Today I've had the opportunity to converse with a member of the press who has played through the entirety of MGS4 with a slated review coming post-launch. Though much of what we discussed had already been talked about before and he did not share any spoilers or major plot points a few highlights that he did share were quite interesting. Some of these may amount to minor spoilers and other bullet points have been covered before. I'll particularly bold the new facets of information, or at least those that were new to me.
These are not quoations, this is my summary of our conversation. A few lines are direct quoations. This information is gathered from the answers I recieved to some of my questions.
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*Solid Snake is the most developed and expressive character yet in the MGS franchise. He has greatly evolved from the 2-Dimensional action hero that he was in MGS1 to a old, ragged war horse in MGS4. There are many layers of depth to his persona.
On the one hand he is the sarcastic, cold blooded killer that we've come to know him as in Shadow Moses. On the otherhand he is an old and withered man, who now faced with his mortality battles feelings of hesitance, regret and redemption. He carries the responsibilities of a world as he tries to pass on the life lessons he's learned to the younger generation of soldiers around him.
*Otacon is a central character of MGS4. From the nerdy and often burdensome character he's been in previous chapters of SS's saga, he is now a grown and mature man and one of the true heroes of MGS4.
*Aside from Snake, Raiden's character will be central to some of the games most emotionally intensive scenes. His is a truly shocking tale that pulsates with highs and lows of pure energy, emotion, shock and disbelief.
*The writing chronicling Mery's development through the storyline is one of the most shining examples of pure brilliance in MGS4.
*Cutscenes make up around one half of the game and the pacing is un proportionate. There are points in the game where the gameplay outweighs the cinematics, however during the second half of the title the cutscenes become numerous and extremely long with little gameplay time meshed in between.
*I asked him about the 90 minute cutscenes, and while he didn't provide me with a direct answer he did say that the game has more and longer cutscenes than any other title in the franchise history.
*Some of the cutscenes and dialog could have been stripped away and felt unnecessary. A times there was too much exposition on trivialities and details.
*There is plenty of codec conversations available for players to trigger, however the codec appears very rarely during the main story line.
*He felt under whelmed by the ending. The emotional impact was diluted from a bewildering, at times overly indulgent and lengthy exposition that divided Sons of Liberty players, and felt unsuitable as the emotional curtain call of Solid Snakes Saga.
*The gameplay is phenomenal. There is an incredible variety of missions that wouldn't feel out of place in even a GTA game. Gamers will be taken on a roller coaster ride of unpredictable scenarios that spin the entire MGS series on it's head and back.
*Gamers are aware of less than 10% of the game. There are incredible amounts of surprise characters, easter eggs and special features that easily drive the possible playtime into the months. Kojima has kept such an astounding amount of content secret that players will be blown away weeks after launch, still discovering new things.
*The game needs to be played multiple times to fully understand and appreciate the story line. There is a great deal of sub plots and layers of themes that are impossible to intake in a single playthrough.
*The script is enormous, possibly surpassing that of all three Metal Gear games combined. Every character has their story line and very few are left undeveloped. There are numerous characters that have not yet been announced to the public.
*The Boss battles are brilliant if a little underwhelming. Some of them feel bland and straightforward, while others shine of talent bursting with creativity. Nothing here matches the Psycho Mantis battle however.
*While cinematic and grand in scope, the grossly indulgent and unbelievably long exposition would make MGS4 unsuitable for a movie theatre audiance. Kojima has not changed his trademark presentation since MGS1.
*The game is an overall masterpiece. He felt extremely satisfied with the entire product, though noted that the ending scenes may divide or fail to reach the expectations of some.
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This was supposed to appear on my website www.deepthroatgaming.com, but as there has been a slight delay with that I thought I'd just post it up on a couple of forums for MGS fans to chew on. :)
As far as me writing a review on the game, I'll have my hands on it on release date and have a review up approximately a week after.
I have NOT played the game, nor do I have more information available then do you so please do not PM me asking for spoilers. Thanks!
and Wii 
