The end of an era. It's official. Even though this game was released on June 12, 2008, I didn't finish playing this game until today. So today it's official.
I'm going to give my review of the game, but I think that first you should know, and I make no bones about it, I love this series. I remember playing the original Metal Gears when I was younger at friends houses, and in 1998-1999 Metal Gear Solid quickly became my favorite game. I read in a magazine that there was a rumor for Metal Gear Solid that you could play as the Cyborg Ninja (quite possibly the coolest game character ever) if you beat the game on the "Insane" difficult on three separate save slots. Yeah. I think you can guess how that turned out.
Let's see how MGS4 turned out - I swear, I'll try to be objective.
To me, the definition of a great video game is one that has impeccable game controls, interface, and has a gripping story line. Metal Gear Solid had it. Does Metal Gear Solid 4 have it?
My friend, RichieRich, had acquired this game months ago when it first came out, and was a newbie when it came to the Metal Gear series. One of his comments about the game was that the in-game cinemas were "very long". I thought Richie was being a little dramatic, even though I do know that the games creator Hideo Kojima loves to think of himself as a movie director. Now that I've played the game I know that Richie wasn't a little dramatic. Unfortunately, he wasn't being dramatic enough.
The video game really attempts to be something more than a video game - it attempts to be a cinema/game kind of hybrid. The game is built like a Hollywood movie might be scripted. The player assumes control of a rapidly aging Solid Snake, whose codename is now Old Snake (even though he is about 36 years old). The game is broken down into different Acts, and I must say, from a video game perspective, Act 1 is the best. MGS4 is completely different than any other Metal Gear game before it, because the game starts with a battle and the usually solo Snake is thrown into the middle of it. Aid the militia, and you can get through some blockades a little more easily. Beyond Act 2 things begin to get a little too cinematic, and the gameplay becomes gimmicky.
For example, Act 3, in which Snake infiltrates some Eastern European country, I played the game for probably a total of 20 to 30 minutes, and the rest was watching movies. Once I took control of Snake I had to follow and surreptitiously trail a member of a resistance to his headquarters. The start menu shows you a map of the region you are currently in, and the level mapping was constructed in such a linear pattern that whenever I needed to pause the game I could see exactly where I needed to end up, but you have to follow this guy and get around guard posts, blah blah blah. Do that, watch movies for about 40 minutes, take control of Snake again to get into a boss fight, watch more movies, and head to Act 4. Seriously, that's all Act 3 was made of (and a gimmicky motorcycle chase).
Thanks to Metal Gear Solid 2, the storyline became incredibly confusing and became about more than "Metal Gear", which is a slightly unfortunate turn of events. The story of MGS2 forced the series to become about total mind and information control in lieu of nuclear threat. In the end, it works, but I found that this Metal Gear game was not about Metal Gear at all. Let's get back to the gameplay.
The is the first game in the series where there aren't locked camera positions, and you have a true third person camera and the game really becomes about Snake roaming these areas, and the graphics involved. Where this begins to struggle is that the game mechanics are attempting to merge the old controls and the new technologies. Snake can now crouch-run as well as stand-run, but beyond that, all the motion controls are somewhat the same. The X button crouches Snake, and when running he will flip, but now the L1 button will aim a weapon (similar to most Call of Duty games), and R1 fires the weapon, instead of the games traditional use of the subtle depressions of the Square button. This is an improvement, but the CQC (Close Quarters Combat) and fist fighting is now based off of the R1 button as well, and it sometimes becomes confusing where the old system is the same and why new configurations are being used.
At the end of the day, the gameplay is fun, but if you are purchasing a video game to PLAY the game, you won't find the best game here. This games gameplay is filled with gimmicks, that can be both entertaining and frustrating for even the most experience MGS player. I've already told you about Act 3, but in Act 4 you backtrack to the site of the original Metal Gear Solid, Shadow Moses Island, and eventually gain control over Metal Gear REX, and fight the Metal Gear antagonist from Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear RAY. Sitting on an Alaskan island for almost 10 years without its Rail Gun, REX should be no match for RAY.
If you are a fan of the series, you have to see how it ends, but even for me, it might have been too many cinemas. The gameplay was enjoyable, and I'll probably play through again, but I won't wait for the cinemas. With watching every single second of the cinemas, it took me 4 days (a day is a period of 1-4 hours of playtime in a calendar day) to complete the game. I'm sure I could finish the game in 4 or 5 hours the second time through if I skipped every cinema.
Before I leave you, you should also know that this is my first PS3 game I've played that wasn't Fight Night 3, or one of the Madden games. At the beginning of play, I had to wait about 8-12 minutes to have MGS4 download something, and then I had to wait about 3 minutes before each of the next Acts (2-5) to have MGS4 download. That doesn't even take into account the load times between in-game areas, and cinemas. I found that cinemas came in 3's. You would reach a point in the game and Snake would stand straight up, then a loading screen would appear, the first cinema would play and then another would load, the second would play and then another would load, the third would play and another loading screen appeared, and then you'd get back to playing. The loading times were a bit unacceptable if you ask me.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Glad I played this game, and I'm ready to get back to the Xbox360!
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