zoukka said:
Haha it was so crazy when I first wrote how I felt about the game, after finishing it. Honestly felt like I was alone with my opinion :b It had great moments but overall it was clearly a weaker game on it's own than the previous ones. I knew for certain that it wouldn't be remembered as a great of a game either...
Oh well nailing things three times in a row is more than enough from Kojima that I could ask for. I'll think of MGS4 as a playable database that connects all the loose strings together. And try to forget some things like the ending...
Well, it was pretty clear that you weren't alone as the first week passed, and this thread already had its share of people complaining.
What I think, though, is that people cast their memories of the first 3 games in a much greater light than they should be, and are ultimately nostalgic. If you think about it, MGS1 is the most simplistic iteration of the series, the most polished, and the most straightforward, and therefore the best. Because what happens with 2 and 3 and 4, is that people start complaining, for one reason or another. 2 was information overload, 3 was awkward controls/camera and lackluster Cobra unit personalities, and 4 was cutscene/gameplay ratio imbalance.
Scott Sharkey said it best when he said that once you beat the game once, and on the following playthroughs, just skipping the cutscenes and playing the game uninterrupted was one of the greatest gameplay experiences ever. This was when he was talking about MGS3, but it holds up for all of the titles.
In a sense, there are two aspects to the games: a cutscene playthrough, and a gameplay playthrough. The problem with MGS4, though, is that there is no cinema theater, much like MGS2, and each act requires an installation, which is something I could live without.
However, if there's anything that playing subsequent playthroughs demonstrates, its that they made the game far too easy, and yet at some points, too frustrating (Act 3).
4, in light of going back to the first 3 titles, stands up really well in terms of how much its advanced as an MGS game. However, I think that the reason why its missing those small little things that make an MGS game an MGS game is that the game, perhaps, got too big for its own good. Everything is sterile, maybe, too perfect, yet not perfect enough. That's the feeling I get.
Maybe I've played the MGS games too much to really appreciate easter eggs, or maybe there just aren't enough to begin with. Who knows.
Maybe they focused on some areas of the game too much, and not enough on others. Maybe the script did need some revisioning, but ultimately, its the game we got, and I appreciate what it offered as the closing chapter in Solid Snake's story. I got the closure I needed, but on the other hand, there isn't an underlying hook that I wish there was, if it was just for anticipation alone.
I think that's what gets me.
