Wow, I'm worried this is going to turn alot of people off to MGS.

so how long are the cutscenes?

You mean the long cutscenes?

 On average they're between 5-10 minutes. But there are quite a few of them that run over 20 minutes long but not much more than that. The first half of the game is balanced closer to MGS3 with about 1/3rd cutscenes and 2/3rds gameplay. The second half has simply too much weight to carry as far as tying up the storyline and contains an unnecessary amount of cameo appearences which just lengthens the exposition. I would guess from act 3 onwards cutscenes make up roughly half the gameplay time.

Well of course the last part of the game has a lot more cutscenes...its wrapping up snakes entire story!

 I'm not going to spoil the plot, but amount of cameo's and characters with weight in the storyline dilutes the sense that this is Snakes final mission because he in fact only plays a partial role even during the ending sequences. I think a lot of people will be divided as to how Kojima handled the ending and most of the story threads. I would have prefered if as you said the last part of the game really did focus on Snake as well as the overarching plot but because of the sheer amount of characters involved his impact is dimished.

 Enough to say that this will be controversial game if only for it's storyline, but the gameplay I think we can unanimously agree that it is absolutely fantastic. Purely gameplay wise this is one of the best games I have ever played.

I give this thread a 9.0
I give Profcrab an average of 7.5 for his posts.
I give the community an 8.0 on average.
I give Konami a 4.5 for their entire behaviour in this.


And finally I give Mr. Kojima a 2.0 for creating such long cutscenes, thus revealing to everyone that he is unable (unwilling?) to tell the story through gameplay. Which makes a game a game.

Yes, we need to bring average review scores down. so please no wcore inflation, Mr Crab.

 People like throwing that around but I fail to see how you could possibly tell the MGS story through gameplay? Raiden backstory through gameplay? GW's ambitions through gameplay? Meanderings on memes and genes, identity and others through gameplay? The Boss's death and Big Boss's apparent resentment during his recieval of the Big Boss title? The content of the monologues through gameplay? I do not see how unless you mean that Kojoma should erect giant signboards in game with the dialog on them in bullet points.

oh my. now i feels sick. same feeling I had listening to those incoherent ramblings of the french dude (cause and effect bull) in Matrix 2. After that, I was impotent for at least 2 years since whenever I thought about that shit he spouted I immediately got turned off.

Thanks for reminding me.

and to be clear: i didnt mean your writing, I meant what the story in MGS4 seems to entail.

I have no idea how to put that into gameplay. But then again, I wouldnt And I would also not put it in the story.