@marcsman: You're thinking of Ron Perlman.

Whoa. Can't say I agree with that Peacewalker was pretty damn great in my book. My only regret is that I didn't play it sooner.

@demoskinos: I enjoyed the base building and staff allocating management stuff, it was everything else around it that I really disliked. The stealth gameplay was just so shallow and the shooting wasn't all that great, either. Plus it had the same problem with MGS4 where there's all these different guns, but all you really need is the tranquiliser. Well, besides for the boss battles, though that's another aspect of the game I'm really not a fan of.

Anyway that's why I'm so excited for Phantom Pain, because I'm to believe it'll still have all of that management stuff, but the action/stealth portion will theoretically play a whole lot better.

I think this is the closest I've ever been to having a real, proper broken heart. I want to cry but it just hurts a little too much to be able to do that.

This is pretty neat. I think Kiefer Sutherland is a good replacement for Hayter.

Yeah I get what you mean as far as the weapon selection goes. I think Kojima pretty much nailed it with MGS1. Doesn't really feel like a sneaking game anymore when you carry a small arsenal of weapons. Besides none of them had a clear advantage over the other so it didn't really matter which weapon you equipped.

@yummylee: There was plenty of reasons to research the lethal weapons all the Extra Ops missions you really needed to outfit your soldiers with the best guns if you wanted to win. Not to mention carrying stuff over into the multiplayer. Personally I thought the bosses were cool in Peacewalker. Doing runs on levels to try to get specific parts for ZEKE or recruits almost gave it a tinge of a MMO-ish feel. I'd argue that the stealth in all the games has always been clunky and kind of a mess and I'm a insanely huge fan. Because honestly the best stealth routes in the games are only found through repeated attempts at areas and memorizing guard patterns down to the second. Its really less actual stealth and more just route memorization.

Although the early sections of MGS4 with the Octo camo had some opportunity for genuine stealth. Even then it was a lot of already knowing that guard A is going to spot X so go to spot B when he does.

I really like Hayter as Snake but I can sort of hear in Keifer's voice how this change could work. He just needs to get more gravelly - it will be interesting hearing the voice properly.

@yummylee: @demoskinos: The story and characters were terrible.

Kojima is stuck on this series until the day he dies, he should at least be allowed to change things up every now and then.

@pie: Don't agree!

@demoskinos: You're wrong and I'm right.

Snake Bauer's going to save the world... in 24 hours! Beep Boop Beep Boop... the drama!

Didn't read the post, but if the fight is about MGS4, It's a good game. The entertaining kind of crazy. Also, dat final boss. Also, dat pre-final boss microwave corridor.

No it's about Peace Walker and how bad some of it is. (Most of it)

Its about Peacewalker I do believe. Which I found to be highly entertaining all the way around. The final battle that leads to the "real" ending is so damn goofy and amazing.

What the fuck is that stone thing in the top right of snakes head?

@demoskinos: I tried the multiplayer for like 20 minutes or so... It's really bad, like hilariously so, but I at least got some fun out of just running around spouting out random nonsense with the CO-OP communication Snake quotes.

And I don't think the stealth is clunky, just really shallow. Like, you can't even crawl in that game, nor can you shimmy along walls. Enemy guards also have incredibly poor eyesight and all I've ever really had to do is just tranquilise everyone in sight. Plus camo is pretty much useless. Though that's still preferable to trial-and-error'ing it until you find which camo suits which stage the best, considering you can't change camo outfits mid-mission.

MGS3 was a proper stealth game. While yes, guard routes never changed (well, they'd add more guards on higher difficulties), but the game gave you so many options to tackle a lot the situations presented to you, whereas in Peace Walker the guards are so dimwitted and my tranq-silencer is so durable (or rather the missions are so short that there's little chance of it breaking) that headshotting every guard is the only sort of tactic required.

The boss battles... eh, they're just not very interesting. The best boss battles in MGS games have of course been the humanoid enemies, but even stuff like Metal Gear Rex for example wasn't just a seemingly invincible bullet-sponge that you just shoot at for 40 minutes with little deviation. I should preface this by saying I've pretty much played all of it in single-player, so while I understand they're ordinarily intended for a full squad of four, they still should have better scaled for when it's just one player.

Recruiting new soldiers and deciding what to do with them is awesome, though. Again, I really enjoyed all of the stuff back at your MSF base. But then even stuff like recruiting volunteers is so weirdly designed. Like, why do I constantly have to keep going to the beach over and over so I throw around some new recruits who don't even fight back in the first place? You'd think after so long you'd just automatically recruit them without having to still go through all of that busywork.

Building your own Metal Gear is also pretty fucking awesome, too, but I should admit that I never got that far. I beat Peace Walker least, but after that I just got bored and found a lot of the new boss battle missions to be too tough to face on my own and gave up.

Plus...

While I at least liked Miller a lot, yeah, the story is fucking dumb, like the whole thing with The Boss AI and Hot Coldman... OK, no, that's actually really kinda great. The cutscenes at least look superb and it definitely has some of the best QTE's in a game ever (faint praise is praise all the same), but I rarely cared about anything that was happening unfortunately. In MGS2 I would spend hours sitting there listening to codec conversations, whereas in Peace Walker I've barely gone near all of those optional codec discussions you can listen to.

So, yeah, Peace Walker is definitely very mixed for me. Honestly didn't expect this to lead into me discussing my opinion about Peace Walker, but there we are I guess :P

Yeah, you're right. It is so terrible it is kinda funny.

God damn rocket powered hands creepy anime bullshit dumb bird watching terrible child acting crappy comic cutscene urgh

So far as known actors go, Kiefer is about as good a replacement as I can think of. It still won't be the same without ole Hayter, but he'll do a good job.

Plus, when young Solid Snake shows up at the end, it'd be weird to have David Hayter talking to himself.

@pie Oh my gosh you take it back right now i am gonna kick ur but so bad

@yummylee

What?! The best conversations in the game are in the optional stuff like they are in all MGS games. Get off the forums and go listen to them right now!

@artemesia: But I don't care about any of the characters D=... Eh, it's too late, I'm a lost cause. I think my time with Peace Walker is at a close, and I gave that game a helluva long time to win me over, but there's just too much crap that keeps getting in the way.

Christ, like the missions where that Russian guy keeps escaping... Fuck me.

@artemesia:

Really quality stuff.

(you can zoom in and erhgh take the clothes off the erghhhhhhhhhh 15 year old girl urghhrheszhr)

I predict the Hayter/Sutherland split will be over whether people prefer the goofier parts of Metal Gear or the more serious parts. Hayter will be better at doing the former, Sutherland the latter. In fact, I can't imagine Jack Bauer even getting in the booth to voice a man speaking to a talking cat, or saying something like "Metal Geaarr?" Maybe the switch signifies a more down-to-earth sequel.

Oh wait, that trailer had flaming whales.

@yummylee: I own a (PSP) copy of Peace Walker and played it for like 90 minutes before thinking: "The meta-aspects of this seem ok, but I hate these controls with a burning passion" and stopping. I assume it isn't worth it to continue and I should spend my PSP time finishing up whatever absurdly grindy SRPGs I own instead?

To get back on the topic at hand... the voice of Solid Snake is iconic, but I feel like Hayter's gravel got more ridiculous as the series went on, and I'm not so attached to his voice that I wouldn't accept Jack Bauer as the voice of Big Boss. I watched enough 24 to know he can do grizzled and gruff far more naturally than Hayter.

While many of my complaints are story related, I also have issues with it from a gameplay perspective. The game was painfully short and incredibly easy. Act 3 is just tedious. You had infinite ammo, aka the drebin store. And it really seemed like Kojima wanted to make more open ended level design, but had trouble making it challenging. You only had 2 codec contacts. Octocamo and third person aiming are amazing additions to the series, but again, it seemed like they had trouble designing challenging gameplay around it. If I had to describe the game in one word, it would be "unsatisfying."

With the movie announcement and firing your lead actor to chase a bigger name, it might be emblematic of something bigger. If so, I'm worried about MGS losing its charm.

Probably not. While the game's pretty sizeable, it's mostly a lot of the same and the game will reuse environments pretty liberally. I never found the story very engaging, either, and some of the dumb on display was just... dumb dumb, not funny dumb. You may feel different otherwise on that front, though, but if you're struggling with the controls, never mind potentially getting as bored as I did with the core stealth/shooting gameplay, then yes, I would say your time may be better spent elsewhere.

You have found the combination of random words that makes me fall out of my chair in delight every time I read them.

That is...a very unique arrangement.