DO NOT READ THIS POST UNTIL YOU'VE COMPLETED THE GAME!
DO NOT READ THIS POST UNTIL YOU'VE COMPLETED THE GAME!
It has been about 2 months since my completing of MGS4, and with the time away from it to think and the opportunity to talk to people about it I'm ready for more conversation. Hopefully alot more posters come back in and post their own post-mortems as well.
At the end of the day I think Metal Gear Solid 4 as a standalone game and as a part of the series is a disappointment despite some outstanding achievements. For me, the burden of the flaws of MGS4 lies squarely on Kojima, primarily because MGS4 lacks balance, cohesion and direction. We have heard reviewers call for an "editor", but Kojima himself as director would have a major role to play in editing alongside collaborators.
(1) MGS4 and Solid Snake It seems like the game's direction was about telling the final chapter of Solid Snake, and some of this was done quite well in his constant struggle with accelerated aging and some conversations with Merly like the initial meeting and the conversation at the European security checkpoint where she emphasises that he is a legend and hero, but is now old. That scene tries to build up a mythology of Solid Snake the legendary soldier but the effort as a theme is not sustained enough throughout the game, and it's just a symptom of its general schizophrenia.
The final extra-epilogue of the game could have been ALL about Solid Snake but instead was an hour long babbling by Naked Snake/Big Boss about nano-tech but mostly about him, Zero and blah blah blah. The progression was already poor enough when Snake failed to shoot himself, which seems out-of-character from the Snake we know and this was all the more jarring when throughout the game we never saw Snake's struggle with death -- only his struggle with aging. I really wasn't interested in Big Boss' ramble; the explanations should all have been done prior so as to leave the final epilogue a true dedication to Snake and the conclusion of his legend. Instead it ended up muddled and exhausting.
(2) Gameplay Balance & Design. The cutscenes were overwhelming despite their stunning entertainment value, and there are puzzling problems which should not have happened. There are times when there is a mere few minutes or even seconds of gameplay before another extended cutscene and those seconds seem more like sorry reminders that it is still a game you're playing. All this shit should have been sorted out by Kojipro and especially Kojima -- sure, this is MGS4 and you want to make sure it's a fitting end but there really should have been alot more control and direction of the scenes. It should never have grown beyond their initial plans of less-cutscenes-more-gameplay.
They could have and should have expended more of their efforts on the gameplay rather than the cutscenes. I do agree that the core gameplay mechanics are the best in the series -- the shooting is exhilarating and satisfying, the stealth has moved forward with Octocamo and a remote option in MK II&III, but the gameplay situations are sometimes poor. The first Act has some amazing components to it with the huge levels and multiple options you can take, but the scripted nature limits it. Act II, III, IV and V all seem to have gameplay that isn't as richly realized as it should have been. No one was stalking you in Act II and the gameplay situation wasn't as richly varied as it could have been -- what about vertically climbing hills and crawling your way through water passages? Act III's European stalking affair only had two obstacles in situated guards and one patrolling van, and the motorcycle chase had way too much loading in-between for its own good. It was very bland. Act IV's ridiculous story arc aside, the Metal Gear Ray gameplay was WAYYYY too underutilized. It is a crowning technical achievement, looked amazing and gave you a badass King Kong feeling that should have been milked and juiced for all its worth. Meh. Act V was low on gameplay content.
The glorious bosses in MGS3 also led to heightened expectations in MGS4 but they weren't quite up to par. You also weren't quite as attached to them as the previous MGSes which made it disappointing when you finished them off.. sure they're hot chicks, but you didn't know anything or care about them when you finished the deed. Drebin gave you an after-story but this is a basic fault in story-telling.. you want to build up the characters before the confrontation, and not fill in after it. It made the fights feel very CLINICAL, and very little felt at stake. This is different from fighting with The End, who was a legendary sniper on his last breath, or Sniper Wolf, an old colleague of Snake and Otacon's obsession. Simply poor.
I do think that Kojima is primarily responsible for these faults. The story could have been built and told so much more concisely and cohesively, with a focus on thematic motifs and buildups with climaxes and resolutions but so many of it were passing remarks or moments that never had any significant depth or came to any significant fruition. The worst problem was that I never felt that Snake was fully fleshed out.. the struggle with age and his pride was done alright, and as a genetic soldier maybe we couldn't have asked to see Snake being all sensitive and listing his favorite books-I-cry-to but there simply weren't any significant humanistic moments like a struggle with his decision to end himself, or a sense of hope for life.. I don't even remember him laughing or smiling throughout the game; I don't expect that, but I expected more than the poor attempt at characterization and a final tribute to a retiring legend.
MGS4 smells of missed opportunities for me. ACT I's rebellion vs PMC dynamic was shallow and the rebels were never fleshed out as people or as a force of culture, will, or anything else. They were just tools for you to manipulate and as a result are extremely forgettable. None of the rebels were story-involved NPCs and this meant that you could never put a face or character to the group... hearing their cheers when you clear a map of PMCs meant NOTHING to me except that the map was clear of PMCs. When you exit the warzone and move into Act III, the rebels are completely forgotten.. what could have been a rich source of thematic and characteristic material was squandered.
My two favorite story-related moments of MGS4 was finding the teddy bear at the port of the ship while using the MK II in the first cutscene... it was a subtle clue to Sunny's character and also posed question -- What is the teddy bear doing here? Did she put it here by mistake or did Otacon do it out of dumbness? Is Sunny looking for it? Can I take it to her? Just a simple teddy bear on the floor generated alot more depth and complexity in reflection and thought than so many other elements and scenes and themes in the game. Another was Raiden's kid's expression and reaction. Really well animated.
At the end of the day I'm not sure how to rank MGS4 against the other MGS games or against other games in general. This is because I'm not quite sure what the measuring criteria should be... entertainment? Core mechanical gameplay? Satisfaction factor? Tribute factor? Wow moments? Production value? Contribution to the mythology? Any different balance of these different factors will tip the balance but I do know MGS4 was disappointing mainly because it should have been ALL ABOUT SNAKE. I essentially do not really care about Raiden, or Campbell, and most certainly not about Meryl and Johnny fucking Sasaki's marriage. Ending the game with a one hour babble explaining the story was the biggest mistake they could ever make.
I don't think there's much Kojipro can reasonably do to make amends; addressing my qualm would require Kojima to take responsibility and really discipline himself in editing. And that would consequently result in a LOT of work required to be done. I think Kojima has said that there wouldn't be an MGS4: XXX coming out.. that may be the best thing to happen, because if there were, there would be a fuckload to do :lol
Here's to hearing your opinion, and also hearing from Kojipro soon. We've not heard ANYTHING from Kojima Productions since MGS4's release, and that is strange. I guess a two month break after a 4 year production is reasonable; I can't wait till they get back and a two-way dialogue between players and development team opens up. I think there is a serious need for that.
