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Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Saucer Men From Mars

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Oh OK then, his woman.

It's been a while so I can't remember if it was clarified whether she actually was his woman or simply took on the role.

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Yeah I meant she acted as his wife since I was trying to not spoil things, but I forgot he had a real family. I guess I was mistaken.

But I figured part of what was getting Volgin off was taking advantage of Sokolov's current lover.

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I went ahead and played through this game again to snag a bunch of trophies (since my original playthrough was before trophies existed) and to re-familiarize myself with this series a bit before jumping into V.

Overall, I liked this game but it had some really frustrating issues. I'm usually one to love cutscenes in games and it's one of my favorite things about FF games but this game was just barfing out half hour cutscenes every 5 minutes. I've not played any other Metal Gears either so it was all quite convoluted and confusing when the action part of the cutscene ended and they went on a 15 minute diatribe about some obscure thing involving 3 other characters I've never even heard of. Even if I was super invested in this series I'm pretty sure I would still be pretty overwhelmed by the constant talking and explaining and talking and explaining. And when someone died, they didn't just die. They spent half an hour giving some dumb speech and acting all dramatic while Snake just stood there quietly, listening to all their monologues and not saying a word (the Big Boss scene at the end was the absolute worst). They weren't all bad though. In fact, this game has some of the best cinematics I've seen (especially that Raiden cinematic at the end of act 2). It was just really uneven.

One other main complaint I have is pretty much what syntheticgerbil ranted about on the previous page of this thread. I don't have much experience with Kojima games so I don't really view him with any of the reverence that a lot of other people have for him. I know he is a well respected developer and has created one of video games' most beloved franchises. But coming out of this game, it's hard to see him as some brilliant visionary when so much of the stuff in his game looks like it was designed by a horny 12 year old. There are some really interesting things going on in this game and I really love how fleshed out and developed the whole universe is but the constant injection of exposed breasts and crotch shots just feels really out of place. For me, less is more with this kind of stuff. I don't mind some sexiness where it makes sense but none of it makes any sense here. It's pretty gross that the five main bosses are really all super hot babes that act all horny and orgasmic when you defeat their beast forms. The only justification I can see for why that needed to be the case was so we could get a whole bunch of camel toe shots. I've never seen so much love and attention put into virtual camel toes before.

On the gameplay side, this game was very Solid (teehee) for exactly the first half and was merely okay after that. Act 1 through the first half of act 3 are all quite excellent and I really enjoyed those segments. But then there were a bunch of turret sequences to close off act 3 and acts 4 and 5 had virtually no human enemies to interact with. Without human enemies, the possibility space in this game shrinks immensely. Sneaking isn't as enjoyable, there is no concept of a 'non-lethal' option, and the non-human enemies are just not that interesting. It became way too much of an action game in the last half and the only thing that saved it ironically, were the cutscenes and story elements. And that last fight on top of the tanker was pretty phenomenal.

Even with these complaints I have to honestly say that I enjoyed this game a lot and am very intrigued by this series. As much as I didn't like the overabundance of cutscenes, the overt perviness, and the second half gameplay shift there is something really enticing about this universe. The production values and music are top notch and during some of the better cutscenes and gameplay moments, I found myself in awe at what I was experiencing. There really isn't anything else quite like it. Those first few scenes with the beasts were terrifying and the visuals and sound effects with those creatures were very powerful (but that was eventually undercut by the dumb "hot babe" angle). Pretty much every scene with Raiden was amazing and reminiscent of some of my favorite anime. And there were a good number of legitimate emotional moments. And also, the fart and poop jokes were pretty great. But it's me so of course I enjoyed that stuff.

So yeah, I think I can appreciate where a lot of people are coming from with their respect for Kojima. It doesn't all work for me but most of it does and I can forgive some of the perviness if that's what I have to sit through to experience all the other great stuff. I hear V is the polar opposite as far as density of cutscenes goes so with that issue it sounds like it's more specific to 4, which I can forgive since 4 was supposed to provide tons of resolution to all of the various plot threads.

And on a final note, I started Ground Zeroes the other day and was completely dumbstruck by how much graphics have improved between 4 and V. I think it is my first case of a current gen game that seems like a drastic graphical improvement over the previous generation game. 4 was gorgeous when it first came out but man that new Fox engine is just astounding.

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Oh geez man I don't even know how you start with 4 without having played any others storywise at least. I can barely keep track of anything going on in MGS4's story myself in terms of character motivation, changing goal posts, and retcons as it is and I have played every entry in the series up to Revengeance (and skipped the N-Gage one). Sometimes you check a wiki on Metal Gear Solid thinking you misunderstood something from a previous game and the wiki will just say, "well these two games conflict," and now I just shrug. The separate database install that comes with MGS4 also has conflicting info. I imagine 5 is even worse but I haven't played it yet.

 

If you want more trophies, games less heavy on cutscenes (or at least evenly distributed), and more gameplay overall, I'd recommend trying the HD collection on PS3 for MGS3 and Peacewalker. MGS4 ranks pretty low for me in the series, above Portable Ops, but I'd say playing the spin off Acid series (Well Acid 2 at least) is even more fun than 4.

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The final fight in MGS4 is the best finale a series could possibly have.

 

And then they made more games.

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4 has some cool things going on but it's pretty flawed, as you noticed. MGS3 is what I'd consider the high point of the series (I have yet to play five) and one of my favorite games in general...when you have a chance you should go back and play that one at least.

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Yeah, I wasn't even that invested in the characters and that final scene still just utterly blew me away. That fight was an absolute masterpiece, which makes some of the missteps all the more frustrating.

And Synth, I am strongly considering getting that HD collection. The stuff I liked in 4 was just so goddamn good and I really want some more of that.

And another side note, I really liked how act 2 played out and thinking on it more, that might have been the best part of the game. Seeing those soldiers start to recognize that I was helping them throughout the mission and stop going after me entirely after awhile was just such a great touch. Especially knowing that it wasn't a scripted thing and was entirely the result of my actions.

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4 is a very different game from 1-3. I mean, it's similar in that it's stealthy, but it just plays super differently. They're all equally good, but for kind of different reasons.

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I feel like the gameplay in 4 is rather elusive, but I probably ranted about it earlier in this thread. But the disguises mean you can pretty much ignore lots of stuff in the first three acts, I don't particularly find the maze after the cabin very inventive and and then there's uninspired invisible soldiers, the rest can be done with chaff in Shadow Moses, and then there's all these on the rails and wasting time littering turret sequences littering the whole game which was never a thing in MGS before.

 

Besides the very first part of the game before the disguise or the very last part on the ship, there's little to be done with stealth or Octocamo. I had to beat it 8 times for the trophies and by the second playthrough it really shows how parts are either laughably broken or way too tedious concerning the bosses. I suppose you can choose to skip disguises but the game is so heavily pushing you towards using them when it really should have been pushing Octocamo. Then if they wanted the Octocamo to work they would have had to stop pushing the constant respawns in the first three acts. MGS is about clearing out rooms and hiding bodies, not new guards running on screen just because. They are supposed to appear when something is up.

 

It really should appeal to me as a fanservice experience but it's just kind of meh. It's like the last season of Parks and Recreation. I almost wish MGS4 didn't exist.

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I'm glad Konami kicked out Kojima so he can do something different. Story-wise MGS cold not handle any more, and MGS4 is testament to that. (and maybe MGSV's non-story is testament well).

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For me, Sons of Liberty and Guns of the Patriots are the best of the series. There's so much stuff that makes Metal Gear Metal Gear, and it's not surprising that fans are divided; it depends on what about the series speaks to you.

4 was the first that I actually completed, and I liked it so much that I finally understood the series and went back to all the others (MSX entries included). I think it stands on its own.

I'm sure the order of play impacts one's expectations.

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For me, Sons of Liberty and Guns of the Patriots are the best of the series. There's so much stuff that makes Metal Gear Metal Gear, and it's not surprising that fans are divided; it depends on what about the series speaks to you.

Can definitely see the rift there. Although in gameplay terms I would say Sons of Liberty and Guns of the Patriots are completely night and day. If anything the strong gameplay and stealth in MGS2 is what kept me going through almost all of the overt nonsense.

 

I played them all in order from release date, starting with both the MSX/NES version of Metal Gear to all the spin off portables, if anything what I appreciate about MGS4 is it introduced a lot of better controls that the series desperately needed even if they weren't utilized much. They were then simplified in Peacewalker but made fun in an arcade style way. I definitely appreciate MGS4 finally introducing a close range non lethal gun to the series instead of just the hand gun and and later the mosin nagant. That rubber bullet shotgun is an amazing thing to earn for certain sections of both MGS4 and Peacewalker.

 

But, I do not understand the reasoning for having so many god damn lethal guns to choose from in MGS4 and Peacewalker. They aren't very useful in game in terms of the minor change in variables, so maybe they are just there as a wacky thing for gun fetishists who like to look at 3D models and read short gun history summaries. Actually that's probably the case knowing the excess of the series.

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But, I do not understand the reasoning for having so many god damn lethal guns to choose from in MGS4 and Peacewalker. They aren't very useful in game in terms of the minor change in variables, so maybe they are just there as a wacky thing for gun fetishists who like to look at 3D models and read short gun history summaries. Actually that's probably the case knowing the excess of the series.

 

It's actually something interesting that I noticed while I was looking at the Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. There's certainly a love of the physical appearance of firearms, especially the intricate machinery of automatic weapons made from modern materials, but the contributors to the IMFDB entry, whom I assume to be true "gun nuts," mostly have a rock-bottom opinion of the game for how haphazardly the guns are designed and handled. In most cases, it's like Kojima's artists googled "shotgun" or "assault rifle" and then combined the coolest-looking elements of a half-dozen different images almost at random to produce the guns ingame. None of them would be functional if built in real life. Really, it's a love of guns as abstract aesthetic objects and not as tools of human work that exist in reality, which seems like a relatively niche outlook for appreciating guns.

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The final fight in MGS4 is the best finale a series could possibly have.

 

And then they made more games.

 

ohh are you talking about the part where

you fight liquid ocelot through themes of MGS 1,2,3,4 while the actual control mechanics change to fit each game?  That was sooooooooo gooooooood

 

 

But, I do not understand the reasoning for having so many god damn lethal guns to choose from in MGS4 and Peacewalker. They aren't very useful in game in terms of the minor change in variables, so maybe they are just there as a wacky thing for gun fetishists who like to look at 3D models and read short gun history summaries. Actually that's probably the case knowing the excess of the series.

 

And it really highlights how the whole gameplay (playing super glorified super soldier) has weird contrast to its running theme (war is bad).

 

As a weapon 'nut' who absolutely adores any game that let me indulge my weapon fetisism the way MGS4 or Battlefield 3-4 (or ARMA or Wargame) does that would also self-classify myself as generally anti-war side of things, I'll say it's... complicated.  This is a subject that often leads me into ranting about why I love Gundam 0080 because how it relates to this inner dilemma but that's so off topic so best I can say is that weapons have this powerful allure as symbols of power that's very easy to indulge as fantasy (why is katana so cool?), but in reality I get that is also great amplifier of suffering so there is bit of odd (at the face value) compartmentalizing going on there.

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Yeah it was incredible.

 

The best thing about MGS4 is that it's about two angry old men punching each other. That's it, that's the whole game. Oh, also, that nostalgia is dumb and all y'all nerds need to chill on that shit. So good.

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It's actually something interesting that I noticed while I was looking at the Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. There's certainly a love of the physical appearance of firearms, especially the intricate machinery of automatic weapons made from modern materials, but the contributors to the IMFDB entry, whom I assume to be true "gun nuts," mostly have a rock-bottom opinion of the game for how haphazardly the guns are designed and handled. In most cases, it's like Kojima's artists googled "shotgun" or "assault rifle" and then combined the coolest-looking elements of a half-dozen different images almost at random to produce the guns ingame. None of them would be functional if built in real life. Really, it's a love of guns as abstract aesthetic objects and not as tools of human work that exist in reality, which seems like a relatively niche outlook for appreciating guns.

 

I assumed they were accurate I suppose, however I do know a real mosin nagant can't shoot tranquilizer darts, and that's not really a long range thing that could happen without killing someone anyway.

 

I am extremely amused that there is an Internet Movie Firearms Database.

 

As a weapon 'nut' who absolutely adores any game that let me indulge my weapon fetisism the way MGS4 or Battlefield 3-4 (or ARMA or Wargame) does that would also self-classify myself as generally anti-war side of things, I'll say it's... complicated.  This is a subject that often leads me into ranting about why I love Gundam 0080 because how it relates to this inner dilemma but that's so off topic so best I can say is that weapons have this powerful allure as symbols of power that's very easy to indulge as fantasy (why is katana so cool?), but in reality I get that is also great amplifier of suffering so there is bit of odd (at the face value) compartmentalizing going on there.

I do actually get somewhat into them just talking about the technology behind them and which era the guns belong to. It's kind of how bothering Paramedic for eating tips and movie references is a bunch of hilarious fun and in general most of the codec conversations you have with the person playing the "information about x" role in whatever game.

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