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Metal Gear Solid 4 Review
mikesd81 brings us a detailed IGN review of the recently released Metal Gear Solid 4, which notes:
"Fans familiar with previous Metal Gear Solid games are aware that each title has introduced new gameplay mechanics for Snake to take advantage of. The incredible part about Metal Gear Solid 4 is there are tons of additional features added to this title, and even when you run into a system or mechanic that you wouldn't think would fit in the Metal Gear Universe, Kojima and his team have figured out a way to make it blend seamlessly with the gameplay, which easily allays any fears or concerns you have.""
Well... I played the first 5 or so hours of this today. I'm still not sure that I know what to make of it.
I suspect that at least half of my play-time so far (possibly a little more) has been watching cutscenes. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of non-game-engine cutscenes. By and large, I find most game-endine cutscenes needlessly ugly and often badly thought through. However, I do think it's possible to have to much of a good thing. And that's definitely the case here. Between the end of Act 1 and the Start of Act 2, there are more than 30 minutes of cutscenes. Sure, the plot is interesting (more on this in a couple of paragraphs). But it'd be nice to let at least a bit of gameplay intrude.
The gameplay itself is fun. It's not actually what I would expect from a Metal Gear Solid title. In a nutshell, it feels much closer to Call of Duty 4 than to Splinter Cell. Combat is a much, much bigger part of this than in any previous installment and, happily, the combat mechanics have been tweaked to the point where they are actually damned good. You can still sneak through the game if you want, but you can also just grab the biggest gun you can and blast away (indeed, the game seems to reward this approach more). The weapons-shop system is a little immersion-breaking, but from a gameplay point of view it's highly useful and encourages experimentation with different weapon setups.
To be honest, if there's one other game that this reminds me of, it's Resident Evil 4 (which is a nice game to be compared to). The pace of the combat and the control system feel very similar. The weapons are deeply satisfying to use, in the same way as RE4's. The AI here is noticably more significant than RE4's, but I count that as a good thing.
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And now... the plot. More than any other game around (barring perhaps the Final Fantasy games and Persona 3), MGS depends upon its plot. This isn't your average paint-by-numbers Tom Clancy plot, to put it mildly. To get the most out of this, you will need to have played all of the previous installments of the series. Even if you have, you might find yourself struggling to remember some of the more obscure subplots referenced here. More or less every significant character from the previous installments makes an appearance here (including several thought dead), along with a bunch of new characters.
The effectiveness of the plot varies wildly. There's a good war-story being told here. While I personally disagree profoundly with its strong anti-war message, there's no denying that it's both shocking and effective in its execution when the game focusses on this. This isn't your average George-Clooney brain-dead Bush-bashing fest. It's something both more visceral and more sophisticated. Unfortunately, the plot also suffers from being deeply silly at times, when it strays from its core war-story plot. The reintroduction of Vamp, and the introduction of these strange new robot-women-things makes for a few good shock-horror moments, but it's hard to take them seriously, in the context of what's otherwise quite a dark, bleak piece of social commentary. Ultimately, what you end up with is a story that swings wildly between the sublime and the ridiculous. At least, unlike MGS2, it hasn't gone all End of Evangelion on me... yet.
I'd find it really, really hard to put a score on this game, based on what I've seen so far. IGN love it. Penny Arcade hate it. I can actually sympathise with both points of view. Ultimately, I think it's best to treat it as a game which is both fantastic and dreadful at the same time. If you can find a state of mind where you can appreciate the truly great elements, while regarding the rest as "so bad its funny", you'll enjoy this game hugely. If you can't, you'll hate it.