I didn't mind the cutscenes in Act 1 too much, except for the couple of short cutscenes during the frog battle that showed you what was happening DIRECTLY in front of you. There is no reason that they couldn't have shown the exact same thing in-game, but instead they do a cutscene that takes you out of battle and kills the flow of gameplay. But for the most part the cutscenes could be cut down significantly and still have their meaning intact. Hell, it would probably increase their impact as well since it cuts straight to the point.

One thing that was an absolute killer was going from Act 1 to Act 2. It took a somewhere over 35min from the time you stop play 1, to the time when the game gives you the privilege of playing again. So far I'm midway through Act 2 and my feelings are mixed. On the one hand I love the graphics and art direction of this level, which is vastly superior to the ho-hum generic middle east setting of Act 1 - even though this environment is just as generic. But the cutscene heavy story telling is only getting worse. One the one hand I like the gameplay here better than 1, although its far more linear than 1. 

Oh, and one last thing that really pissed me off. When you first take control of snake, and I'm talking right at the beginning, you have to crawl under that truck. Well, instead of getting right into the sneaking I took some time to screw around with the controls and control options. Anyways after a minute or two of doing that I heard Otacon say "Snak, you have to crawl under the truck". Then Snake did crawl under the truck despite the fact that I wasn't actually controlling him and trying to crawl in the opposite direction. As though this game didn't feel like Kojima controlling everything already he decides to take control when I'm doing something with his character that I shouldn't be doing. Great way to start the game.

I for once dont agree with what anything that rocketpig said, if he didnt give a $hit about the cutscenes just skip them, if you dont care for the story just skip the cutscene, its as simple as that.

kojima isnt forcing you to watch the cutscene.

Leave it to "rocketpig" to OVERANALYZE a GAME and confuse it with a movie.No one complains about Final Fantasy and its way of storytelling.This is no diffrent.Kojima is not trying to create a AAA movie for gamers,but trying to create a AAA game that revovles around cinematic storytelling,to involve players emotionally.Granted MGS 4 does have flaws in its story imo,but after completing the game; I can honestly move on and not look back.Oveall,it's one hell of a game.

Hahahahahaha

Please post more often 

Has anyone here confused MGS for a film?

All I've read is people who claim that MGS tries to be a film instead of a game.

thats what i've heard a lot of, that even non-fans of the series can enjoy this one.

i really want to get it now, they didn't have it at wal mart yesterday.

I haven't seen any 15-17 hour films unless you want to consider the entire extended Lord of the Rings trilogy or 6 chapters of Star Wars series a single movie, which they obviously aren't.

MGS games have become primarily vehicles for telling a story, developing characters and expanding a universe, much like a movie series, but the pacing is like a video game. Action sequences take place in real time as you play them, there are no cuts and no edits for length.

I will say that there does seem to be more watching than playing in MGS4, but all cinematics and codec sequences can be skipped if they offend anyone's game playing sensitivities for not being interactive enough.

Face it; the vast majority of all game cinematics are not. The Half Life 2 series is about the only one I can think of offhand where "cut scenes" (dialog plot explaining breaks in action) leave complete control of the character to the player, and that's mainly because the game does not break the 1st person perspective for the duration of the series.

What the cinematics in games allow for are the same cuts, edits, angles, etc. that have been used in story telling via fim for years. I really don't need nor want token interaction during plot sequences to remind me that I'm still playing an interactive game.

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.