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Forums - Sony - My altered view of MGS4 now that I've beaten it.

windbane on 21 June 2008
sieanr said:
DTG said:
rocketpig said:
Oh, cut-scene based games can tell a good story. That wasn't my point. My point that any cut-scene heavy game is avoiding the strengths of the medium and instead trying to turn it into a more familiar medium with more limitations, like movies.

 

Why must every aspect of a mans work embrace the "strength" of a medium? Do many books not contain pictures in them? Do many movies not contain written references in them? Wy should a game limit itself to a particular style when it can blend several together - namely movies and games? The gameplay is still there however the story is presented as a movie blending two mediums in a stroke of a genius, something most artists wish to achieve.

 

You've argued this before and people have proven you wrong.

 

How many movies spend half the time with only text on screen, using it to communicate almost the entire story?

 

MGS4 does a terrible job of blending movies and games together. There are plenty of games that do an excellent job of blending a cinematic experience with gameplay, but I guess you haven't played them.

 

No game provides an interactive movie experience like MGS, but I'd like to see your list of games that blend cinematics and gameplay better, sieanr.

I hate to argue with rocketpig in every MGS thread, but he seems to complain about it in every thread, so...

A game does not have to be pure gameplay.  I think that's obvious by now.  MGS chooses to use an interactive movie style, and it does it very well.  I enjoyed the long cutscenes.  Clearly those are not for everyone.  You don't enjoy the story, so of course you are going to say that.  Anyone that enjoys the story probably doesn't mind too much.

And again...you can skip the freaking cutscenes.

 



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Munkeh111 on 21 June 2008

Just finished the game. I felt that act 5 was the weakest, mostly because nearly all of it was cut-scenes, although at the start of the level I did get caught up in a massive fight with like every single frog on that boat, and the geko..... thank god for the railgun



windbane on 21 June 2008
alpha_dk said:

Oh god can we please just let this thread die? DTG has yet to respond to any of my posts in any sense, and only responds to Rocketpig's with strawmen.

He obviously is just trolling us at this point, and isn't actually interested in having a critical debate over stylistic choices in storytelling.

If you want a thread to die, shouldnt you just not post in it?  Just a thought...

 



windbane on 21 June 2008
rocketpig said:
Shameless said:

MGS is the game equivalent of Japanese cartoons. Poor clichéd storyline with some semblance of morality and a huge rabid fanbase that watch everything to do with the subject.

Some of you people suprise me, though. From reading your posts I feel like I've fallen into one of those pretentious art forums and it's suprising that you enjoy this entertainment medium at all. Maybe you should go and read some Nietzche instead of complaining about a game that is so obviously below you.

It's not that. I enjoyed MGS4 for what it is. Interesting boss battles, amazing detail and presentation, and fun gameplay.

What I don't enjoy it for is its lengthy, preachy dialogue, broken story, and people telling me that it's a profound piece of art.

 

How is it a broken story? 

Also, art is supposed to be up to each person to judge and think about, I thought?  A lot of people seem to enjoy MGS as art.  It's obviously not for you, since every single MGS thread we've had you have to mention that you don't like the story, dialogue, philosophical themes, etc.  I do.  Luckily, it would seem, we both enjoyed the great gameplay.

 



Onimusha12 on 22 June 2008

The game seems to be the victim of questionable story telling that tries to avoid calling attention to its shortcommings by being awkward, disjointed and superifcially "artsy". This is not to bash the game or say that it is a bad game, but MGS games have always been indicative of questionable story telling balanced with redeeming elements. However the heavy dependence of this particular instalment of the series on story telling through such as lengthy and numerous cut scenes greatly offsets this equilibrium resulting in a game that is just begging to draw attention to its inadequacies and subtle awkwardness.

By and large MGS4 will be loved by people who wanted to love it no matter what it was, for everyone else though the general consensus seems to be that upon finishing it, the game leaves a rather confusing and awkward taste in one's mouth which just leaves them struggling with the dillema of, "It wasn't a bad game, but was it a good game?"

While opinions of the game range from phenomenal to reserved there is no denying there is something amiss with this game's reception.

The game seems to excel in no one single element, but rather tries to subsist on some sort of equilibrium of its modest (if not questionable) elements as a whole. The graphics, while appreciable are not bar setting and certainly not something the series had relied on in the past. The controls and gameplay are questionable at best, tolerated largely due to the ambiguity of the game's genre and the benefit alloted any sequel of such a renown franchise. The story telling is really no worse than that of previous MGS game, however the sheer amount of story telling contained within MGS4 and the game's dependence on it only makes Kojima's shortcommings as a story teller all the more clear and exaserbated.

In the end the game does not come together quite as well as the masterpiece everyone had hoped for, rather MGS4 seems to have become more of an exercise in compromise and consesions for the fans to make in their struggle to try and come to terms with this game's true merit.



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Ail on 22 June 2008

All I'm going to say is since I got the game I have beaten it 3 times in a row ( normal mode, then hard mode no alert, no kill and then normal again to have fun with the goodies).
The second and third time I didn't watch the cut-scenes. And I still had a lot of fun.
I don't think I have ever played 3 times the single player mode of a game in a row, even less still had a lot of fun when playing it for the third time...

And I never played MGS1 and MGS2......



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

Ail on 22 June 2008
Munkeh111 said:
Just finished the game. I felt that act 5 was the weakest, mostly because nearly all of it was cut-scenes, although at the start of the level I did get caught up in a massive fight with like every single frog on that boat, and the geko..... thank god for the railgun

 

 Lol I spend my third play through using the stealth special item and cuting the throat of every PMC soldier I met except in Act5.

I grabbed the machine gun with the biggest magazine size (200 amo) and went rambo on the boat, killing everything in sight...



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

hanafuda on 22 June 2008
Onimusha12 said:

The game seems to be the victim of questionable story telling that tries to avoid calling attention to its shortcommings by being awkward, disjointed and superifcially "artsy". This is not to bash the game or say that it is a bad game, but MGS games have always been indicative of questionable story telling balanced with redeeming elements. However the heavy dependence of this particular instalment of the series on story telling through such as lengthy and numerous cut scenes greatly offsets this equilibrium resulting in a game that is just begging to draw attention to its inadequacies and subtle awkwardness.

Snip

ALL MGS games have a heavy dependence on story telling through lengthy and numerous cut scenes.

You just wrote a whole lot, without actually having a point.

Inadequate, and subtle awkwardness?

 

 

 



PSN - hanafuda

Ail on 22 June 2008
Astrodust said:
Ail said:
There's more than 5 hours of gameplay.
I finished the game in 26 hours so personally I had 18 hours of gameplay if you count around 8 hours of cut scenes.

Now I am on my seond play through in hard mode ( Big Boss hard) and skipping every cut scenes and with no continue. I am closing on 3 hours and still in Act2

You can beat the game in 4-5 hours but you need to be a real pro ( required for the hardest emblem).

 

 You must be terrible at video games. My roommate beat the game on the second hardest difficulty and the final play time was 18.5 hours. He actually finished the game at 17 hours but after the final cutscenes and credits the clock stood at 18.5. So I guess there is a 90 minute cutscene. Check your save time after the final boss and then the time after all the credits are done. 90 minutes ouch. He is a PS3 fan and even he said he only played for about 7 hours including dying and restarting. I really don't know if throwing in a mediocre multiplayer gives this game a 10.

I beat the game in that difficulty no alert, no kill, no recovery item,  no cut scenes in 7 hours.( save time, more like 14 hours play time because a few sequences are darn hard with only the tranq and no recovery item ( bike chase in Act 3, stupid vamp fight, screaming mantis..)

I just choose to take my time on the first play through, you miss a lot of stuff if you rush through the first time ( like having the beauties play super model for your camera). 



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

windbane on 22 June 2008
Onimusha12 said:

The game seems to be the victim of questionable story telling that tries to avoid calling attention to its shortcommings by being awkward, disjointed and superifcially "artsy". This is not to bash the game or say that it is a bad game, but MGS games have always been indicative of questionable story telling balanced with redeeming elements. However the heavy dependence of this particular instalment of the series on story telling through such as lengthy and numerous cut scenes greatly offsets this equilibrium resulting in a game that is just begging to draw attention to its inadequacies and subtle awkwardness.

By and large MGS4 will be loved by people who wanted to love it no matter what it was, for everyone else though the general consensus seems to be that upon finishing it, the game leaves a rather confusing and awkward taste in one's mouth which just leaves them struggling with the dillema of, "It wasn't a bad game, but was it a good game?"

While opinions of the game range from phenomenal to reserved there is no denying there is something amiss with this game's reception.

The game seems to excel in no one single element, but rather tries to subsist on some sort of equilibrium of its modest (if not questionable) elements as a whole. The graphics, while appreciable are not bar setting and certainly not something the series had relied on in the past. The controls and gameplay are questionable at best, tolerated largely due to the ambiguity of the game's genre and the benefit alloted any sequel of such a renown franchise. The story telling is really no worse than that of previous MGS game, however the sheer amount of story telling contained within MGS4 and the game's dependence on it only makes Kojima's shortcommings as a story teller all the more clear and exaserbated.

In the end the game does not come together quite as well as the masterpiece everyone had hoped for, rather MGS4 seems to have become more of an exercise in compromise and consesions for the fans to make in their struggle to try and come to terms with this game's true merit.


If you haven't played the game, I'm about to get myself banned responding to you. You are so ridiculous. This post is full of more needless commentary than all the Metal Gear games combined.