Zero Punctuation: Metal Gear Solid 4

[GojiraX]

Nobody is taking Yahtzee seriously. The problem is whether or not to take the people who don't take Yahtzee seriously seriously, and whether or not to take the people who take the people who don't take Yahtzee seriously seriously, seriously. Maybe we just shouldn't take anyone on the internet seriously ever, even when they say not to take them seriously. Hey, problem solved.

 

[Snow28]

sad every word is true but i love this game

http://www.halocrusades.com?p=page&x=4075

 

[Sandoggg]

Ratios fall under straight numbers. Where do you think a ratio would come from?

Looking at your S&M analogy, I claimed that the amount of fans of S&M among the total number of sexually active humans would be very unbalanced. You said that enough people always like anything, to which I said that just because 100,000 people enjoy S&M doesn't make it great. if 100,000 out of 200,000 total people liked S&M, I might agree, but the ratio is much smaller. To apply my argument here, the amount of people who enjoy MGS4 compared to the amount of people that wanted their money back is probably a landslide. You point out flaws but as we've been discussing, they all boil down to preference and/or the patience of the player.

Just hit up the Metal Gear Wiki/Ocelot on wikipedia. It breaks it down as far as it can go...Which is sad, because in the plainest words it's still balls up.

I find it cool that Ocelot admired Big Boss.. but who couldn't?
I had an interesting random flashback while someone was playing the MGS2 Soundtrack in my workspace today, when Ocelot mentioned to Gurlukovich of his betrayal that he abandoned Mother Russia during the Cold War... More reading must be done.

I'll use MGS3 as an example because I'm more familiar with that...And by that I mean I've actually gone through it myself in addition to watching others play it. The Boss is as close as it gets to intimidating, but since she essentially expects you to kill her that aspect falls flat. Volgin grabs Snakes testicles in a manner NOT intended as torture, which, while creepy, isn't all that scary. That and all the monologuing he did. The Sorrow floats about and makes you feel bad. The Pain is bees, my god. The Fury, yeah, the outfit just kills any fear the flamethrower may cause. The End is crippled. I can't feel intimidated by a man in a wheelchair. Ocelot meows. All of them lose any intimidation due to either goofy outfit or monologues. Or, in the case of Ocelot, goofy outfit, goofy monologue, and he meows. Honestly man, that's like the antithesis of intimidating.

=\ I liked The Fury's costume too.. I also thought his death cry was the best... in the form of raging fireballs with faces..
You forgot The Fear, although I'm sure you'd have mentioned something about his ridiculous backwards tree skittering and that tongue of his.
Ocelot wasn't really supposed to be intimidating either I'd say... He was the rookie here, John owned him pretty hard a few times in that game.
I guess MGS isn't really a game about intimidation haha.. It's not a necessary aspect thankfully.

Fair enough, though the problem there is that GTA, all of them, aren't really "well done" I may enjoy them, but a children's wading pool puts their depth to shame. That said, GTA falls under the "games not being able to have universal appeal" thing. Either way, the reason I said disorganized was because you had originally referenced GTA in response to another person and had tossed it in the middle of a response to me. I was under the impression that you had somehow gotten mixed up again.

I haven't played it, but I hear GTA4 is essentially... life. If you were a gangster of course. The depth seemed.. too much. Looked very cool of course. I'd probably do what I always do in GTA games and just run around and kill people and steal cars all day.

Let me clarify, I didn't mean stuff like that. I mean, say, getting the camo by tranquilizing all the bosses/not getting noticed/hitting all those frog things. I was referencing the crazy ass perks. Once again, just clarifying.

Yeah, I actually let my friend borrow the game and get all the frogs for me..

Sounds kind of like Fist of the North Star.

Something I'll have to look up I suppose.. Also, check out Crippled Masters.

 

[Tempdude0]

...And the main point went whizzing on by. The point is that no mater how many people like something, it doesn't inherently make it good. Hell, going back to literary lunacy, Finnegan's Wake is one of those "books you have to read if you want to know anything about blah blah blah."...And it's terrible. Yes, we realize it essentially invented a style of writing, but the problem there is that every person with little or no knowledge of punctuation came up with it first. That book was just the first that did it intentionally. The numbers are in no way indicative of the quality of the experience, it just means many enjoy it or think highly of it.

...Because he's the fruitiest fruit that ever meowed during a gunfight? Honestly, the character is pathetic. I enjoy his antics, but it's mainly because he's so laughably sad.

No, see, the outfit KILLED any fear of him. He was a crazy astronaut, which, while a cool concept, looks goofy wielding a flamethrower, especially considering how horrendously bulky the suit itself was. On the last point, that's the problem with it, it tries to put up at least one or two people as these bad-ass superhumans OH MY GOD THEIR GOING TO KILL YOU!...and instead of that, we get people like The Fear, bondage freak extrordinare or Volgin, Sexual Harassment King of the USSR.

To Indigo_Dingo

Some of what Yahtzee says is still fairly accurate though. The problem with the other side of the fence, the, "I like it which means it's good" school of thought implies that EVERYTHING is good. Period, end of story, it's all awesome. Once again, I have no issue with people enjoying things, but their enjoyment isn't the bar by which something is judged and they should stop using it as one in a discussion. If they're all like "Yeah, but I like it." Fine, be happy and frolic, I'm happy you're happy...Think of it this way, someone out there likes Superman 64 and Alone in the Dark. I dare anyone to defend either of those games as being good.

 

[Klonoa Prower]

There no such thing as a good or bad game... it all a matter of subjective personal opinion.

All... I think there's a formula or something for this...

chance of your post being read = number of words * .978 / current level of smug on the forums * 100

Anyway... I'm going to look up journey lyrics...

 

[z121231211]

Hey now, to be fair, it's obvious why Yahtzee had such a breeze playing. As it stands it's obvious he was playing on easy, how do I know? A tranquillizer that has infinate ammo? Anyone who's played the game knows that difficulty levels above easy do not have infinite ammo for anything but the Patriot. That explains the dulled down AI and the fact that it was easier to just run and gun, so don't get too mad at Yahtzee, he's just alittle insecure about his playing skills.

You know these things in the game called Drebin Points? I ran out of ammo for my tranquilizer during a boss fight, so I bought 100 more rounds on Normal.

 

[metagaia]

All... I think there's a formula or something for this...

chance of your post being read = number of words * .978 / current level of smug on the forums * 100

Really!? I always assumed the opposite. Unless I really care about the debate, anything longer than 150 words has a chance of eliciting a tl:dr from me.

I would construct a better formula, but I need more data, I like a smug bit though.

 

[Silver Patriot]

I liked MGS 4. I enjoyed it because I got out of it what I thought was worth it, the Story. I got Halo for the gameplay, The Orange Box for the. . . well everything and Geometry wars for the action. I knew what I was geting out of it. Though I do admit it has it's flaws. I also want to say I liked the cutsceans but then again I also enjoy reading the ten paragraph long arguments going back and forth between Sandoggg and Tempdude0. So whatever.

 

[wahi]

every word out of yahtzee's blessed mouth is solid gold....

 

[Mr. Purple]

Yahtzee does a good job on touching down on foul points of a video game, which is why we want reviewes. That way we dont spend our time and money to find out a game sucks, but he fails to project that some of the games he reviews are great games behind the inevitable flaws. :\
So i tend not to take his reviews into actual consideration.

 

[spudpuffin]

Hey!!! MGS series is the Matrix of video games. You just need open your mind. Yes I would vote in Kojima for President!

yes it is indeed like the matrix in that the first one was brilliant and the others are all just to piled up with bullshit and suck

 

[Marvdatboi]

Lol never really played MS4 and from the outside does look like a convuluted piece of shit.

 

[bartos]

I guess MGS4 is not so bad. I'd like to play it. But I dont have a PS3 and I've been too busy with SSBB and metroid prime 3. But this is something for the future...

 

[bartos]

fan on gamefaqs: omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg...
I lol'd there so recognizable

 

[Pastey Old Greg]

I like how he's been ripping on story-intensive games for having clueless characters while we all know exactly what's going on. I remember it was especially bad in the SNES era, where I would reach points in RPG's where I thought I was supposed to solve a riddle (Like in the TWEWY review), but it turns out that I couldn't actually solve it until I had someone tell me the answer. It's never been endearing in movies or TV, so why should games be any different?

MGS4 is not bad or mediocre like Yahtzee's 16-year-old sycophants will say, but it's not (for my tastes) the second coming like many other suggest. In fact, I'd probably love them if the mandatory action sequences (boss battles and others) were a lot more intuitive, and the plot writers would add just a bit more subtlety to the mix.

 

[MB202]

It's funny, I saw this one comic from Penny Arcade, making a comment about how people are angry angry that Metal Gear Solid 4 is ranked 9 out of 10, and here Yahtzee is, saying that Metal Gear Solid is, and as always been, badly written.

What confuses me is how Yahtzee was trying to recite how the game went. Usually he likes creative stories, and MGS seemed pretty creative to me when I first heard about it... Though if the cutscenes are as boring and confusing as he says they are, I guess I wouldn't blame him for saying what he did.

 

[D_987]

Too much dialogue and 'adequate' gameplay are what makes up MGS4, if you dont LIKE the story there isnt much to get out of the game.

god you people really talk like you're experts.

the game-play in mgs4 is brilliant and very open ended and the main reason i play the game.

whatever, maybe i'm a masochist or a douche who likes being shoved into small places with a bunch of cunts, but i find the game to be a fucking blast.

that's my opinion, just like when i say things like "i find Yahtzee's review of my new favorite game pedestrian and insulting" or "this review has lowered my opinion of Yahtzee's intelligence, his ability to play games, his video editing skills, his family, any bedraggled pets he might take care of, and his clothing style."

i don't know why i do it, it's mostly just release. it feels good, like dishing out a limit break.

i mean, i can understand why someone might not like this game. it's weird and hard to get into at first. i spent my first hour of playing running around like a screaming idiot bird with a target sign on his bottom. but when i finally got into it, i started to SERIOUSLY enjoy myself, more than i have in any other action game. i might have to go back and play all the other metal gears after i'm thoroughly done playing through 4 on both the top difficulties...

again, i was just hoping for something a little more original from Yahtzee. i'm sure my feelings will mend themselves in a month or so, or if Yahtzee slams NG2, which is unlikely since it's plastered all over the place on this site.

have you even played mgs4, Monokeros? if no, please don't waste our time responding to this post.

God, you talk like a GIGANTIC FANBOY!

 

[D_987]

This review gets most points spot on - I know someone who stopped watching Yahtzee because of this review...god, MGS fanboys are the worst...it wasn't even a very good game!

 

[TaboriHK]

I loved the Metal Gear Solid series...and this game was utterly unplayable.

 

[Shadow-Knight]

I loved how he said Hideo Kojima could be the president of the universe by afternoon. I haven't played the game yet but I've read about the crazy story.