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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots
Gameplay, Continued...
Something I came to realize about halfway into the game was that when you save, it's not saving your status in the game at that exact moment. Rather, you're saving from the last checkpoint. I had to replay most of one level because of this - which was fine because it wasn't terribly difficult, but it was a little annoying. There's a recurring theme throughout MGS4, and it's one of self-indulgence. The fact that this game has been a labor of love for its creators really shines through, and the game is better for it, but so much of the game's content could really use an unbiased, and unforgiving, editor. Really, that's my biggest complaint, and it applies to the cutscenes, the writing in general, and even the boss-fights. One of my biggest nagging-points with MGS4 is the boss-fights. There's a handful of chicks-turned-war-machines, and they're fine except for the cheesy backstories that accompany them. I won't give away anything substantial here, but suffice to say that these stories read like a single 'ad-libs' game sheet filled out by several different [uncreative] people, as if thrown in at the last minute. And you have to kill each of these bosses a second time immediately after you first kill them, in exactly the same so-easy-it's-pointless fashion, after they've fallen out of their war machines. The cutscenes often seemed to drag on forever - a little editing would've gone a long way here. And the sad part is that even after watching every single cutscene, the whole story was still confusing. But it's not all bad news for the cutscenes; while some were coma-inducing, others were action-movie awesome. I enjoyed some of the cutscenes as much as Iron Man (you know, the movie... the friggin' awesome one... not the game, which probably suckss). In fact, even some of the gameplay sequences played like a cutscene, where you're so busy watching everything being blown to bits around you that you forget to blow bits up yourself. Then there's the ending. In so many words, it blew balls. At the point when you think it's as good as it's going to get, just stop watching, because you're right. Unless you like soap-opera drama and have a uterus. The online component, dubbed Metal Gear Online (MGO), took a little doing on my part. First, I had to quit the game and run a system update, then restart the system. Then I had to download some more updates from within the game and restart the system again. Finally, I was prompted to register a Konami ID and Game ID, which I assumed would be quick and easy. After completing an array of forms to create my accounts, with strong password enforcement as I discovered, you're then asked to check your email and click on a confirmation link. If I had to do it again, I'd just do the whole thing from my computer. When I finally got MGO up and running, I started out with the training modes just to be sure I wasn't missing out on anything. Since I'd already played the game, I found the training to be worthless, but it may be more helpful if you do the training before the game. I have to admit that I was hoping that the training would be like the VR Missions of the past games, but you won't find any of those in MGS4 or MGO. Bored with the training, I jumped into an online auto-match. The community of MGO players probably isn't very big yet, so I had to wait for a couple of minutes while the game "searched for players." After a short wait, the game started with about 8 people. You begin the round by selecting weapons (main gun, sidearm, and special weapon), which you must purchase with DP (you don't sell guns for DP in MGO, you kill other players and meet goals). There are various game modes such as deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, etc... And it was fun, though the number of players fell with each new round. The thing I found a little strange was that MGO seemed even more like Call of Duty. I mean, you could be stealthy, sort of, but you'd be the only one. But like I said, it was fun. I didn't regret going through the process of setting up the MGO account, at least, and that's saying something.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions - Wait, is this MGS? Page 3: Gameplay Page 4: Gameplay, Continues... Page 5: Gameplay, Redux Page 6: Conclusion 
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