Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

• It was nice finally starting with weapons that I had chosen. Although I appreciate that in typical first-person shooters you'd get a progression of weapons, from handguns up to explosives, here I just went ahead and equipped M4 custom (suppressed), the Operator (suppressed), the HK MP5 (suppressed), and that sniper rifle that's also suppressed.

• After "meeting" Otacon in the bombed-out building, the game immediately presents you with the chance to take out four or five patrolling enemies. I dispatched them immediately using the M4 with a dot sight equipped. I also had the Solid Eye equipped, making it easier to differentiate the enemies from the militia. Deciding to kill rather than to stun was a simple decision to make; I don't want enemies reviving themselves all of a sudden. This portion of the game has you situated just before reaching the militia's underground tunnels. I demoed out each weapon on the enemies. The sniper rifle forces you into the scope, which is typical for first-person shooters anyway, but with a game like Metal Gear Solid 4 I did find myself rushing to eliminate the enemies I had chosen and revert back to another, scopeless weapon. The blacked-out surroundings while looking through the scope in that thin, tunnel vision was unsettling, and I wanted to see as much of the environment as possible. The handgun was weak and effectively useless. I cannot foresee using it all that much. I preferred the M4 over the MP5SD (although its use would come later).

• Picking up ammunition didn't seem to be too much of a problem early on. On problem I did encounter and eventually ended up remedying was the dot sight on the M4. Although it's intended to be useful, it's really blocky and takes up a lot of the screen, so I just did away with it after meeting Drebin. This means looking down the iron sights which are still surprisingly adequate.

• I don't think I'll be strictly going for headshots throughout the game. There just isn't the need - I'm fast enough on the trigger to take down one enemy of two enemies working together with bodyshots, especially using the M4.

• On major issue I encountered was trying to change weapon while using the M4. For the M4's secondary fire I've equipped a shotgun attachment. The problem is that the secondary fire is activated with R2, the same button used to change weapons. Furthermore, you can't actually change weapons while in first-person view. It's a bit like a dance attempting to switch firearms, and more often than not I'm ending up setting off the very, very loud shotgun attachment, which is irritating.

• The next area to pass through was the militia's underground. By now they liked me, so there was no need for stealth. The effect created by the night-vision/thermal goggles (or night-vision solid eye, rather) is very nice, and it's certainly one of the best effects I've seen on any action game on the PlayStation 3. I did go down dead ends several times because it was a bit hard to keep track of where I was going, but this was not a major issue.

• The cutscene with Drebin was very amusing, merely for the number of times "the system" and "nanomachines" came up. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to count the number of times the "war economy" was invoked.

• After leaving Drebin, the game has you navigate a platforming section in a shelled-out house. It essentially consists of climbing up ledges, crawling under ledges and the like. This was very difficult using the first-person view, and I even caught myself once wishing that I could just switch to the third-person camera. I resisted, however, leading to me getting lost several times. Having Otacon eventually guide me through the entire thing from start to finish was irritating.

• The fighting sections in the streets here saw a real change in the way the enemy played the game. For one, I found myself being spotted a lot more. For example, I'd walk past an alleyway that happened to be a spawn point right when an enemy was spawning. This caught me out several times. Then, I happened to emerge behind enemy lines and almost got slaughtered. Thankfully I was able to flee to safety, under the guard of the militia. (Well, they just happened to be taking most of the bullets.)

• The next section was getting through Advent Palace where we first meet Rat Patrol Team 01. Much of the building is mined with claymores and sleep-gas grenades. I ended up crawling through the majority of the building, as I was on low health and didn't want to use a ration - I knew the cutscene would restore my health and stamina, and nullify the stress gauge. Running around, even in first-person view, I knew I'd end up tripping a mine.

• When I began the fight with the FROGS, I chose the MP5SD, under the belief it would be harder hitting with its faster rate of fire. What actually happened was just me using up a ton of ammunition without actually doing a whole lot of damage. It necessitated a trip to the Drebin Store (my first), and at that point I switched over to the M4. I quickly found that the shotgun attachment was deadly from close range, so that ended up being the method of death for many soldiers towards the end of the FROGS section. I also had to use a ration at this point.

• I left the game in the carpark of Advent Palace, with one of the harder sections of Act 1 ahead.
  

• Kills: 62 (previous 3, total now 65)
  
• Stuns: 0 (previous 0, total now 0)
• Cautions: 0 (previous 0, total now 0)
• Alerts: 4 (previous 0, total now 4)
• Drebin Store visits: 1 (previous 0, total now 1)
• Rations used: 1 (previous 1, total now 2)
• Continues: 0 (previous 0, total now 0)

• Load screens: 4 (previous 4, total now 8)
• Full time waiting for loads: 30 seconds (previous 198 seconds, total now 228 seconds)
• Times the phrase "The System" was mentioned: 22 (previous 1, total now 23)
• Times the phrase "proxy" was mentioned: 1 (previous 1, total now 2)
• Times the phrase "nanomachine" was mentioned: 12 (previous 1, total now 13)
• References to controls in cutscenes: 0 (previous 1, total now 3)

So I had this last week off work to study for a big exam I have next Tuesday.

Naturally, the first thing I did was fire up my new PlayStation 3 Slim that my amazing girlfriend gave me and fired up Metal Gear Solid 4.

Given the fact that most games nowadays see multi-platform release I never saw fit to invest in the PS3 despite all the praise for the exclusives. I didn’t really think I was missing out on anything.

I was wrong.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is one of the best games I have played in a long time. I started it on Monday morning and didn’t stop until I finished it. The story, the gameplay, everything about the game begged me to continue.

One of my initial hurdles with the game was the story was a continuation of the original Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 with references to characters from Metal Gear Solid 3. I hadn’t played any of those games. So all the little flashbacks in the cutscenes and the references to things like Shadow Moses didn’t really mean much to me.

Despite this I was able to get into the story and the game world sucked me in from the get go. The whole “war economy” concept that the game explores is very compelling and topical.

One thing that struck me about the story was the tragic overtones. It has a pretty sad and depressing tone to it that is uncommon in video games. From the doomed protagonist to the bleak future setting the tone of the game is quite refreshing. The sequence at the end where Snake has to crawl desperately through the microwaves, while images of his friends desperately trying to survive is one of the most powerful sequences in recent years.

That said I think that the rest of the ending after that point was kind of weak in comparison. It’s almost like Kojima copped out and wanted to keep his options open. The suicide scene of Snake in the graveyard really hit home. It felt like an appropriate end. But then Kojima turned around and kept him alive. For what? An appearance in a possible sequel? Just my opinion.

The other thing that I found odd was the way the game threw out references to the PS3, Blu-Ray and the references to the PS1 and memory cards at the end of the Mantis fight. It kinda threw me because it just sucked me out of the world that I was deep into. I just put it down to Japanese quirk and it didn’t bother me that much but it was kind of unnecessary. Nonetheless the narrative is certainly strong and compelling.

Gameplay was also an area that surprised me. I was expecting this to play out more like the other stealth games I was used to such as  Splinter Cell. While there were definitely stealth elements the gameplay seemed to be a bit more action focussed. For the most part I would find myself just taking out enemies as opposed to avoiding them or knocking them out.

When I was caught I would generally shoot my way out a scrape as opposed to hiding again. I never felt like stealth was something that was enforced. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s just I wasn’t really expecting it to be that way. I like having the option. Certainly it made me feel more like a hunter than the hunted.

Overall it’s an amazing game. One that deserves the praise it has received thus far and one that deserves to be remembered as a classic.

 
This week's "What We've Been Playing" features discussion on Brutal Legend, Katamari Forever, Axel & Pixel, Fishing Girl, Dark, Frontlines: Fuel of War, South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!, and plenty more. We follow that up with some gaming news including the idea that gaming journalists should have to develop a game before becoming a journalist, a PSP Minis developer surprised by the cost of getting an ESRB rating, and more. We end the gaming portion with our "QotW" and have a very good discussion on our "Citizen Kane" of gaming.

We end the show with another "Sausage Dump" and discuss such TV shows as Supernatural and the not so awesome film, The Lost Boys: The Tribe! We hope you enjoy the show and don't forget to rate/review us on iTunes.

• Site: Pixelated Sausage
  
• Podcast: DF #78: The Citizen Kane of Gaming Podcasts
  

So, I came across a superb fanmade MGS movie... or at least part 1 of 3 (they don't have the other parts complete yet).

I wrote a pretty lengthy blog about it here.

Here's a tiny snippit:

I've just had the pleasure of sitting down to a viewing of a fan made movie (or rather a part of one) by a group of Italian film school students. The movie, just released to the masses via their website (as of Sept 27, 2009), is based on the characters and myth of the Metal Gear Solid series of video games.

 Screenshot of the film "Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy"

Please check out the blog and if you like what you see, download the movie from their official website (links provided in the blog)