MGS as FPS
By zanzibarbreeze 5 Comments
Just a quick word before the blog entry proper: I'm undergoing an initiative to play through the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 4 as a first-person shooter - not because it was meant to be played that way, but because it is in fact possible to do so. (Or I assume it will be - perhaps I'll discover differently as I progress further through the game.) Because, after all, who needs Modern Warfare 2 when you've got MGS4 as an FPS?!
Okay, even I know that's stupid. Modern Warfare 2 will undoubtedly be a much, much, much better FPS experience.
Regardless, as a thought experiment, this shall be undertaken. While I'll also update MGS as FPS concurrently on my Giant Bomb profile, you can access the original posts with screenshots and much more on my blog, Metal Gear Scholar. Please enjoy.
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The term "first-person shooter" is not something one would usually associate with Metal Gear Solid. However, today I feel as if I'm an early pioneer, on the precipice of a new discovery.
Today I began my journey into the world of first-person Metal Gear, starting my question to play through the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots through the first-person view. And while I haven't seen that much in-game action so far, it's certainly been very interesting and ultimately very rewarding.
You'll be seeing many "MGS as FPS" posts over the next week or so as I play through Metal Gear Solid 4 over the top of a gun. Posts will be in the following format: first, in bullet points, I'll take you through all my thoughts while playing that I've happened to jot down. Then, you'll get a statistical summary of my playing so far, which you'll see an early sample of below.
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 1: Act 1 start > Meeting Metal Gear Mk. II
- 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.
Statistics
- Kills: 3
- Stuns: 0
- Cautions: 0
- Alerts: 0
- Drebin Store visits: 0
- Rations used: 1
- Continues: 0
- Load screens: 4
- Full time waiting for loads: 198 seconds (approx. 3 minutes)
- Times the phrase "The System" has been mentioned: 1
- Times the phrase "proxy" has been mentioned: 1
- Times the phrase "nanomachine" has been mentioned: 1
- References to controls in cutscenes: 1
Let's break down these statistics and make sense of them. The first set is pretty easy to follow. Kills, stuns, cautions, alerts - these are all fairly self explanatory. I've decided to include my visits to the Drebin Store for ammunition as an experiment to see if I can solely rely on ammunition collected from dead/incapacitated soldiers within the game. Generally in first-person shooters, ammunition is supplied to you, but in Metal Gear players usually come across it more sparingly. The rations used count is also important - I suspect that because Metal Gear Solid 4 wasn't specifically designed to be fully played as a first-person shooter, I'll be needing a lot of assistance when it comes to health. Thus also the continues counter.
The second set of statistics is a bit of investigation and fun combined. The two load time related counters will measure up how long I've had to wait throughout the game. The three phrases counters measure how many times those specific phrases or close variations of them have been used in cutscenes or in codec conversations. I'm also counting how many times characters make direct references to controls throughout the game. This is only measured against directives that would make no sense to Snake and directly address the player - such as Otacon stating that Snake should "press the START button" in order to access the Metal Gear Mk. II menu.