Can't believe I'm registering to talk about a game I don't even own...Oye...Also, couldn't be arsed to read through EVERYTHING. Too many posts. I probably missed a few here and there.
Anyway, speaking as a man that has played a few games in his time I can understand where he's coming from in quite a few respects. I can't say anything about the controls as I haven't played it, but as far as the other things I can gripe about, I'll use MGS3 as a nice little parallel to some of the issues that seem to spring up with this game.
Now don't get me wrong here. I loved the game. It was quirky and a pain in the ass at times, but the story just won me over. That said, the cutscenes occasionally made me long for a book to read during them. Yes, I know they can be skipped, but I shouldn't have to skip them especially on the first play through. Hell, I loved Volgin and his crazy testicle grabbing action but despite that he still managed to bore me to tears in some of the subsequent cutscenes. If MGS4 follows this tradition, I can see why people have an issue with it. Once again, if you need to skip all the important crap for the sake of convenience, it's an issue. I fail to see how this is even debated.
As far as the ease with which it's played, a friend of mine LITERALLY ran like a chicken with his head cut off when he lost all his weapons. He may not have got the coveted NOT BEING NOTICED! trophy, but if you're going to hype stealth make it integral, not something you can just say "fuck it" and ignore...And no, it was on either normal or that slightly higher one, not easy. saying "PLAYIN' NOT AWESOME HARD MAKES YA NOT GET IT!" isn't valid as an excuse. If you can get away with stuff on the "normal" difficulty, the one most people will hit up, then that ends that debate right there. Just getting that out of the way.
The plot...Oye, you know, lets just use Ocelot as an example. As of MGS4 he was - SPOILERS ARE MOST LIKELY INVOLVED- The son of The Boss and The Sorrow who was born on a battlefield. His loyalties lie with GRUE, but not really as he's working for the CIA or FBI, I can't remember which, but not really as he's in actuality working for The Patriots and his arm was replaced after being hacked off by a cyborg zombie ninja with that of Snakes cloned brother and said arm is now taking over his mind because of the psychic powers inherited from his father, but oh, not really he's just faking, it was hypnosis and nanobots...
I don't care how you slice it, that's convoluted. I even LIKE the annoying jaggoff and his story makes my head spin a la Beetleguise. I get it, I really do, but dear lord that's such a clusterfuck. Perhaps we'd like to add in another clone, a female one, and she's from another dimension, but is really from this one and is in actuality a new kind of metal gear, but IN REALITY is a mass hallucination caused by a computer program intent on fueling the war machine and interacted with the environment through enslaved psychics, and time travel. It was actually developed as the first in a new breed of AI in the future but took over the world and returned to the past to kill itself in the most overly elaborate suicide since Neil Gaimans Sandman. Oh yeah, Kojima's got nothing on MY level of convolution.
The fact is that the game isn't terrible, but it has recognizable issues. Those issues will put some people off from the game.
And as for whomever keeps going ADD Durr hurr hurr, I managed to read the Lord of the Rings in a single sitting. LORD OF THE RINGS for gods sake, king of overly long and drawn out sequences. It doesn't make the books bad, it just makes certain sections tedious as bloody hell. Same with the hobbit. FUCKING PARTY, END ALREADY! That's about how people seem to perceive the cutscenes in this game. It expounds past the necessary level, past the overly necessary level, and runs sheer into the WEEEEEE, EAT DIALOG! level.
Also, yes, overly lengthy character and plot development is an issue. If you have four or five different characters beating you upside the head with the same information each time something new occurs, then yes, it's freaking annoying. If a character is wounded in battle, I don't need to hear about the exact size, shape, depth, color, and approximate rate at which it's bleeding. A simple "Ow, knife wound!" will suffice. The same can be said of anything where it drags on and on without end. Kind of like this post. Getting bored yet?
Finally, a game "just to play" can be anything. I fail to see why RPG's should be so prohibitive as to cull out casual people. A good deal of asshats managed to wade through FF7 and that can be just as obtuse, so the reasoning shouldn't really apply to such an ORESOME GAME! Incidentally, if the game is so great, it should MAKE US INTERESTED BECAUSE IT'S FRICKIN' SWEET. This isn't hard to get. The extra little details shouldn't comprise everything important. As owner of the Star wars guide to droids and someone who incessantly called Medic and Signit whenever I picked up food/weapons in MGS3, if either Lucas or Kojima had made that info vital to the movies/game it would have irked me. If I want to learn more, it's cool, but I don't want all the extra fluff to be necessary to understanding the story. Sometimes I just feel like ignoring the bastards.
Lim-Dul also made a valid point, you can like something that's bad. Hell, I happen to enjoy "The Bouncer" I realize that it's terrible on a number of levels, but I just love beating the ever loving crap out of things for about an hour. Does my enjoyment make it a good game? A resounding, no...But I enjoy it so even with it's flaws pointed out I should be able to say "Yeah, I guess it is kinda bad...But I like it." Everyone enjoys SOMETHING that's pretty crappy, but I fail to see why you can't just say you enjoy something despite it being essentially bad.
And to tack something else on, look back at his Psychonauts review you crazies that are going on about "Games as art" Just because they strive for something doesn't mean they don't fall flat. I may respect that they gave it a shot, but I would still give the writers for some of them a swift kick in the nuts as far as the end product is concerned. Intent only goes so far before it has to actually pay off.
Please keep in mind that from the tone of the review, it doesn't seem like he hates it or even proclaims it's a terrible game. He seems to be running for a middle of the road approach. It has redeeming aspects, but some of the issues just get to him too much. It's pretty understandable...And I resent the D&D comment. I play the hell out of that with my friends. In fact, I'd almost go so far as to say the dialog in our games is more concise that that of some of the MGS cutscenes. Remember that word, concise? It exists for a reason.
Oh, and bugger me, the last cut scene is that long? Why? Is there any reason to have to sit through what is essentially a movie, or is it just...I don't know, why would you do that?
On an unrelated note, 4e took out nothing of the roleplaying aspect. I don't even like it and I manage to admit that. It's just as open as the previous versions. It's been made so that all the classes are more balanced, and I'm not exactly a fan of that, but aside from that I fail to see where it says I can no longer do stupid things like running up a wall and making a jumping attack at a flying object...Not going to go into the specifics...Actually, just tell me where the roleplaying is cut. I'm curious. You can still use every skill that was in 3/3.5, you just need a DM smart enough to decide on what needs to be rolled to accomplish it. Hell, I'm betting a creative DM could even manage to make lip-reading useful...Did anyone even use that?
...Did someone just reference the Silmarillion? Honestly? God, I know someone who's got the damn thing near memorized and even HE manages to admit it's one of the most dry and drawn out books he's ever read. You know what, I bet you read CAD, because WORDS WORDS WORDS is never a bad thing, other people are just too stupid to follow it. Actually, I'll top that. I read the phone book. Oh yeah, and you people saying it's a boring read and that it's dry just don't have the necissary attention span. It's too subtle for you.
Wow, tangent much? Props to anyone who actually manages to get through all that.
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