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 Written by Ryan C. Stebbins November 2006 edited 2008 |
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THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE YOU WILL FIND A MINI-REVIEW OF METAL GEAR SOLID 4: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS, WRITTEN JUNE 2008. IN IT YOU WILL FIND MY FINAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE GAME. Let's sum up the main installments to the series: Metal Gear, 1987 the original stealth action game. Metal Gear 2, 1990 some say it's the best of the series. Metal Gear Solid, 1998 a classic in the history of gaming. Metal Gear Solid 2, 2001 a highly anticipated game; a tad disappointing to some. Metal Gear Solid 3, 2004 a high-rated hit... that could have been better. Enter Metal Gear Solid 4! Stunning new graphics, and a continuation of the intriguing story. But what's this? Snake looks ancient now, he's got a stupid-looking mustache, and he's dying?! That's right, folks, he looks like DICK VAN DYKE. I'll prove it to you:  If they really had to make Snake look so old, did they really have to give him this DUMB-looking mustache? I would never have imagined Solid Snake having a mustache like this! A full beard would have been a lot better. Besides, then he would have looked a lot more like Big Boss. Heck, even a goatee would have been better than this.  Wow, he's cool. That's not all. As with all of the installments in the series, a new form of Metal Gear has be unveiled - the "Gekko." These things are apparently mass-produced, kind of like Metal Gear RAY was going to be in MGS2. Of course, there may be another, bigger Metal Gear in MGS4. We'll just have to see when the game is released. But let's talk about the Gekko. Looking at the upper torso, you think, "Cool! It looks like a miniature Metal Gear REX, which was the coolest Metal Gear in the entire series!" Then you see the lower torso. "Say WHAT?!" This thing's legs look kind of like organic RAY legs... but they often appear strangely... feminine. They're freakish. I mean, just watch them move when it's walking at a slow pace. I laughed out loud when I saw this thing's legs. Okay, so I didn't - I was actually just shocked. I'm not sure why I was shocked, though. I guess with the MGS series I should be prepared for weird crap like this. After all, Raiden in MGS2 was the beginning of the end, and after that came MGS3 with it's extremely over-the-top, undeveloped main enemies (the Cobra Unit your local circus rejects), and annoying amounts of humor that was often only chuckle-worthy. The entire "James Bond-like" feeling of MGS3 didn't appeal to me too much, and the story left much to be desired. Besides, this isn't supposed to be James Bond, it's MGS! And MGS2 didn't really even have an original story - the entire thing turned out to just be a simulation of the first MGS's story! ... Oh, sorry, was that a spoiler? ... Sure, MGS2's graphics were amazing at the time, and both MGS2 and MGS3 had pretty good gameplay. However, both lacked in various degrees what the original MGS had - a serious approach to an engrossing story with a great setting, characters, script, and cinematic appeal. Everything just worked with the original MGS. MGS2 and 3, however, half the time left you thinking to yourself, quite simply, "What the HELL?!" For instance, when Ocelot made that cat noise in MGS3. That nearly killed me. And when Vamp, in MGS2, ran across water and straight up a wall. LAME. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. Back to the Gekko things. Not only do these things look stupid (or at least their legs do), but they act stupid AND sound stupid. They fight with only their idiotic legs, they can jump like fleas, and they often expel green gas from their butts. I'm sure that this gas isn't really what it looks like it is I certainly hope not, anyway but seriously, what was Hideo Kojima thinking? To make it worse, they MOO LIKE COWS! Seriously! They make other animal noises as well. It's supposed to be some kind of psychological warfare or something, but it just comes off as laughably stupid, in my opinion. This entire thing is like an MGS fan's nightmare. Maybe in the end of MGS4 Snake will wake up in a cold sweat, and he'll say to himself, "What a NIGHTMARE... I was a dying old man fighting jumping, mooing flea-cows that crapped everywhere...!" In reality I don't see how these Gekkos could be very useful as weapons. They aren't heavily armed; all they have is their legs that they can kick stuff with, and some little machineguns. The weird thing is, when all of those people wearing turbans are shooting at them with their machineguns, they can't even inflict any notable damage on them! And yet, when Raiden fights several of them, he can cut them to pieces with a just sword and a knife, and use their own machineguns to blow them apart. If their own machines guns can hurt them, then those people wearing turbans should be able to hurt them somehow. They need to just get some bazookas and blow the hell out of the stupid things. If, in MGS2, a FIM-92 Stinger can hurt RAY units heck, Solidus even used a P90 to kill them then why can't normal weapons put a dent in these Gekkos? The fact is that the game designers haven't set any basis on how tough these Gekkos are supposed to be. Depending on who is fighting them, they're either invincible or pathetic.  "Let's celebrate our victory by mooing and having a giant SHART together! Yippee!!!" (you may need DivX installed to watch this movie) The movie above is a clip from one of the trailers for the game, which, like many of the others, was so anticlimactic that it seemed almost to be teasing the game on its own! I've always loved watching MGS trailers because of their coolness factor. But this trailer was just downright dumb. How cool is it to show all of these robots letting it fly, and then show the title of the game like it's something dramatic? At the very end of the trailer, it shows Snake sticking that thing in his neck and screaming, and while it's showing the credits he's coughing in the background. What a way to rub it in. We know it already, Kojima you've made Snake into a sick, coughing old man that has to take drugs to stay alive - you don't remind us of the fact by showing it to us at the very end of the trailer even after you've shown the logo (which is usually an indication that the trailer is over). You know, Penny Arcade got it dead-right about MGS4. They mentioned these idiotic Gekko things in one of their comic strips, and they also made this regarding what Snake looks like in MGS4. If you've watched the new trailers, then you already know that Raiden is back, and that he's weirder than ever. His face is more freakish than before; he looks like he has eye makeup on and his mouth is all weird. He's got a ridiculous helmet that doesn't even make sense. Just look at it. It has a protective glass section with these weird metal things behind it, which are covering up his eyes. The weird metal things have a bunch of red lights on them, and they can fold back to reveal his eyes, after the glass part has slid back. What's the point of having a helmet built like this when it could just be a traditional helmet with sections that can fold apart, like Gray Fox's? I guess Shinkawa just ran out of ideas or something. Here's the clincher about this new, ridiculous Raiden: he's wearing HIGH HEELS. You read that right. He is wearing high heels. Maybe he is gay or something, like everyone thought when they saw him in MGS2! Although, has anyone else noticed the disturbing fact that Raiden's manhood has been grossly enlarged in MGS4? Maybe Kojima and/or Shinkawa did this so that people would know that he IS a man, and not something else. Still, he might just be a gay man. In fact, it's rumored that in the game this giant thing is only visible on Raiden when he's around Snake!   It's already been confirmed that Snake won't die in this game, but he clearly wants to. Quite frankly, I don't blame him too much.  But wait, Raiden has a reason that he wears high heels! He wears them so that he can use them to hold his swords with his feet. Can it get any worse??? You've got to see it to believe it. And as if that weren't bad enough, he can flip around even more than the Ninja (Gray Fox) in the original MGS could. In fact, when he fights he looks about like the Ninja in The Twin Snakes and that's pretty bad. Please, don't even get me started on that disgrace. The real question is, if you had been playing through the original MGS as a complete new-comer to the MGS series, and had seen Gray Fox wearing high heels and using them to hold his sword, wouldn't you have been shaking your head? Or laughing? No, wait, you're probably the kind of idiot that likes that sort of crap, right? In one of the trailers for MGS4 Raiden says, "My turn to protect you, Snake." That line nearly made me throw up. Raiden is suddenly some kind of a kung-fu god that can easily destroy three or four Gekkos, single-handedly, with nothing but a sword (and a knife), and come out in the end without so much as a scratch. GET REAL. Meanwhile Snake is just a gray-haired old man with coughing problems and a stupid-looking mustache. Great. Sure, Snake can still fight, but not like Raiden, who has somehow gained divine powers of inhuman dexterity. Have I mentioned that corny, annoying little robot with wheels, the one that Otacon controls? No, I haven't. It looks so goofy I hope that stupid little thing doesn't follow you around through the entire game. Maybe you can blow it to pieces. That would rock. In one of the trailers it showed the thing roll up to a guard (who took not the slightest notice of it), grab his balls with a wire, and electrocute them. Yet again this game left me speechless. The dumb little robot is always falling down and stuff, too just to provide more unfunny comedy. If it's so clumsy, then why does Snake put up with its presence? Besides bringing him ammunition, all it's going to do is get him spotted by the enemy. And if Otacon gets angry at Snake, he might even make it try to fry his balls. A frightening prospect, indeed. You know, the only good thing that I've heard about MGS4 is the fact that Harry Gregson-Williams is going to score the music for the game, contrary to what I had thought originally. In the first couple of trailers for the game, the music was credited to someone named "Nobuko Toda," who provided the dying-woman and sick-violin music for one of the trailers. Needless to say, the music produced by Harry Gregson-Williams for the TGS 2006 trailer was infinitely better. In fact, it was the best thing about the trailer (even if it didn't present any new, memorable themes, or even the MGS main theme). Hell, the music may very well end up being the best thing about the game. I'd be willing to bet money on it. The music for MGS3 was also one of the best things about the game, except for that awful "Snake Eater" theme song... But Norihiko Hibino isn't too great anyway. In fact, he's pretty lousy. It's too bad that he scores the in-game music for the newer MGS games, only allowing Harry Gregson-Williams to grace the music of the cutscenes. Unfortunately, the Metal Gear series has been on a decline ever since the original Metal Gear Solid, which is my favorite game of the series, as well as one of my favorite video games of all time. It was also the game that introduced me to the series, but now I own all of the games from the series (and multiples of several, due to various collector's editions), and have finished most of them. I was once an avid fan of the Metal Gear series I have a large collection of Metal Gear paraphernalia, even with items signed by Hideo Kojima himself. In fact, I consider myself still a fan of the decent Metal Gear game, but what I don't consider myself is a fanboy of the series. I hate it when things that I like are defaced and ruined, and that's what is happening to MGS. I still enjoyed playing MGS2 and I was extremely hyped over it, but I was disappointed by Raiden and the story in general. I also enjoyed MGS3, but the story, while it was at least original, still wasn't as engrossing as the first MGS's. The game also lacked character development, and there were too many crazy, over-the-top enemies and occurrences. Laughably weird things happen in the game like Ocelot making cat noises, the Cobra Unit enemies exploding when they die, and the scar on The Boss's chest moving like a snake, just to name a few. And don't try to hand me "there are plenty of unbelievable things that happen in the original Metal Gear Solid too" crap. Sure, there are plenty of unbelievable things that happen in the original Metal Gear Solid but none of the bosses in the original MGS were quite as wacko as the idiotic Cobra Unit in Metal Gear Solid 3. When I first saw that trailer that introduced that band of lunatics I was so disgusted. Just look at The Fear - he has abnormally long limbs that are double-jointed, and a freakin' foot-long tongue, for crying out loud. Let me put it this way: the original MGS allowed the supernatural and the exaggeration of certain aspects of reality to still be believable. Nothing was too overdone, it still felt like all of it could be real, due to technological advances and a little belief in the supernatural. The characters in MGS3, however are completely unrealistic and unbelievable. Don't get me wrong, though. I still consider MGS2 and MGS3 decent additions to the series, although they're not great like MGS1. But they are still good games; I enjoyed them. What I've seen of MGS4, however, is entirely intolerable to me. Some other completely intolerable additions to the series are... Those "AC!D" abominations! When I heard about a Metal Gear game for the PSP I was excited - I enjoyed playing Metal Gear Solid "Ghost Babel" for the GameBoy Color (although it was a bit too animι in places), and with the technological power of the PSP I was hoping for a PSP Metal Gear game that played like the 3D "Solid" installments of the series on the PlayStation. Little did I know that Metal Gear AC!D would end up being a turn-based, card-battle pile of steaming crap with an art style massively influenced by animι, and with no voice acting or cinematic appeal whatsoever. Then they had to make that sickening, horrible sequel to AC!D that amplified everything bad about the game, making it look like a cell-shaded, drugged-up dream of some hippie. I can't believe that this CRAP is any way related to Metal Gear. IS THIS METAL GEAR, OR DRAGON BALL Z?!?! Snake's probably about to go super saiyan on this man that's stuffing a trashcan overtop of his head... Or whatever he's doing. I guess he's just throwing barrels at Snake. What a strategic tactic.  Then there's that "Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel" thing with its absolutely terrible artwork. The artwork is downright SLOPPY!!! Just look at this picture below. It is pure sloppiness. Anyone could draw this crap in just a few minutes it looks like crappy FAN ART or rushed, un-finalized storyboards it's nothing but vague, dark shading with overemphasized proportions. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of the below image, how dumb- and out-of-place-sounding is the line "First floor basement, here I come"?  How about this one, below? This "muzzle flash" is arcing downwards. Whaaat??? That's just not right.  Finally, take a look at this stick-man doodle down here. It's supposed to be Solid Snake. No words required this speaks for itself.  This dumb digital comic looks even dumber when it's in motion it really is a sight to behold. I can imagine how long it must have taken the "artist" to animate this garbage. That new "Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops" is more like I had hoped AC!D was going to be like, but it has also been ruined by this artist's pathetic excuse for artwork, which plague the "cutscenes" of the game. Although I have to admit... It actually sounds like the overall story of Portable Ops' is going to be better than Snake Eater's, which was just kind of boring. Snake Eater built up Big Boss' character, but Portable Ops is where we really see what happened to make Big Boss into a traitor. I kind of wish the tables had been turned here, allowing Snake Eater to present Portable Ops' more intriguing story with a high-quality cinematic approach. Well, it seems that I've strayed far from the topic of Metal Gear Solid 4. Oh well. I've made myself thoroughly disgusted with Metal Gear in general by writing this, so it's time to wrap it up... Once, in an interview, when Hideo Kojima was asked a question about the negative reply from fans regarding some of the things he has done with the MGS series, Hideo Kojima said something along the lines of, "this is my Metal Gear and I can destroy it if I want to." Well, congratulations Kojima. You've pretty much destroyed it. Now just bury it and let it rest in peace before fans of the series that aren't complete fanboys end up hating the series that they once loved. EDIT (2007): With the coming of new MGS4 trailers, there is new stupidity to discuss! Just to sum things up, I think I'll list the main reasons this game is going to suck. 1. MGS4 has yet another bleak, war-torn city setting, just like nearly every FPS game that has come out lately. 2. Snake = Now a dying, suicidal, drug-taking, Dick Van Dyke look-alike 3. Raiden = Now a freaky-looking kick-ass ninja-robot-thing with a freaking giant dingaling 4. Eva = Now an old woman that still tries to be sexy, hence she is disgusting, and she says really lame lines such as asking Snake to call her "big momma" 5. Gekkos = New, miniature Metal Gears with gross legs that can fart, jump like fleas, and moo like cows 6. There is an annoying group of idiots on rampage that are all demented women obsessed with some emotion VERY MUCH LIKE THE ENEMIES WE ALREADY FACED IN MGS3, EXCEPT EVEN LAMER, WHICH IS A FEAT THAT I ONCE THOUGHT TO BE UTTERLY INCONCEIVABLE. Compare any of the MGS4 trailers to the trailers for any previous game in the Metal Gear Solid series. You will find there to be no comparison. Most MGS4 trailers lack good music to set the pace (except for ONE that I can remember, which was to introduce the fact that Harry Gregson-Williams would be reprising his role as composer however, it was still nothing compared to the music he made for several of the MGS3 trailers, which kicked ass), and are choreographed in an attempt to make stupid things such as the farting of gekkos seem cool or impressive, which is impossible, laughable, and pathetic. Mini-Review of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: (Excluding the online multiplayer, which I have yet to experience for myself) Written by Ryan C. Stebbins June 2008 Well, I've played Metal Gear Solid 4 now. I bought the Limited Edition, along with the Limited Edition strategy guide and the complete soundtrack. So sue me I had to complete my collection. Although the game is certainly not as good as it could have been, I actually found it to be better than I had anticipated. I guess it's partially because my hopes for the game had been so extremely low. In any case, while the story could have been better, the gameplay was quite good. If nothing else, Metal Gear Solid 4 is definitely a quality production, as every Metal Gear game has been. It's not my favorite game in the series, but as far as gameplay goes, it's certainly the most in-depth. Once again, everything about the game (excluding the story) the graphics, the sound effects, the music, the gameplay is absolutely top-notch. Few games have such a quality feel about them the whole thing feels like a big-budget Hollywood movie. The graphics look every bit as good as a lot CGI movies used to look. The animation is flawless, thanks to painstaking motion capturing of every scene. The sound effects are unparalleled, and Harry Gregson-Williams once again lends his great musical skills to the game. There are more weapons and items available than in any other Metal Gear game, and you can customize the guns in greater detail than you can in most FPS games. There is a mind-boggling amount of details, secrets, and unlockable items littered throughout the game (just as in every Metal Gear Solid game), making the replay value very high. That's not even counting Metal Gear Online, which comes with the game. Many of the little details in the game are things that most developers would never have bothered to include. Of course, as already mentioned, this has always been the case with Metal Gear Solid games. Thus, at least in many ways the game is still true to the series. I'm glad that the developers are still devoted and passionate about the series. Also, in Metal Gear Solid 4 there are so many nods and homage's to the old games (particularly MGS1), that it induces heavy amounts of nostalgia for true veterans of the series. Furthermore, some features of the game that I thought I would dislike ended up not being so bad the controllable "Metal Gear Mark II" robot, for example, was actually pretty cool, even though I initially thought it would be stupid. However, Metal Gear Solid 4 is not perfect. There are parts of the game's story that leave you dumb-founded at their ridiculousness, and other parts are terribly melodramatic. Also, the story of the game is actually pretty down-right depressing. That being said, Metal Gear Solid 4 is a monumental, high-quality production... however, there is just something about it that cannot match up to the feel of the original Metal Gear Solid. As with Metal Gear Solid 3, there are far too many over-the-top-ridiculous scenes, and despite the fact that in most parts you can practically play Metal Gear Solid 4 as an FPS if like (although not as much so on higher difficulty levels), it is definitely still a stealth action game. Yet somehow it simply doesn't have quite the same "infiltration" feeling to it that Metal Gear Solid had... it just isn't the same. |
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