***No Spoilers Please***

  I wanted to play through all the Metal Gear games back to back before 4 came out (I had only previously played the PS1 version).  However, I started off Subsistence, and I was just drowned in all the comlink stuff so I couldn't get into the game.

     See, I'm a completist, so I like to try to know everything about everything, but it seemed like there would have been hours and hours of commlink stuff at the beginning  if I had just kept hitting the button for it.  So does anyone have any suggestions as to how to go about playing the game or series without missing anything yet at the same time not being drowned in an ocean of commlink talk?

***No Spoilers Please***

From what I remember, all unforced communications are not at all important to follow the plot. Especially, those god-awful Jack and Rose conversation when you save. "Do you remember what day it is?" "No and I don't give a crap". Rose is the Jar-Jar Binks of MGS.

Comm link can be essential to understanding the story (It can also just help you with the task at hand.), but I think you should be at the Beginning of the Game, as long as you watched the first movie, you learn more and more as you trail along the game.

Your in for a real treat with the MGS series, they are by FAR my favorite games series.

You've just begun MGS and are getting fed up with the codec? Oh wow, you haven't seen nothing yet. =P

Seriously though, excessive amounts of semi-pointless dialogue are a trademark of the MGS series. If you don't like it, then try to get some humour out of how silly it can get. Otherwise you might as well give up.

If you're a 'completist' I fail to see how this would bother you. If you really wanted to know everything, you'd be just fine sitting there and watching it all play out. Either you want to know or you don't.

Theres probably no other game to ever be released with as in-depth of a storyline as the Metal Gear Solid series. If you're bothered by the story telling in the first, you might as well quit because you aren't the true 'completist' you claim to be.

No offense..but 'I'm a completist' 'but it's too much information' is contradicting yourself.

No and Yes. You need to listen to most codec conversation not all. The problem is you can't identify which ones. So you technically need to listen to all of them.

All MGS are like that.

i played all MGS except for 4 and finsihed MGS 1 around 30 times but never listend to their conversations

"No offense..but 'I'm a completist' 'but it's too much information' is contradicting yourself."

Yes, well, I also have a wide variety of interests...too numerous to really go into here....so they sometimes come in conflict with each other, and there are only 24 hours in a day. Trying to explain the contradiction you see.

"Also, you really should play them in release order instead of chronological order."

Why?

okay