Metal Gear Solid 4.
I had mgs4 in my grasp a lil late than most this time since i had some annoying complications with EMA and I had to start Old Snake's journey 6 days after release.
Naturally watching all the video reviews and reading the now flooding amount of player reviews not having for myself was eating me up inside and frankly was almost considering intimidating GTA and robbing a game shop then admitting GTA made me do it...
While i doubt any game will get me that wound up except maybe Resident Evil 5 it really was a chore to just sit and wait while everyone else was enjoying the greatest MGS to date.
I obviously managed to get it and because of that i skipped almost week of college just to have some alone time with my lil precious :P.
Feeling skeptical about the amount of 10's foating around almost as much as GTA4 i thought this might be another major dissapointment and luckily I actually agree with the majority of the critics about how fookin brilliant this game is. Actually calling it just a game would be quite an understatement considering how many messages and cinematics there are, the MGS series as i see it are very much unique and no company has tryed to copy its methods ide expect probably cause there too intimidated or just have too much respect for this outstanding series (very closing to tieing with the Resident Evil series in my taste's).
Instead of starting my review early like some who only reviewed after around 3 hours to give it the verdict of the greatest game since games began, I played through the whole 18-22 hour long story to have a clear view of how i think what it really deserves.
And i can see why through the first few hours people would see it as the biggest event since Jesus' 2nd coming since the first hours have some of the greatest gameplay yet.
As Snake, or approprietly called Old Snake for this run thanks to his accelerated ageing, your called out of a hard lifes of Metal Gear destroying to have Cambell almost beg for you to take down the biggest threat the world has ever seen, Liquid Ocelot. I spose as far as the story goes thats the prob the best i should leave it because 1. just how large this story is and 2. just how many twists occur throughout. Though its no secret that 'alot' of old friends are returning there roles in the story will surprise you indeed and it makes it all the harder to say goodbye to some of them. Being sadly the last of this awesome series you can expect to find every loose end tied up and every story element explained to some incredible results. From why Vamp just won't die to the true founder's of the Patriots, everything that left you hanging in the past MGS' is found out in MGS4.
Though with such a massive story and an even larger roster of characters to fill it with i expected it may fall a little and might feel a lil over-whelming like maybe they could of left somethings out, but luckily everything works perfectly and the story like the MGS predeccesors is the main motivation to keep going.
The other main reason is of course the outstanding gameplay, what i especially love is unlike most of the 4th's these days MGS4 didn't completely revelate there gameplay schemes and merely improved extremely on the old ones. The main new additions is finally being able to move while crouching, the new over the should view teamed with the first person view (which you can move while in said view's) being able to roll left+right while aiming and a playing dead ability. Everything else is basically what you've already seen except much easier to pull off or just alot more fun to execute, which I'm extremely glad for since the MGS gameplay didn't really need much improvement in my opinion anyway. Though not being able to interrogate soldiers anymore is abit of shame but won't be surely missed.
Though the styles now seem much more even, in the sense that shooting everything in sight doesn't secure death by insane amount of numbers this time around, infact the soldiers are now so much easier to battle with sometimes stealth isn't really needed. Stealth is still a fun option with loads of options and ways to sneak through, though the presence of an ongoing war in the first levels make both the stealth and the shooting much easier to get through as one faction of the war can actually become very useful allies for getting around. Though as the game goes through the stages, you might need to rely on stealth abit more since you will eventually end up on your own though also with much less soldiers to deal with.
Another reason why MGS4 seems maybe leaning towards more the 3rd person shooter is because of how many scripted parts require you to blast your way through especially nearing the end, which makes the amazing variety of weaponry to come across a very welcome addition.
Weapons in this game is much much much more varied than just one handgun, one assault rifle and just one type of book to distract the guards with.
Theres around 45+ weapons to play around with and really give you the choice of what weapon set suits you best, be it a desert eagle along with an m60 and RPG or maybe a silenced pistol along with an automatic silenced sniper. Another great addition to the weapons is customisation, while some guns have more customisations than others around 80% can have some sort of attachment be it a suppresor or a torch or even a grenade launcher. So the amount of weaponry and how to use it spells quite abit of reply value just to play through again with a different set of weapons.
Being MGS title of course sets you up with also a huge amount of cutscenes to sit through (and enjoy) and some interactive flashbacks to watch aswell. Yet again though after about the 20 hours it would take you to complete the game at least 9 hours of that is cutscenes, not like its problem for MGS fans since if you've lasted this long with the franchise the cutscenes have to be one of the reasons why you love these games, I can honestly admit even though maybe compared to more of a movie the story alone deserves the game a 9/10. Sometimes gameplay and cutscenes can also combine in a splitscreen mode to make a very intense and sometimes even tear inducing experience due to watching what everyone is going through while your doing your job.
With so much to watch its a very warm welcome for the beauty of the graphics as it easily the greatest looking game i have played ( i haven't seen much of crysis but from what i've read there even better than that) with some top notch animation work and almost unbelievable enviroments. The characters of course look perfect and resemble some high budget CGI movie models, well the whole games looks like your very own interactive CGI movie in fact. MGS4 truelly is what the next gen of gaming should look like, its very much like the representive of just whats possible.
The sound is just as perfect as the visuals with perfect voice acting (well from most) to an approproitly epic soundtrack. Throughout you'll also encounter alot of dialoque from the past just popping up mid-gameplay if it goes with the situation or maybe when exploring a certain Alaskan base or just for some quirky humor and can really bring some nostagia and also helps with tieing up the amount of loose ends.
Like no game though in my opinion MGS4 isn't exactly perfect, there's not as many boss fights in this one and all are much easier than say the teeth grinding boss' in Snake Eater, don't get me wrong there still fun just a few more boss' to own would of made up for it. Also the game in general (on Solid Normal at least) is much easier this time around especially due to Old Snakes much improved moveset with the shooting.
Also the Ipod which is just one of the random gadgets to expect from a MGS game doesn't live up to its entertainment value since you can't have any other item equipped while listening to some tracks from the predeccesors themselves, though can come in handy when your just hiding around and would prefer something listen to other than the alert theme.
I haven't tryed the online play all that much though i do know first hand it is quite a pain for how long it can take to get started but at least your character customisation is decent enough to wait for. Since i haven't got a headset I still tink i'll leave online play alone though for now.
That typed though this game is the very meaning of a must buy for the ps3 since it really does blow all the competition away and while i can see why people everywere are slapping 10s althougher it i can still think it could of maybe bin a little longer since as i said theres still not as much gameplay as you'de like.
Naturally watching all the video reviews and reading the now flooding amount of player reviews not having for myself was eating me up inside and frankly was almost considering intimidating GTA and robbing a game shop then admitting GTA made me do it...
While i doubt any game will get me that wound up except maybe Resident Evil 5 it really was a chore to just sit and wait while everyone else was enjoying the greatest MGS to date.
I obviously managed to get it and because of that i skipped almost week of college just to have some alone time with my lil precious :P.
Feeling skeptical about the amount of 10's foating around almost as much as GTA4 i thought this might be another major dissapointment and luckily I actually agree with the majority of the critics about how fookin brilliant this game is. Actually calling it just a game would be quite an understatement considering how many messages and cinematics there are, the MGS series as i see it are very much unique and no company has tryed to copy its methods ide expect probably cause there too intimidated or just have too much respect for this outstanding series (very closing to tieing with the Resident Evil series in my taste's).
Instead of starting my review early like some who only reviewed after around 3 hours to give it the verdict of the greatest game since games began, I played through the whole 18-22 hour long story to have a clear view of how i think what it really deserves.
And i can see why through the first few hours people would see it as the biggest event since Jesus' 2nd coming since the first hours have some of the greatest gameplay yet.
As Snake, or approprietly called Old Snake for this run thanks to his accelerated ageing, your called out of a hard lifes of Metal Gear destroying to have Cambell almost beg for you to take down the biggest threat the world has ever seen, Liquid Ocelot. I spose as far as the story goes thats the prob the best i should leave it because 1. just how large this story is and 2. just how many twists occur throughout. Though its no secret that 'alot' of old friends are returning there roles in the story will surprise you indeed and it makes it all the harder to say goodbye to some of them. Being sadly the last of this awesome series you can expect to find every loose end tied up and every story element explained to some incredible results. From why Vamp just won't die to the true founder's of the Patriots, everything that left you hanging in the past MGS' is found out in MGS4.
Though with such a massive story and an even larger roster of characters to fill it with i expected it may fall a little and might feel a lil over-whelming like maybe they could of left somethings out, but luckily everything works perfectly and the story like the MGS predeccesors is the main motivation to keep going.
The other main reason is of course the outstanding gameplay, what i especially love is unlike most of the 4th's these days MGS4 didn't completely revelate there gameplay schemes and merely improved extremely on the old ones. The main new additions is finally being able to move while crouching, the new over the should view teamed with the first person view (which you can move while in said view's) being able to roll left+right while aiming and a playing dead ability. Everything else is basically what you've already seen except much easier to pull off or just alot more fun to execute, which I'm extremely glad for since the MGS gameplay didn't really need much improvement in my opinion anyway. Though not being able to interrogate soldiers anymore is abit of shame but won't be surely missed.
Though the styles now seem much more even, in the sense that shooting everything in sight doesn't secure death by insane amount of numbers this time around, infact the soldiers are now so much easier to battle with sometimes stealth isn't really needed. Stealth is still a fun option with loads of options and ways to sneak through, though the presence of an ongoing war in the first levels make both the stealth and the shooting much easier to get through as one faction of the war can actually become very useful allies for getting around. Though as the game goes through the stages, you might need to rely on stealth abit more since you will eventually end up on your own though also with much less soldiers to deal with.
Another reason why MGS4 seems maybe leaning towards more the 3rd person shooter is because of how many scripted parts require you to blast your way through especially nearing the end, which makes the amazing variety of weaponry to come across a very welcome addition.
Weapons in this game is much much much more varied than just one handgun, one assault rifle and just one type of book to distract the guards with.
Theres around 45+ weapons to play around with and really give you the choice of what weapon set suits you best, be it a desert eagle along with an m60 and RPG or maybe a silenced pistol along with an automatic silenced sniper. Another great addition to the weapons is customisation, while some guns have more customisations than others around 80% can have some sort of attachment be it a suppresor or a torch or even a grenade launcher. So the amount of weaponry and how to use it spells quite abit of reply value just to play through again with a different set of weapons.
Being MGS title of course sets you up with also a huge amount of cutscenes to sit through (and enjoy) and some interactive flashbacks to watch aswell. Yet again though after about the 20 hours it would take you to complete the game at least 9 hours of that is cutscenes, not like its problem for MGS fans since if you've lasted this long with the franchise the cutscenes have to be one of the reasons why you love these games, I can honestly admit even though maybe compared to more of a movie the story alone deserves the game a 9/10. Sometimes gameplay and cutscenes can also combine in a splitscreen mode to make a very intense and sometimes even tear inducing experience due to watching what everyone is going through while your doing your job.
With so much to watch its a very warm welcome for the beauty of the graphics as it easily the greatest looking game i have played ( i haven't seen much of crysis but from what i've read there even better than that) with some top notch animation work and almost unbelievable enviroments. The characters of course look perfect and resemble some high budget CGI movie models, well the whole games looks like your very own interactive CGI movie in fact. MGS4 truelly is what the next gen of gaming should look like, its very much like the representive of just whats possible.
The sound is just as perfect as the visuals with perfect voice acting (well from most) to an approproitly epic soundtrack. Throughout you'll also encounter alot of dialoque from the past just popping up mid-gameplay if it goes with the situation or maybe when exploring a certain Alaskan base or just for some quirky humor and can really bring some nostagia and also helps with tieing up the amount of loose ends.
Like no game though in my opinion MGS4 isn't exactly perfect, there's not as many boss fights in this one and all are much easier than say the teeth grinding boss' in Snake Eater, don't get me wrong there still fun just a few more boss' to own would of made up for it. Also the game in general (on Solid Normal at least) is much easier this time around especially due to Old Snakes much improved moveset with the shooting.
Also the Ipod which is just one of the random gadgets to expect from a MGS game doesn't live up to its entertainment value since you can't have any other item equipped while listening to some tracks from the predeccesors themselves, though can come in handy when your just hiding around and would prefer something listen to other than the alert theme.
I haven't tryed the online play all that much though i do know first hand it is quite a pain for how long it can take to get started but at least your character customisation is decent enough to wait for. Since i haven't got a headset I still tink i'll leave online play alone though for now.
That typed though this game is the very meaning of a must buy for the ps3 since it really does blow all the competition away and while i can see why people everywere are slapping 10s althougher it i can still think it could of maybe bin a little longer since as i said theres still not as much gameplay as you'de like.
