I was watching RP play MGS4 for a while yesterday. The problem is not so much that the back story is explained, the problem is that almost every time something is explained in the cut scenes or briefings, the point is communitcated in the longest, most long winded way possible. What could be said in about 4 sentences is instead said in about 5 paragraphs. I frequently found myself saying, "Ok, we got the point, please stop saying the same thing over and over again." The dialog doesn't even leave the remote possibility that the player would have to fill in the most reasonable and common sense gaps themselves. The problem becomes not so much that the cutscenes are long, but that for their length, not alot of information or story is actually communicated. That sort of storytelling is inexcusable no matter what the medium. The gameplay is fun (I tried some of it myself), and the boss battles are, as they usually are in MGS games, very good.
I am not sold on the game as an A+ game though. I was bugged by a number of aspects of the non-cutscene portion. First, while I understand that it is a stealth game and not an FPS, on the normal (solid) difficulty setting, the enemy AI is on the level of "drooling retard". The gap from time an enemy sees you till the time he starts shooting you is ridiculously long. 2 seconds may not sound that long, but when you are playing, it is uncomfortably long. It is pretty funny when I turned a corner and an already alterted soldier sees me, stops with the little ! over his head, then stares at me for another second and a half or more before firing. After a while, I started getting a bit of a gay vibe off of the soldiers as if they were saying "Ooo, look at the cutie in the butt pants". Also, when they knock Snake down and they shoot him while he's on the ground, they will inexplicably decide that they suddenly are at a disadvantage and will back away around a corner giving you time to get up and hunt them down for their stupidity.
*Potentially very minor spoiler*
The level with Snake on top of the APC is horrible. The walking mooing tanks seemed to turn into actual docile cows standing around and awaiting their turn in the machine gun shooting gallery. I thought at that point that we had stumbled on them while they were grazing and should have just quietly driven on through.
The rest of the level design is top-notch. The graphics are great. The boss battles are great. I think the game deserves an A-. I think the gaming press have gone to unreasonable lengths to praise this game. I cannot see how it is possible that they give this game 10s all the way across the board. It certainly is a great game, but if this game is a 10, then the the scale needs to be moved up to 12.
I give this thread a 9.6.
Thank god for the disable signatures option.
