Are sequels necessary?

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It's a common thing, unfortunately - our expectations are built up and then games just don't meet up to them.

 

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Session #2 saw me playing more of the game, with weapons that could be customized and would be more friendly to the first-person shooter experience.

I'll be carrying out a "liveblog" of sorts on my Twitter account. You can find me at @mgscholar. All MGS as FPS-related tweets will be hashtagged #mgsasfps. Click here for a full chronicle of events. I've suggested that some other people jump in with the same hashtag, so if they do we'll get a full melange of Metal Gear Solid 4 FPS experience tweets.

Session 2: Meeting Metal Gear Mk. II > Advent Palace (after FROGS battle)

• 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)

• Just to note, I'm playing through this game on medium difficulty with a 100% save game. No, I haven't cleared the game and gotten all the weapons and emblems - I just downloaded a 100% save from GameFAQs. Yes, that's right, internet. Throughout the game I'll be using the M4 custom (suppressed), the Operator (suppressed), the HK MP5 (suppressed), and that sniper rifle that's also suppressed. This is a stealth game after all, and if Snake were actually infiltrating an environment he'd be using suppressed weapons as well, so that's why I made that decision. Items-wise I'll be using rations and the Solid Eye, and that's probably it. Perhaps the syringe as well.
  

• The first thing that immediately stands out when trying to play through Guns of the Patriots as a first-person shooter is that the game has no native first-person view mode. By that I mean that if you do not have a gun equipped you cannot look through Snake's eyes at any time, as you could in the previous Metal Gear games. This was certainly a strange decision to make, and it has a direct impact when you're playing through the game normally, but I'm not playing through the game normally. So for the first few gameplay moments of the game I had to play using the third-person camera. Sorry, I know I've failed you.

• The next thing control-wise was the realization that I'd have to hold down L1 permanently if I wanted the game to always be through Snake's eyes. This hasn't been that much of a problem and I don't think it'll become one - just something to note.

• We might as well get the problems with using the first-person view out of the way right now at the beginning. I immediately needed to change the look sensitivity of the camera. For the first-person view, I ratcheted it from 0 up to 10, and left all other cameras the same. It's still rather slow, but it'll have to do. The game's first-person view has you looking over the firearm. This is extremely uncomfortable if you're used to other first-person shooters, where guns are usually at the bottom right of the screen, and the reticule/crosshairs are in the center. Here, you're forced to look down the gunsights. I equipped the dot sight onto the M4 to make this a little easier. However, it is still very disorienting, as it's distracting and it's hard to get a full view of the screen. Snake moves very slowly for a first-person shooter. More on this below.
  

• The first sequence of the game has you attempting to dodge gekkos. On my first ever playthrough of the game I had absolutely no problem navigating this section. I simply followed the dot on the compass in the top right and fled to safety. However, I had a real problem with this section when looking over the top of the AK102. Add to that the fact that Snake moves very slowly (or seems to move slowly) over the top of the gun, and I had to use one ration in the first section and almost died. Which is, you know, embarrassing. It's logical to chalk it down to the fact that I haven't tried out the game as an FPS yet, but I think part of the problem is that in a tense situation, with Snake moving slowly, in an environment that's seemingly quite large but is actual crammed tight with buildings and doorways, I simply got lost and flustered. Yes, I almost died within the first minute of gameplay.

• From here on out my experience was smooth, although I have not yet played that much due to the frequency of cutscenes. I've had to dispatch three enemies in total using the AK102, killing them all. Note that I was forced to use the iron sights, not having met the Mk. II and not having access to weapons with crosshairs/dot sights. It wasn't all that difficult, surprisingly, and it also helps that enemies aren't bullet sponges, so even if you don't hit them in the head, several succinct shots to the chest seems to fell them with ease.

• I was spotted once, just before entering the building where you shimmy through a crawl space and see a militiaman being executed by a PMC guard. (Where the tank first makes its appearance.) I wasn't legitimately spotted - no caution or alert phase - but somebody saw something moving and came over to investigate. I had the chance to hide, but that experience has certainly made me more aware of my presence.
  

• In the respect of stealth, it's very nice that the game still allows you to carry out most actions while being in the first-person. Snake can still run, crouch-walk, and even shimmy crawl across the ground. It's possible to execute a roll, although the game does pull you out of the FPS view while Snake's making the action. If you have L1 held throughout the roll it'll immediately put you back into the FPS view, so this isn't much of a problem. Octocamo can still be used, obviously, since you can lie on the ground. Context sensitive actions, such as leaping over waist-height barriers and sticking to walls cannot be used. The same applies to CQC. I do not foresee this being much of a problem, however. Whenever it's absolutely essential, I'll just have to make the concession and use the third-person camera for however many seconds it takes. After all, the game was not designed to be played as a first-person game throughout.

• As a final note for this blog entry, a word of praise: the weapon firing animations and reloading animations in this game look spectacular.
  

• In some ways, Metal Gear Solid 4 was the last straw for me when it comes to story in games. I can pinpoint exactly when I stopped caring about the story in the game. It was in the colnclusive cutscene of Act 3 - a half hour ordeal, five minutes of which consists of soldiers rolling up and readying their firearms, and another five minutes which consists of Big Mama deciding whether or not to throw herself to the fire. The scene was long - very long - but most insultingly, it was very overprotracted. The whole thing could have been condensed down to a seven or eight minute scene at most.
   
  Compare the way the story is approached in Metal Gear Solid 4 to the way it is approached in Half-Life 2. In Half-Life 2, the player finds themselves active throughout the story. It's not just the fact that you can move around and have full control over Gordon during scenes containing speech with other characters. The success of Half-Life 2's management of story can be boiled down to the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the whole game is one massive cutscene. Never once are you pulled out of Gordon's shoes. As a player, I found the story in Half-Life 2 to be managable, unlike the way the story was approached in Metal Gear Solid 4. Half-Life 2 has you stop fighting for a amaximum of six or seven minutes at any one time; even less so in the subsequent episodes. Metal Gear Solid 4 holds you for cutscenes that sometimes reach feature length or television show broadcast length. That, and they use the word "system" or the phrase "the system" over two-hundred-and-ten times in the game. 
   
  Allow me to posit the following theory of the way story is managed in games. We can have "disconnect" story, where the player is removed from the game and the story and plays the role of the observer - games like Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid 4 - or we can have "connected" story where the story proceeds around the player, and the player finds that she or he has an active role in the way the story is told. 
   
  There are merits and pitfalls to both methods of execution. A "disconnected" story can be more flamboyant, and can have more atmosphere. Uncharted clearly follows this tact because it tries to replicate the feel or a blockbuster Hollywood film - an Indiana Jones, for example. But, as aforementioned, this has its downside, as it can alienate the player (see Metal Gear Solid 4). 
   
  The converse applies to the "connected" style of story in games. They are much more approachable and appealling, but can lack in atmosphere. 
   
  I would hope that we slowly see games moving in the direction of a "connected" story. But there's one major stepping stone blocking that from occuring, and that is the atmosphere, the design. 
   
  Take Valve, the developers of Half-Life 2. Valve is very, very good at what it does. It has good writers and brilliant animators. There's a reason why Alyx Vance is more or less universally lauded as the most realistic and most loved female character in all games made so far, and that's because Valve knows what it's doing. With the Half-Life series Valve made games taht every other developer of first-person shooters has been copying from, lifting from and emulating since. But the fact is that most developers just aren't as good as Valve. 
    
  The Darkness. Case in point. Starbreeze's XBOX360 and PlayStation 3 title is a competent first-person shooter. It's actually pretty good. It takes the best elements from Half-Life 2 and the Halo series and merges them together. What stands out is, of course, its "connected" style of story, without cutscenes, like Half-Life 2. Unfortunately it stands out for the wrong reasons. Facial animation and expression is poor. Lip syncing is unacceptably bad and, in some cases, non-existent (sometimes characters won't open their mouths at all). Voice acting varies in quality. This allserves to break the illusion of story, as it would in any game. But it's particularly bad in a first-person shooter, in a "connected" style story where you're looking directly into the eyes of a character who should be looking back at you. 
   
  This, then, is a major deal breaker for a "connected" story style. 
   
  But, slowly and surely, technology grows stronger and experience in designing games increases. One would hope (or at least I hope) that as time goes on the player will be further integrated into the way story is conveyed. It doesn't necessarily have to be about making choices. Sometimes, refusing to break from the game and the illusion of the game, like in Half-Life 2, can make all the difference. 
   
  I talk about this and other large scale issues related to video games on No Quarter, my weekly podcast. Each week a topic is picked and no quarter is given. Previous episodes include the failings of the Blu-Ray format and maturity in video games. You can subscribe to the show feed or download this week's episode about first-person shooters. As well as the way story is conveyed in games in the latest episode, I also suggest that the first two Metal Gear games should be remade as first-person shooterrs. A mere thought experiment, or a stroke of genius? I'd love to hear your comments about the show.

If you'd like to listen, please do so. I'd love to hear some feedback.

Versus

I think a multi-platform Metal Gear is an excellent idea. But apparently there are some people who do not. Here's what they think in response to the latest episode of the Kojima Productions Report podcast.

 I particularly like the "XBOX360 is a dead console!!!". Oh, and the guy that wrote a poem. Word.