Posted on

I Abandoned Metal Gear Solid 4 (for now)

buy-from-amazon.ca

MGS 4 Diary: Entry #1, Entry #2, Abandoned!
MGS4 Reviews: Metacritic | GameRankings.com
Reference: GameFAQ Walkthrus | wikipedia12

As beautiful and cutting-edge as MGS4 is, after making it past the laughing Octopus stage in the second act, I abandoned the game, at least for now. This surprises even me. I have been waiting for years to play this game, but the lack of a decent checkpoint system and endless cut scenes turned me off.

Poorly Implemented Checkpoints

You cannot save the game when you want and it’s checkpoints are few and far between. Adult gamers do not have endless hours, nor the desire, to replay extremely long portions of even a great game over and over.

Solid Snake being Sneaky in MGS 4When I play stealth games I want to be stealthy and play it right. This means taking my time, exploring every nook and cranny. Being sneaky. But when I sneak around for 30 minutes, successfully execute difficult manoeuvres and then die, I do not want to play through the whole 30 minutes again. No game should ever force a gamer to replay more than 5 or so minutes. Period.

Yes, I could have cheated and run through sections with abandon, gunned down everyone until killed, thereby learning where all the baddies are and what their tricks are, to avoid them on the next play through. But I refuse to do that. That’s gaming the game and not playing the game. It takes all the fun out of it.

Stealth games, by definition, are designed to be played thoughtfully and slowly. The player should have a realistic chance of beating a level if they play that way. But, when they die, as they will, they shouldn’t be forced to replay the last thirty minutes or an hour to get back to where they were.

Continue reading “I Abandoned Metal Gear Solid 4 (for now)”

Posted on

Metal Gear Solid 4 – Diary #2

buy-from-amazon.ca

MGS 4 Diary: Entry #1, Entry #2, Abandoned!
MGS4 Reviews: Metacritic | GameRankings.com
Reference: GameFAQ Walkthrus | wikipedia12

Progress: I made it to Act 1 – Crescent Meridian (7th of 8 parts to Act 1)

What a difference a day makes. Discovering that Weapons/Items need to be equipped before they appear was important! (See Update in Diary Entry #1). You’d think the game or manual would have mentioned that somewhere up front!

Visuals

I can’t say enough for the visual and cinematic feel of MGS4. The particle effects, fabrics, lighting, character models, rich and detailed environments, the camo suite, the Dolby surround sound audio. This is a visual and audible masterpiece.

Love the Bright Sunny Arab World

Stealth games are usually too dark (can you say “Splinter Cell”). Heck, too many video games are too dark. One of the reasons I love the GRAW series so much is because they are mostly set outdoors in the bright sunlight. I wish more games were set in the sunlight.

How Do You Tell the Difference Between MPCs and Militia?

If you kill militia, by accident or not, they’ll turn on you. So it’s important to either avoid them and PMC’s in all battles with stealth or determine which of the factions is militia and which is PMC and then side with the militia (you can side with the PMC but they’ll still shoot you).

So that’s been my big question/challenge today?  Previously, the only way I could tell was to use the solid eye and zoom in close to read the character’s names (militia’s are named ‘militia”). I had thought there was going to be a colouring difference (ie: the text and symbols) but there is none – at least initially.

Continue reading “Metal Gear Solid 4 – Diary #2”

Posted on

Metal Gear Solid 4 – Diary #1

buy-from-amazon.ca

MGS 4 Diary: Entry #1, Entry #2, Abandoned!
MGS4 Reviews: Metacritic | GameRankings.com
Reference: GameFAQ Walkthrus | wikipedia12

Progress: I made it to Act 1 – Urban Ruins  (4th of 8 parts to Act 1)

This is the first video game I’ve played since slicing open my left index finger on May 15. I had to abandon my GTA game play and diary to let my finger heal. It isn’t fully back to normal again (still can’t feel anything above the knuckle on my left index finger) but I couldn’t wait to give MGS4 a try.

I wrote this first diary entry mostly in real time as I played through the initial scenes of the game.

My Limited MGS Experience

The only prior experience I’ve had with the Metal Gear Solid franchise is when I played a couple levels of MGS 2: Substance on the original Xbox. What I recollect from that experience was that the cut scenes were spectacular and the game was, to me, unplayable. It had a clumsy over-head camera mechanic. There was a handicapped first person view that only allowed you to look around when you were stopped. You couldn’t shoot or move in that view. After a couple levels I gave up in frustration.

From everything I’ve heard about MGS4 (and I’ve heard, read and watched a lot over the years) it has been revamped into a thoroughly modern stealth, shooter.  I guess we’ll see.

So here we go.

Continue reading “Metal Gear Solid 4 – Diary #1”