Metal Gear Solid 4: Why is it hated so much?

[Infernai]

Ok so recently i was FINALLY able to get my hands on a PS3 and, naturally, being the big Metal Gear Solid fanboy that i am i decided to get ahold of Metal Gear Solid 4. Having only recently just completed it, i have to ask something...why is there so much flak towards this game?

Ok, i'll admit there are some problems: It's a little bit overly focused on action in some points, but then again there have always been these points in every Metal Gear Game (MGS 1 The Jeep part, MGS 2 fighting the Tengu's, MGS 3 the bike escape part). I'll also admit it's a little bit on the heavy cutscene side, but considering we have a whole series worth of questions and plot threads to wrap up in one game it's understandable. And considering, unlike say FF13, this is about characters we already know and care for, it's tolerable and i could sit through it.
Overall, i liked it and thought it wrapped the series up nicely. Not my favorite installment, but it was still fun and i enjoyed playing it. The Shadow Moses stage though was one helluva big nostalgia trip for me which earned it some big bonus points.

I also understand people have opinions but...jeeze, the way some people go on about this game you'd think it was at Sonic 06 levels of badness. So why does this game get so much Hate? Just kind of wandering about that is all.

 

[XMark]

The game is actually really good whenever it decides to let you play. Some of the cutscenes and radio conversations are just boring and dry as hell though.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The endless cutscenes, utterly convoluted story twists, and the sheer amount of padding befre it even lets you touch the controller puts people off.

Conversely, I really enjoyed Snake Eater. However, that might be because I actually understood what the hell was going on.

 

[cgentero]

HUGE SPOILERS

Big Boss coming back to life at the end to kill a quadriplegiac and rant about the word zero just to die seconds later.

Ocelot pretending he was possessed by Liquid to trick the Patriots because he was a good guy all along.

Raiden being turned into the Cyborg Ninja for no real good reason, in the process he became an wife beating alcoholic who constantly put his life in danger despite his death meaning the death of Sunny and in the end he gets a happy ending despite being a complete ass.

Proposal scene, words cannot describe how bad it was.

Drebin as a character and as a gameplay mechanic, one was just annoying the other removed any incentive for stealthy behavior.

Act 3 was just an awful escort mission and unlike the other acts doesn't allow for exploration.

There are a ridiculous amount of cutscenes and most gameplay ends up as rail shooter or other action heavy sequences.

Vamp's powers coming from nanomachines

Compare Snake in MGS2 and his speech about truth and justice to his mopey self in MGS4

Otacon and Naomi hooking up just so he has a love interest to cry over.

EVA who knows that its not Big Boss being burned dies because she tried to save
Solidus' body.

The Psyche gauge\stress meter is a complete wreck and this so confusing given how well Stamina in MGS3 worked.

 

[Infernai]

I will admit that, on reflection some of these points are valid but i do think i need to comment on a few of them.

The bosses were boring

I will admit some of the bosses were a bit less stellar compared to other installments, but i still had some fun with them. Although i'll admit the raging raven fight was probably the most boring fight, but i had some fun with the crying wolf fight.

The ending is shit

Only thing i didn't really like that much was the Big boss bit, as i thought it was contrived as hell. Still, it's closure for the series and in the end it really did wrap it all up for the cast.

WHERE THE FUCK DID RAIDENS SECOND ARM GO?

Giant Warship. Tried to stop it with one arm. Crushed by warship...i think it's safe to say his second arm is pretty much a pancake.

The microwave room is stupid, snake wasn't needed, the MK 3 could have just went on ahead, upload the virus and a non-burnt snake could just shoot liquid.

From what i gathered, Snake had to go along to make sure there wasn't any security there or anything that would probably kill the Mk 3. Although, that does kind of raise the question of why not just send Raiden rather then the old man who was recovering from a coughing fit....Yeah...ok i'm gonna give you that one.

The game is less complex than MGS3 as they took away the survival viewer.

Well, Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 didn't have survival viewers and they are often hailed as great games. You don't need a survival viewer to make a good MGS game.

Ocelot pretending he was possessed by Liquid to trick the Patriots because he was a good guy all along.

I'm gonna be honest: I wasn't really digging the whole "I'M BACK AS A GHOST! NANANANANA!" angle Kojima went with in Number 2 (Although, that was just one of the many points i had a problem with in MGS 2). So, to find out it had all been staged purposely was more or less good for me, especially given MGS 2's "Indigo Prophecy Syndrome" (Not saying i hated MGS 2 but...let's be honest, there were some plot elements in there that kind of made me beat my head against a wall).

Vamp's powers coming from nanomachines

I'm getting the feeling I'm one of the only people who actually liked that. Ok, yes it is a bit contrived but....well, let's look back at MGS 2.

Vamp dies the first time being shot in the head, gets back up and then followed by claims of immortality...then we see him running across water, Then we fight him and he supposedly dies again. THEN, he jumps back up, no explaination given and we kill him AGAIN. Oh, but wait, he's still alive and was in the crowd at the end of- OK WHAT THE FUCK!? WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THIS GUY!? HOW IS HE DOING ALL THIS SHIT!?

That was my big issue with vamp, in regards to how he did that stuff it was all more or less stated as "Cause i Can". Which, for a series which prides itself on explaining stuff with some slight explaination was VERY glaring (Even Mantis atleast had the explaination from the get-go he was a fucking psychic, Vamp had...umm..trapped in a church as a kid). So, the fact we get that stuff explained in MGS 4 (Yes, even the water walking part is explained in a codec part) was good for me. Granted, it was a bit of a weak explaination, but hey i'd rather have a weak explaination then "Cause i can".

Otacon and Naomi hooking up just so he has a love interest to cry over.

...Ok yeah, even i'm not going to bother defending that one. I just get the feeling Kojima hates Otacon.

 

[DustyDrB]

Because of "Oh my God, the cutscenes". And honestly, that's a valid reason. I hate the cutscenes too, they're beyond ridiculous. But I love the gameplay, so I stick with it.

But seriously, the cutscenes suck. And they especially suck when they decide that long dull speeches aren't bad enough, and switch to the MGS equivalent of Powerpoint presentations. God...I almost fell asleep when Snake meets EVA in the game.

 

[LightspeedJack]

It desparatley needed an editor. But I still love it despite that.

 

[Nomanslander]

The story was worse than MGS2 in my opinion, so many horrible decisions made for the direction of the story I don't know where to even begin.

Spoiler

-Meryl getting with some douche who's major character trait is his bowel movements.
-Bringing back Big Boss from the dead just to kill him off again (yeah! GFY for that one Hideo).
-Bringing back the retardation that was the Ocelot/Liquid hybrid from MGS2 and giving it retarded explanation.
-Saving Solid from suicide in the end for fan service even though there's no way beyond a Dues Ex Machina Snake is going to survive his condition.
-Setting up a stupid Dues Ex Machina for Snake's condition we can now migraine-ingly wait for and expect in the next installment.
-Trying way to hard too make Raiden a baddass to gain fan support, no shy of even having him out stage Snake in several occasions.

That and game to cut scene ratio.

Oh! And if any of you feel like tackling some of those issues I have with the story. KNOW that if I detect any mental gymnastics hyperbole reasoning from possible fanbois, GFY (Go F yourselves) now and don't even try making any attempt to respond to my post here.

Seriously, one thing I can't stand is fanboi b.s., especially from MGS fanbois.

 

[craftomega]

OK here is a question? Whats so good about it?

Is the story good?

Is the game play good?

Need I say more?

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

-The entire game comes crashing down on itself after Act 2. What do we get after a pretty decent first 2 acts? An escort mission, an extremely boring return to Shadow Moses with no real enemies, and a padded out ship sequence that might as well not even exist.

-Boss battles are the worst in the series. Every single boss is some sort of cyborg machine thin that just begs to be RPG'd. Other bosses in the series forced you to use unconventional but awesome methods, such as poisoning The Fear or the entirety of the best boss in any game ever, The End. Seriously, The End's fight is fucking amazing.

-Cutscenes are bland and take up too much of the game. I can totally understand what they were trying to do, but the cutscenes are BORING and the plot goes nowhere at times. This is unacceptable in a series with some of the strongest storytelling ever.

-Overuse of set pieces. Let me hunt down some soldiers sneakily, dammit! I don't want some generic turret section or motorcycle chase.

-The tracking sequence. Dear god, the tracking sequence.

-The humor in the previous games is gone. Instead we get some dull "war is hell" dialogue.

-The whole concept of infiltrating a militia in disguise is ruined when the enemies only focus on you. What's the point? Militia are friendly to you regardless of the uniform if you just kill a few PMC for them, so it's basically just handicapping yourself.

-Infinitely respawning enemies. It kills the sense of progress when no matter how much you help the militia out, the enemies will not stop coming. It gets incredibly confusing at some points, in addition. If you kill enough PMC soldiers at the Power Plant in Act 2, a rebel will break through the front lines and through a grenade at the power box, disabling the power and stopping the PMC from respawning. Why, exactly? Why can't you just kill enough PMC that the rebels just claim victory? It gets even more confusing when at the confinement facility in the same act, there's no way to win the battle for the rebels. You can kill, kill, kill all you want, Snake puking multiple times along the way, but the enemies will never stop coming.

 

[geK0]

Simply put;

too many cut scenes!!!! Like WAY too many. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game overall, but after act 2 it didn't feel like MGS anymore.
MGS3 was much much much MUCH better.

Online component was a big redeeming feature for me, too bad the community is pretty much dead by now though.

 

[SycoMantis91]

Beats me. All minor gripes about an otherwise great experience.

 

[scorptatious]

I didn't think it was hated that much. The only real issue the game, scratch that, the entire series has is that cutscenes are numerous and long. Other than that though, I think the games are awesome.

As for the story: I will admit, as much as I love the story of the games, it's complexity and weirdness are incredibly easy to make fun of. XD

 

[Korten12]

No idea, I loved the game, beat it multiple times. Didn't watch the cutscenes on the 2nd playthrough. But I plan on playing it again soon and watch ALL of them.

 

[Nfritzappa]

I love MGS4. Its my second favorite Metal Gear game.

 

[TephlonPrice]

I like it, but god damn, the cutscenes... there are WAY too many cutscenes. And I mean too many cutscenes. There's not enough gameplay when the cutscenes are fucking long & some of them never advanced the plot much. I think some of those cutscenes could've been cut & turned into in-game sequences.

The "fight as a terrorist" thing never worked out well, seeing every enemy in a 12 block radius, when they see you, will call every form of sniper, backup operatives, and air support to tear your OctoCamo'd head off.

The boss fights could've been handled better. The one with the final boss would've been a GREAT callback to the MGS1 Psycho Mantis, but to no avail here.

Still, I like the game. I like trying to stay stealthy & keep it non-lethal & avoid detection, but then I can whip out my M4 with M320, RDS, laser, silencer, & flashlight to take down the target. And at least the story, even if hard to follow at points, has very good voice acting behind it, especially on Otacon, Naomi, Snake, Liquid, & Big Boss. Plus, Stealth camo guize? BEST THING EVER! And the multiplayer is mad fun (until the cheaters arrive). Not to mention the story is wrapped up here so there's no way to create a sequel.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's not a game. There is almost no gameplay involved. Kojima needs to get his shit straight. And to make it worse, writing is shit. So you have to sit through 20 hours of shitty written cutscenes. The real ending after credits lasted for 30 fuckin' minutes, but in reality it could have been done in less than 5. Kojima doesn't know how to write. And he has a screenplay writer doing the voice of the protagonist. All he had to do is let Hayter rewrite his stupid shit.