There were three big disappointments in the game and the first was the non-existent enemy AI. You have this unbelievable arsenal at your disposal and Splinter Cell-esque controls that just scream for massacres. But then you realise these are the same moving turrets that you fucked with in Snake Eater and you only have to crouch to one position and fire away. Soldiers keep on running to your sight until they all die. Or in some cases spawn endlessly until you pass a certain point. Now when I noticed this, I immediately stopped fighting with the PMC:s and went all out sneaking. THe only problem with this was the looming arsenal that just waited to be used. Oh well.
The second gripe was within storytelling and this surprised me. The series is known for it's crazy dialogue and over the top acting, but also for it's interesting characters, massive information and emotions it stirs in gamers. For me Snake Eater was almost perfect in this department so it was sad to find out that many things were hindered here.
Returning characters like Raiden, Rosemary, Meryl, Johnny and Vamp seemed to have very little to do with the actual plot and I can't say I was too much interested with them. Meryl seemed almost childish in her quest for acceptance and she didn't really feel like a character that had things "under control". The bullet balette with Johnny and them getting married made me cringe bad. Raiden was badass but he was just this cool cyborg and I really hoped we'd seen him in his "head & spine" form in some jar and that scene could have been very emotional and heavy. Can't say I liked the happy family scene in the end either...
Vamp threw some knives but that was pretty much it...
I didn't like the mission briefings either and they had too much pointless yapping in them. The character of Sunny didn't really open to me. The games structure with acts also had a same kind of effect for me as Metroid Prime 3, with it's shattered world. You really didn't connect to the locations because they changed so fast. And I sure did miss my codec moments
Now I can't go through the whole story in this post so I just want to make sure that it had many great moments and emotional scenes, but like I said; it's the first Solid game with these kind of problems. I have to play it many times over to fully grasp them though.
The third and the most irritating flaw was the B&B corp. What was Kojima thinking? Here we are in the middle of Snakes last tale and the last bunch of bosses are super models... wait wat!? Well it wouldnt have been a catastrophe if they'd fleshed 'em out more but that monologue Drebin dropped at the end of each fight didn't fucking do it. The bosses were pretty lame in gameplay wise too when compared to the legendary fights in the other games... And didn't we already have tributes to MGS bosses? Like twice already??
The Mantis fight was the only interesting one, but the scene with Psycho Mantis was weird. Am I supposed to laugh at SIXAXIS not having rumble?
Easily the worst boss fights in the series... unforgivable.
Now the good parts are obvious. Audiovisually one of the finest games out there. It's a shame it didn't run perfectly but you really didn't care about that. When I hit the rebel bunker in the first act and fired the Ipod with some classic MG tunes I almost cried there. I just sat in the dark corridors and watched rebels run by while sweet melodies flew in the air. Fucking beautiful and tranquil.
Solid Eye worked like magic and Octocamo too. At first I feared it would make the game too easy but it was just perfect. I just wish I hadn't put on the head-camo too often because I ended up watching it in the cut-scenes :lol
Sneaking action was fun and I tended to use Mk2, Mosin Nagant and sleep gas mines. I never used the drebin shop for ammo because that felt like cheating so going through enemy structures and bodies for ammo was great.
The story wasn't perfect but had many mind blowing moments. I think I can safely say that returning to Shadow Moses was the best fanservice ever and I really hope they hadn't shown it in ReVisited trailer (whatever). Didn't see "The best is yet to come" and man tears were imminent. Also the breaking surveillance camera was honestly the one most moving moment in the game for me. I wish there would have been more subtle scenes like that in the game.
