Western games and "kick-ass story" don't generally go hand in hand. Just sayin'.

MGS4 = 2008 GOTY

Why is everyone talking about it like it failed? It did pretty well in sales.

What will he do next?

"dissapointed with sales, kojima? how 'bout not releasing it as an exclusive for the worst selling console  of this generation??"

Yeah letts put it on the Wii, It would totally rock then.

No, having just played and finished MGS4, which I can't say for GTAIV, it's definetly more deserving of GOTY. Being unable to follow a story isn't totally the developer's fault, you know.

The best thing I like about MGS4 is that it's more military than most Western games, despite it taking place in a near future setting. Plenty of it's cutscenes show this. However, if you classified it as a shooter, I'd still say it was better than practically most shooters. I've played COD4 and Halo 3, to be honest they're terribly medicore as shooters. There's no interesting gameplay mechanics in either one other than 'shoot enemy, press the cover button, throw grenade, survive hundred of bullets with the power of sheer steroids or shield. MGS4 brought a lot more fun, and it's why I actually like MGO a lot more. Yes, you run and you shoot enemies and throw grenades and survive bullets, but you still do a  LOT more than in normal shooters.

Seriously what was hard about MGS's story? I didn't even need a recap, I remembered everything important about the old ones. Probably the best sign of a good or decent story, If i remember it, and not laugh at how bad it was, then it can't be horrid.

@LordofUltima

Apparantly you don't play very many western games.  GTA IV, Mass Effect, Fallout, etc are all recently released games with very good stories.  Even things like Halo and Gears of War have quite an emphesis on the story, and you can go even further back and look at some of the all time classics like Baldurs Gate or Planescape Torment, all of which easily have better story telling than something like MGS, and yes that includes Halo.

Simply because these games manage to tell a good story, without completely ramming it down your throat by having hours of cut-scenes explaining basic things, and then forgetting they're supposed to be games.  Story telling should be subtle, little things shouldn't have to be explained, it should just come naturally as part of the games world, which is why things like Halo and Fallout work so well, they're world seems believable and it's easy to see yourself there..  Where as with MGS, it only makes sense after watching hours of cut-scenes and then cross referencing everything with a downloadable database.

Yes, there's some pretty bad trends in western games these days, but at least they remember they're supposed to be games.

A positive move certainly.  Kojima, Suda and Mikami, discussed some of the issues that relate to this during Snake Vs Zombie.  The Japanese industry needs to change. The insular nature of Japanese people has effected software development in the past  years, and has cost their indusry. They are now behind in my eyes. Capcom are fine however, they are well tuned to what westerners want and have always been given the nature of how they became successful as a company.

I honestly don't care what Kojima does so lnog ash e does something because here is the fact of the matter people need to realize: Hideo Kojima cannot make a bad game. He has easily made the best exclusive game this generation with a brilliant plot that ties all three predecesors together with the greatest choreography in any game or movie even. Not too mention the gameplay is top notch and runs flawlessly. Every game this man has been involved with was absolute gold. I don't question his methods, I just await a trailer.

haha shouldn't be that worried a lot of other game sites gave MGS4 GOTY lol =D

@WinterSnowBlind
"Story telling should be"

No. Stop.

Story telling is. They get a story across to you. But not all the blame lies on them if you're not interested in the story. I understand about the long cutscenes, but they were still more interesting than someone speaking the story to me while I'm trying to blow away some aliens and whatnot.

Complaining that a story is complicated is also pretty moot. Yes, it's complicated. Did you notice that it's the 4th game in the series? All of which is related to each other? Did you even play every metal gear? Complaining that there's an encyclopedia there to help you if you forgot some things is something i have trouble wrapping my head around.

"
"Yes!  Kojima reminds me of George Lucas; he comes up with some amazing concepts, but should really leave the writing to someone else."

George Lucas and Kojima have completely opposite problems, Lucas writes stuff that is way over simplified, while Kojima can get way too convoluted. But I don't know maybe kojima fell into a hole after MGS2 he couldn't get out of. A new IP will be interesting to see.

Does anybody know if Policenauts or Snatcher were as convoluted as the MGS series?"

"Western games and "kick-ass story" don't generally go hand in hand. Just sayin'."

Bring in some revenue by putting mgs1 on xbla and mgs2:s on xbox originals, then bring mgs4 to the 360, on 2 discs if necessary, mgs1 did it so why not.
I'd hate to be kojima in a situation where the only options are metal gear, you can almost feel him crave for something different.

What makes a game  western these days?
-Cursing way too much
-Being bloody as hell
-Shitty Cliche storylines
-Unoriginal gameplay.
THERE'S NOT A DAMN THING WRONG WITH  METAL GEAR SOLID!!!!! THERE NEVER WAS!!!!!! AND YOU ALL NEED TO STOP BEATING THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF METAL GEAR SOLID BECAUSE YOU PREFER GAMES THAT SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think the root of the problem is that Japanese games are no longer inhabited by humans doing human things so much as by archetypes performing cliches. Do I really have to sit through another cutscene where the impossibly attractive main character proves what an awesome dude he/she is by dispatching random npcs with effortless style? Am I about to hear another monologue filled with genuinely awful eastern philosphy (or cheap immitations of same) translated into English? Will a weak-willed secondary character finally find their resolve? Etc.

I believe that Japanese games have built up such a wall of traditional crap and honed it in such isolation that they have collectively lost their grasp on reality. The characters no longer seem real, the things they do seem odd, and the worlds they inhabit seem false and unlikely. I'm looking at you, 'war economy.' I'm not saying Western games are innocent of these charges, but what they have going for them is that Westerners don't look to tradition as rigidly. They are somewhat inoculated against their games becoming petrified blocks of crusty genre conventions.

One of the other problems Japanese games face is death by detail. "Nothin' can kill a show like too much exposition." Your story has to be compelling enough to drive the player forward, short enough to tell during the cutscenes and ingame dialog, and simple enough to be comprehended amidst all the other mess the player has to deal with. Western games excel at this. If it fails on one of these axes, something about your game will be odd. At worst, you might have to resort to fancy powerpoints to explain the convoluted bunk you dreamed up. At best, the only people who will truly comprehend it are the fans that collect on the forums and piece it together from secondary sources.

In short: Western games are inhabited by humans who (when they are characterized) have human flaws and do human things. Japanese games are inhabited by clones performing elaborate rituals. Western games KISS on the story, Japanese games do not.

The elephant in the room here is that the only reason MGS4 was even a contender for GBs GOTY is the improved third person perspective and shooting mechanics. Even Ryan Payton couldn't fix the story or writing, though, so GTAIV won out with its superior storytelling.

@rateoforange:

Are you being sarcastic? Because all you have written seems to be the opposite.

" I'm looking at you, 'war economy.'"

Haha. Dude, you should read more, go out more, learn about the world around you. The "war economy" is one of the most believable things I have seen in games so far. Certainly plausible and real (Military industrial complex? The US waging wars because otherwise their economy would suffer?). As everything else in MGS4.

Of course MGS4 is fiction, and none of that is supposed to be real. But it is 1000 times more belieavable than Batman for example (a guy that dresses up like a bat?) or Spider-Man. Gears of War is propaganda presented as a game, with dehumanization of enemies, soldier stereotypes and everything else.

" At best, the only people who will truly comprehend it are the fans that collect on the forums"

That's absolutely false. I never played any MGS game and knew absolutely 0 when I played it and still could understand the story. The problem here seems to be with you, not the game.

"In short: Western games are inhabited by humans who (when they are characterized) have human flaws and do human things."

I think you should widen you notion of "humanity" a lot. MGS4 showed humans relating to each other more than any other game (yes, and did it in looong and well-made cutscenes). The only thing humans do in Western games is to shoot other people.

Maybe for you shooting things is all there is to humanity, but it certainly doesn't constitute what the world is about. 

In terms of games MGS4 is the closest thing to perfection so far.

The concept of the "war economy" has been popular in the West at least since Orwell included it in 1984. I think that such concepts, even if they are done in a slightly sci-fi way in MGS, reflect well upon current circumstances in Iraq, and other such wars around the globe.

" but somewhere along the way the story just became too convoluted and ridiculous."