Kojima's Astronomical Expectations.

[Onyxmeth]

soulsamurai said:

Understandable it's a valid opinion. Not gonna claim your wrong or anything, I just personally believe it solidified himself as a top game developer not drag him down. I enjoyed it and a massive amount of other people did as well, but not everyone's gonna agree on a game. Can't please everyone.

Edit: I also agree many of the cutscenes should have been playable.

Well if it makes you feel any better, I think it solidified him as the best cutscene director in the business. Then again, that only supports the theory that he'd be better off in film or television. I just don't feel like the gameplay itself was that forward thinking. Much of the newer aspects were ripped from other titles like RE4 and Gears and I still see a lot of good stealth techniques in Splinter Cell that still haven't been matched by MGS4, and SC hasn't even had a proper seventh generation iteration yet. I just don't think there was anything in that game that greatly enhanced what I thought Metal Gear was supposed to be about...stealth gameplay. MGS added a lot to the NES formula. MGS2 added a lot to the MGS formula. MGS3 added a lot to the MGS2 formula, but I felt all Kojima worked on for MGS4 were the shooting mechanics and shoulder view. Where were the stealth innovations? Octocamo? That's auto-stealth for babies. All you had to do was stand next to a wall and wait one second.

I supposed I have one more minor gripe that ties back into the cutscenes somewhat. I miss my Codec conversations. MGS4 really dropped the ball in that area. Codec convos are what originally gave Snake his personality and had you get to know him as a character. Without them, he was a grumbling, bumbling puppet idiot in MGS4 that had none of the humor or charm he's shown in MGS or MGS2 and none that Big Boss showed in MGS3. I missed my Paramedic 1960's cinema philosophies. I miss the flirting with Mei Ling. I miss Raiden's relationship talks with Rose. I miss the option to build the characters as you see fit by clicking on the select button. None of the characters in MGS4 stood as great characters in that game. Everything you love or hate about them had to come from something you took from a previous entry which makes MGS4 as a standalone game just not live up to the lofty expectations I had coming out of the previous three titles full of character development.