Zero Punctuation: Metal Gear Solid 4

[Tempdude0]

And can I ask people to please stop comparing this thread and the SSBB thread to Halo 3 thread? The two are completely different. He called Halo 3 average, while he called the formers shit and said that only fanboys would buy them. If you want an actual comparison on the other two consoles to the Halo 3 thread, look at the Super Mario Galaxy and Uncharted threads.

When you said "formers" were you just referring to SSBB? If so, yeah, he said it was for fanboys and fanboys alone...However the Halo 3 thing works well in regards to his feelings on MGS 4. He didn't like it, but he essentialy said if you could look past the one glaring problem then it's not a bad game. It has well rounded characters and the controls never get more than a tad annoying.

Regardless, yeah, all of us should stop tossing out other reviews as examples considering they don't really add much to an argument save to say that you found someone who agrees with you. I can't remember if I'm guilty of that as well, but screw it, we're all absolved of that bit of stupid on our records.

 

[Amateria]

Wow. This "conversation" has really gotten out of hand. The only thing that's gotten my care high enough to even write something here in the first place was the idea someone said about Yahtzee not being a a serious game reviewer. He is, just because he's not applying a number to the game or backed up by some corporation doesn't make his review any less credible.

Don't bother replying to my post, after this is up, I'm done with this topic.

 

[yzzlthtz]

you may have something there. but comparing Halo 3 to MGS4 is like comparing Peanut Butter M&Ms to a 5 Course Italian feast. After eating a bunch of M&Ms, you probably won't have room or appreciation for the feast, but you'll pick at it and make amateur comments about its garishness.

Both stories were equally sci-fi pulpy to me. Neither would entice me to read a book about them. I've read good books, these are not them. They are enjoyable in their own ways, but not literary masterpieces that will be remembered for all time.

huh, yeah, probably.

i meant the game-play more than the story anyways.
everyone seems so obsessed with the story bit. both of these games are way fun with or without the story.
i can't play halo though because >most< fps' make me dizzy and have to yak.
this has made me sad since it limits the games i can play.
because of this, i love me a good 3rd person game. i also love mango smoothies. mm mm. can't get enough of those frozen mangos.

 

[Tempdude0]

Fair enough, I'll go with the exact words then.

"I'm going to recount as much of the story as I can before my brain starts to hurt. Solid Snake is a cloned mercenary who is suffering from premature aging due to a planned obsolescence scheme worthy of Microsoft. He lives with his support character and "Best Friend" Otakon and the two of them have adopted a child together. That oozing sound you just heard was made by all the worlds homo-erotic fanfiction writers simultaneously emitting torrents of hot lady spunk. Anyway, Solid Snake is tasked with the assassination of his evil cloned brother, who was dead, but lives on through his possessed arm which was grafted onto the body of OH CHRIST! I can't go on. This shit is Bananas!"

"The gameplay is adequate, but severely cluttered..."

"The gameplay is never flawed enough to be a deal breaker, and if you're prepared to forgive the heavy cutscene to gameplay ratio the characters are well rounded and imaginative enough to keep you interested."

From the way he describes it, provided you can get over the slow pacing, dry writing, and somewhat "clusterfucked" story it isn't a terrible game. It comes across the finish line as more of a mediocre game.

If you're the type of person who can not only tolerate, but ENJOY soap-opera level twists and turns in the story and exposition out the ass then the game should be quite enjoyable overall. As stated, the thing that really holds the game back is the story/pacing. If Kojima got that guy with the boots and pruning sheers he could have created a game that appeals to nigh everyone and might just have elevated one particular game to the level of "art".

Personal opinion time, but Kojima seems like a guy with a lot of good ideas and no idea how to deliver them. The guy has talent, but what he needs to do to be an EXCEPTIONAL writer is to trim back some of the fluff and, as far as games go, use the visual aspects of the medium to a greater degree.

Also, BALLS does that man make it hard to create even a quote for.

 

[Iori Branford]

It's funny how things stop being funny the longer you live with them. Everyone in Britain stopped sniggering at the name "Spotted Dick" by the time I turned twelve. I've almost completely forgotten that Nintendo named a console after a bodily fluid.

And it's funny how we can now hear the words "Solid Snake" without picturing the kind of throbbingly powerful erections you get from wearing skin-tight combat suits while hanging around women who never do their shirts up properly. Yes Metal Gear Solid has joined Devil May Cry Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil in the elite group of series that have current generation installments with shiny glistening graphics and titles with 4's on the end.

The series sells itself right there under the title as "Tactical Espionage Action" which implies a gritty pulse-pounding sneaky-bollocks runaround and while that's certainly present it always seems to be occupying the same space as a stiff and inefficient third-person shooter and the paranoid manifesto of an Internet conspiracy theorist with several gunmen short of a grassy knoll. I'm going to recount as much of the story as I can before my brain starts to hurt.

Solid Snake is a cloned mercenary who is suffering from premature aging due to a planned obsolescence scheme worthy of Microsoft. He lives with his support character and "best friend" Otacon and the two of them have adopted a child together. That oozing sound you just heard was made by all the world's homoerotic fanfiction writers simultaneously emitting torrents of hot lady spunk.

Anyway Solid Snake is tasked with the assassination of his evil clone brother who is dead but lives on through his possessed arm which was grafted onto the body of OH CHRIST I CAN'T GO ON THIS SHIT IS BANANAS. Play the games yourself if you want to know what's going on although I can't guarantee that that will be enough. To truly get into the mindset of Hideo Kojima you'll have to do something pretty drastic probably involving experimental brain surgery and a complete X-Files boxset.

Kojima's problem is that while he's very much aware that games are a new and exciting media for getting a message across he doesn't have much patience for the whole "game" aspect. In the past I've slagged off a lot of story-based games for having too much story and not enough game but all those previous titles swiftly disappear beneath the waves of Metal Gear Solid's verbal diarrhea.

I actually timed how long it took from pressing New Game to engaging my first enemy: twenty-three cocking minutes. And this is supposed to be the fast-paced action hook to draw you in. Further on some dialogues are long enough to warrant an intermission and refreshment counter and most of them consist of the characters learning things that most of the audience figured out by the first trailer. The funniest part is I was diligently sitting through all the cutscenes and I still wasn't sure what was going on. Somebody once said that a politician is a person who can talk for hours and never actually say anything; if that's true Hideo Kojima could run for government and be Emperor of the Universe by mid-afternoon.

Every now and again though the game snaps you out of your exposition-induced trance and grudgingly lets you actually play it for a bit and in these moments the gameplay is adequate but severely cluttered like it's suffering from the game equivalent of Asperger's syndrome. The sneaking works well but they load you down with a toy box full of gimmicky stealth tools and techniques that you will never ever need to use because you start off with a silenced tranquilizer pistol that can knock out enemy soldiers in one shot and never runs out of ammo breaking the stealth gameplay over its knee with a sickening crack.

There isn't even much sneaking to do compared to previous games; when you're not tripping over cutscenes the emphasis is more on the action than the tactical espionage although it seems no one explained this to the gameplay programmer. The controls are much better suited for sneaking and when action takes over a million petty annoyances nibble at your shins.

Having to press both shoulder buttons and Triangle to aim and fire is not good design. And when you're ducking behind cover you have to stand up before you can fire back which is a good way to get your mustache perforated. When you desperately need to immediately return fire it takes a crucial agonizing second to get Snake to ready his gun presumably for fear of breaking a hip. Luckily this is compensated by most of the enemies being legendarily thick and armored with papier mache.

This is the part where I make gentle coos and reassurances to soften the game up before I drive the last stake through its heart. For all its frustrations the gameplay is never flawed enough to be a deal breaker and if you're prepared to forgive the heavy cutscene:gameplay ratio the characters are well-rounded and imaginative enough to keep you interested.

But here comes the killing blow children. Metal Gear Solid is and has always been very badly written in the same way that the world's largest pie couldn't honestly be called a good pie because it's uneconomical and probably wouldn't fit in an oven. So much of the dialogue is redundant and is in dire need of an editor preferably one armed with waders and pruning shears.

I think it's safe to say that if you're not already a fan you're not welcome at the MGS4 party. The game assumes you know and have accepted all the bullshit that's come before and all the characters who have had a poignant death soliloquy yet show up whether we like it or not including Mr. and Mrs. Oh Christ Not You Cunts Again from Metal Gear Solid 2.

And since I hate redundant dialogue so much I won't redundantly say that fans should buy it because if you're a fan you've already bought it finished it written a plot analysis guide for GameFAQs and are now hiding behind my house trying to decide which window to break. As for the rest of yas play through the previous games first and then check it out assuming they don't bore you so hard that even your unborn children take up tabletop gaming.

 

[Tempdude0]

Wow...Good for you. I got frustrated at just the three things I was quoting.

 

[The Thief]

C'mon people. It's nearly wednesday morning and you're not at 1000? Do you want a mailbag showdown or not! Get postin!

 

[zeeman645]

i liked the long cutscenes. better than the video communication in the past games that told the story. although i didnt like it that i beat the game at like 10:00 pm and didnt finish with the cutscenes till like midnight.. i was tired. the game play was good though. the aiming system wasnt THAT annoying or unplayable, you get used to it.
still i love the review, very witty and funny, like always. keep on doing what your doing yathzee.

 

[Evilducks]

huh, yeah, probably.

i meant the game-play more than the story anyways.
everyone seems so obsessed with the story bit. both of these games are way fun with or without the story.
i can't play halo though because >most< fps' make me dizzy and have to yak.
this has made me sad since it limits the games i can play.
because of this, i love me a good 3rd person game. i also love mango smoothies. mm mm. can't get enough of those frozen mangos.

Mango smoothies are amazing. As I've found a brother in the mango smoothie addict world I'll offer advice that got me through my initial FPS issues.

Back when I was younger and experimenting with half life (I think this is the first FPS I played that introduced the 'bouncy' running) I too became ill after play sessions that lasted more than 15 minutes. I found that motion sickness pills helped solve those issues (try to find non-drowsy ones). After a while I'd gotten use to the gameplay and no longer needed the medicine to keep me from getting sick.

It's a shame to pass up good games because your body doesn't agree.

 

[Roffey123]

Come on people.

WANT the mailbag showdown
FEEL the mailbay showdown
BE the mailbag showdown

 

[yzzlthtz]

huh, yeah, probably.

i meant the game-play more than the story anyways.
everyone seems so obsessed with the story bit. both of these games are way fun with or without the story.
i can't play halo though because >most< fps' make me dizzy and have to yak.
this has made me sad since it limits the games i can play.
because of this, i love me a good 3rd person game. i also love mango smoothies. mm mm. can't get enough of those frozen mangos.

Mango smoothies are amazing. As I've found a brother in the mango smoothie addict world I'll offer advice that got me through my initial FPS issues.

Back when I was younger and experimenting with half life (I think this is the first FPS I played that introduced the 'bouncy' running) I too became ill after play sessions that lasted more than 15 minutes. I found that motion sickness pills helped solve those issues (try to find non-drowsy ones). After a while I'd gotten use to the gameplay and no longer needed the medicine to keep me from getting sick.

It's a shame to pass up good games because your body doesn't agree.

You are a scholar and a gentleman, sir, evinced by your appreciation of that most delectable of treats. Can you recommend a good pill brand? i've tried dramamine for car trips, but that stuff knocks me right out.

Half life was the first one to do it to me too. I was able to get through Portal, thank the gods, but half life 2 put me out in under 10 minutes of gun-play. i would like to be able to play bioshock someday as well...

 

[jaygreen16]

haha good review,
but i am a huge fan of the mgs games, and its true that the storyline is far fetched

 

[Zirror]

I bet my bionic implants that there won't be a mailbag showdown.

And, to reiterate, I fucking loved the whole Metal Gear (Solid) Saga.
It was something different. And still is. And I think it is different 'in a good way'.
And much better than Haze or any other mediocre crap yatzhee been reviewing lately.

 

[Soviet Joe]

MGS is alright for what it is, but nothing really more in my eyes. When I play it, it's like reading a book by rolling dice to work out what page to go to next. I LIKE it when a story line makes me think, I don't need everything whispered in my ear to make sure I get it. But when things take an epic turn for the fucking retarded (read: Halo 3) I get quite bored quite quickly.

 

[SamW89]

Metal Gear Solid 4 was a breath-taking, cinematic, experience which tied up all the loose ends and gave fans everything they'd wanted, plus more - I won't go into details for the sake of keeping this spoiler free.

The gameplay's an improvement on the already great formula that's won fans over in the first place, when you add in the unlockable guns and the like, it's also got a fair bit of replay value.

I feel this game deserved a much better review and Yahtzee's going for controversy just to get more hits. I'm honestly disappointed in him, as he used to give cynical, yet justified, and honest reviews.

 

[SAccharing10]

I actually signed up to this website to tell you all how fucking stupid you are, seriously.
First of all I don't think this game was better than the others, although I do think it was a masterpiece.
Secondly, you idiots crying about it not making sense because you haven't played the others? Hey idiots - it's a fucking series. Try reading Return of the King before reading the other two first, what? It makes no sense? Well done dipshits.
Thirdly if you want a story that's logical and stays in the box go read a novel by John Grisham.
Fourthly the gameplay is not 2 hours long, you're a simpleton. It's atleast 12 hours if you're not cheating or replaying the game.
Fifthly the AI is anything but "moronic." If an enemy thinks they've spotted something they'll check the area in which that was then the immediate area surrounding it.
Sixthly "The game isn't about stealth it's about timing" Hey moron. I think timing your movements to avoid the enemy spotting you or tracing you is about as close to "Stealth" as you can get.
Seventhly I do agree that the controls were slightly confusing, but after about a 1/3 of act 1 I soon got to grips with it.
Eightly the musical scoring for this game was nothing but incredible. Do yourself a favour and buy the OST for this game, the amount of effort and work gone into such a backlaying element to it is pioneering.
I don't think this game was the best game ever etc etc but it deserves much more praise than you fucking idiots are giving it. Yahtzee was right about a few things but if he doesn't like Dialogue in one game but loves it in another he needs to get a new job.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Did.... did he say badly written? Did he seriously say badly written and honestly mean it?

...

It's like he's.... 700 pounds too thick and behind mile wide, sound proof wall... I used to think he was pretty smart.

I didn't exactly agree with the gameplay points (transquilzer bullets only put people to sleep in one hit if you're on easy. Get some skills, Yahtzee. XD) but he made me laugh. I was expecting to be completely offended.

 

[yzzlthtz]

haha good review i laughed my (body part) off