Well I gave my initial impressions in this previous topic

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=29611

it seems to have taken a life of it's own now, so I create my new topic to give my impressions now that I've beat MGS4.

The first two chapters are brilliant, amazing, fantastic. The gameplay is spot on, intense, fun, great MGS action. You are faced with situations with many possibilities and can tackle them as you see fit. The pacing is great, with the action cut into easily digestible objectives and the cutscenes aren't overly intrusive if you've played a MGS game before. Absolutely beautiful.

Then they stop letting you play the game. Gameplay in the 3-5 chapters almost seems arbitrary, like they just threw in some bits that you were able to control between cutscenes so that they could sell it as a videogame. And worse yet, the brilliant bits from the first two chapters almost entirely vanish. Not only does it seem arbitrary, it's just not as intense, stealthy, or fun as the first two chapters.

Thar be spoilers ahead for those that care.

Chapter 3 consists of countless cut scenes of largely cheesy dialogue with almost no playing to speak of. This is what you get to play 1. A scene where you follow a guy through empty streets for what feels like an eternity, and isn't even remotely challenging. The guy is a moron that doesn't see you if you stand in plain site, and if he gets stopped by some gaurds, you can tranquilize them while he watches, and he'll just get a question mark over his head and move on like nothing happened. 2. A motorcycle chase where you get to shoot from the back as someone drives it for you. The problem? You shooting is almost completely unnecessary, I killed almost nothing and made it through with three quarters of my health in tact. It's like they just gave you a redicule on screen to make you feel involved while you watched the cool camera angles, fast paced action and slow motion stunts. And 3. after some more cutscenes a really lame boss fight. I beat the boss with almost all my health in tact by standing in the stair well and shooting at anything that passed by the windows until I got her attention, then shooting her with a rocket launcher a few times. Then another ungodly long cutscene.

And it doesn't get much better from there. Chapter 4 when it does let you play does away with the hiding and sneaking from humans looking to find you with hundreds of tiny powerless robots that can see you from a mile a way (not that it matters they can't even kill you unless you just want to die, I mean all you have to do is roll through them and they are powerless to do anything to you.) The highlight of Chapter 4 is the BB fight with wolf, which actually resembles MGS gameplay. You get to hide and sneak from enemies looking for you while trying to find the boss to snipe while not getting sniped yourself. That was cool. Driving a huge clumsy mech through a hallway of defenseless enemies, arbitrary. Chapter 4 is practically just a series of boss fights and cut scenes. The atmosphere is great, really takes you back to the original MGS, the flashbacks and voice overs from the first a very well done, poignant from a nostalgia point of view. It's a shame they didn't give you some classic MGS gameplay to go with it.

Chapter 5 starts off strong with what initially appeared to be some good ol MGS stealthy gameplay except I quickly realized upon accidentally getting spotted that by this point I essentially have infinite ammo and huge bad ass guns and a ton of rations. Even the geckos seemed pitiful when you've got a rail gun with 70 shots in it. But even that was short lived in favor once again of boss fights, and a a "fight" with more of the tiny helpless robots that pose no threat whatsoever. And yes, more cutscenes, lots of them, long ones, dumb ones (The akiba meryl proposal made me sigh and sheild my eyes in disgust). And then worst of all, one of THE LAMEST final boss fights ever. Apparently Kojima thought a good finish to the series would be a one time shot at the crappiest virtua fighter game ever. Sluggish unresponsive control, one attack button that does seemingly random things depending on where your standing, and repetitive context sensivite scenes. The fight started out as a cutscene, and honestly I would've been happier if the final battle was just a cut scene, or at least something that didn't suck so hard.

The writing is poor often times, I mean how many times in the ending did big boss tell snake that he can live his life as he wants now? It was kind of touching the first time he said it, I kind of thought "cool, snake is no longer a tool for anyone" but then in one of the longest death scenes ever, he just kept saying some variation of it. I mean I get it, he's not a tool anymore, you don't have to say it again in two minutes, just die already. It desended into awkward sentimentalism, such as any of Otokans repeated crying scenes, or Raiden talking about how depressed he is. No subtlety just really over the top, poorly acted and written emotions being crammed down your throat. Kojima is neither Hemingway nor Kubric, this isn't something that you would read in lit class, and it's not an Oscar winner. It's on par with good Anime, but it's nothing more than that, but occasionally giving you some form of control.

I am going back to play MGS4, but only the first two chapters and skipping the cutscenes this time. This really needs something like "VR missions" where you can buy a pack of actual gameplay. Because when I was playing those first two chapters, it was fantastic. It's a shame they forgot to make a game after that.

This is why you needed to play the prequels. The first two acts appeal to everyone, the last three are either fanservice or contain long cutscenes wrapping up all the countless loose ends of the series.

One of the reasons why I will not buy it yet is (except of the price) that I think their is possibility we get a MGS4 substence..

I had more fun than you in Act IV and less in Act II (I found it far too easy), but other than that, I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I'm right to the point where I get to suffer through one more cutscene and then it's on to the very end.

I think the ending was brilliant and on par with MGS2's. It was deeply thought provoking, I'd even go so far as to say it is among the deepest and most relevant pieces of media fiction ever created far ahead of most so called "Oscar winners".

I did have issues with *spoilers* the Wedding and also with the fact that neither Raiden nor Snake died which muted the emotional impact of previous chapters and seemed to Hollywood like. Fortunately the brilliant and profound speech with Big Boss made up for that.

My roommate beat this game in about 18 hours. He said he played for about 6 of those hours and the rest were all cutscenes. He's looking forward to New Game+ though.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to your views on Eyes Wide Shut.

@OT-You're obviously not a MGS fan,or you would've appreciated everything you mentioned and disliked.I know i did.It sounds like you dread the cutscenes and love the gameplay.Let me direct you to some more brainless,less brain capacity-consuming shooting games.*Points to GeoW and COD4.*

Since you've stated that you're not a MGS fan, and haven't played MGS 1/2/3, then you probably wouldn't like the cutscenes that happen at the end, which are mostly fan service, and serve to end the series and tie up loose ends.

I haven't played it, but people I know who've beaten it have loved it from beginning to end, seeing as that they are fans of the series.