical to the point where you can't tell them apart. So - four and half years to wait for the new game and they re-used the old motion capture? Classy.
As I said above, the dust and dirt effects are nice, and the modelling of the environments has been really well done, but you'll come away from it feeling somehow empty. Occasionally you'll walk around a corner to see the culling routines pop a whole street in. Why? Why are these problems in this game? Did they just not do any QA on it?
It's not that it isn't impressive to look at - it is - but it just doesn't have that X-factor. So I would consider the graphics somewhat below par for a next gen platform.
Let's go with the audio then. Weeellll let's not. There's a lovely Dolby Digital logo at the beginning of the game but the audio separation isn't up to much. The soundstage is mostly middle speaker with the occasional left-to-right effect. Barely anything comes out of the side or rear speakers. I'm so used to playing games where I can locate enemies by sound alone, that MGS4 was once again a total let-down in the audio department. Again - the threat ring seems to be compensation for something that wasn't done right the first time around. The weapons sound effects are pretty weak - hardly any bass content. So firing the M4 is like firing a child's pop gun. Mortar rounds landing close to you shake the camera, but not your room - they should be full-bass, well-stereo-separated sound effects, but they're not. The best audio in the game is all the speech, but there's just too much of it.
So - MGS4. You can tell I'm not impressed. It's basically MGS2 and MGS3 in terms of playability and longevity sprinkled with sort-of-next-gen graphics and 1990's audio. I suppose if you're a MGS fan, then this game will leave you shaking with joy but for everyone who's not in that club, this seems to be addressing a very niche market.
Personally I just couldn't handle the sheer amount of irrelevant story and gameplay interruption. It's so unintuitive and meddlesome compared to Resistance:Fall Of Man or Call Of Duty 4 that you will just end up screaming at your PS3.
Add to this the curious lack of of save points. You'll spend a lot of time carefully working your way towards an objective only to have the controls and camera ambush you at some inopportune moment, resulting in your death. (Incidentally, Otacon still has his lisp when you die - "Thnake? Thnake? Noooooo!") At this point you'll be transported back a good 45 minutes of gameplay and cut scenes for a do-over. Really really bad design.
I really wanted to like this game. I thought with as much hype as it's had, and the glowing reviews in everything from Playstation Magazine to EDGE that it would be a game of the year contender. After the first bunch of failures (it took me 6 attempts to get out of the intro scene because of the movement and camera controls), I walked away to cool my anger. I came back after a couple of hours to give it a second go but then things were even worse. I managed to progress beyond the opening scene (at last) into what appeared to be a bombed-out middle eastern town. At that point, the sheer volume of cut scenes, control and Otacon interruption just made my blood boil. Then I was presented with a cut scene of a soldier defacating into a barrel (oddly with some of the finest sound effects in the game) followed by a cut-scene of his naked buttocks running away. That pushed me over the edge. Game over for me. What relevance is that to the game?
That brings up an interesting point. Didn't we do away with the "infinite pockets" syndrome in the 90's? You know - where you can carry a seemingly endless number of guns and ammo? Apparently Snake can carry this barrel with him everywhere, along with all his guns, but you never see any of them. They just appear in his hands by magic. Shouldn't you only be able to carry a couple of weapons? Drake's Fortune, for example - two guns - a pistol in a holster and a larger gun on your back. That's an example of a problem with the previous games that I would have expected to have been addressed by now.
After barely an hour of wrestling with it I just had to give up. As a gamer I just don't have the time of day for things designed this poorly. I've returned the game for store credit.
I wish I could tell you I was an Xbox360 fanboy who was bashing this game just for the sake of it, but I'm not. I hate the Xbox360 - I'm a total PS3 devotee so it's difficult for me when I come across quality problems like those I find in MGS4. I so hoped the games for the PS3 would be better than this.
I don't understand how people can proclaim this game a 'masterpiece' or 'awesome' or any of the other accolades bestowed upon it. Look at it in the cold harsh light of day and you'll find a so-so game riddled with problems.
I've been gaming since Elite came out on the BBC Micro computer in 1984 so I'm no stranger to any type of game, but it's not often that one comes out that just leaves me thinking "what the hell?".
My advice - don't fall for the advertising hype. If you're not into the previous MGS titles then you're just not welcome at this party (as the comments at the end of this review will attest where fervent MGS fans will no doubt proclaim me to be the Antichrist for not liking their game.)
Pick up Call Of Duty 4 instead - you'll actually enjoy playing that instead of wanting to throw your PS3 through a window. If you must play MGS4, then rent it first to see if it's your cup of tea. Because if it's not, you'll feel totally robbed.
One last thing : for all those who think that this wraps up the MGS storyline, think again. MGS5 is being talked about now, possibly as a prequel. If they don't fix these problems in that game, I'm sure I'll be reviewing it just the same in 5 years time.
 A must buy if you own a PS3! June 12, 2008
Paramvir Sandhu
26 out of 32 found this review helpful
This game made me cry. No I didn't finish it yet, and there are no spoilers in this small review.It made me cry because of the fantastic visuals, gameplay, story (atleast the 7 hours I've been playing it since I got it on midnight release). This game is just too epic. I am not even a true Metal Gear fan, and this game blows me away.
A definite must buy if you own a PS3, regardless of the fact that you are a Metal Gear fan or not. Even if you haven't played any of the previous Metal Gear games, you will still end up loving it, and you will truly enjoy this game.
If you don't own a PS3, I would definitely recommend picking one up just for this game, if you have the money, or at least wait until future price drop.
Final words:
Stunning! Epic! Legendary! Majestic!
 The most egocentric game of all time? June 12, 2008
7.52 (California)
23 out of 237 found this review helpful
Wow. No I am speechless. How did Sony take one the most promising consoles and franchises and both in turn into the most reveiled piece of entertainment products in gaming history? The answer is not a simple one but the over-arching theme seems to be a common one these days. No Fun.
It is a tell tale sign that most ps 3 owners are spending time playing gta 4 as opposed to this nonsense. Visually it is a masterpiece. Gameplay-wise it is without parallel. Only problem is you end up paying to watch a movie as opposed to playing a game.
Again, I feel the inclined to exlaim silently. Only a tech groups could squeeze all the fun out of a potentially good idea. Takes some talent for that and Sonyy/Konami succeed in flying colors.
Do yourself a favor and pick up gta 4 instead of wasting your time on this overhyped merchandise. Don't mean to sound harsh but movies are for theaters. See Kojima? Buttons. Buttons. For continous interaction genius. Not for watching ednless hours of ego-masturbation.
A surpisingly boring game. Not really recommended for those new to the series
Game of the Year June 19, 2008
Monkdude (Hampton, VA)
21 out of 27 found this review helpful
What a great time for this game to come out, because I was just getting bored of Grand Theft Auto IV. Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best exclusive PS3 game bar none. I only played the other Metal Gear games a couple of times years ago, but it didn't take me any time at all to get into this one. Sure you watch the game as much as you play it, but it's so nice to look at I didn't mind one bit. By the way, the graphics are probably the best I have ever seen. Ignore all the XBOX 360 reviewers on here who are just mad they can't play the game of the year.
A new standard for next gen gaming June 13, 2008
Doug Gastright (Covington, KY USA)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
Very impressed with this game so far. The controls are MUCH better than I ever could have hoped for, and they finally caved and switched the X and O buttons so that they match every other game in existence as being confirm and cancel respectively.
I can't speak to the storyline yet as I'm only a few hours in, but it seems solid so far although I'm sure there will be a few bumps in the road later on as with all MGS games after the first.
Graphics are outstanding, controls are intuitive for the most part (Stance changing can still be a pain, but improved from MGS3), gameplay is intense and interesting, cutscenes are exciting, I really have very little to complain about.
As far as complaints, the graphics can tend to break down a little bit in some of the larger environments, and you can see a little bit of texture artifacts in the distant walls and buildings. Nothing huge, but I noticed it.
Also, the enemy AI can be a little sad at times, at least with generic PMC levels on the battlefield zones. I've found that just sniping at guys from a few streets away causes them to panic and take cover or call for backup, but not necessarily attempt to return fire or flank you.
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