Leave it to Ryan to find a way to post a review nine years before the site was even founded. RIP. I might have to find a way to play it now, with such a recommendation.
Well, they re-released the game on "proper consoles" and PC, and it's better in every way, so I guess despite the whining in these old comments, even the developers thought it would be better if it weren't a handheld game. Ah, the delicious benefit of hindsight. :-)
It's January 2016, and as I spend some free time wandering through GOTY awards past, I still can't get over how they named Watch_Dogs the most disappointing game in the same year that the Master Chief Collection and Assassin's Creed: Unity came out. Watch_Dogs was a pretty well made open-world game. The reason people think of it as disappointing is that it was the victim of the Launch Hype Phenomenon.
Almost all the games that have ever come out, especially action games, have tried to market themselves as some kind of mind-blowing experience that will change gaming forever. People are generally smart enough to realize this could never be the case, and adjust their expectations to be more realistic. But for some reason, whenever a new console generation comes out, the gaming community always seems to pick one single game and buy into the hype completely and at face value. With the 360/PS3 generation, it was probably Perfect Dark Zero, and with the Xbone/PS4 generation, it was Watch_Dogs. The difference is that while PDZ turned out to be kind of mediocre, Watch_Dogs is actually pretty good... it's just not the second coming of gaming.
I'm Deusoma, and this has been a grumbling complaint that no one will ever read, and certainly no one cares about by this point. But boy, it sure felt good to write! :D
It's really good to see the series bouncing back from the nadir of Sons of Liberty. I don't have a problem with Raiden, or the Rose conversations, it's just that the Big Shell was a terribly uninteresting setting, and the narrative's astounding pretentiousness gets in the way of telling its own story. This is a much more straightforward story, just a very, very weird one, like the original MGS, and the game is so much the better for it. I just wish Drew would take the time to enjoy more of the hilariously intricate lore hidden away in the radio conversations.
Oh, Dan, you tool, why would you just tell Drew right at the beginning that this is Big Boss? Trying to figure out who the hell Naked Snake is was half the fun of working out MGS 3's storyline, and it takes all of the impact out of the final reveal. :P
Wow. I'd heard the tales, I'd read the plot summaries, and somehow it still wasn't quite enough to prepare me for exactly how much platinum-calibre Hot Nonsense rears its head before the credits roll on Metal Gear Solid 2.
And you know what? Aside from all the hokey psychobabble, which I could have done without, especially coming from Snake, I mean that in the best possible way. This story really grew on me, and I quite enjoyed all the different aspects of the story coming together, even the Rosemary/Raiden stuff. On to Snake Eater!
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